Amnesty International on Friday demanded that Israel either charge or release Bilal Kayed, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) terrorist group who is on a hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention.
"The Israeli authorities must release Kayed, or, if they have evidence that he has committed a crime, then he should be promptly charged with a recognizable criminal offense,” the group said in a statement quoted by AFP.
ayed, 35, a resident of Asira a-Smaliya village north of Shechem, was arrested during the Second Intifada in 2002 and convicted of security crimes, including terror attacks and attempted terror attacks, and was sentenced to 14 and-a-half years in prison.
Last June, Kayed finished serving serving his prison sentence, but has since been held under administrative detention, in accordance with an order from the military court for a six-month detention. He then began his hunger strike.
He was moved from prison to the Barzilai Hospital in the southern Israeli city of Ashkelon after his health deteriorated.
Earlier on Friday, a court in Be'er Sheva rejected a petition on behalf of Kayed, which asked the court to cancel an order to handcuff Kayed to his hospital bed, and to allow him medical treatment from an outside source.
Palestinian Authority officials say Kayed's health is deteriorating and that he suffers, among other things, from failed vision, difficulty standing and kidney problems.
Kayed has set “non-negotiable” preconditions for stopping his hunger strike, informing Israeli authorities he will agree to resume eating if his administrative detention ends after four months and his relatives are allowed to visit him in prison.
Jailed terrorists have repeatedly used hunger strikes as a pressure tactic aimed at forcing Israel to release them out of fear for their lives. Israel has several times in the past caved to the pressure and released some hunger strikers.
(Arutz Sheva’s North American desk is keeping you updated until the start of Shabbat in New York. The time posted automatically on all Arutz Sheva articles, however, is Israeli time.)