A reporter from the Lebanese Al-Mayadeen television channel, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, visited Khalil Awawdeh, a member of the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization who has been on hunger strike for 177 days and whose administrative detention was frozen on Friday after he was hospitalized.
In a video from the hospital, Awawdeh said that he will not stop his hunger strike until he is released from administrative detention.
The terrorist's father said that the decision to suspend the administrative detention does not change anything regarding the continuation of his son's hunger strike. He criticized the fact that the family members were not allowed to pass through the Bethlehem crossing to visit his son, whose life, he said, was in danger.
A source told the Al-Watan channel that the Egyptian mediation efforts are still ongoing in an attempt to bring about the release of both Awawdeh and Bassam al-Saadi, the leader of the Islamic Jihad in Samaria, in order to prevent a deterioration in the security situation and a return to a round of fighting.
According to the source, if Awawdeh dies, the Palestinian “resistance organizations” will not sit idly by and react in an appropriate way, since he is considered one of the symbols of the Palestinian resistance.
Awawdeh’s name made headlines when the Islamic Jihad demanded his release as part of the conditions for the ceasefire that ended the IDF’s Operation Breaking Dawn.
While the Islamic Jihad claimed that Israel agreed to release both Awawdeh and Bassam Al-Saadi, the group’s leader in Judea and Samaria who was arrested before the start of the operation, Israeli leaders have denied the claim.