MK Osama Saadi, a member of the Ta'al faction of the predominantly Arab Joint List Party, visited Khalil Awawdeh, the Islamic Jihad operative who has been on hunger strike for more than 160 days demanding the cancellation of the administrative detention against him. Awawdeh's mother and his daughters also came to his room during the visit.
Awawdeh has been on a hunger strike since the start of July to protest his detention. He was admitted to Assaf Harofeh Hospital on August 11.
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.
Earlier this week, Joint List MK Ofer Cassif also visited Awawdeh in the hospital.
"I am here with Khalil Awawdeh, who has been on hunger strike for a very long time, in a just protest of his kidnapping," Cassif said in a video from the hospital. "There is no such thing as administrative detention. It's a washed-up phrase for kidnapping - when you take a person without guilt, without a case against him, without prosecution and essentially bury him, heaven forbid, in a prison, without a trial, without anything. Do you want to say something to your friends?"