Israel to Speed Passage of Force-Feeding Bill
Israel is to rush through a bill allowing force-feeding of hunger-striking prisoners, a newspaper reported Tuesday, as 80 Palestinian inmates were hospitalized after refusing to eat for nearly two months.
Efforts to speed up the passage of the bill, which passed a first reading on June 9, are being led by Miri Regev, a hardline member of the ruling Likud who initiated the legislation, Haaretz newspaper reported.
Parliament is expected to hold a second and third reading of the bill on Monday, a parliamentary official told AFP.
It has sparked fierce opposition from medical and rights groups, with the U.N. also expressing concern over the proposed legislation which would allow for feeding prisoners against their will under certain conditions, in contravention of international law.
The move comes as some 80 long-term Palestinian hunger strikers are being treated in hospital, with rights groups warning their lives were at risk after 55 days without food.
Most are being detained without charge under a procedure called administrative detention, with the Palestinians demanding international intervention to hold Israel responsible for their health and push it to end the use of the procedure.
The Israel Prisons Service put the total number of those on hunger strike at 110, saying 80 of them were being treated in hospital.
The Palestinian leadership has put the number slightly higher, saying 130 prisoners are on long-term hunger strike, and that in total 400 prisoners had joined the strike at different stages.
IPS spokeswoman Sivan Weizman also confirmed all family visits to prisoners had been canceled because of an ongoing Israeli operation to locate three missing teenagers believed kidnapped by Hamas militants.
In a separate development, the Israel Medical Association was to publish a guide for doctors treating hunger-striking prisoners, which would be distributed at wards where the strikers have been sent, Haaretz said.
Most of the strikers are administrative detainees who are being held without charge for indefinitely renewable six-month periods in a procedure dating back to the British Mandate, which lasted from 1920 until 1948.
The Palestinian leadership has also urged the international community to pressure Israel to cancel its administrative detention laws, in a letter addressed to U.N. and EU members last week.
Source: Agence France Presse
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