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RAMALLAH, February 10, 2015 (WAFA) – The Israeli authorities Tuesday sentenced nine Palestinian detainees to serve administrative detention terms, ranging between four and six months in prison, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Club (PPC).

PCC, a local organization concerned with the issue of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, said while some of those prisoners received an administrative sentence for the first time, others had their old administrative detentions renewed.

The nine detainees, who received a sentence of six months, were identified as Hamza Abu Sneneh, Ismail Okal, Rami Abu-Shark, Saadi al-Atrash, Mohammad Rummaneh, Ayed Hemoni, and Raed al-Jabari.

Meanwhile, those who received a four-month sentence were identified as Munther Abu-Wardeh, and Mohammad Shalaldeh.

Under administrative detention, detainees are held in prison without charge or trial and for an indefinite, renewable term.

According to the international law, administrative detention can be used only in the most exceptional cases, as the last means available to preventing danger that cannot be thwarted by less harmful means. Yet Israel uses this form of collective punishment systematically.

There are currently around 500 detainees serving administrative detention in several Israeli jails, 18 of whom are members of the Palestinian legislative Council.

Palestinian detainees have continuously resorted to open-ended hunger strikes as a way to protest their illegal administrative detention and to demand an end to this policy which violates international law.

The last open-ended hunger strike was in May 2014, where more than 700 Palestinian prisoners went on open-ended hunger strike for two weeks.

M.N/M.H