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JERUSALEM (Ma'an) -- A Palestinian detainee entered his 57th day of a hunger strike on Thursday while in solitary confinement in Israel’s Ela prison in Beersheba.

A resident of al-Fawwar refugee camp near Hebron, Sami Janazreh, 43, was initially detained in November and openly declared his hunger strike in March after the Israeli Authorities renewed his administrative detention -- internment without trial or charge.
Prison authorities have since moved the hunger-striker between Israeli prisons as a way of pressuring him to end the strike, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society (PPS), before placing him in solitary confinement at the start of this week.

Janazreh’s health has continued to deteriorate since the end of March when he began suffering kidney, chest, and teeth pain, eventually having difficulty walking and experiencing permanent dizziness.

Last week Janazreh began suffering from seizures and was taken to a hospital to treat a wound after he fainted and injured his head. Upon his release on Monday, he was transferred back into solitary confinement at Ela prison.

Janazreh was recently appointed a hearing at the Israeli Supreme Court to be held on May 16th after an initial appeal was rejected earlier in April at the Ofer military court.

He is one of several Palestinian prisoners currently on hunger strike in an attempt to hold Israel accountable for its arbitrary arrest and detention of Palestinians.

According to prisoners’ rights group Addameer, there are currently 700 Palestinians being held in administrative detention.

Israel’s policy of administrative detention allows for internment without charge or trial for six-month intervals that can be renewed indefinitely, and has been widely condemned by rights groups as representing a grave violation of human rights and contravening international law.

Palestinian journalist Muhammad al-Qiq last year came close to death during a more than 90-day strike against his detention, during which Israeli medics were accused of forcing treatment on the prisoner.