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Israel frees high-profile Palestinian prisoner: official

Xinhua, November 5, 2015 Adjust font size:

Israel has released a high-profile Palestinian detainee, who earlier this year held a two-month hunger strike in protest of his detention without trial, officials confirmed to Xinhua on Thursday.

"Mohammed Allan has been released," Sivan Weizman, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prison Service, said in a statement.

Israeli Ha'aretz newspaper reported that Allan was taken for hospital check-up in the West Bank city of Tulkarem and later went to his village, Einbus, near Nablus.

Upon his arrival, Allan, who received a festive welcome by thousands of people, told reporters his release was "a victory."

The 31-year-old lawyer was arrested in November 2014 and held under an administrative detention order, which allows incarceration without trial indefinitely for renewable periods of six months.

In June 2015, he went on a 66-day long hunger strike, during which he nearly died.

Israel's supreme court suspended his detention in August, after he lapsed into coma and brain scans indicated he was suffering a permanent brain damage.

In September, after his health improved, Israel re-arrested him. This time, the military announced it would not renew Allan's detention order, which was expired on Nov. 4.

Israeli officials said that before his arrest, Allan was "planning large-scale terrorist attacks with fellow Islamic Jihad terrorists." The Palestinian Islamist organization confirmed that Allan was a member, according to Palestinian media.

Israel, however, never indicted Allan, nor presented any evidence for his involvement in alleged terror activity.

His struggle drew much attention to Israel's force-feeding law and the widespread use of administrative detentions. Weizman told Xinhua that as of the beginning of August, Israel was holding 340 Palestinians in administrative detention.

His release came amidst a new wave of violence in the West Bank and Israel, which has seen the death of 11 Israelis and at least 70 Palestinians. Endit