Hunger striking Palestinian in critical condition: lawyer

A Palestinian journalist who has been hunger striking for two months is in critical condition, his attorney said on Monday.

Mohammed al-Qeeq, 33, a father of two and a correspondent for the Saudi al-Majd TV network, "faces the possibility of death at any moment," his lawyer Jawad Boulus told the Times of Israel.

Al-Qeeq is protesting his six-month arrest without trial or indictment. The Shin Bet Israeli security service accused Al-Qeeq of links with Hamas, an Islamist Palestinian movement.

Al-Qeeq was arrested on Nov. 21 at his home in the West Bank village of Dura, near Hebron, and has been under administrative arrest ever since.

On Nov. 25, he went on a hunger strike, refusing food and medical treatment.

He was transferred to the Ha'Emek Hospital in the northern town of Afula some two weeks ago due to his deteriorated health condition.

Physicians for Human Rights, an Israeli human rights watchdog, accused Israel of forcing Al-Qeeq to receive medical treatment. "It is clear from al-Qeeq that he is being subjected to severe pressure from the medical personnel to end his hunger strike and is occasionally subject to medical treatment against his will and consent," Samer Sam'an, a lawyer with the group, said after meeting with Al-Qeeq last week.

A spokesperson for the hospital was not immediately available to comment for Xinhua.

Palestinian prisoners have used hunger strikes to draw international attention to their so-called administrative detention, an incarceration without charges for renewable periods of six months. Al-Qeek was the first journalist to do so.

As of the beginning of August, Israel was holding 340 Palestinians in administrative detention, according to official figures.

Fearing that the death of a Palestinian detainee will spark a wide protest in the West Bank, Israel passed a controversial law in 2015, allowing it to force-feed hunger strikers whose life are in danger. Endit