Int'l Red Cross closes Gaza office after storming attempt by angry protesters
Xinhua, February 8, 2016 Adjust font size:
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Sunday it will temporarily close its headquarters in Gaza city after a group of angry protesters tried to break into it.
Earlier in the day, dozens demonstrated outside the ICRC office in western Gaza city in solidarity with Mohamed al-Qiq, a Palestinian journalist who has been on hunger strike for 76 days in an Israeli jail.
The protesters said they were against the ICRC's inaction to rescue al-Qiq who is fighting death in an Israeli hospital.
Al-Qiq's condition was critical, as "contacts at high levels are being made to rescue his life," Eassa Qaraqe'a, head of the Palestinian prisoners' corporation of the Palestine Liberation Organization, said on Saturday.
On Thursday, al-Qiq decided to continue his hunger strike after an Israeli court suspended his administrative detention but refused to let him leave hospital.
Al-Qiq, a 33-year-old TV reporter working for a Saudi station, was arrested in November, 2015, and started an open-ended hunger strike a few days later.
He demanded that Israel immediately release him and annul the administrative detention that keeps him in prison without a trial or charges. Endit