A boy hugs Naser al-Deen Allan, the father of prisoner Mohamed Allan, following news from Allan’s lawyer regarding the suspension of his detention, at the family home in the West Bank city of Nablus yesterday.

Agencies/Ramallah

Palestinian detainee Mohamed Allan ended his 65-day hunger strike against his detention without trial yesterday after the Israeli Supreme Court suspended his arrest warrant, his lawyer said.
Allan has sustained brain damage as result of his hunger strike and is hospitalised in Israel in critical condition. The court said that in his current condition he poses no threat and therefore suspended his arrest warrant.
The 31-year-old Islamic Jihad activist’s case was being monitored closely by opposing sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which had looked likely to boil over into new violence if Allan were to have died as result of his strike.
“The story is over, administrative detention is cancelled and therefore there is no strike,” Allan’s lawyer, Jameel Khatib, said.
The Israeli government saw his hunger strike as a powerful challenge against “administrative detention”, a practice that has drawn criticism from Palestinians and human rights groups but which Israel calls necessary for its national security.
It fears his release would only encourage some 370 other Palestinian detainees held without charge to refuse food.
The court said Allan was to stay at the Israeli hospital where he was being treated.
Before yesterday’s court session got under way, Allan’s lawyers said that in return for an end to the strike, Israel had pledged not to renew his six-month detention period, meaning he would go free on November 3.
The hospital said Allan’s condition had deteriorated since he was brought out of sedation on Tuesday. His attorneys said he did not respond to the proposal.
In court, a government lawyer said Israel was prepared to free Allan immediately if a scan carried out while court was in session showed that he had suffered irreversible brain damage and subsequently no longer posed a security threat.
But the scan results were not conclusive. Barzilai hospital chief Chezy Levy told reporters it showed some brain damage and it was not yet clear whether it was “completely reversible”. He said it was possible Allan would recover.
On Tuesday Allan instructed medical staff to halt intravenous treatment, but then agreed vitamins could be administered in the run-up to the court hearing.
Allan’s case was originally seen as a possible test of Israel’s new force-feeding law, which the country’s medical association has condemned as a violation of ethics and international conventions. But doctors have said that option is no longer viable due to his grave condition.
Last week supporters of Allan clashed with Israeli right-wingers near the hospital. Israel has long been concerned that hunger strikes by Palestinians in its jails could end in deaths and trigger waves of protests in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Allan’s case has captured the attention of the Palestinian public.  
There had been fears of an escalation of violence in the occupied West Bank, with tensions having already increased following last month’s firebombing of a Palestinian home that killed an 18-month-old and his father.
The firebombing has been attributed to Jewish extremists.
Since the attack on July 31, Israeli security forces have shot dead three Palestinians carrying out stabbings.
But while they are concerned with potential unrest, Israeli authorities are also reluctant to be seen as giving in to what they view as “blackmail” by detainees.
Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan said in a statement earlier yesterday that Allan’s release “would constitute a reward for his hunger strike and could encourage mass hunger strikes among security detainees”.
Allan’s protest has also raised questions over whether Israel would seek to invoke a law passed last month allowing prisoners to be force-fed when their lives are in danger.
Doctors and activists strongly oppose the law, including those who say the practice amounts to torture and robs Palestinians of a legitimate form of protest.
The new law requires the authorities to seek a court order to allow force feeding, which they have not done.