Ramallah: Palestinian hunger striker Bilal Kayed has been rushed in an ambulance from his Ashqelon Prison cell to the city’s Barzilai Hospital as the prisoner’s medical condition deteriorated.

Born in Syria, Kayed, 35, from the village of Northern Asira, near Nablus, has been on a hunger strike for the past 34 days, refusing to take any salt supplements and relying only on water.

Kayed, an operative of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), had served fourteen-and-a-half years imprisonment and was due to be released on June 15, but the Israeli Prison Service placed him under a six-month renewable administrative detention order, prompting him to begin his hunger strike.

“Bilal strictly refuses to speak to his jailers who repeatedly tried to force him to speak,” Mahmoud, the hunger striker’s elder brother, told Gulf News.

Mahmoud said the Israeli Prison Service and security agencies offered Kayed immediate release from prison in return for a four-year deportation to Jordan or any other country of his choice (as long as that country accepts him), but he categorically rejected the offer.

Kayed’s case, said Mahmoud, is different from the other cases of Palestinian hunger strikers. “Bilal had served his entire imprisonment. The Israelis had no right on earth to place him on administrative detention.”

On May 15, Kayed received an official message from the Israeli Prison Service confirming his release on June 15 when he got totally ready to return home. “Armed with a list of candidate prides to pick one and marry him on the same day of his release, his family was waiting for his release on Al Dahiriyah Crossing, but he was shockingly placed on administrative detention,” he said.

“Local and international supportive campaigns for his hunger strike therefore took place since day one of his unfair administrative detention.” Tens of PFLP prisoners in Israeli jails joined Kayed in his fast in a gradual supportive campaign that is carefully scheduled to end up with all PFLP prisoners on an open-ended hunger strike till Kayed walks free.

“This is Bilal’s fifth hunger strike that he staged during his imprisonment in support of other hunger strikers, and his family is absolutely sure that Bilal will win his case and walk free to his home village,” he said.