Samer Essawi, a 34-year-old Palestinian prisoner who has been imprisoned by Israel since July 2012, went on a longest-ever hunger strike as he thinks it is the only way to struggle for his freedom.
Living only on water and salt for 209 days and suffering from chronic health problems, the Palestinian from the village of Essaweyeh near east Jerusalem said in a public letter that he had never thought of giving up the hunger strike.
"I gain power from the support of my people, from the free people in the world, from my friends and from the families of the prisoners who struggle with us for freedom and ending the Israeli occupation," said Essawi, who vowed to go on the longest ever hunger strike in the history of the Palestinian prisoners' struggle for their freedom.
"It is illegal to arrest me," the Palestinian prisoner said while sitting on a wheeling chair due to his deteriorating health condition.
Arresting in April 2004, Essawi had been sentenced to 30 years in prison but was freed in accordance to an Egyptian-brokered prisoner swap deal reached between Israel and the Islamic Hamas movement in October 2011.
However, an Israeli court in Jerusalem decided to continue keeping him in custody, charging him of violating terms of the swap deal. Essawi was rearrested in July 2012.
Um Samer, the mother of Essawi, told Xinhua that her son had no choice but to go on the hunger strike as pressure on Israel to release him.
"My son is dying in jail and our leaders are doing nothing to help him get out of jail and end his hunger strike," she complaint.
The mother added that her family are facing Israeli security harassment everyday to oblige her son to end his hunger strike.
Khader Adnan, the spokesman of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank who went on a hunger strike in an Israeli jail for 66 days and was finally released, told Xinhua "hunger strike is fruitful and needs patience; it is the only mean of struggling to gain freedom."
Israel is currently detaining 4,500 Palestinian prisoners, dozens of whom spent more than 25 years in jails.
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