A Palestinian prisoner in Israeli detention has ended a hunger strike after more than six weeks.

Sixty-one-year-old Hossam Ruzza ended his hunger strike yesterday evening after occupation authorities agreed not to renew his administrative detention order.

He is thus due to be released on July 13.

Prisoner Hossam Ruzza ends his hunger strike after 43 days https://t.co/vRVQnJLQ7k

— bilal mafundi ali (@mafundi421) May 2, 2019

According to a statement by prisoners’ rights group Addameer, released shortly before Ruzza ended his hunger strike, a lawyer’s visit on April 30 confirmed that the prisoner’s health was deteriorating.

Addameer’s lawyer said Ruzza had lost 25 kilograms since he began his strike on March 19, and “his blood glucose level has dropped to 60, as he has begun to suffer from poor blood pumping and liver complications”.

Congrats to Hossam Ruzza!! pic.twitter.com/IMIG7z6qdK

— y’all don’t read (@anthoknees) May 2, 2019

He was also suffering from “stomach and waist pain”.

Israeli occupation forces arrested Hossam Ruzza on April 17, 2018, “and issued an administrative detention order against him, which was extended 3 times”.

Health of hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner deteriorates
Hossam al-Ruzza, 61, from Nablus, has been on hunger strike for 45 days, since 19 March. He is imprisoned in israeli occupation jails without charge or trial under administrative detention#GroupPalestine#قروب_فلسطيني pic.twitter.com/WJZwjU2jc8

— Hanan (@zNuTsraO3M1FKYf) May 2, 2019

Israeli authorities hold hundreds of Palestinians in detention without charge or trial, under so-called “administrative detention”, indefinitely renewable by military courts.

Addameer urged “all contracting parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention to pressure the occupying state in order to end the administrative detention policy, practiced by the occupation authorities in violation of all international law norms”, a policy it said, “represents a tool of vengeance and torture against Palestinian prisoners”.

(MEMO, PC, Social Media)