The Israeli authorities rearrested former Palestinian hunger striker Muhammad al-Qiq after he took part in a protest which called for the release of Palestinian bodies held by the Israeli army in the West Bank city of Bethlehem on Sunday.
Palestinian news outlet al-Quds Network quotes al-Qiq’s wife Fayhaa Shalash as saying that he immediately declared a hunger strike in protest of his detention.
Al-Quds reported that al-Qiq was detained at the Israeli military checkpoint of Beit El in the Ramallah district — along with relatives of slain Palestinians Muhannad Shafiq Halabi, Thaer Abu Ghazaleh, and Hussein Muhammad Abu Ghush — after the group was returning from Sunday’s protest.
Israel detains former hunger striker Muhammad al-Qiq after protest https://t.co/8Hh4OcGarH pic.twitter.com/zLxfE0aIKO
— The IMEU (@theIMEU) January 16, 2017
Their vehicle was searched and the others were interrogated before Israeli authorities ultimately released them an hour later, while al-Qiq was taken to a detention center inside the illegal Israeli Beit El settlement.
An Israeli army spokesperson said they were looking into reports on the detention of al-Qiq.
The 34-year-old journalist, who lives in Ramallah and is originally from Dura in the southern occupied West Bank district of Hebron, was released from Israeli prison on May 19, 2016, after a grueling 94-day hunger strike that brought him near death.
(MAAN, PC, Social Media)
Thank God this brave fighter for justice and freedom for Palestinians from their cruel invading occupation forces, is still alive and ‘Qiking’.
His heart-wrenching story of resistance brings support from around the world and behind it, utter contempt and disgust for the Zionist criminals.