Israel will not release Jordanian hunger-striker

Israel officials said Saturday that they would not release hunger-striking prisoner Abdullah Barghouthi, even if his strike action threatens to kill him, a prisoners group said. A lawyer from the Al-Tadamon human rights groups said he was informed by a Palestinian prisoner that a two-hour meeting was recently held between Israeli prison authorities and prisoners' representatives, with Israeli officials stressing that prisoners with life sentences would not be released. A lawyer for the PA ministry of prisoners' affairs said Barghouthi, a Jordanian citizen, could go into a coma at any moment. "I saw him breathing very heavily and he began to have fainting spells," Hanan al-Khatib said Friday after visiting him in Afula Hospital. Barghouthi is tied to his bed by both his hands and feet, al-Khatib said, and has not been allowed visits from family members or ICRC representatives. He has been on hungers strike since May 2 and is demanding to serve the remainder of his sentence in a Jordanian jail, under the Wadi Araba agreement between Jordan and Israel. Barghouthi is also demanding that Israel disclose the whereabouts of 20 missing Jordanian prisoners and wants Israel to remove the bodies of Palestinians who died in Israeli custody from nameless graves. Barghouthi is serving 67 life terms, the highest sentence ever handed down by an Israeli military court. He has been detained since March 2003. A Hamas leader, Barghouthi was convicted of involvement in multiple attacks in Israel.