18 November 2016•Update: 18 November 2016
By Anees Barghouti
JERUSALEM
Sheikh Raed Salah, leader of the Islamic Movement in Israel and Palestinian resistance icon, has ended his 5 day hunger strike Friday upon request of the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel.
Head of the of the Freedom Committee o for Arab Citzens in Israel, Sheikh Kamal al-Khatib, told Anadolu Agency that Raed Salah ended his open-ended hunger strike upon the request of the Arab citizens in Israel.
"Salah was protesting the bad treatment the policy of holding Palestinian prisoners in solitary confinement," Sheikh al-Khatib said.
"He knew that stopping these actions are the demands of all the Palestinian detainees in Israeli jails," he added.
Kamal Al-Khteib asserted that there have been several meeting between the leaders of the Arab communities in Israel to discuss Salah's Hunger strike.
"It was clear that Salah succeeded in delivering his message so we sent a message asking him to end his hunger strike," he said.
"Salah was briefed by his lawyer on solidarity campaigns by the Arab masses and accepted to end his hunger-strike," he added.
On Sunday, Salah -- who is being held in southern Israel’s Ramon Prison -- declared an open-ended hunger strike to protest his prison conditions and draw attention to the plight of Palestinian political detainees.
In May, Salah began serving out a nine-month jail sentence for "incitement". Since then, the Israeli authorities have kept him in solitary confinement.
Salah was born in 1958 in the city of Umm al-Fahm in northern Israel and later studied Islamic Law at the University of Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
He served as mayor of Umm al-Fahm for three consecutive terms between 1987 and 2001.
In 1996, Salah was elected leader of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in Israel, known for holding daily protests at East Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque -- Islam's third holiest site -- against perceived threats to the iconic mosque by the Israeli authorities.
Israel’s security cabinet outlawed the movement last year, accusing it of "incitement" and "propaganda"
