Arab lawmakers visit convicted Islamic Jihad terrorist in Israeli hospital

Israeli parliamentarians comfort hunger-striking convicted terrorist at his bedside, as his condition worsens and terror groups threaten violent escalation.

By World Israel News Staff

Members of the Israeli Knesset from the Arab Joint List party visited a hunger-striking Islamic Jihad prisoner in an Israeli hospital, Channel 14 reported on Tuesday.

Hisham Abu Hawash has been held by Israel in administrative detention since October 2021, on secret charges which the Israeli government states they cannot reveal for national security reasons.

Since the mid 2000s, he has been convicted on a number of charges and served a total of eight years in Israeli prisons.

Despite the Islamic Jihad operative’s long history of terror offenses dating back to 2006, Joint List chair Ayman Odeh, MK Ahmad Tibi, and Omer Cassif visited Hisham Abu Hawash in the hospital.

Underneath a photo of himself with his hands on Abu Hawash’s chest, Odeh wrote a post in Arabic which referred to the convicted terrorist as a “warrior,” and noted that while his “physical energy is depleted,” his “reservoir of willpower is as strong as iron and full of [longing] for liberty.”

He added that he and Abu Hawash were “sons of the mighty Palestinian people” and said Abu Hawash’s current physical state is the fault of “the rulers of Israel, the leaders of the longest…occupation in the 20th and 21st centuries.”

Tibi, who was a physician before becoming a lawmaker, posted a video of himself patting Abu Hawash’s arms and back and appeared to be checking his level of consciousness.

“We came out of great concern” for Abu Hawash’s health, Tibi wrote in Arabic, adding that he was “in talks” to see the terrorist released.

“We want him to be alive and free, at home with his family and children,” he wrote.

Cassif, the only Jewish member of the Joint List, wrote in Hebrew underneath a photo of himself at the terrorist’s bedside that Abu Hawash is “in a life-threatening situation.”

He called on Prime Minister Benny Gantz and Defense Minister Naftali Bennett to release him and the other “political abductees” who are held in administrative detention.

Somewhat ominously, he added that if Abu Hawash dies, the “sole responsibility” will lie with Israel’s governing coalition.

It’s unclear if Cassif’s statement was preemptively blaming the government for Hamas and Islamic Jihad terror attacks which would likely occur if Abu Hawash dies.

According to a report from Palestinian daily Al-Quds, Egyptian officials are lobbying for Israel to not extend Abu Hawash’s incarceration and release him on Feburary 26th, the date on which his current detention term is set to end.