Johannesburg - When a Palestinian political prisoner sets their mind to a frequency frequently untapped, with the will to watch their body eat at itself in defiance of administrative detention, it seems Israel says; I want to see how far you can bend before your body snaps.
But it takes a special kind of zen to live outside of your mind and remain sane.
The mind of Khalil Awawde, the Palestinian prisoner who suspended his hunger strike of over 170 days this week after securing a written agreement from Israel that he would be released on October 2, must have recited poems to his body and his subconscious too.
To his body - look at me, I am the captain now.
To his subconscious - all we need to feed is the soul.
To his soul - from the river to the sea.
To the sea inside of him - calm your waves young tsunami conjurer, surface dwellers don't have to always know when the bottom of your ocean is quacking. You have left enough melodies and traces of yourself in seashells that they can hear your strength and feel your depth even when you are silent and still.
Deep in his being, Awawde is cut from a different cloth; the same kufiya that made political prisoner Hisham Abu Hawash - administratively detained, faced neither charges nor a trial - was released in February 2022 after 141 days on hunger strike in an Israeli prison.
The same kufiya that made political prisoner Kayed al-Fasfous, a bodybuilding champion who lost 40 kilograms in weight until ending his hunger strike of 131 days after an agreement was reached to end his administrative detention in November 2021.
These men are just a handful of about 500 Palestinian detainees held under the Israeli administrative detention policy.
And this week they took a collective stand, like the 343 political prisoners on Robben Island who went on a hunger strike in March 1990 demanding their release, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement began a mass collective open hunger strike in protest of Israeli Prison Services’ reinstitution of a series of collective, punitive, and retaliatory measures against Palestinian political prisoners held in Israeli occupation prisons.
So why doesn't Israel just let those on hunger strike die?
They want to see how far Palestinian bodies can bend before they snap.
Or to test their willingness to split themselves in half - mentally and physically.
They did not expect that these Palestinians would be willing to hand their dead bodies over to Israel, for they know that freedom is not limited to physical, outward, or political conditions.
There aren't many victories that supersede overcoming mental slavery from an occupation.
Even if they died, they would still consider it a victory because, in the end, they would have left the prison. And it seems Palestinians prefer death over administrative detention.
Israel does not want to release Palestinians on marathon hunger strikes precisely because that would attract intense international pressure on them to release all prisoners held without trial under their archaic administrative detention system.