Will he survive?
A hunger-striking Seattle activist lies near death in Israeli custody.

BY THE TIME you read this, Seattle child-care provider and human rights activist Trevor Baumgartner may be resting safely in his Seattle home.

Or, he may have starved himself to death as a prisoner of the Israeli Army.

Either way, a desperate protest by Baumgartner and three other detained internationals appeared, on Tuesday morning (May 14), to be drawing to a climax. By Monday, reportedly near death after 11 days without food and six days of refusing water, Baumgartner and three other hunger- striking American detainees--Nathan Mauger of Spokane, Thomas Koutsoukos of suburban Chicago, and Nathan Musselman of Roanoke, Va.--were about to be deported by Israeli authorities, and Baumgartner, hospitalized and too weak to move, began "sipping small amounts of water."

But on Tuesday, deportation plans hit a snag, with Israeli authorities insisting that the deportees pay for their plane tickets. The seeming inability of authorities and the hunger strikers to reach agreement had plagued negotiations since May 2, when Baumgartner and 12 other foreigners were arrested at the then-besieged Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. The group created a diversion while a group of 10 activists slipped through Israeli security into the church, carrying bags of food and medical supplies for the Palestinians trapped inside.

The detainees were held by the Israeli Army, although they were charged with no crime, appeared before no court, and technically were outside the boundaries of Israel (and therefore Israeli legal authority). Eight of the 13 arrested foreigners were immediately deported. The remaining five, all Americans, began a hunger strike to protest and draw attention to their situation. Their stated goal was to be allowed to leave Israel voluntarily, without any future prohibitions on their eligibility to return.