Leading Palestinian activist, Khader Adnan, dies in Israeli prison after 87-day hunger strike

Empowering Weak & Oppressed

Crescent International

Shawwal 12, 1444 2023-05-02

Daily News Analysis

by Crescent International

Sheikh Khader Adnan's young daughters will not see their father again who has joined heavenly company but the resistance continues

After being on a hunger strike for 87 days against his illegal detention in an Israeli dungeon, senior Islamic Jihad member, Khader Adnan died early today (May 2).

The father of nine children was 45 years old.

Sheikh Adnan “was found unconscious in his cell” in Nitzan prison near Ramleh early in the morning, according to zionist occupation authorities.

He was transferred to Assaf Harofeh Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

He was arrested on February 5, 2023, the latest in a string of arrests, at his home in Arraba, a town south of Jenin in the occupied West Bank.

He immediately went on hunger strike, refusing food to protest his illegal arrest and detention.

Sheikh Adnan was held under what is euphemistically referred to as ‘administrative detention’—not the first in his case.

This illegal act, like the zionist entity itself, is not recognized in international law.

After being on hunger strike for so long, Sheikh Adnan’s health started to deteriorate rapidly over the past few weeks.

Deeply worried about his worsening condition, his family warned the zionist occupiers that he was dying and should be transferred to a civilian hospital.

True to their barbaric nature, they refused.

They also refused to grant the family permission to visit him in prison in what they clearly perceived to be the last time they would see him alive, barely.

Instead, the zionists resorted to their customary habit of lying saying Sheikh Adnan “refused to undergo medical tests and receive medical treatment.”

These lies were exposed by the statement put out by the Israeli rights group, Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI).

The group said it had tried to convince Israeli authorities, including the Israeli health ministry and Israel prison service, to admit Sheikh Adnan to hospital to be monitored as his health deteriorated, but was rejected.

PHRI’s chairwoman Lina Qasem-Hasan examined Adnan a few days before his death.

She concluded in a medical report that he was in immediate need to be transferred to hospital for observation.

“These attempts were unsuccessful, including personal appeals and court interventions with these parties,” PHRI said in a statement.

Sheikh Adnan’s death through hunger-strike will further fortify the already robust resistance movement against the illegal zionist occupation.

It simultaneously exposes, yet again, the barbarous nature of zionism.

This was not the first time that Sheikh Adnan was incarcerated by the zionists but it proved his last.

Nor was it the first time that he went on hunger strike against his illegal detention.

The Palestinian Prisoners Association (PPA) said that Sheikh Adnan had been detained by Israel 12 times, spending around eight years in prison, mostly under ‘administrative detention’.

This innocuous sounding policy is actually extremely barbaric.

It allows the zionist occupiers to hold a person indefinitely,without trial or charge.

When rulers in the west talk about Israel being the “only democracy in the Middle East,” this administrative detention policy should be thrown in their face.

Western regimes, led by the US are complicit in zionist crimes of which the list is very long.

During his incarceration, Sheikh Adnan went on hunger strike five times.

He went on his first hunger strike after he was arrested in 2004, to protest his illegal detention.

In 2012, his hunger strike lasted for 67 days forcing the zionists to release him.

He embarked on another hunger strike in 2015 for 56 days.

Again, the zionist occupiers were forced to release him.

He was arrested and imprisoned yet again in early 2018.

This time, his hunger strike lasted 56 days.

At the end October 2018, he ended his hunger strike when an Israeli military court sentenced him to one year in prison.

Since he had already served 10 months in prison, he was released in December 2018.

Arrested again in 2021, his hunger strike—the only weapon in his hand against the unjust imprisonment—lasted 25 days.

Sheikh Adnan’s non-violent resistance inspired a wave of Palestinian prisoners held under ‘administrative detention’ to join him and follow in his footsteps.

There are more than 5,000 Palestinians, among them women and children, held in Israeli prisons.

In a touching article for Middle East Eye, Sheikh Adnan’s wife Randa Musa wrote:

“Before he embarked on this latest hunger strike, I asked him, ‘How? You know what will happen to your body on the 12th, 20th, 50th day. You have felt the pain and pangs of hunger; the vomiting and loss of hearing; the feeling of your stomach devouring itself. How are you able to do it all over again?’

“His answer to me was touching: ‘How does a woman choose to give birth more than once, despite having felt the pain? There is beauty and love in giving life, just as we find life in resisting the occupation, in knowing the taste of freedom and being able to fight for it’.”

Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the resistance group to which Sheikh Adnan belonged, vowed to avenge his death.

Other resistance factions have also responded.

The “joint operations room of resistance factions” (a body that comprises Palestinian factions) has in a statement claimed responsibility for launching 22 missiles on Israel today as ‘a first response’ to the death of Sheikh Khader Adnan.

“We affirm that we will remain loyal to the blood of our martyrs and the sacrifices of our families, and their cause will remain a top priority for the resistance leadership under all circumstances,” the factions said.

“We warn the enemy that its aggression and the carrying out of any crime or recklessness will not go unanswered, and the resistance will remain fully prepared as a sword and shield for our people everywhere,” they added.

Sheikh Khader Adnan’s body may have been imprisoned but his could not.

Now, how body has also been freed while his soul soars to heaven as a martyr of the Palestinian resistance.

With such barbaric acts, the zionists are only digging their own grave.

Privacy Policy  |  Terms of Use
Copyrights © 1436 AH
Sign In
 
Forgot Password?
 
Not a Member? Signup

Loading...