On Tuesday morning, the Palestinian hunger striker and political activist, Sheikh Khader Adnan, died inside the Ramleh prison clinic.
Since February 5 of this year, Adnan, 45, has been on hunger strike protesting his imprisonment by Israel, which has been targeting and harassing the Palestinian political figure and advocate for resistance over the past decade. Adnan is the veteran of eight hunger strikes, which he launched to protest his unlawful imprisonment by the Israeli authorities over the years, most of them without charge or trial.
Adnan’s latest arrest was due to his affiliation with the militant Palestinian resistance group, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), whose armed wing, Saraya al-Quds, is part of the umbrella faction of the Jenin Brigade — the armed resistance group operating out of Jenin refugee camp. But beyond the immediate reasons for his imprisonment (for which he has not, as of the time of writing, been indicted), the Israeli authorities have constantly harassed Adnan during the past decade, precisely because he has continued to be a well-known proponent of resistance during a period of Palestinian political atrophy. He has persisted in advocating for the prisoners’ movement, for the families of martyrs, and for opposition to the Palestinian Authority’s collaborationism and security coordination, at a time when such figures of political struggle have been scarce. Moreover, after Adnan’s prominent victory over the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) during one of his hunger strikes in 2011-2012 , he became an icon of Palestinian defiance in the face of injustice.
Adnan is the first Palestinian prisoner to die while on hunger strike since the 1970s, when several Palestinian hunger strikers were killed as a result of being force-fed by the Israeli prison authorities. Adnan is also the 237th Palestinian to be killed inside Israeli prisons since 1967.
Adnan is from Arrabeh, Jenin, and is survived by his wife, Randa Moussa, 41, and their nine children. Mondoweiss interviewed Moussa a week earlier when she had warned that Adnan’s life was in peril due to the cumulative toll that his hunger strike and previous hunger strikes have had on his body and due to the intransigence and medical negligence of the Israeli Prison Services. (IPS)
Intentional medical negligence
According to the IPS, Adnan “was found unconscious in his cell” on the day of his death. The IPS also emphasized that Adnan had been refusing medical treatment, a statement repudiated by his lawyer, who stated that Adnan’s death came as a direct result of intentional Israeli medical negligence.
In an interview with Mondoweiss less than two weeks ago, Adnan’s wife Randa noted that the Israeli prison’s clinic was insufficient for providing the necessary care for a hunger striker and that her husband was being intentionally kept in the clinic for purposes of overriding international law concerning prisoners’ rights, which would allow for the prison’s medical personnel to force-feed Adnan should he fall into a coma.
Despite his deteriorating health, Adnan’s next court hearing was scheduled to take place on May 10, over a week after the day that he died.
On Sunday afternoon, April 30, the Ofer military court refused the appeal put forth by Adnan’s legal team in enforcing a previous court order for releasing Adnan. Due to his deteriorating health, Adnan had been joining his court trials via video. By late Tuesday morning on the day of his death, Israeli authorities moved the hunger striker’s corpse to the Abu Kabir medical facility near Jerusalem. There, Israeli authorities moved forward to perform an autopsy on the hunger striker’s body, against Adnan’s final will that his body not be dissected and autopsied in the event of his death.
According to statements made to the press by Adnan’s legal team, an appeal was submitted to the Israeli courts to ban the autopsy. Meanwhile, Adnan’s family awaits the ruling of Israeli authorities on whether the family will be able to receive and bury Adnan next to his father’s grave, in accordance with his final wishes.
General strike and final written will
In light of Khader Adnan’s martyrdom, Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank and Gaza went on strike, while protests broke out sporadically in the West Bank, most Adnan’s hometown of Jenin.
In a statement to the press, Randa Moussa stated that “there will be no funeral wake for the Sheikh, but we will receive those who would congratulate us in celebration of his martyrdom,” echoing the common Palestinian reverence for martyrs — not only for martyrdom’s religious significance but because it is seen as a necessary sacrifice in the fight against colonialism and its injustices.
Palestinian protests and vigils have emphasized the intentional nature of Adnan’s death, describing it as a cold-blooded execution, especially in connection to some of his earlier hunger strikes in 2011-2012, 2015, 2017-2018, and 2021, all of which caused cumulative and permanent damage to his body.
By the early afternoon, Palestinian youth began joining protests near military checkpoints and illegal settlements in the West Bank, protesting Adnan’s killing and abuses against Palestinian detainees.
According to Palestinian legal experts, the killing of Khader Adnan is also part of Israel’s ongoing targeting of Palestinian political detainees, and the most recent policy pushed forward in the Israeli Knesset has called for the death penalty to be applied to Palestinian detainees convicted of “terrorism.”
The Palestinian Higher Emergency Committee for Palestinian Detainees released a statement on the occasion of Adnan’s killing, calling on all Palestinian political factions to rally against the crime, which resulted in Adnan’s slow killing. The statement asserted that Adnan’s death is a reminder of the moral obligation towards Palestinian political detainees.
Adnan left behind a final will that he wrote in April, in anticipation of his death. It reads:
“As my soul approaches martyrdom, it is my duty to write my final will…
Praise be to God that he enabled me to undergo a hunger strike for freedom…
I am writing to you my final words from our beloved Palestinian town of al-Ramleh, as my flesh has dissolved and my bones have wasted away and my strength has failed me. This is my final will to my family, my children, my wife, and my people.
To my wife, I implore you and my children to fear God…and to speak the truth in every time and place…and to know that the greatest Palestinian homes are the houses of martyrs and the injured and the righteous.
I implore my uncles, my relatives, my neighbors…not to leave anyone with a moral or material right over me…
If I am martyred, do not let the occupier dissect my body. Bury me near my father, and write upon my grave, ‘Here lies God’s impoverished servant, Khader Adnan’…and make my grave a simple one, and ask of God to forgive me…
To [my wife] Um Abdulrahman, and to my children Maali, Bisan, Abdulrahman, Muhammad, Ali, Hamza, Mariam, Omar, and Zaynab, please forgive me…
To my people, I send you this will with love and greetings, with complete confidence in God’s mercy…this is God’s land, and it is ours, and it contains a promise, the promise of the afterlife. Do not despair, for whatever the occupiers may do, no matter how much they may trespass upon us with their occupation and injustice…God’s victory is near…
My greetings to the families of martyrs and prisoners, my greetings to them and to all revolutionaries and free peoples.
To Um Abdulrahman: I am your loving husband,
To my children: I am your loving father,
To my siblings: I am your loving brother,
To my people: I am your loving son,
Pray for me that He may accept me as his devoted martyr.
With love,The final will of Khader Adnan
Khader Adnan
Al-Ramleh clinic
Apri 2, 2023”
Mariam Barghouti
Mariam Barghouti is the Senior Palestine Correspondent for Mondoweiss.
As far as I understand hunger strikes are non-violent resistance to administrative detention without conviction and trial. Khader Adnan was protesting what is a crime in civil law. How shameful that Palestinians have no recourse to civil law. His photo for me depicts a peace loving father, husband, brother, son. His will speaks to me of a deeply religious person who truly loves his family and his God.
My heartfelt sympathy goes out to his family and I ask their forgiveness of an International community, of which I am one, who continues to allow such atrocities against the Palestinians to continue, and repeatedly excuses the oppressors.
The mistreatment of Mr Adnan by the Israeli authorities is repugnant. What was the purpose of this martyrdom, though, in a society run by racists who believe that Palestinians are lesser humans, if they are human at all? There was not the slightest chance that anything would change for the better for Palestinians after the death of Mr Adnan, so was this a worthwhile action? I cannot judge this. But I am saddened by the amount of references to a deity in his final document, which suggests that what impelled him towards death was not a reasonably justifiable belief that it might result in political change, but that his god would somehow cause the victory of Palestinians over Israel.