Israeli forces killed three Palestinians this week, including a 16-year-old boy. Meanwhile, 1,000 Palestinian prisoners announced a hunger strike in protest of repressive policies by the Israel Prison Service under the control of Itamar Ben-Gvir.
Khader Adnan was not part of an armed resistance group, nor did he occupy central positions of power. But he provided a model for victory in an age of defeat. He was a symbol in a time without symbols.
Rights groups, experts, and Khader Adnan’s legal team say that Israel caused his death through deliberate medical negligence and cruel and inhumane treatment. In other words, Israel wanted him dead.
The world lost Khader Adnan after 86 days of hunger strike, and Palestine lost an icon. Yet, in the words of researcher Ashira Darwish, “Freedom means that he left the body that they destroyed.”
The Palestinian resistance in Gaza is responding to Israel’s killing of Khader Adnan while he was on hunger strike, launching 70 rockets into Israel. The Israeli response of bombardment has been swift, already killing a Palestinian in northern Gaza.
Khader Adnan died in Israeli custody as he neared his 90th day on a hunger strike protesting his imprisonment. The veteran of eight hunger strikes, Adnan was a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness and resistance.
On September 1, almost ten days after launching a collective civil disobedience movement in Israeli Prisons, Palestinian political prisoners unite against inhumane prison conditions and snatch a victory from the Israeli Prison Service.
Israel’s continued detention of Bassam al-Saadi and Khalil Awawdeh is part of its larger campaign to quell Palestinian resistance in recent months.
On August 9, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in the West Bank, including notable Palestinian resistance fighter Ibrahim Nabulsi, “the lion of Nablus,” during a daytime military raid. Nabulsi’s killing is also connected to the ongoing struggle of hunger striker Khalil Awawdeh, who continues to be held under administrative detention in Ramleh Prison. All of these incidents are part of the same story — the Israeli campaign to eradicate Palestinian resistance.
Mass incarceration has defined Israel’s colonial project. Since 1967, over 850,000 Palestinians have been arrested and imprisoned by the Israeli regime. Currently there are 4,450 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, including hundreds of administrative detainees being held without charge or trial. But just as mass incarceration remains a defining feature of the Israeli occupation, so too has prisoner resistance. Currently, an ongoing boycott of the Israeli judicial system by all 530 Palestinian administrative detainees has surpassed 100 days.