Khader Adnan, A Symbol of Invincible Palestinian Resistance

“We lost Martyr Khader Adnan due to the direct and deliberate failure of the Zionist regime to take care of his health. We demanded the release of Martyr Adnan on bail, but the court of the Zionist regime did not accept this request,” Adnan’s lawyer said. 

Adnan, 45, was a member of the Islamic Jihad movement, who had been on a hunger strike for 87 days in protest to his arbitrary arrest by the occupation forces. He was taken to the hospital last week after his physical condition deteriorated, but the Israeli regime did not allow any of the lawyers, doctors or legal parties to contact him and learn about his health conditions, and on Saturday, the military court based in prison Ofer prison opposed the request for his release despite his serious physical condition. 

A tireless fighter 

In the history of Palestinian struggle against occupation, there are many people whose memory will never be erased from the minds of Palestinians due to the important things they have done, and Adnan is one of these brave men whose fighting method presented a model for others. Actually, Adnan initiated the individual hunger strike method in Israeli prisons, and after him, many Palestinians imprisoned arbitrarily by Tel Aviv followed his path. 

Adnan was born in March 1978 in Araba town in Jenin in the north of the West Bank, and like his parents, he saw the crimes of the Israeli enemy well from his childhood, and as the Israeli crimes increased, so did his determination to fight Tel Aviv. 

He started his political activities as a student and grew interested in Islamic Jihad. He was arrested for the first time in 1998 by the Palestinian Authority on charges of inciting people to throw stones at Lionel Jospin, then Prime Minister of France, and spent ten days on hunger strike in detention. Also, during his student period, he was detained by the Israelis without charge for four months and once again for a year.

Adnan was arrested a total of 14 times, most of them were without charges and administrative arrests, and he spent a total of 9 years of his life in Israeli prisons, thus becoming a hero for the Palestinian nation who always fought for their liberation. 

His hunger strike in the last two decades had annoyed the Israelis, and with this method of struggle, he was freeing himself from the prisons, and every time after his release, he continued to fight against the occupation, and even repeated arrests and arrests could not stop him from seeking his ideal. 

Indifference to Palestinian prisoners by Israeli hardliners 

Adnan’s passing away with his serious physical condition showed the fact that the radical cabinet of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu does not recognize the rights of Palestinian prisoners. 

Before this, some innocent Palestinian prisoners were able to bring the Israeli regime to its knees by hunger strikes and gain freedom with international pressures, but with the rise of radicals in Tel Aviv, the situation has changed. People like Itamar Ben-Gvir, the Israeli minister of internal security, who is the top enemy of the Palestinians, is trying to tighten the noose on Palestinian prisoners, and in recent months, with his inhumane plans, he even denied the prisoners access to their basic rights, including bath with hot water. 

The hardliners are well aware that the hunger strike has become a trump card for the prisoners against Tel Aviv in recent years, and for this reason they opposed Adnan’s release, and they thought that Adnan would eventually surrender and break the hunger strike, and a warning to other prisoners will be sent that they no longer can use this method to pressurize Tel Aviv. But Adnan and his resistance until martyrdom shattered all of these plans. 

Palestinian prisoners who go on hunger strike are people who have been arrested without charges and try to prove their innocence with this method. The Israeli regime usually sentences the detainees to several months to several years in prison under “temporary detention”. No indictment is issued against these people while in prison. Currently, there are about 1000 prisoners under temporary detention in the Israeli prisons, and Tel Aviv denies them freedom. This state of indecision withholds the right of defense from innocent prisoners because no court is held to hear their voice. 

Strong response of resistance 

Following Adnan’s passing away, the resistance groups warned the Israeli regime that this crime will not go unanswered. In a statement condemning his martyrdom, the Hamas movement warned that the “occupying regime is fully responsible for the martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan, because it refused to release him and exposed him to deliberate medical negligence. The crimes and terrorist acts of the Israeli regime and its fascist government against the Palestinian people and prisoners should be brought to the attention of the world.” 

Islamic Jihad, holding Tel Aviv fully responsible for the crime, said: This fighter never abandoned his responsibility to defend the right of his people and passed final moments of his life in the path of defense of his sanctities. We have always fought and will fight and this struggle will never stop and the criminal enemy will know that its crimes will not go unanswered. The resistance will continue will full power and resolution.” 

In this connection, on Tuesday, several rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards the Israeli settlements to send a message that the resistance is on alert and will not abandon its prisoners. Also, a Palestinian young man carried out a “martyrdom operation” in the occupied territories, during which three settlers were injured. On the other hand, fellow prisoners in Ofer prison clashed with prison guards. 

Perhaps until a few years ago, there was not sufficient and necessary coordination between the resistance groups and the prisoners to fight against the occupiers, but now there is an alliance between the two groups of Palestinians to bring the enemy to its knees both outside and inside prison. If the Tel Aviv authorities were so far worried about the weapons of the resistance in Gaza and the West Bank, now they are also afraid of the prisoners’ hunger strike. 

Resistance groups and prisoners have shown that nothing can derail them from the path they started and try to increase the costs of the occupation on two fronts. The situation the hardline Israeli government is in is like immersing in a swamp; the more they struggle for rescue, the deeper they go down. The blood of Adnan will also make a swamp for the hardliners who are not in proper conditions these days at home and abroad.