Ramallah, Palestinian Territories — Khader Adnan was no stranger to Israel’s prisons. His Tuesday death came during his 13th stint in Israeli custody, with nearly eight years of his life spent behind bars.
Born in the town of Arraba, near Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank in 1978, Adnan, become involved with Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad while studying mathematics at Birzeit University in the late 1990s.
He spent the following two and a half decades in and out of Israeli custody, periods of incarceration marked by a string of high-profile hunger strikes — at least five, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club told AFP.
The advocacy group said Adnan, who leaves behind nine children, is the first Palestinian to die as a direct result of a hunger strike, having refused food since his February 5 arrest by Israel on terror and incitement charges.
In 2012, a 66-day hunger strike turned Adnan into a national hero, and revitalized hunger striking as a form of protest among Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli jails.
At the time it was the longest hunger strike ever staged by a Palestinian prisoner.
The 2012 protest shone a light on administrative detention — a controversial Israeli measure under which people are interned without charge for renewable periods of up to six months.
In 2015, he again secured his release from Israeli custody with a 56-day hunger strike.
Arrested by Palestinians too
Adnan also found himself in the crosshairs of President Mahmud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.
In 1999, he was arrested by the Palestinian security forces for leading student protests against the visiting French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. He was arrested by Palestinian security forces on at least two other occasions.
An Israeli official described Adnan to AFP as an “operative” of Islamic Jihad who “took part in dozens of organizational activities… and delivered inciteful speeches that support a hostile organization”.
The official stressed that unlike Adnan’s previous four hunger strikes, which he carried out to protest administrative detentions, “this time charges had been filed against him”.
Hasan Khreisheh, deputy speaker of the Palestinian parliament told AFP that Adnan, with whom he was friends, was victorious in his death.
“Adnan won more than once in the occupation prisons, and today he was victorious once again when he was martyred in his new battle,” Khreisheh said.
Alongside his time in and out of custody, Adnan ran a bakery in Arraba, and had also worked as a banker.
Today, his face can be seen stenciled across walls in Palestinian cities and refugee camps across the West Bank and Gaza.
Islamic Jihad warned Israel would “pay the price for this crime”.
Speaking at a press conference after his death, his widow Randa Mousa said: “We will only receive well-wishers, because this martyrdom is (like) a wedding, a (moment of) pride for us and a crown on our heads.”
She warned against retaliation for his death. “We don’t want anyone to respond to the martyrdom. We don’t want someone to launch rockets and then (have Israeli) strikes (on) Gaza.”