Khader Adnan is a 33 year-old Palestinian baker and master’s candidate in economics at Birzeit University. He lives in Arrabeh—a small village in the Occupied West Bank, just outside of Jenin with his wife and two—soon to be three—children. On December 17th, 2011 at 3:30 in the morning, Israeli Authorities raided his home, arresting Adnan in front of his family and taking him away to be interrogated, and later detained for alleged involvement with the Islamic Jihad.
After eighteen days of interrogation, torture and humiliation, Adnan was sentenced to six months of “administrative detention”—a military practice, used by Israeli authorities to arrest and detain Palestinian prisoners without trial. Adnan is not the only one—315 of the 6,600 Palestinians in Israeli prisons have been detained—in some instances indefinitely—without a trial.
Since his arrest in December, Khader Adnan has refused all food—now for 65 days—protesting Israel’s unjust and unlawful treatment of Palestinian political prisoners.
Despite his now critical health condition, the Israeli Military Court has ruled against the appeals to cancel his detention order, or even to shorten it to the amount of days that he has already been detained. Now, after losing 42 kilos (92.4 lbs), Khader Adnan’s frail body is handcuffed to his hospital bed in Safed, Israel. His wife and two children have only been permitted to visit him twice—one of his daughters didn’t recognize him.
Since his first arrest as a student activist in 1999, Adnan has been arrested and detained nine times for his political affiliation with the Islamic Jihad. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) began as a political offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood, oriented around creating a unified Palestinian state. Adnan served as a spokesman for many years, but was never active in the military wing and worked almost exclusively organizing with the Palestinian reconciliation council. Although Israeli authorities have arrested and detained him several times for his political affiliations, they have yet to find and hold any evidence against him to merit meaningful charges that could warrant a trial.
Several other Palestinian detainees and prisoners have begun their own hunger strike in solidarity with Khader Adnan. Citizens across Palestine and Israel, and now Palestinian communities have held daily demonstrations drawing attention to and protesting Israel’s blatant disregard towards Adnan’s—and all Palestinian prisoners’—lives. On Twitter, activists and networked citizens from around the world have used the hashtags #DyingToLive and #KhaderExists to create their own media in solidarity with Palestinian prisoners.
However, though there is awareness, solidarity and action in grassroots organizations and a high presence on social media and in the activist blogosphere, the international media has been nearly silent. While the recently-released, now iconic Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was used as a symbol to vilify Palestinians and the Palestinian cause (as opposed to the fundamentalist leadership of Hamas) and was frequently leveraged as a point in support of Israel’s occupation of Palestine, Khader Adnan’s unlawful arrest and detention was only mentioned once he had already engaged in a two-month long hunger strike—and even then, his long beard and nuanced involvement in the Islamic Jihad has made most media shy away from showing sympathy, or even telling the simple story of a man who is dying for his people.
It is likely that Khader Adnan will pass away in the next few days—doctors from Physicians for Human Rights said that it is impossible to survive beyond seventy days without food. However, as Khader Adnan still weakly, yet resiliently lies handcuffed by both his hands and feet to a hospital bed in Israel, he is more than just one man on a hunger strike. He is a symbol of resistance—putting his body through more than what most bodies could endure to demonstrate the power of his endurance. He is using every last piece of his strength to demand attention to the justice, dignity and humanity that every Palestinian deserves and demands, yet has yet to receive.
The press is not allowed to have contact with Khader Adnan. However, he gave a letter to his lawyers to be released to his supporters in Palestine on his behalf. In it he writes,
“I starve myself for you to remain. I die for you to live. Stay with the revolution.”