Palestinian leader and former long-term hunger striker, Sheikh Khader Adnan, is currently on hunger strike for the eighth day as of 12 February. He is being held in Al-Jalameh interrogation center, where he is being subjected to a harsh interrogation. The Salem military occupation court extended his detention until next Monday; he was seized by occupation forces on 5 February from his home in Arraba, Jenin. He immediately launched a hunger strike to reject his unjust arrest and detention.
During the invasion of his home by occupation soldiers, his belongings were damaged, his house vandalized and his family was threatened. Khader Adnan has been detained 12 times by occupation forces and spent 8 years in Israeli jails, mostly in administrative detention — imprisonment without charge or trial — or accused of membership in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement.
He has launched five hunger strikes, including four to reject administrative detention, and participated in collective hunger strikes. His first hunger strike was in 2004, when he went on strike for 25 days to protest his isolation. Eight years later, in 2012, his 66-day hunger strike captured the attention of people in Palestine and around the world, as he challenged his administrative detention with no charge or trial and won his freedom. Adnan’s hunger strike helped to kick off a wave of individual and collective hunger strikes, particularly those challenging administrative detention.
In 2015, he again went on strike against his detention for 56 days and again in 2018 for 58 days. In 2021, he was once again arrested and ordered to administrative detention, and he went on hunger strike for 25 days. In each of these occasions, he was able to obtain his freedom and confront the jailer, breaking the chains of arbitrary administrative detention.
There are currently over 900 administrative detainees in Israeli occupation jails, among over 4,750 Palestinian political prisoners — meaning approximately one-fifth of all detained Palestinians are jailed without even the faintest appearance of justice — even though the Zionist military courts are also another form of rubber-stamp of military orders that convict over 99% of Palestinians.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses our strongest solidarity with Khader Adnan and all Palestinian prisoners struggling for freedom. We call for his immediate release and the release of all imprisoned Palestinians in Zionist, Palestinian Authority and imperialist jails. Khader Adnan is a symbol of Palestinian courage, steadfastness and commitment to the struggle for freedom; he has become an international symbol of prisoners’ resistance. We will organize until the prisoners are free — and until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea!
