Khader Adnan: battle of empty stomachs is a weapon in face of occupation

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Freed Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan told Al Mayadeen that his hunger strike began at the moment of his arrest at a checkpoint near Nablus. However, he suspended his hunger strike after his lawyers obtained a decision that stipulates that his administrative detention would not be renewed and that he would be freed.

Khader Adnan said that his hunger strike was without any supplements, salts, or sugars. He rejected undergoing any medical examinations or visiting any doctor. Adnan also refrained from telling doctors about the amount of water he would drink or update them on his health condition.

Sheikh Khader Adnan spent 25 days in prison, most of which he spent in Al-Julma prison. He told Al Mayadeen that the Israeli occupation authorities put him in a grave-like jail cell.

Adnan's health condition deteriorated during and after his latest hunger strike, which constitutes his fourth throughout his years of imprisonment, with the aim of obtaining liberty. The first strike was between 2011 and 2012, lasting for 66 days. The second was in 2015, lasting for 58 days. The third was in 2018, lasting for 58 days as well.

Adnan told Al Mayadeen that "hunger strikes spark the determination to confront the occupation, and it is a pillar of the entire prisoner's movement."

He also said, "When a Palestinian prisoner undergoes a hunger strike battle with no going back, the entire world realizes that this prisoner is living in torment and oppression in the occupation prisons and that the prisoner is actually trying to do something to gain his freedom and break the chains."

He stressed that the Battle of Empty Stomachs "became a tool in the face of the occupation, which is trying to disrupt it and attempting to do anything to put an end to it and break us, so it cracks down on us with all its strength, violating the prisoners just as it did with me while transporting me from one prison to another."

He commented on the martyrdom of Nizar Banat, saying, "No one protected him, and no one threatened to do anything in return in case he is killed."

Adnan added, "If you had anything on Banat, you should have taken him to trial, not kill him in the dark," saying, "Whoever has any anger, let them take it out on the occupation, which has wronged us, killed us, killed our families, displaced us, besieged us, and abused us."

The freed prisoner also said, "Whoever raises a weapon in the face of his Palestinian brother and kills him is not one of us; is not a real Palestnian," calling for holding the the killers accountable and emphasizing that he is against the demonization of any Palestinian party.

The Israeli occupation forces freed Khader Adnan last Monday after he spent an entire month in administrative detention. The Israeli occupation forces arrested him on the dawn of Sunday, May 30, at a checkpoint near Nablus.

Adnan has been arrested 12 times, spending a total of eight years in the occupation prisons, the majority of which he spent under administrative detention.