PIJ commemorate martyr Khader Adnan on first anniversary
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The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement commemorates Palestinian martyr Sheikh Khader Adnan one year on as his body is still held in captivity.
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A Palestinian activist holding a poster with the name and picture of PIJ official Khader Adnan, who was martyred after an 86-day hunger strike, during a protest in the West Bank city of Ramallah, May 2, 2023 (AP)
The Islamic Jihad movement issued a statement on the first anniversary of the martyrdom of senior official Khader Adnan, emphasizing that the Palestinian people would continue their struggle in the face of the Israeli occupation until liberation, freedom, and the return of the diaspora, pledging to achieve victory against the Israeli occupation.
In its statement, the movement stressed that martyr Adnan was "sowing the seeds of jihad, defending the land, and confronting all the schemes of displacement and settlement, which the occupation seeks to implement in all of the West Bank."
The anniversary of the martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan comes at a time when the Palestinian people are fighting the battle of steadfastness and facing the war of annihilation waged by the occupation and its sponsors in the United States and Western governments.
The PIJ hailed martyr Adnan as "the initiator of the Battle of Empty Stomachs," which he himself fought several times until his honorific martyrdom in the occupation's prisons "steadfastly and proudly, becoming a symbol of the people's struggle on the path of liberation and freedom."
Prisoner Khader Adnan was martyred on May 2, 2023, at age 44, following an 87-day hunger strike in refusal of his arbitrary arrest, as the occupation kept Martyr Adnan detained in the Ramla prison clinic.
A man with an iron will
Adnan remained for 87 days in a small cell in the Ramla prison clinic, waging a fierce Battle of Empty Stomachs, during which his wife traveled from one governorate to another, from one event to another, from radio to television or any media outlet, seeking any opportunity to highlight her husband's suffering and conveying to the public the developments of his strike.
Adnan went on strike from the very beginning of his arrest on February 5, when Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) raided his home in the Jenin camp.
At the time, Israeli occupation forces launched a massive campaign of raids and incursions in the West Bank, during which they arrested a number of Palestinians, including leaders of the Palestine Islamic Jihad movement.
According to Palestinian sources who were in the town, the IOF brutally assaulted Adnan during his arrest and humiliated him in front of his wife and children, the eldest of which is 14 years old.
Randa Moussa, the martyr's wife, confirmed that her husband had told an occupation officer that he would go on hunger strike from the very first moment of his arrest.
With a total of nine years of detention, the IOF had arrested the prisoner-turned-martyr a total of 12 times. For the most part, Adnan was detained under administrative arrest warrants, according to his wife, and suffered from political arrests by the Palestinian Authority due to the Revolving Door policy.
Armed with his strong will, Sheikh Khader Adnan went into one strike after the other in order to snatch his freedom and deliver a clear message not to negotiate with the occupier saying, "We will not recognize your fascist decisions, and we will take away our freedom whatever the sacrifices may be."
Adnan's hunger strike
The first stop of the Battle of Empty Stomachs was started by Adnan with a group of detainees from the Gaza Strip in 2005, according to Moussa. The first strike started in order to force the IOF to reverse a decision for his complete isolation. After 25 days, the detainees snatched their freedom.
According to Moussa, "At the end of 2011 and the beginning of 2012, he fought his second battle with his famous 66-day strike against his administrative detention, in which he was able to extract a decision to release him."
In 2015, Adnan carried out his third hunger strike which lasted 58 days, and later went on a new 54-day strike in 2018, followed by another 25-day strike in 2021, and began his sixth strike on February 5.
