Palestinian prisoner and prominent activist Sheikh Khader Adnan has been on an open-ended hunger strike for the 67th day in a row in protest against his detention without charge or trial in Israeli occupation prisons.
The Palestinian Priosner’s Society (PPS) said Adnan has been on an open-ended hunger strike for 67 consecutive days.
The PPS noted that Adnan suffers from very serious health symptoms, including frequent vomiting of blood, severe weakness and emaciation, frequent loss of consciousness, difficulty in speaking, movement, and sleep, difficulty in concentrating and severe pain all over his body. Recently, he even has had a very hard time drinking water.
Andan has been moved to the Ramleh prison clinic due to his critical condition.
Adnan, a former Palestinian prisoner, was arrested by Israeli forces during a military raid on February 5 on his family home in Arraba village, southwest of Jenin.
He entered the hunger strike from the first moment of his arrest in protest against Israel’s detention of him.
Adnan has been imprisoned at least 11 times since 2004 and was a spokesperson for Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli prisons.
He was last freed from an Israeli prison in 2021 after 25 days of detention.
Adnan, seen by many Palestinians as a symbol of resistance, went on hunger strike four times during detention, including one stretch that lasted 67 days.
On the day of his arrest, Israeli forces said seven Palestinians were arrested but did not name Adnan and did not specify the charges against them.
Adnan launched his first hunger strike, which lasted 25 days, in 2004 to protest being held in administrative detention, a controversial practice that allows Israeli occupation to detain Palestinians without charge for six-month periods. These detention periods can be renewed indefinitely and Palestinian detainees can spend years in prison without being charged.
Adnan’s 67-day hunger strike in 2012 inspired a wave of Palestinian prisoners held under administrative detention to join him.
In a press statement last week by Randa Musa, Adnan’s wife, she emphasized that her husband is suffering from serious deterioration in his health. He requires a wheelchair to move and is experiencing pain throughout his body. Musa said that her husband had received a legal visit on Monday and that he was under constant pressure to end his strike; she also said that he had not yet received any visits from the International Committee of the Red Cross despite being on hunger strike for over a month and a half.
Adnan’s February arrest comes as tensions rise in the occupied West Bank following an uptick in Israeli violence against Palestinians since the beginning of the year.
100 Palestinians, including 17 children and an elderly woman, have been killed by Israeli forces and colonial settlers since the start of 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
