A well-known Palestinian prisoner, Jader Adnan, died early this morning in an Israeli jail after his health deteriorated after an 86-day hunger strike to protest his detention by Israel, which was followed by the launch of three rockets from Gaza to Israeli territory. The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (YIP), a group to which Adnan belonged, threatened Israel with reprisals.
Aged 44, Adnan had been accused of terrorism and incitement to violence as a member of the YIP, an organization considered terrorist by Israel, the US and the EU. He died at dawn in the Nitzan detention center, confirmed the Israeli Prison Service, which indicated that the prisoner had refused to receive medical attention in that center.
Adnan went on hunger strike on February 5, the same day he was arrested. The Ministry of Foreign Detainees of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) held Israel “totally responsible” for the death of Adnan and promised that it will bring this “crime” before the International Criminal Court given the refusal of the authorities to release him despite the risk of death .
The organization Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) warned Monday, when the strike reached 86 days, that Adnan faced “imminent death” and should be “urgently transferred to a hospital for observation medical attention” as he was “dangerously emaciated” and had “difficulty moving or holding basic conversation.
The Palestinian expressed his desire to be hospitalized and presented three conditions to undergo medical examinations in the prison: allow his family to visit him, be closely accompanied by a PHRI doctor and that his medical information not be shared with Israeli authorities, something that it did not happen; while an Israeli district court recently rejected two requests to require his transfer to a hospital.
Adnan was detained at his residence in the Palestinian town of Arrabeh, in the Jenin area, one of the most troubled points in the West Bank occupied in the last year and where Islamic Jihad has a notable presence. Arrested twelve times in the past by Israel, Adnan spent more than eight years in jail and has become a symbol of the struggle for the rest of the Palestinian prisoners through the five hunger strikes he held.
Palestinian Islamic Jihad warned that Israel “will pay the price” for Adnan’s death. “We hold the enemy (Israel) responsible for the crime of the murder of the martyr Jader Adnan, and he will pay the price for this crime and for all his crimes against our prisoners and our people,” warned Mohamed al-Hindi, a member of the JIP political committee in the Gaza Strip.
This warning coincides with the launch this Tuesday of three rockets from Gaza towards Israel after confirming the death of Adnan. The shells, which hit open areas and caused no damage or injuries, have not yet been claimed by any Palestinian faction.
For its part, the Islamist movement Hamas, which governs de facto in Gaza, denounced in a statement that Adnan’s death was “a premeditated and cold-blooded murder” by Israel, by refusing to release him after the deterioration of his health due to the hunger strike.
Currently, almost 5,000 Palestinians are detained in Israeli jails, of whom more than 1,000 are in administrative detention, meaning without charge or trial. More than a million Palestinians have been imprisoned since the beginning of the Israeli occupation in 1967, including more than 15,000 women, according to information from the Ministry for Detainees, which ensures that “every Palestinian family witnessed the arrest of at least one of their members”.
