Team News Riveting
Gaza, May 2
Khader Adnan, who was a leader of the Palestinian militant Islamic Jihad group, died in Israeli custody on Tuesday after an 87-day hunger strike.
Adnan was a known Islamic Jihad figure in the West Bank, which was captured by Israel in a 1967 war. Like Islamist Hamas, Islamic Jihad opposes peace deals between the Palestinians and Israel and advocates the destruction of Israel.
The prisoner, Khader Adnan, was a senior figure in Islamic Jihad who had been charged with terrorism offences. The 45-year-old had been on hunger strike four times before in protest, helping to make his name well known to Palestinians.
Adnan began a fifth hunger strike immediately after being detained by Israeli forces at his home in Arraba, near the city of Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank, on 5 February. According to authorities, he refused medical assistance as his condition deteriorated. On Tuesday, he was found dead in his cell, sources said.
While Palestinian prisoners in Israel jails often take a stand by refusing food, this is believed to be the first incidence of death in three decades.
Israel had arrested Adnan for the first time in March 1999 and kept him in “administrative detention” for four months. In November, the Palestinian Authority arrested Adnan for leading a student demonstration against then-French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin at Bir Zeit University. The arrest led to his first hunger strike, which lasted 10 days.
Tensions had flared with the death of Khader Adnan, who had been in and out of detention by Israel over the past two decades. Militants in Gaza have fired more than 20 rockets into Israel after the death of a Palestinian prisoner who had been on hunger strike in an Israeli jail.
Three foreign workers were injured in the attack, which came after Israeli tanks shelled Gaza in response to an earlier salvo of rockets.
