, a prominent Palestinian prisoner who had been on a hunger strike in an
Israeli prison for 87 days to protest his detention, died early Tuesday, according to his lawyer and Palestinian and Israeli officials, amid one of the deadliest periods for
Palestinians and rising in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian leaders and armed groups said that Israel was responsible for the death of Mr. Adnan, who was a potent symbol of resistance against Israeli occupation for many Palestinians, and sparked expectations of retaliation. The last prisoner to die on a hunger strike before Mr. Adnan was in 1992. Mr. Adnan, 44, had been on a since his arrest on Feb. 5. In recent days, Physicians for
Human Rights Israel, a nongovernmental group of doctors that examined him, had warned that his death was “imminent” and called for him to be transferred to a hospital. But an appeals court ruled that there was no evidence that Mr. Adnan was in an urgent medical state. Israel had arrested and held Mr. Adnan on suspicion of membership in a terrorist organization, support for terrorism and incitement as a member of the Palestinian armed group Islamic Jihad. In a statement on Tuesday, Islamic Jihad said it mourned his death, identifying him as a longtime leader, and called for retaliation against Israel. Palestinian armed groups that have in the past threatened to strike Israel if a hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner died vowed in the wake of Mr. Adnan’s death that Israel “would pay the price for this crime.” The Israeli
MILITARY reported that three rockets were launched from the
Gaza Strip toward southern Israel on Tuesday morning, where they fell into open areas. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Palestinian prisoners announced a state of mourning throughout all Israeli prisons and said that it would continue until there was a response to the “heinous crime.” Israeli prison authorities said they were on high alert for a potential response from other Palestinian prisoners and kept cell doors shut in the morning, preventing prisoners from leaving their cells and going into the yards. Mr. Adnan, a baker, was a married father of nine. In an interview with The
New York Times last year, Mr. Adnan described hunger strikes as a crucial weapon in resisting Israeli occupation. It was Mr. Adnan who helped usher in the practice of individual hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners, conducting a that inspired others to use it as a means of protesting Israel’s incarceration of Palestinians, especially the practice of administrative detention, which Israel uses to indefinitely detain people without charges or trials, based on secret evidence. The Palestinian Foreign Ministry said it held Israel fully responsible for Mr. Adnan’s death, called for an international investigation and said it planned to refer the matter to the International Criminal Court. “The Israeli occupation and its prison administration carried out a deliberate assassination against the prisoner Khader Adnan by rejecting his request for his release, neglecting him medically and keeping him in his cell despite the seriousness of his health condition,” the Palestinian prime minister, Mohammad Shtayyeh, said in a statement. The Israeli prison authorities denied that they had neglected Mr. Adnan and said he had refused medical treatment. “He decided to go on hunger strike and he refused any medical examination and any medical treatment,” said Hana Herbst, a spokeswoman for the Israel Prison Service. “We couldn’t have done anything different other than forcing him to take medical treatment, which we can’t do.” Mr. Adnan had said he wanted to be hospitalized and gave three conditions for undergoing medical examinations, which included allowing his family to visit him, being accompanied by a doctor from the rights group and that his medical information would not be shared with the Israeli prison service, according to Physicians for Human Rights Israel. The Israeli military referred questions about Mr. Adnan’s requests to prison authorities and Israeli security services, which did not immediately respond. At Mr. Adnan’s last court hearing on Thursday, which he attended remotely from his bed, the military judge denied a third appeal for his pretrial release, which cited his deteriorating medical condition, according to court documents. In his rejection of the appeal, a military judge, Lt. Col. Menachem Lieberman, said that Mr. Adnan “fully understands his actions and where they will lead him. He is the master of his own body.” Mr. Lieberman added that he had not been presented with any medical opinion that Mr. Adnan’s life was in immediate danger, according to the court documents. Physicians for Human Rights Israel said it had been urging his transfer to a hospital based on urgent medical grounds for weeks. “According to medical ethics principles, Adnan’s requests are reasonable,” Anat Litvin, the director of the group’s prisoners and detainees department, said in the statement on Monday. “There is no reason to deny them other than a desire to punish him and end his strike. This is a clear power struggle between the security authorities and the hunger striker.” Mr. Adnan, who lived in the town of Arraba in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, had been by Israel 10 times, often under administrative detention. He had also been imprisoned at least twice by the Palestinian Authority, including in 2000, when he undertook his first hunger strike. Dr. Lina Qasem-Hassan, a family medicine specialist and the chairwoman of Physicians for Human Rights Israel, visited Mr. Adnan on April 23 and said he struggled to move and maintain a basic conversation. His limbs had atrophied and he was dangerously emaciated, weighing less than 125 pounds, according to her assessment, the group said in its statement. Dr. Qasem-Hassan had warned that his condition would only worsen. Mr. Adnan was being held at the Israel Prison Service medical center and was found unconscious in his cell on Tuesday, according to prison authorities. He was given cardiopulmonary resuscitation and then transferred to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. In the wake of Mr. Adnan’s death, Islamic Jihad released a statement saying, “The criminal enemy will once again realize that its crimes will not go unanswered and that the resistance will continue with all its strength, determination, and steadfastness.” A spokesman for the armed group Hamas, Abd al-Latif al-Qanou, called Mr. Adnan’s death “a premeditated crime” and called on Palestinians to launch “strikes against the occupation.” In January 2022, a 141-day hunger strike by , who was being held in administrative detention, came close to sparking a conflict between Israel and the Palestinian armed groups. Israel had accused Mr. Abu Hawash of involvement in plans to attack Israelis but had not charged him or put him on trial. Mr. Abu Hawash eventually ended his strike after Israel agreed to release him. Ms. Herbst of the Israel Prison Service said that Mr. Adnan had been taken to a hospital on numerous occasions, but each time he had refused medical treatment and was transferred back to the Israeli prison medical center. Since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank, including East
JERUSALEM, and Gaza, Israel has incarcerated thousands of Palestinians, many of them political prisoners held under administrative detention. Palestinian prisoners have long used hunger strikes, either collectively or individually, to protest prison conditions and get basic amenities like mattresses, or to protest open-ended detentions with no trial. Since the 1970s, at least seven Palestinians have died while on a hunger strike, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club. Hunger strikes have a long history as a tactic adopted by desperate prisoners around the world, in places like , Cuba, or . Over his many hunger strikes, Mr. Adnan had settled on an approach that he said in the interview with The Times was aimed at exerting maximum pressure on Israel and demonstrating his full commitment to seeing the strike to the end, including refusing to take supplements or sugar water. He said he considered that allowing medical exams indicated a prisoner’s fear for his life and reluctance in carrying out the hunger strike. “It is not an easy act, maybe the prisoner will survive and maybe the prisoner won’t survive,” he said. “We’re not entering the hunger strike in order to be martyred, but we are willing to be martyred if it happens.” Hiba Yazbek and Gabby Sobelman contributed reporting.