Palestinian prisoner Sheikh Khader Adnan, who has been on hunger strike for 86 days in Ramla prison in Israel, died on Tuesday.
44-year-old Adnan was found unconscious in his cell in the early morning on Tuesday, the Israeli prison service said.
Since the moment of his arrest on February 5, Adnan announced his open hunger strike, after the Israeli forces stormed his house in the town of Arraba, south of Jenin.
With the announcement of Adnan’s death, at least three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip towards Israeli areas, and sirens sounded in Kibbutz Saad near the Gaza border.
The Foreign Ministry also called for opening an international investigation into the circumstances and details of the ‘assassination’.
The announcement of the death of prisoner Khader Adnan comes two days after the Israeli military court in Ofer prison refused to release him.
The Palestinian Prisoners Club had warned earlier that Khader Adnan had reached a dangerous health stage, and the Islamic Jihad movement had warned of the repercussions of the Israeli occupation authorities’ intransigence in refusing to release him.
The occupation refused to allow the prisoner’s family to visit him during the days of his strike, despite the extremely dangerous stage he had reached, according to the Prisoner’s Club.
Adnan continued to refuse the medical examination and take medical supplies despite all the pressures from the prison administration.
Who was Sheikh Khader Adnan?
Sheikh Khader Adnan was from the town of Arraba, Jenin Governorate, in the northern occupied West Bank.
He owns a bakery in his hometown and has nine children.
He was previously arrested thirteen times in the occupation prisons, during which he spent about eight years in captivity on the background of his membership and activities in the ranks of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine.
Adnan has conducted a number of hunger strikes while being held in Israeli prisons. He was last released from prison in 2021 after a 25-day hunger strike.
With the death of the prisoner Khader Adnan, the number of martyrs of the prisoner movement has risen to 237, since 1967.
