Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan died on Tuesday in Israeli custody after a nearly three-month long hunger strike at a time of already soaring tensions between Israel and Palestinians.
Adnan, 45, who was awaiting trial, was found unconscious in his cell and taken to a hospital, where he was declared dead after efforts to revive him failed, Israel’s prison service said. He had refused any medical assessments or treatment, it added.
Hundreds of people took to the streets in Gaza to rally in support of Adnan and mourn his death, and the Israeli military said three rockets were fired into Israel from the strip.
Adnan had conducted at least five hunger strikes in protest at detentions without charges by Israel. The tactic has been used by other Palestinian prisoners, sometimes en masse, but none had died since 1992.
Here MailOnline takes a look at who Khader Adnan was and why he was arrested and on hunger strike.
Islamic Jihad leader Khader Adnan died on Tuesday in Israeli custody after a nearly three-month long hunger strike at a time of already soaring tensions between Israel and Palestinians
Who was Khader Adnan?
Born in the town of Arraba, near Jenin in the north of the occupied West Bank in 1978, Adnan became involved with the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad while studying mathematics at Birzeit University in the late 1990s.
He spent the following two and a half decades in and out of Israeli custody, periods of incarceration marked by a string of high-profile hunger strikes – at least five, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said.
Andan is credited with turning hunger strikes into a tool of protests by Palestinian detainees and a useful bargaining chip against Israeli authorities.
Adnan later became one of the political leaders of Islamic Jihad. The faction has a limited West Bank presence but is the second most powerful armed group in Hamas-ruled Gaza, where Israeli forces fought a brief war against it last August.
Andan (pictured with his daughter in 2015) is credited with turning hunger strikes into a tool of protests by Palestinian detainees and a useful bargaining chip against Israeli authorities
The group is considered a terrorist organisation by the European Union and the United States.
Alongside his time in and out of custody, Adnan ran a bakery in Arraba, and had also worked as a banker.
Today, his face can be seen stencilled across walls in Palestinian cities and refugee camps across the West Bank and Gaza.
Why was Khader Adnan arrested and on hunger strike?
Adnan, who leaves behind nine children, had refused food since his February 5 arrest by Israel on terror and incitement charges.
He was arrested and indicted in an Israeli military court on charges that included links to an outlawed group and incitement to violence, the Prisons Service said.
An Israeli official described Adnan as an ‘operative’ of Islamic Jihad who ‘took part in dozens of organisational activities… and delivered inciteful speeches that support a hostile organisation’.
Palestinian prisoners are seen as national heroes and any perceived threat to them while in Israeli detention can touch off tensions or violence.
Israel sees Adnan and other Palestinian prisoners as security threats accused of involvement in deadly attacks or plots.
Khader Adnan died in Israeli custody on Tuesday after a nearly three-month-long hunger strike
Has Khader Adnan been arrested and on hunger strike before?
Adnan was no stranger to Israel’s prisons. His death on Tuesday came during his 13th stint in Israeli custody, with nearly eight years of his life spent behind bars.
Over the past decade, Adnan became a household name in the Palestinian territories, as a symbol of steadfastness against Israel’s open-ended occupation, now in its 56th year.
He staged several lengthy hunger strikes over the years, including a 66-day protest in 2012, and two other strikes in 2015 and 2018 that lasted 56 and 58 days respectively.
In 2012, a 66-day hunger strike turned Adnan into a national hero, and revitalised hunger striking as a form of protest among Palestinians incarcerated in Israeli jails.
Palestinian protesters hold pictures of Palestinian Islamic Jihad member Khader Adnan following his death in an Israeli jail, in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday
At the time it was the longest hunger strike ever staged by a Palestinian prisoner.
The 2012 protest shone a light on administrative detention – a controversial Israeli measure under which people are interned without charge for renewable periods of up to six months.
In 2015, he again secured his release from Israeli custody with a 56-day hunger strike.
Adnan also found himself in the crosshairs of President Mahmud Abbas’ Palestinian Authority.
In 1999, he was arrested by the Palestinian security forces for leading student protests against the visiting French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin. He was arrested by Palestinian security forces on at least two other occasions.
