A hunger strike by Palestinian baker Khader Adnan had become a focal point of the Palestinian struggle as Peace News went to press. Khader Adnan was taken for interrogation by Israeli soldiers from his West Bank home on 17 December. The next day he began a hunger strike in protest against ill-treatment during interrogation and his prison conditions. He has been in prison hospital since 30 December because of his deteriorating health due to the protest. On 10 January, he was given four months administrative detention (without charge or trial).
By 14 February, he’d been on hunger strike for 60 days, the longest any Palestinian prisoner has held out. Hundreds of other Palestinian prisoners are said to have joined his hunger strike in solidarity after his life was reported in danger. The United Nations special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territories, Richard Falk, told Ahram Online: ‘If Adnan is to die, a third intifada [uprising] is to rise... he will be considered a martyr.’
Adnan’s wife, Randa Jihad Adnan, said her husband had declared: ‘My honour is more precious than food’.
Contact brigadier general Dani Afroni, military judge advocate general: arbel@mail.idf.il