A Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader has died in Israeli custody after an 87-day hunger strike, the first such fatality in more than three decades, and tensions around the Gaza Strip spiked as the faction swore revenge.
Khader Adnan, who was awaiting trial, was found unconscious in his cell on Tuesday and taken to hospital where he was declared dead after efforts to revive him, Israel’s Prisons 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.
Since 2011, Adnan had conducted at least three 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.
Disputing the Prisons Service account, Adnan’s lawyer Jamil Al-Khatib and a doctor with a human rights group who recently met him accused Israeli authorities of withholding medical care.
“We demanded he be moved into a civilian hospital where he could be properly followed up (on). Unfortunately, such a demand was met by intransigence and rejection,” Al-Khatib told Reuters.
Read the article by Emily Rose and Nidal Al-Mughrabi in The Canberra Times. and The New Daily.