{"id":12555,"date":"2026-05-04T06:11:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:11:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/natharatmouchrika.net\/home\/?p=12555"},"modified":"2026-05-04T06:11:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T06:11:57","slug":"three-years-on-the-martyrdom-of-sheikh-khader-adnan-the-revolutionary-voice-of-freedom-lives-on","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/natharatmouchrika.net\/home\/?p=12555","title":{"rendered":"Three years on the martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan: The revolutionary voice of freedom lives on!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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2 May 2026 marks the third anniversary of the martyrdom of\u00a0Sheikh Khader Adnan<\/a>, the revolutionary leader, internationalist struggler, and dedicated leader of the Palestinian prisoners\u2019 movement. Sheikh Khader Adnan won his liberation from the occupation prisons four times through hunger strikes; he launched a series of strikes that played a major role in defining the Palestinian prisoners\u2019 movement of the 2010s and beyond, with an ongoing legacy of struggle behind bars that continues to inspire the movement today.<\/p>\n

His martyrdom behind bars, on 2 May 2023, after 86 days of hunger strike, was a deliberate assassination, meant to silence the voice of a relentless struggler for freedom. His body remains imprisoned by the occupation, among over 766 fellow Palestinians \u2014 97 who are martyrs of the prisoners\u2019 movement \u2014 whose bodies are held captive in an attempt to impose collective punishment on their families and hold them hostage to extract concessions from the Palestinian resistance.<\/p>\n

On the anniversary of Sheikh Khader Adnan\u2019s martyrdom, the infamous fascist Zionist minister over the prison system, who routinely boasts of his torture, abuse and state-sponsored murder of imprisoned Palestinians, Itamar Ben-Gvir, celebrated his birthday with a cake bearing an image of a noose, boasting about the\u00a0Prisoners\u2019 Execution Law<\/a>\u00a0adopted by the Zionist entity on 30 March 2026. This law, built on the scaffolding of British colonization of Palestine, is part and parcel of the Zionist genocide \u2014 backed and indeed directed by U.S., European, British and Canadian imperialism \u2014 against the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

The assassination of Khader Adnan, like nearly 100 Palestinian prisoners since 7 October 2023, and hundreds more over the history of 78 years of Zionist colonialism, shows once again that this is the institutionalization of a long-standing policy. This anniversary must inspire all to escalate organizing and direct action to confront the occupation\u2019s open conversion of the prisons into slaughterhouses for Palestinians, in full view of the world and with the full complicity of all of the imperialist powers who continue to fund, arm and supply the Zionist entity while criminalizing the legitimate resistance and repressing and silencing the movement for Palestinian liberation inside their own countries.<\/p>\n

Sheikh Khader Adnan\u2019s strikes mobilized people around the world to demand his freedom, that of all Palestinian prisoners, and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea, and he became an international symbol of the Palestinian cause, much as Bobby Sands is a global symbol of the Irish liberation struggle. His first well-known hunger strike against administrative detention, which began in December 2011 and continued through February 2012, was also a major factor in the founding and development of Samidoun, which was launched in November 2011, only one month before; Samidoun\u2019s development in many ways mirrored his struggle behind bars and while liberated throughout the past 15 years.<\/p>\n

Inside and outside prison, Sheikh Khader Adnan was a model of resistance, commitment and faith. He was a leader in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, a national and international hero and leader across factional and political lines, and a baker who fed his community; a beloved husband and the father of nine children, he was present at every demonstration and action for Palestine and the prisoners\u2019 cause. He would visit the homes of the families of his fellow hunger strikers when they were imprisoned and he was free, offering solidarity and support. He never hesitated to stand up against injustice, whether he was expressing support for hunger strikers in U.S. prisons or standing against the collaborationist Palestinian Authority\u2019s imprisonment and pursuit of resistance fighters and exposing the entire \u201cOslo process\u201d as nothing more than a scheme meant to strip the rights and destroy the resistance of the Palestinian people.<\/p>\n

On the third anniversary of the martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan, his name must echo not only in Palestine but around the world as an enduring symbol of self-sacrifice, resistance and liberation. Through the brave struggle of the prisoners behind bars confronting genocide, starvation, torture and abuse with their bodies, through the heroic resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and throughout the region, and through our international movement \u2014 when we escalate our actions to live up to the standard he set in the struggle for freedom.<\/p>\n

In his words, \u201cLet all those free and revolutionary join hands against the Occupation\u2019s oppression, and take to the streets \u2013 in front of the Occupation\u2019s prisons, in front of its embassies and all other institutions backing it around the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are\u00a0republishing our prior statement<\/a>, with detailed information about Sheikh Khader Adnan\u2019s life and struggle and his international legacy, below:<\/p>\n

On the martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan: His revolutionary spirit lives on in the prisoners\u2019 movement<\/strong><\/p>\n

Today, we commemorate the aniversary of the martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan, leader of the Palestinian prisoners\u2019 movement, on 2 May 2023, his 86th day of hunger strike inside the Zionist prisons, deliberately denied medical care in order to ensure his martyrdom.\u00a0The martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan should be understood clearly as part and parcel of the Zionist assassination policy, meant to silence and erase a symbol of the Palestinian people, the prisoners\u2019 movement and the resistance who, with his dignity, strength and humanity, represented victory over the jailer in his very being.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Khader Adnan, married to Randa Musa, with whom he was the father of nine children (Maali, Beesan, Abdel-Rahman, Hamza, Mohammed, Ali, Maryam, Omar, and Zainab), was a beloved leader in his community, Arraba, Jenin, and among his family, where he was a model of love and warmth. He was a baker, running a grocery and bakery nearby Qabatiya, Jenin, and a spokesperson for the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement. He was a tireless freedom fighter who won his liberation from occupation prisons on four separate occasions through his hunger strikes, who sparked a new renaissance in the prisoners\u2019 movement. He was ever-present in the solidarity tents supporting hunger strikers, in the funerals of every martyr, by the side of every liberated prisoner when they gained their liberation. Every prisoner and every prisoner\u2019s family could count on the support of Sheikh Khader Adnan. He attended, led and spoke at all of the demonstrations, whether large or small, in support of the prisoners\u2019 movement, demanding liberation, and confronting the so-called \u201csecurity coordination\u201d of the Palestinian Authority, a relentless voice of conscience and resistance.<\/p>\n

His martyrdom, indeed, his assassination behind bars, sparked an immediate response from the resistance in Gaza as well as a series of assassinations targeting the Islamic Jihad movement\u2019s leadership. In the Battle of the Revenge of the Free in May 2023, despite the painful assassinations of the martyred leaders, the resistance held its ground in Gaza, striking powerful blows against the occupier and renewing its leadership for the next stage of struggle, which we see today in the Al-Aqsa Flood and the resistance to the ongoing Zionist-imperialist genocide.<\/p>\n

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Today, Sheikh Khader Adnan\u2019s body remains imprisoned by the occupation, one of nearly 700 Palestinian martyrs\u2019 bodies, including 75 Palestinian prisoners\u2019, held hostage by the occupier.\u00a0His spirit lives on in the spirit of resistance that continues to drive the prisoners\u2019 movement forward under the most severe forms of torture and abuse; in every action of resistance that rises from the villages, refugee camps and cities of the West Bank; in every march, protest and demonstration that insists that Gaza will not be left alone; and, of course, on the streets, among the displaced, and in the tunnels of resistance in Gaza, fighting against the genocide. Sheikh Khader Adnan lives on in every action taken around the world, by Palestinians and Arabs in exile and diaspora, and by the international movement against imperialism and for Palestinian liberation, that exposes the occupation and its imperialist backers and imposes a material cost upon them.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Khader Adnan and the Palestinian Prisoners\u2019 Movement<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Khader Adnan was arrested 15 times throughout his life \u2014 12 times by the occupation and three times by the Palestinian Authority, as part of its \u201csecurity coordination\u201d collaboration with the Zionist regime, and he served eight years in the occupation\u2019s prisons. Born on 24 March 1978 in Arraba, near Jenin, in the West Bank of occupied Palestine, he attended Birzeit University after completing high school, where he studied mathematics and became deeply involved with the Palestinian liberation movement. As a student, he joined the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine in 1996 and became a spokesperson for the movement, rallying fellow students to confront the so-called \u201cOslo peace process\u201d and struggle for the liberation of Palestine.<\/p>\n

Mona Qa\u2019adan,\u00a0the liberated prisoner, recalled<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cKhader possessed a security, political, and cultural awareness from the very beginning of his involvement with the Islamic Jihad movement, which increased his effectiveness in all arenas, starting with Arraba, then Birzeit University, and extending to other cities.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was first detained by the occupation in 1999, spending four months in Zionist administrative detention, imprisonment with no charge or trial on the basis of a so-called \u201csecret file,\u201d which neither the detainee nor their lawyer can access. Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable, and as a result, Palestinians routinely spend years at a time imprisoned under these arbitrary orders. Currently, over 3,600 out of over 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Zionist jails are held under administrative detention orders, which are often used to target community leaders and activists, including in the student movement, the women\u2019s movement, land defense movements and other social movements.<\/p>\n

In February 2000, he was arrested for the first time by the Palestinian Authority, after an incident that has since become famous in the history of the student movement at Birzeit University. Lionel Jospin, then the French prime minister, visited Birzeit only days after he condemned Hezbollah and the Lebanese resistance to Zionist occupation of the south of Lebanon \u2014 months before they were to achieve the complete liberation of their land on 25 May \u2014 as \u201cterrorist.\u201d Khader Adnan was the first student to stand up and denounce Jospin, inspiring his fellow students to hurl shoes and rocks at Jospin, expelling him from the university.<\/p>\n