By Sardar Khan Niazi
Almost every night between midnight and 5 am, the Israeli army breaks into Palestinian homes across the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Heavily armed and often masked, the soldiers arrive in groups of 10 to 100-plus and force their way into homes, sometimes blowing the door open.
Israeli night raids leave Palestinian families, particularly children, traumatized. They wake them up with their feet, hand, or rifle. These military operations have killed and injured Palestinians.
There have been multiple Israeli airstrikes on several sites for the Palestinian resistance in the southern part of the Gaza Strip, as well as in the southwestern part of Gaza City.
The attacks increased following the death of a prominent Palestinian Khader Adnan, who died in an Israeli jail during a hunger strike, near Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups say he was left without healthcare. Adnan had been on hunger strike in protest of his administrative detention.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) says that Adnan’s death highlights the suffering of administrative detainees who are held without charge or trial in flagrant violation of their right to a fair trial, including their right to receive adequate defense and to know their charges.
Israeli rights group B’Tselem has described the hunger strike of Khader Adnan as a form of non-violent protest against his arrest and the injustices of the occupation. The fact that a person whose life was in danger remained in prison despite repeated requests to transfer him to a hospital reflects the absolute disregard Israel held for his life, the organization said.
According to Hassan Abdu, a Palestinian analyst from Gaza, Israel sought an escalation by withholding healthcare from Khader Adnan, leading to his death, and threatening to assassinate political leaders. Everyone knows that resistance cannot escalate; the occupation is the side seeking an escalation.
Qadri Abu Bakr, head of the Commission for the Affairs of Prisoners and Ex-Detainees in Ramallah, says that through Adnan’s death, Israel wanted to send a message to Palestinian prisoners that their fate would be death if they started a hunger strike. Israel considers itself a state above the law. America and European countries ignore Israel’s crimes, and so Israel follows up on their crimes.
Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative (PNI), has called the death of Khader Adnan an ugly assassination whose purpose is to break the spirit of resistance that Palestinian prisoners have.
Imposing administrative detention as a mainstream measure whereby Palestinians are forcibly arrested without even knowing what they are been accused of is a complete mockery of international human rights law. The Israelis are sending the message that if any prisoner goes on hunger strike he/she will die. This is very dangerous, he added.
Every Palestinian today is at risk of losing his or her life. Every Palestinian runs the risk of being detained without any reason. That is the objective: Oppression, maltreatment, and breaking the spirit of Palestinian prisoners.
For administrative detainees, hunger strikes are often the last recourse. Several have staged hunger strikes lasting several months, often becoming dangerously ill.
The advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights Israel says that previous Israeli governments have at times conceded to some of their demands to avoid deaths in custody. The current government ignored warnings about hunger striker Khader Adnan’s deteriorating health.
The number of administrative detainees has grown in the past year as Israel has carried out almost nightly arrest raids in the West Bank. According to Palestinians and rights groups, the abuse of the system denies due process, with the secret nature of the evidence making it impossible for administrative detainees or their lawyers to mount a defense.
