Khader Adnan's two-month hunger strike has made him a hero among Palestinians outraged by Israel's policy of arbitrary detention.
His hunger strike has focused growing attention on the malicious practice of Israeli administrative detention, in which Palestinians can be held without trial and on the basis of secret intelligence dossiers which are not shown to the defendant or his lawyers. He was from Jenin and was arrested on 17 December.
A Red Cross delegation had gone to his home to warn her wife that her husband's heart could fail "at any minute".
Khader Adnan says, "I reject administrative detention and I will continue the hunger strike until I am released". Mrs Adnan said that he is determined to continue his fast.
His resolve has been hardened, she said, not only by his summary arrest and its circumstances but by his treatment during interrogation. Her husband had been held for seven-hour periods – on a short chair with his hands tied behind its back, causing him intense discomfort, and that parts of his beard had been torn out by Israeli interrogators. He had also been subject to psychological pressure, including his Israeli interrogators saying cruel things against his wife.
Mrs Adnan said that her husband had repeatedly declared that "my honour is more precious than food".
He had done quite enough to transmit his message to the world protesting about the use of administrative detention without trial or charge.
According to his sister, Mr Adnan was a model father who "loves life", she added: "I am not sure that he wants just to deliver a message. He also wants to end the administrative detention. We have so much faith in Allah to get him out of this situation. We believe that God will not let him down."
Khader Adnan told one of his lawyers: "I do not want to go to oblivion or death. But I am a man who defends his freedom. If I die it will be my fate."
(adapted from The Independent UK)
