Islamic Jihad to celebrate Khader Adnan’s release

The Islamic Jihad terrorist group is planning to conduct celebratory marches tonight in front of 300 mosques in Gaza in order to mark Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan’s ending of a 56-day hunger strike, after Israel agreed to release him, the Palestinian Ma’an News Agency reports.

Adnan, a 37-year-old senior member of Islamic Jihad in the West Bank, has been in prison for a year under administrative detention, which allows imprisonment without charge for renewable periods of six months indefinitely, and his case had been at the heart of concerns in the Palestinian territories.

A Palestinian demonstrator holds a placard in support of Khader Adnan outside the Red Cross building in East Jerusalem in 2012, during Adnan’s first hunger strike. (Sliman Khader/Flash90)

Adnan was arrested a year ago, shortly after the kidnapping and murder of three young Israelis, which led to a wave of arrests of hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank. He had previously carried out a hunger strike that lasted 66 days in 2012 to protest against his detention. He was released at the end of the strike, during which he had ingested vitamins and salt.

This time, he refused to swallow anything except water.