Khader Adnan

To Khader and family,

I, like many others, have been following up on your case, reading every update and hoping it's a good one; but all I kept hearing was the number of days on hunger strike increasing. It kept going up and up to a point where former hunger strikers who couldn't last longer were used as milestones. Everyday you hungerstrike you seemed stronger to us. More stubborn for justice. More human. A Hero. You defined what resistance to occupation is and what the whole Palestinian cause is about. You taught us how to fight for our rights even if it means a slow painful death. You taught us love for freedom, the land, palestinian people and most importantly justice. You were a role model for many when you kept your promise to not stop the hunger strike unless your demands are met. Khader, you may not be able to read this but I really hope you know that your name will resound in history forever. We will promise you that we'll teach our children and our grandchildren who Khader Adnan was and what he sacrificed for the Palestinian cause to be alive. The amount of love, support and respect we all have for you is endless.

To Khader's family, I feel ashamed as a human being and as a Palestinian to not have been of much help. I hope you understand that your husband, son, father, brother is a wonderful teacher and a hero. He touched more lives than he ever thought he'd be able to. We all heard his message of defiance and call for a life of dignity, free of occupation. Watching his mother, father and wife appeal to the world for help was heart-breaking to say the least and even his beautiful daughters' faces will burn in our memory. If he is not destined to live, please know that not only you'd lose him but all of us who got to know him in those 60 days. Humanity itself will lose an important advocate. Palestine will lose another son. Maybe we are asking for too much but please find it in your heart to accept our apologies for we have failed you and failed the Palestinian cause.

No words will truely describe what I feel right now but I really hope you read this in peace with hope of a better future towards a free Palestine. A Palestine that is proud to have Khader Adnan as a true noble defender of the cause.

With love,
Hala A.