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“Deans of prisoners” is a term used by the Palestinian people for those who have been imprisoned by the Zionist occupation for more than 20 years continuously. Over the years, many Palestinian prisoners were liberated through prisoner exchange deals or other forms of political concession, such as those released in 1995 after the Oslo Accords; the prisoner exchange deal imposed by Hezbollah in 2004 with which 400 Palestinian prisoners were freed; the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange in 2011, where 1027 Palestinian prisoners were liberated in exchange for the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit captured by the resistance; or in 2013 when the occupation announced the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners coinciding with the return of the Palestinian Authority to negotiations and the continuation of its security coordination with the occupier under the terms of Oslo and its corollaries.
However, there are many prisoners who played leading roles in the Palestinian resistance and revolution, especially prisoners from the territories occupied in 1948, whom the occupation refuses to include in these deals because of “security concerns” or under the pretext that the prisoner holds the “Israeli” nationality, trying in vain to separate our Palestinian people from the occupied lands in 1948 from the rest of the Palestinian people.
With that, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network announces the start of an educational campaign about the 23 Palestinian prisoners who are languishing in enemy prisons since before the Oslo agreement. We will introduce three Palestinian prisoners every week and provide materials and posters that you can print and hang in your cities. Get involved and send your contributions to samidoun@samidoun.net
Mohammad Ahmad al-Tus (65 years old) – from al-Khalil
Mohammed Ahmad al-Tus is the longest-held Palestinian prisoner and one of the deans of the prisoners movement who is imprisoned since before the Oslo Accords. The occupation forces arrested him on 6/10/1985 in an ambush, where all his comrades were martyred, while Mohammad was seriously injured. He was charged with belonging to the Fateh movement and resisting the occupation within a military commando group, and was given multiple life sentences. He has now been imprisoned for 39 years. Mohammad is currently held in Ramon prison and suffers from severe health problems, most notably a fluid cyst in the kidneys, chronic stomach problems, and loss of half of the vision in his right eye due to deliberate medical negligence.
Ibrahim Nayef Hamdan Abu Mokh (63 years old) – from Baqa’a Al-Gharbiya in occupied Palestine 1948
Ibrahim Abu Mokh is imprisoned in the Negev desert prison. He was seized by occupation forces on 3/24/1986 on charges of capturing and killing an occupation soldier in the occupied city of Umm Khaled in early 1985, after receiving military training in PFLP bases in Syria, along with his comrades Rushdi Abu Mokh, Ibrahim Bayadseh and Walid Daqqa. He was sentenced to life in prison, then his sentence was set to 40 years, of which he has now spent 38 years. Abu Mokh suffers from leukemia which was worsened severely as a result of the policy of “slow death” — deliberate medical neglect — and the prison administration’s disregard for his life.
Walid Daqqa (61 years old) – from Baqa’a Al-Gharbiya in occupied Palestine 1948
Walid Daqqa is known as one of the most prominent thinkers and intellectuals of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. He was seized by occupation forces on 3/25/1986 on charges of forming a commando cell and kidnapping and killing a Zionist soldier. He was initially sentenced to death, and later the sentence was commuted to 37 years in prison. The occupation added two years to his sentence in 2018, bringing him to 39 years, for smuggling mobile phones into prison.
Born in 1961 in Baqa’ al-Gharbiyya in occupied Palestine ’48, he has been imprisoned since 25 March 1986 along with Ibrahim Abu Mokh, Rushdi Abu Mokh and Ibrahim Bayadseh, for forming a military cell of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine that participated in a Palestinian resistance operation in 1985 in which an occupation soldier was captured and killed.
Once behind bars, he obtained a master’s degree in political science and wrote several books in the realm of political theory as well as fiction, including children’s fiction. On multiple occasions, he has faced harsh repression, including solitary confinement, especially targeted toward his expressive work. For example, Daqqa was thrown into solitary confinement when he published a new children’s book, “The Secret of Oil”; a launch event for the book in the town of Majd al-Kurum was shut down by far-right Israeli minister Aryeh Deri. In the preface to the book, Daqqa wrote, “I write until I am freed from prison, with the hope of freeing the prison from me.” This followed the defunding of a Haifa Palestinian theater that exhibited a play based on his work “Parallel Time.”
In the book, Daqqa tells an imaginative story about a child born through smuggled sperm, where Palestinian prisoners smuggle sperm to their wives to allow them to have children from behind bars. In 1999, Daqqa married Sana’ Salameh, even as he was behind bars, and in 2020, Sana’ gave birth to their daughter, Milad, conceived from Daqqa’s smuggled sperm.
Daqqa is in Ashkelon prison, and in recent years he has been subjected to severe medical neglect, with complete disregard for his life, and not allowing specialized doctors to examine him. In December 2022, it was revealed that he has myelofibrosis, a rare form of cancer, after initially being diagnosed with leukemia. He is continuing to fight to receive the treatment that he needs.
Mohammed Ahmed Al-Tus poster:
Ibrahim Abu Mokh poster:
Walid Daqqa poster:
