Al-Quds Day 2025 comes amid a particularly challenging moment for Palestine and for the Palestinian people, and for all forces of resistance in the region and globally. It also comes amid a moment of exceptional resistance, heroism and steadfastness, in which the people and resistance of Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, together with the globalized collective intifada, are holding the line, defending the land and advancing the revolutionary struggle against Zionism, imperialism and their reactionary agents and allies. On Al-Quds Day 2025, amid the threats and the bombs of US imperialism and the Zionist entity, we reaffirm the slogan that appeared clearly on the banners of the resistance during the Toufan al-Ahrar prisoner exchange: No migration except to al-Quds!
Marking the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan, Al-Quds Day was first commemorated in 1979, when, following the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Imam Khomeini announced Al-Quds Day as a day of global mobilization for Palestine, and “the day when the oppressed of the world protest against the arrogant.” The initial speech announcing the day begins by denouncing the Zionist regime’s “savage attacks against the Palestinian brothers and sisters, and which, in the south of Lebanon in particular, is continually bombing Palestinian homes in the hope of crushing the Palestinian struggle.” that seems as if it could have been written today, as the Zionist regime, with full support and involvement of the United States and its fellow imperialist powers, carries out its genocide in Gaza, bombards the south of Lebanon, attacks Yemen and invades Syria.
This quote illustrates the ongoing, continuous nature of the Zionist-imperialist assault on the Palestinian people, the Arab nation and all of the peoples of the region. Today, 46 years later, the Zionist entity is still continually bombing Palestinian homes and attacking the south of Lebanon, with the arms and funding of the United States and its imperialist cohorts, as it has been for over 77 years.
Al-Quds Day has now been cemented as a global day of action, in which millions of people take to the streets, in over 900 cities in Iran, the birthplace of Al-Quds Day, but also in Kashmir, in Pakistan, in Nigeria, in South Africa; one million people march in Yemen; and cities in every continent in the world, including in the heart of the imperial core. Al-Quds Day stands for the oppressed against the oppressor, the path of resistance and the road to liberation, everywhere it is marked.
This year, on Al-Quds Day, Al-Quds itself is under attack. The Zionist regime is continuing its mass theft of land, dispossession of Palestinian Jerusalemites, attacks on Muslim and Christian holy sites, arrests, torture and imprisonment of over 10,000 Palestinians, including many from Jerusalem, targeted for lengthy sentences and vicious repression, alongside its assault on the refugee camps, cities and villages of the West Bank, especially in Jenin and Tulkarem, and its genocidal aggression on Gaza. The urgency of the assault upon the Palestinian people – accompanied by the internal chaos inside the Zionist regime – makes it critical to stand for Palestine on this day; on Land Day on 30 March; and on every day, until the genocide is ended and Palestine is liberated.
The mass turnout for Al-Quds Day reveals the lies of the imperialists, Zionists and those reactionary media agencies that attempt to smear and distort the image of the camp of resistance. It exposes all imperialist propaganda and makes clear that the deep bond between Iran and Palestine is not only one at the level of official coordination, but one with a deep popular base that continues to resist and to chart its independent course of development and its Islamic Revolution in the face of all of the war threats of US imperialism. The millions of people in the streets in Yemen make clear that despite the terror bombings of the US imperialist military, the commitment to resistance and its popular cradle, amid its revolutionary leadership, is unshakeable – the true measure of the oppressed, organized, in revolutionary struggle, confronting the Zionist-imperialist genocide and its depraved war machine. Yemen, its people, armed forces and AnsarAllah movement, have stepped forward to implement the Genocide Convention and shut down the supply lines of genocide after over 10 years of brutal siege.
This echoes the mass participation in the funerals of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine in Beirut on 23 February, when a sea of over 1.5 million people took to the streets of Beirut to mourn the great martyrs, assassinated by the US-Zionist genocidal regime, but also to express their commitment and steadfast pledge to the resistance and to Palestine, exposing all those who attempt to undermine the strength and resilience of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Resistance and its popular cradle.
Within the imperial core – and at the hands of reactionary governments – there have been numerous attempts to suppress the organizing and the message of Al-Quds Day. Just today, security forces in Abuja, Nigeria, opened fire on Al-Quds Day marchers protesting for Palestine. In Germany, Al-Quds Day was banned by state security officials in 2021 – shortly followed soon thereafter by the bans on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day and the commemoration of Al-Nakba, police beatings of anti-genocide protesters, the imprisonment and deportation of Palestinians and supporters of Palestine, and, now, the ban on the phrase, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as the German state co-sponsors Zionist genocide in Palestine.
In Canada, Zionist organizations have attempted for years to ban the massive annual Al-Quds Day march in Toronto, which nevertheless remains one of the largest demonstrations for Palestine every year in the city. Much like the ongoing state repression throughout the imperial core, from the ICE attacks on student protesters and writers in the United States, to the designation of Samidoun as a “terrorist” or “banned” organization in Canada, the US and Germany, to the attacks on journalists’ homes, the use of the “Terrorism” act and the imprisonment of dozens of political prisoners for Palestine in Britain, to the long-running imprisonment of Georges Abdallah in France and the Holy Land 5 in the United States, to the police beatings, doxxings, firings, arrests and lawfare throughout the imperial core – the bans and attacks on Al-Quds Day illustrate the fear of its meaning and significance, as a day of Islamic and global unity for the liberation of al-Quds, for the liberation of Palestine, and for the liberation of all of the oppressed.
Al-Quds Day this year, as last year, comes as part of the Al-Aqsa Flood, a revolutionary initiative that has placed Palestine at the center of the world once again. At the same time, of course, it has exposed the vicious brutality of the Zionist project and the US-led imperialist powers that fund, arm and sustain it. The collaboration of reactionary Arab regimes and the Palestinian Authority have been laid bare in easing the road for the genocidaires rather than defending the Palestinian people against an inhumane genocidal assault.
The heroic October 7 operation changed the world; it made clear before all that it is indeed possible to envision a Palestine liberated from Zionism and an entire Arab and Iranian region liberated from imperialism, at the hands of the forces of resistance. And these forces of domination, death and destruction have unleashed their genocidal war machine in an attempt to erase that reality and that promise from the face of the earth, along with the entire Palestinian people, in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine. As US president Donald Trump stands with Netanyahu, Smotrich, Ben-Gvir – and the entire Zionist project – in demanding the expulsion and destruction of the Palestinian people in Gaza, Al-Quds Day is a moment to send a clear message: Palestinians will never give up their land, nor will they cede al-Quds to the Zionist colonizers, and to reaffirm the commitment to confront displacement expressed by the Resistance at the prisoner exchange: There is no future for Zionism; Palestinians will not only refuse to leave Gaza, but they will return to their homes and lands from which they were displaced in al-Nakba, throughout occupied Palestine, and will liberate al-Quds, together with the regional and international camp of resistance.
On this Al-Quds Day, our international movement for liberation for Palestine and for the people of the world must take this opportunity to resist state terror, confront genocide and imperialism, and affirm our unbreakable solidarity with the Resistance on the front lines confronting the fascist onslaught, labeled “terrorist” for upholding and defending the people of Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and, indeed, humanity itself. Al-Quds Day is a day of anti-imperialist, anti-colonialist, anti-Zionist and anti-capitalist struggle, when the oppressed people of the world stand together, in unity, against their enemies.
This is not a moment to retreat, but one to develop and deepen the global camp of resistance and its international popular cradle, for protest and direct action to materially and meaningfully hinder and shut down the Zionist-imperialist war machine. This is the moment to rally around all those targeted for repression, firing, deportation and imprisonment, to demand an end to the “terrorist” listing of resistance organizations on the front lines of the defense of humanity, and to escalate our actions for Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon, and all those targeted for warmongering, bombing and assassination for their defense of Palestine, commitment to liberation and rejection of imperialism.
On Al-Quds Day 2025, there will be no migration of Palestinians except to al-Quds, the eternal capital of Palestine.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
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