Ali al-Sarafiti: The martyrdom of a struggling liberated prisoner

On Thursday, 24 April 2025, the liberated prisoner and lifelong struggler, Ali Nidal al-Sarafiti, 44, was martyred, alongside his wife, Nermeen, and their three children, Nidal, Hosni and Sarah, in a Zionist attack on their home in Sheikh Radwan, north of Gaza City — part of the ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza. Al-Sarafiti is the latest in a large number of liberated prisoners in Gaza who have been targeted for assassination and massacre by the Zionist regime.

Born in 1981 in Gaza, he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1997 at the age of 16. An active participant in the Al-Aqsa Intifada that erupted in 2000 amid widespread rejection of the devastation caused by the Oslo Accords and the so-called “peace process,” he was arrested by the occupation on 17 July 2002 and accused of attempting a martyrdom operation. After spending 13 years in Zionist prisons, he was released in 2015 and continued to advocate and speak for the Palestinian prisoners and their liberation.

Fellow liberated prisoner Wael Jaghoub, freed as part of the Toufan al-Ahrar prisoner exchange achieved by the Palestinian resistance and a long-time leader of the prisoners’ movement, said:

Another day of freedom steeped in blood. The very breezes of freedom lower their banner in homage to the martyrs of this tragic morning: Ali, Nermeen, and their children. Forgive me, beautiful Sarah; time did not grant me the chance to bring the gift I had promised you. We stand at the peak of our helplessness.

O brother and friend, how can I eulogize you? What words could possibly cool the blaze of this treacherous death, ravenous for the spilled Palestinian blood? Words themselves have grown dumb, unable to absorb our wound or voice our sorrow!

How many paths of pain we tread alone! How shamelessly our blood is displayed on the tables of every scoundrel conspiring against our steadfastness.

Twenty years of true friendship, in an age where everything else in it is false.

Ali Nidal Al-Sarafiti and his family… the martyrs of this morning: just another headline, passing naturally from death to death in this harsh era of genocide.

Love to you, always, all the love this earth can hold. Glory to the martyrs.

Ali al-Sarafiti was the brother of two other martyrs: Hosni, martyred in an earlier Zionist attack on Gaza, and Mohammed, martyred in 1994 in a confrontation with Zionist occupation forces on the eastern side of the Gaza Strip. His father, Nidal al-Sarafiti, was also a former prisoner held captive by the colonial regime.

He was involved in the prisoners’ movement during his time inside occupation prisons. In 2013, he was held in isolation for over 1.5 months after attacking an occupation prison guard in Nafha prison. For 9 years of his imprisonment, his family was prohibited from visiting him.

Upon his release on 6 July 2015, he was welcomed by his people, family and community in a joyous celebration. Speaking at his reception, he affirmed: “The prisoners will remain true to the same covenant and path of struggle… We stand firmly with our brothers, the men of the Resistance… The Resistance is the spearhead of every Palestinian fighter… Therefore, we call upon all the masses of our Palestinian people to rally around the Resistance, not around futile negotiations.”

He continued his activity as part of the prisoners’ movement; in 2018, he highlighted the activities of the Prisoners’ Committee of the PFLP in Gaza for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, linked with the Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege and calling for campaigns to end administrative detention (imprisonment without charge or trial) and to liberate the sick prisoners denied proper medical care. In 2016, he highlighted the case of Bilal Kayed, ordered to administrative detention at the end of his sentence, amid his 71-day hunger strike, calling for “action by the resistance to force the enemy to stop its brutal attack and concede to the legitimate demands of the hunger strikers.” In 2021, he became a spokesperson for the Handala Center for Prisoners and spoke frequently in 2021 and 2022 about the ongoing movements and hunger strikes inside the prisons confronting attacks by the colonial Zionist regime aiming to roll back rights achieved by past decades of struggle by the prisoners’ movement.

In 2023, he once again spoke about the struggles of the prisoners’ movement inside the occupation prisons:

Upon his martyrdom, the Youth of Revenge and Liberation of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed wing of the Fateh movement, issued a statement, saluting al-Sarafiti for his continuous struggle, stating that “Our heroic martyr never left the battlefields with the Zionist enemy throughout Palestine. He was responsible for recruiting and financing several resistance cells in the occupied West Bank, and for directing several qualitative operations that resulted in numerous deaths and injuries among enemy soldiers.

Since the glorious seventh of October, our martyr has been in charge of a group of our fighters in the Gaza Strip, launching rockets at enemy settlements and targeting the Zionist enemy forces advancing from the ground.”

Ali al-Sarafiti is among a number of liberated prisoners who have been targeted for assassination and massacre by the Zionist regime throughout occupied Palestine. In Gaza following 7 October 2023, amid the ongoing genocide alone, the martyred liberated prisoners include (non-comprehensive list):

• Nashat Ahmad, martyred in the bombing of his family home on 7 April
• Jaber Ammar (Abu Ali), who spent 14 years in Zionist prisons and released in the 1983 prisoner exchange, on 25 March
• Jibril Jibril, from Qalqilya, released in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange and deported to Gaza; his body was found on 18 February

  

• Ali al-Maghribi, a Palestinian refugee from Dheisheh camp, freed in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange and deported to Gaza, on 15 January
  
• Khaled al-Najjar, liberated in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange, from Silwad, east of Ramallah, and a member of the Hamas leadership in the West Bank, martyred on 27 May 2024
  
• Rami Abu Mustafa, together with many of his family members, in the bombing of tents sheltering displaced people in Hamad City north of Khan Younis, on 2 January. He spent 20 years in occupation prisons before being released in 2022.

  

• Raed Khaled Ghabayen, martyred together with his wife and the severe injury of their infant daughter, when their tent in Az-Zawaydeh, central Gaza, was bombed by the occupation on 8 December 2024
• Murad Rajoub, from al-Khalil, liberated in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange while serving a 38-year sentence and deported to Gaza; martyred in a Zionist operation in Gaza City on 22 November 2024. Occupation forces attacked his family and prohibited them from opening a mourning house in al-Khalil.
  
• Abdul-Aziz Salha, from Deir Jarir, east of Ramallah, deported to Gaza and liberated in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange, assassinated in Deir al-Balah on 3 October 2024. He was part of a resistance operation during the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, where 2 invading occupation soldiers were killed at a Ramallah police station, and he held up bloody hands outside the window.

  

  The story of the 2000 incident is important to recall in detail; 2 Zionist soldiers invaded Ramallah amid the funeral of Khalil Zahran, the 17-year-old Palestinian child killed by occupation soldiers the previous day, and only days following the martyrdom of Issam Joudeh, who had been kidnapped, set on fire and shot by occupation settlers. While they tried to take refuge in a Palestinian Authority police station, the overwhelming popular anger led several resisters to enter the police station, overwhelm the police, and kill the two occupation soldiers. (17 PA police were reportedly injured as they attempted to protect the occupation soldiers from the overwhelming popular anger of the masses.)

  Since this action, the Zionist regime has repeatedly attempted to demonize the resistant population, referring to it as a “lynching” (when, in fact, occupied and colonized people were targeting the invading military occupation forces, unquestionably their right under international law, leaving this description as a ludicrous attempt to invert reality, when Issam Joudeh was the victim of the only actual lynching in this series of events.) Absurdly, Zionists continue to attack demonstrators around the world for coloring their hands red and holding them up at politicians to indicate the politicians’ complicity in the sea of blood shed by the Zionist regime in the genocide in Gaza, alleging that this is an obscure reference to Abdul-Aziz Salha and the popular, resistant rage of the Palestinian people in 2000. All of this is an indication of why he was targeted for assassination 24 years later.

• Abu Ali Abu al-Jedian, released prisoner martyred on 15 September in an occupation attack on Beit Lahia;
• Ahmed Ghoneim, martyred with three of his family members on 10 May 2024 in a Zionist attack on their home in northern Gaza;

  

• Nidal Akram Abu Shukheidam, from al-Khalil, liberated in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange and deported to Gaza, martyred on 19 April 2024
  
• Akram Salameh, martyred by assassination on 6 April 2024, a leader in the Hamas movement and Gaza’s internal security, sentenced in 1996 to 30 years in prison and liberated in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange. The brother of Hassan Salameh, serving one of the longest sentences in Zionist prison, he was held in the infamous Ramleh prison clinic where he helped and assisted the ill prisoners with their daily needs.

  

• Yousef Dheeb Abu Uday, from Kufr Ni’ma near Ramallah, liberated in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange and deported to Gaza, martyred on 14 February 2024 in the bombing of Rafah;

  

• Hazem Hassanein, martyred together with his wife and two children in the occupation’s genocidal bombing of Gaza on 12 January 2024, in a case strikingly similar to Ali al-Sarafiti. He spent 16 years in occupation prisons and served as the spokesperson for Asra Media, the Prisoners’ Information Office.

  

• Mohammed al-Udaini, liberated prisoner released in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange and martyred on 11 January 2024.

  

• Abdel-Fattah Maali, from Salfit, liberated in the Wafa’ al-Ahrar exchange and deported to Gaza, and one of the earliest members of the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, assassinated by the occupation, martyred on 30 December 2023.
  
• Ahmed al-Fajem, from Bani Suhaila, liberated in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange and martyred in Khan Younis on 24 December 2023
• Mohammed Ibrahim Hamada, from Sur Baher in Jerusalem, freed in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange and deported to Gaza, the spokesperson for Jerusalem of the Hamas movement, whose martyrdom was announced in November 2023

  

• Fursan Khalifa, from the Nour Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem, imprisoned in 2003 and liberated and deported to Gaza in the 2011 Wafa’ al-Ahrar exchange, a leading struggler in Hamas and the al-Qassam Brigades, martyred on 25 November 2023. His brother Fares Khalifa — also a liberated prisoner who spent 14 years in occupation prisons —  was martyred on 15 January 2024 when he was shot dead in cold blood at the Anab checkpoint near Tulkarem; occupation forces blocked ambulances from reaching him until he had already died.

  

• Ahmad Abu Jazar, martyred along with 10 members of his family on 13 October 2023 after their home in Rafah was bombed by the occupation. He was released less than one year earlier after 19 years in occupation prisons.
• Abdul-Rahman Shehab, martyred on 12 October 2023 along with his wife, children and mother after their home in Jabaliya was bombed by occupation forces. The director of the Atlas Center for Studies, he spent 23 years in occupation prisons and published numerous books and studies about the Palestinian cause. During his time in occupation prisons, he was the leader of the Islamic Jihad prisoners.

  

• Abdullah Abu Seif, from al-Khalil, liberated in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange and deported to Gaza, martyred on 9 October 2023 when his home was bombed.

  

The assassination of Ali al-Sarafiti is the latest example of this ongoing policy of assassination and targeting of the liberated prisoners, amid the targeting of the entire Palestinian population for massacre and genocide. The list above is severely incomplete and does not even attempt to address the dozens of Palestinian liberated prisoners martyred in just the past 18 months in the West Bank and Jerusalem.

Like Ali al-Sarafiti, the liberated prisoners represent the continuity of struggle, as generation after generation fights for total liberation. Whether inside or outside prison, he continued to represent the prisoners’ movement and struggle for the liberation of Palestine. As the prisoners inside occupation prisons are being targeted for “slow killing” — assassinations carried out through torture and the denial of medical care — the liberated prisoners are being targeted for assassination in an effort to expedite the genocide and deprive the Palestinian people of their leaders and defenders.

Every imperialist power that continues to arm, fund and support the Zionist regime — the United States, France, Germany, Britain, Canada, etc. — is responsible for these ongoing crimes in full. We urge all supporters of Palestine to act, confront those responsible, and escalate all actions to bring the genocide to an end, impose accountability on those responsible, free all Palestinian prisoners — and, fundamentally, defeat and dismantle zionism and the zionist regime, for a free Palestine from the river to the sea.