Occupation forces arrest Palestinian lawyer Banan Abu al-Haija as her family fights imprisonment and injustice

On Wednesday, 7 May, Zionist occupation forces arrested Palestinian lawyer Banan Abu al-Haija as she passed through the illegitimate Jabara checkpoint south of occupied Tulkarem, in the West Bank of occupied Palestine. Banan was traveling, at the time, to visit her mother, Asmaa Abu al-Haija, who is receiving cancer treatment and has suffered from recurrent brain tumors, and is currently hospitalized in the Istishari Hospital in Ramallah.

Banan Abu al-Haija is the daughter of Jamal Abu Al-Haija, the Palestinian resistance leader and political prisoner serving 9 life sentences in occupation prisons and currently held in isolation alongside fellow leaders of the prisoners’ movement. She is the sister of Abdel-Salam and Asem Abu al-Haija, both of whom are currently held in administrative detention, arbitrary imprisonment without charge or trial; her third brother, Imad, a freed prisoner, has been imprisoned by the collaborationist “Palestinian Authority” for months on end, under “security coordination” with the Zionist regime. Their fourth brother, Hamza, is a martyr who was assassinated in 2014 by the occupation regime.

Banan herself was detained by the occupation in the past, and her mother Asmaa served nine months in administrative detention without charge or trial. Her husband is Abdullah Rusrus, who is also a liberated prisoner who spent six years in occupation prisons and was also detained by the PA as a political detainee under the “security coordination” regime.

Banan’s father, Jamal Abu al-Haija, is one of the prominent imprisoned leaders of the the Hamas movement. A hero of the Jenin refugee camp resistance in 2002, he is serving 9 life sentences plus 20 years in occupation prisons for his role in the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Prior to his arrest in 2002, he had been arrested four more times since he returned to Palestine in 1990. He was born in Jenin refugee camp in 1959 to a family forcibly displaced from Ein Hod, near occupied Haifa, in the Nakba.

During his childhood, he was influenced by his father, Sheikh Abdel-Salam Abu al-Haija, the imam of the mosque in the camp. Their home was known, then and decades later, to shelter resistance fighters from Jenin and all areas of the West Bank of occupied Palestine. He graduated from Jenin’s high school before attending university in Amman. After his graduation, he taught in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait until returning to Jenin in 1990, amid the great popular Intifada. He joined the Hamas movement, founded in 1987, and became its spokesperson and coordinator with other national and Islamic resistance forces during that period.

Throughout the 1990s, he became a leader in the Hamas movement in the northern West Bank and a member of the Jenin refugee camp support committee, a body established to defend the rights of its residents. During this time, he was arrested first in 1992, then held for five months in 1993, for another four months in 1995, and for over a year between April 1998 and July 1999. He was also imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority in 1996 for six months under its “security coordination” with the occupation for protecting members of the resistance in his home.

Amid the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, he was heavily involved in leading and organizing the resistance, including in the 2002 battle to defend Jenin refugee camp against the invading occupation forces. The occupation openly declared their intent to assassinate him; while they failed to do so, he was hit with an explosive bullet in his left hand, which caused shrapnel to spread throughout his body. His left arm was amputated due to his injuries.

Upon his arrest on 26 August 2002, he was held under “military interrogation” and tortured for months. The occupation directly targeted the family’s home with a missile and later destroyed their home in Jenin camp, which they rebuilt. During his imprisonment since 2002, he has been repeatedly held in isolation and solitary confinement. Classified by the occupation as a “dangerous prisoner,” he was held in isolation for 10 years until he was returned to the general population by the 2012 Karameh hunger strike, alongside other isolated leaders. Today, like fellow leaders of the prisoners’ movement, he has been held in isolation repeatedly following Al-Aqsa Flood and the escalated Zionist-imperialist genocide in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

Both of her brothers, Asem and Abdel-Salam Abu al-Haija, are currently held in administrative detention and have spent years in occupation prisons, and both have also been repeatedly pursued and detained by the collaborationist Palestinian Authority under its “security coordination” with the occupation. Asem Abu al-Haija was last released by the occupation on 24 January 2023, where he received a warm reception from the resistance fighters and the people of the camp. However, he was re-arrested only six months later, in July 2023, and has now been held under administrative detention once again, without charge or trial, for nearly two more years. He has spent over eight years in occupation prisons, mostly under repeatedly renewed administrative detention orders.

Abdel-Salam Abu al-Haija has been held in administrative detention since August 2022; his detention has been repeatedly renewed. During this time, he has gone on hunger strikes to demand to be reunited with his brothers and father. He has spent around 15 years in occupation prisons over multiple arrests and was also detained by the Palestinian Authority for multiple months.

Imad Abu al-Haija was held in administrative detention, imprisoned by the occupation for multiple years alongside his brothers and father, until being released in April 2023. His detention came after a previous release after two and a half years in occupation prisons, and he has spent over seven years in occupation prisons.  Like his brothers, he also went on a hunger strike to be reunited with his family members, a demand that was repeatedly denied inside the occupation prisons. He has now been imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority under its “security coordination” with the occupation for over five months, held in Junaid prison since 3 December 2024, separated from his wife, their four children and his ill mother.

Hamza Abu al-Haija, Jamal and Asmaa’s youngest son, born in 1992, was also a struggler in the Al-Qassam Brigades. He was martyred in March 2014, assassinated by occupation forces after multiple years pursuing him. He resisted the occupation forces, which fired a missile at his apartment, until the last moment. He was martyred alongside two fellow resistance fighters, Yazan Jabarin and Mahmoud Abu Zeina, at dawn on 22 March 2014. He had been imprisoned by the occupation under administrative detention, and, upon his release, was imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority for one month. At the time of his assassination, he was wanted by both the occupation and the PA.

In 2003, Asmaa Sabaaneh Abu al-Haija, Jamal’s wife and the mother of Banan, Abdel-Salam, Asem, Imad, Hamza and their sister Sajida, was held in administrative detention for nine months. Asmaa, 61, has battled serious illness for years. She underwent surgeries for brain tumors in 1992 and 1998; she was hospitalized in 2014 at the time of Hamza’s martyrdom. His last words to her were to apologize for being unable to bring her a Mother’s Day gift because he was wanted by the occupation, the day before he was martyred. Over the years, Asmaa was prevented from traveling to Jordan to receive specialized treatment for her recurrent cancer; she was even prevented from visiting a French hospital in Jerusalem for surgery, even after she lost sight in her left eye.

Banan was previously detained for 23 days in 2007 in the Jalameh interrogation center; like her mother, she has been subjected to travel bans preventing her from traveling abroad. Banan emphasized that she chose to study law in order to support the prisoners, attending their court hearings, following up with their families and highlighting their cases. She, like her brothers and mother, inside and outside prison, has been repeatedly denied permission to visit her father. They have only had a few family visits over the years, and almost all of their applications are routinely denied.

Sajida, Banan’s sister, shared the message that her father had sent to her for her wedding day in 2022, when Jamal, Asem, and Imad were all imprisoned, speaking about the reasons for their sacrifice and struggle:

“This is for you, my daughter, and for the sake of all young men and women. We accept captivity today so that tomorrow we may bequeath to you a free homeland without captivity or restrictions. We accept fear and deprivation today so that tomorrow you may live in safety, where there is no occupation or aggression. This is for you, my daughter.

Tomorrow, when you tell your children the story of the liberation before bed, you will tell them: Raise your heads to the clouds, for this dear, free homeland in whose shade you enjoy, your grandfathers and uncles sacrificed their lives for the sake of God to expel the occupier from its soil.”

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Banan Abu al-Haija, her brothers and father from the occupation prisons. The arrest of Banan is another form of targeting of the family and an attempt to deprive her beloved mother of support at a critical time for her health. It also represents the ongoing targeting of Palestinian lawyers defending the Palestinian prisoners, their resistance and the Palestinian people as a whole. It also comes as Jenin refugee camp, where Banan was born, is under attack by the occupation alongside all of the refugee camps of the northern West Bank, with thousands displaced in an attempt to steal more land for settler-colonial confiscation, suppress the Palestinian resistance, and liquidate the core Palestinian right to return to their original homes and lands.

It is those who resist the occupation who are on the front lines fighting the genocide, and they are targeted for mass slaughter, assassination and imprisonment by the Zionist-imperialist genocidal occupation forces. As in the ongoing genocidal slaughter in Gaza, which has taken the lives of over 52,000 precious Palestinian martyrs, including well over 100 in just the past day, these crimes are carried out with the full support, complicity and responsibility of the imperialist powers: the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and other EU countries. We urge all supporters of Palestine to raise your voices for the Abu al-Haija family and for all Palestinian prisoners. Their liberation is part and parcel of ending the genocide in Gaza and throughout Palestine — on the road to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.