Freed Palestinian prisoner Ra’iq Bisharat assassinated by occupation forces in Tammoun

Occupation forces assassinated freed prisoner Ra’iq Bisharat in Tammoun, south of Tubas in occupied Palestine, announcing his assassination immediately after midnight on Wednesday, 11 June. A leader in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, Bisharat, 47, had been “wanted” by the occupation regime since 2023.

During this time, his home has been repeatedly attacked in repeated invasions of Tubas by the Zionist-imperialist occupation forces. His brothers have also been repeatedly arrested by the occupation forces and his home repeatedly ransacked in attempts to make him surrender himself.

Two of his sons, Yazid and Yazan, have been arrested and are currently detained — the former by the occupation, held under administrative detention, and the latter, held by the collaborationist Palestinian Authority since December 2024.

Ra’iq Bisharat is a double amputee. Both of his hands were amputated in 2002 following the explosion of an explosive device he was working on in his home during the Al-Aqsa Intifada; his pregnant wife was martyred. In 2003, he was arrested by the occupation forces and served eight years in occupation prison.

He was arrested on at least three occasions and held in administrative detention following those arrests. In 2021, when he was arrested and ordered jailed without charge or trial, he launched a 53-day hunger strike which ended in an agreement for his release on 20 January 2022. During his hunger strike, the martyr Sheikh Khader Adnan visited his home, sitting with his family in a solidarity tent to support his struggle.

He was released and warmly welcomed by his community, family, loved ones and brothers in January 2022, but was shortly thereafter once again pursued by the occupation as he continued his path of struggle. Despite his injuries and their repeated invasions and pursuits, the occupation forces were unable to capture or assassinate him for over a year and a half.

After his assassination, occupation forces exiting Tammoun abducting at least eight Palestinian men — at least some held as human shields. They also abducted the body of the martyr, carrying his body using one of the occupation forces’ bulldozers of destruction — the same equipment, produced by Caterpillar and other multinational corporations, used to destroy Palestinian homes, buildings and refugee camps. There are currently over 700 Palestinian martyrs’ bodies being imprisoned in death by the Zionist colonial regime in its morgues and “numbers cemeteries,” meant to impose collective punishment upon Palestinian families and communities denied the ability to bid farewell to their loved ones and to extort the Palestinian resistance in a prisoner exchange.

The assassination of Ra’iq Bisharat is the latest example of the ongoing policy of assassination and targeting of the liberated prisoners, amid the targeting of the entire Palestinian population for massacre and genocide.

Ra’iq Bisharat and his fellow liberated prisoners represent the continuity of struggle, as generation after generation fights for total liberation. 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.

Glory to the martyr!