Free all Lebanese, Syrian and Palestinian Prisoners: Lebanon’s Captives in Zionist Jails

5 August 2025

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network calls upon all international solidarity movements, human rights advocates and organizers for political prisoners to advocate for the liberation of all Arab and Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails, including the 16 Lebanese and at least four Syrian prisoners being held — with no official documentation as to their whereabouts, conditions or status.

In a new report on 5 August 2025, Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper reported the full known list of Lebanese political prisoners and detainees held captive by the Zionist occupation regime. Notably, the vast majority of these detainees have been abducted from Lebanon after the ceasefire on 27 November 2024 as part and parcel of the ongoing aggression against Lebanon.

The Lebanese prisoners include workers, fishers, shepherds, and freedom fighters. Many of the men were abducted as they returned with their families to their homes in the south of Lebanon from which they were evacuated at the height of the war. In fact, no one is certain if this list is fully complete, as the Zionist regime continues to violate the ceasefire on a daily basis, invading parts of southern Lebanon along the border with occupied Palestine, conducting drone attacks and assassinations, attacking fishermen in the Lebanese seas, and even seeking to erect military bases.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been denied access to the men and the Zionist regime has not provided the identities of detainees to Lebanese military, intelligence or security officials, nor, reportedly, to the United Nations or even the United States. Instead, these Lebanese men are explicitly being held as hostages in order to attempt to extract concessions from Hezbollah and the Lebanese Resistance, as “every piece of information ahs a price.” The only source of information about the detainees has been released prisoners from Lebanon, who spoke about the men with whom they were held, informing their families about their conditions and circumstances.

They are being held alongside Palestinian prisoners, in the same dangerous, unhealthy and often life-threatening conditions. Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails and military camps are routinely subjected to physical and sexual assault, psychological torture and abuse, sleep deprivation, starvation and denial of access to food, denial of medical care and medical mistreatment. Recent reports have highlighted the so-called “Rakevet” wing, an infamous sealed underground section in Ayalon Prison, opened especially for the confinement and torture of Palestinian resistance fighters. Zionist media reported that those held there under 24/7 surveillance, solitary confinement and constant conditions of physical and psychological torture are “high-risk prisoners from Hamas and Hezbollah’s Radwan force;” it is not clear if the six resistance detainees are held there or if there may be other, unknown and missing Lebanese being held hostage by the Zionist regime.

At the same time that “Israel” is engaged in daily, violent, illegal aggression against Lebanon, including extrajudicial assassinations, bombings, invasions, abductions and hostage-taking, the United States, other imperialist powers and even Arab and Lebanese reactionary forces are seeking to impose conditions on the resistance, confiscate the weapons of the resistance, “disarm Hezbollah,” impose normalization with Zionism and subjugate Lebanese defense to the same parties providing billions of dollars of weaponry and unlimited political, diplomatic and intelligence support to the Zionist regime, especially the U.S. These men are being held hostage in order to further those illegitimate demands and to attempt to impose Zionist-imperialist control over Lebanon, its people and its future.

Of course, this is the same tactic being used in occupied Palestine, where “Israeli” genocide has been ongoing for not only 22 months but 77 years, and the occupation is starving, bombing and killing the entire population in Gaza while imprisoning 10,800 Palestinians in torturous conditions — and the response of the U.S., France, Britain, Canada, Germany and the imperialist powers is to fund, arm and support the genocidaires while demanding the disarmament and subjugation of the Palestinian people and their resistance.

As Georges Abdallah said upon his liberation from French prisons after 41 years, “With resistance, the road home is never lost, for me or for my imprisoned fellow comrades. Their resilience inside depends on our steadfastness outside…The condition of freedom is to rally around the resistance.”

The struggle to free these Lebanese and Syrian prisoners in Zionist jails is inextricably linked with the struggle to free all Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails, and with the liberation of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria. We call today for all supporters of Palestine, all who stand against genocide and occupation, to include these prisoners of freedom in our actions, mobilizations and solidarity. This is the moment — especially in the imperial core and states with complicit governments — to escalate and act, for Gaza, all of Palestine, the prisoners, and Lebanon. This also means openly confronting all attempts to impose subordination or defeat on the Palestinian and Lebanese people, particularly through demands for “disarmament” or confiscation of the weapons of the resistance. It is the resistance that is standing on the front lines against genocide, for self-determination, sovereignty and liberation.

We must demand instead the disarmament of the Zionist entity; a total two-way arms embargo; a full boycott in military, diplomatic, economic, academic, cultural, and sports arenas; prosecution of the genocidaires in international and Palestinian courts; the complete withdrawal of Zionist forces from Gaza, all of occupied Palestine, Lebanon and Syria; and the liberation of all of the Palestinian, Lebanese, and Syrian prisoners in Zionist, imperialist and reactionary prisons jailed for resisting genocide, occupation and colonialism. We do not have time to wait — this is the time for action.

Below is the list of detainees compiled by Al-Akhbar as well as posters for all of the prisoners for whom pictures are available:

List of civilian hostages:

Ali Younes (Hermel)
Abducted from Wadi al-Hujeir on Dec 19, 2024

Fouad Qattaya (al-Qasr)
Abducted from Wadi al-Hujeir on Dec 19, 2024 – Ali Younes and Fouad Qattaya are workers who install aluminum. Both were seized as they were traveling to a workshop in Shaqra.

Hussein Karaki (Khirbet Salem)
Abducted from Markaba on Jan 26, 2025 – Hussein Karaki was shot by “Israeli” occupation forces multiple times while participating in the liberation of his mother’s town on 26 January; his mother, Tamara Shahimi, was martyred beside him. His current location is unknown.

Hassan Hammoud (Taybeh)
Abducted from Taybeh on Jan 27, 2025

Ali Tarhini (Jibshit)
Abducted from Odaisseh on Jan 28, 2025 – Ali Tarhini, 19, was abducted by occupation forces as the people of Odeisseh sought to liberate it and return home. He was shot in his back, stomach and feet.

Mohammad Jheir (Naqoura)
Abducted at sea on Feb 2, 2025 – Mohammed Jheir is a Lebanese fisherman abducted from his boat in Lebanese waters.

Murtada Mhanna (Maroun al-Ras)
Abducted on Feb 16, 2025

Ali Fneish (Maaroub)
Abducted at sea on Jun 4, 2025 – Ali Fneish is a Lebanese fisherman abducted from his boat in Lebanese waters.

Maher Hamdan (Shebaa)
Abducted from Shebaa on Jun 7, 2025 – Maher Hamdan, 28, is a shepherd who was abducted from Shebaa Farms as he was tending a herd of sheep. His family did not know what had happened to him until Ali Fneish’s family learned that both Ali and Maher were imprisoned together in late July.

Imad Amhaz (Hermel)
Abducted in Batroun on Nov 1, 2024