On 22 November 2025, Lebanon marked its Independence Day as the Zionist occupation, backed by the United States and its imperialist partners, continues its daily barrage of aggressions in clear violation of the ceasefire agreement made nearly one year before, on 27 November 2024. On the afternoon of Sunday, 23 November, occupation aircraft bombed Haret Hreik, a crowded residential municipality in Dahiyeh, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and assassinating Haitham Ali Tabtaba’i, a senior leader in Hezbollah, the Lebanese Islamic Resistance, taking the lives of five martyrs and wounding at least 28 more people, including 10 children and 8 women.
He was martyred alongside four of his comrades, distinguished strugglers of Hezbollah: Qassem Hussein Barjawi, Mustafa As’ad Berro, Rifa’at Ahmed Hussein and Ibrahim Ali Hussein.
Earlier the same day, occupation forces assassinated a man in Aita al-Shaab, south Lebanon, as he worked to rebuild and restore his home, damaged last year by the occupation’s aggression on Lebanon. The assault on Beirut was coordinated with the United States, according to both U.S. and Zionist statements, making clear once again that the U.S. is neither a partner nor a friend of Lebanon, but directly involved in attacking its sovereignty, independence and self-determination. Indeed, the United States had previously declared a $5 million “bounty” on Tabtaba’i, as has been the case in a series of Zionist assassinations of figures singled out by the U.S. for targeting for their role in the Arab and Islamic resistance and the defense of Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and the region as a whole.
The statement issued by Hezbollah upon his martyrdom highlighted the role of the U.S.:
Allah bestowed upon him the high honor of martyrdom. His great martyrdom will impart hope, determination, and strength to his brother fighters and persistence in continuing the path, just as he was a source of strength and inspiration for them during his life. The fighters will carry his pure blood, just as they carried the blood of all martyred commanders, and they will move forward with steadfastness and courage to defeat all projects of the zionist enemy and its patron, America.
On Saturday, 22 November, Zionist warplanes bombed at least 16 locations in Lebanon, including areas in south Lebanon and Baalbek, and killed one martyr, Hussein Yassin Hussein, a member of the Houla Municipal Council, in a drone strike on the southern Lebanese village of Wadi Nahle. While the U.S. and its imperialist partners in France, Britain, Germany and fellow imperialist powers demand that the Resistance “disarm” and become defenseless in the face of an aggressive enemy that seeks to occupy and seize Lebanese land, the Zionist regime continues its aggression, assassinations, bombings and ongoing invasions of Lebanon.
This followed the massacre in Ein el Helweh Palestinian refugee camp on 19 November, when the occupation forces bombed a sports field near Khaled bin al-Walid Mosque in the camp, taking the lives of 14 martyrs and injuring nearly 100 people. The martyrs included: Hussein al-Shouli, Yousef al-Shama, Ahmed Othman, Ali Ibrahim, Bilal al-Natour, Obada Ghoutani, Mohammed Khalil, Ibrahim Qaddoura, Amjad Khashan, Jihad Sidawi, Mohammed Ghoutani, Ahmed Mohammed and Mustafa Ghoutani. The people of the camp took to the streets in large numbers in outrage at the massacre, which once again underlined that the Zionist regime — armed and funded by the United States, and provided with weaponry to carry out its crimes — is carrying out its genocide against the Palestinian people not only inside Palestine, but in the refugee camps surrounding it as well.
Part and parcel of the assault on Lebanon is the continuing imprisonment of at least 20 Lebanese prisoners in the occupation’s jails, at least some of whom are held in the notorious Rakevet underground prison, where prisoners have been subjected to some of the most extreme forms of torture and abuse, are denied all access to lawyers or family members, and are prevented from seeing the outside entirely.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses our outrage at the ongoing massacres, assassinations, kidnappings and bombings targeting the people and the Resistance of Lebanon by the U.S.-led imperialist-Zionist forces. We salute and mourn the martyr Haitham Ali Tabtaba’i and all of the martyrs of Lebanon and Palestine whose blood has been shed by the vicious crimes of the occupation and their imperialist sponsors amid “ceasefires” in Lebanon and Gaza.
The Zionist-imperialist assassination policy is intended to disorganize the Resistance, undermine popular morale and support, and remove effective leadership confronting the enemy assault, from Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif, to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine and Fouad al-Shukr, to Ahmed al-Rawhi and Mohammed Abdul-Karim al-Ghamari, to Mohammed Bagheri and Mohammed Saeed Izadi. It is all of our responsibility to stand with the people and the Resistance to ensure the failure of the assassination campaign — and victory for Palestine and Lebanon.
We emphasize that this is a moment for urgent action and escalation everywhere around the world, and particularly in the heart of the imperial core — not for retreat and silence. Every day, the occupation is killing, stealing land, assassinating and abducting, in Gaza, the West Bank and throughout occupied Palestine, and in Lebanon, particularly in the South.
We further urge all supporters of Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon and of justice and dignity to join the campaign to free Lebanese prisoners in Zionist jails. They struggle side by side with the Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails for justice and liberation, for themselves and their brothers, and for their land and people. The imprisonment of the Lebanese prisoners — including farmers, fishers, workers and freedom fighters — is a daily act of war against Lebanon, as are the assassinations, bombings and invasions.
The imprisoned Lebanese are:
- 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 - Hassan Aqil Jawad (Aita al-Shaab)
Captured in Aita al-Shaab, 2024 - Mohammad Abdel-Karim Jawad (Aita al-Shaab)
Captured in Aita al-Shaab, 2024 - Ibrahim Munif al-Khalil (Aita al-Shaab)
Captured in Aita al-Shaab , 2024 - Yousef Abdullah (Babliyeh)
Captured in Aita al-Shaab , 2024 - Hussein Sharif (Yammouneh)
Captured in Aita al-Shaab, 2024 - Waddah Younes (Houla)
Captured in Blida, 2024 - Hadi Mustafa Assaf (Al-Diyabiya)
Captured in Aita al-Shaab, 2024 - Ali Assaf (Hermel)
Captured in Aita al-Shaab, 2024 - Abdullah Fahdeh (Al-Qasr)
Captured in Aita al-Shaab, 2024 - Hassan Qashqoush (Qaqiyah al-Jasr)
Captured from Aita al-Shaab while working as a nurse, 2024
Take action:
- Organize a protest, demonstration, banner drop, or postering on 10 December — International Human Rights Day — to free the Lebanese prisoners. (Read the call from the Assembly of Detainees and Freed Prisoners — Lebanon)
- Record a video in solidarity with the Lebanese prisoners (1 minute or even less!) Call for their liberation. Send the video to us at samidoun@samidoun.net.
- Sign on to the All for Lebanon campaign of the Masar Badil, Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, at https://allforlebanon.com/
Download posters that you can use for the Lebanese prisoners in your area in PDF form (with Samidoun logo | without Samidoun logo).
Discover more from Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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