On 15 May 2026, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins the Palestinian people, the Arab nation, and all of the free people of the world in marking the Day of Palestinian Struggle — a day that commemorates not only 78 years of the ongoing Nakba imposed upon the Palestinian people and the peoples of the region by Zionism and imperialism, but also 78 years of resistance, steadfastness, revolutionary struggle and sacrifice on the road to liberation and return.
Through 78 years of occupation, the “Israeli” entity has gained no legitimacy or sovereignty anywhere in occupied Palestine. There is no place for Zionism in Palestine or the region.
As we mark the 78th anniversary of the Nakba, during which more than 800,000 Palestinians were expelled from their homes and lands and over 530 Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed by Zionist militias and colonial forces, we salute all of the martyrs of the Palestinian revolution who have carried the struggle across generations. We pay tribute to the resistance fighters, prisoners, refugees, activists, workers, farmers, fishermen, students, artists, organizers, women, youth and revolutionary leaders who have continuously upheld the banner of a free Palestine from the river to the sea, free from Zionism, colonialism and imperialism.
Zionist Genocide and Ongoing Nakba
Zionism has always been a genocidal project, based on colonial land-grabs, blatant racism, and a settler project designed to erase the Palestinian people. The Nakba of 1947-48 was the manifestation of that genocidal project, just as the ongoing assaults on the Gaza Strip, the settler hordes invading villages as occupation soldiers attack refugee camps in the West Bank, the thousands of armed settlers targeting Al-Aqsa Mosque for destruction, are manifestations of that project. The parades of settlers invading Al-Aqsa waving Zionist flags are engaged not in religious worship but a colonial rampage of hatred that aims to erase Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and Christian identity on the land of Palestine.
The genocidal aggression against Gaza that continues to this day despite the one-sided “ceasefire,” the starvation siege, the destruction of homes, hospitals, schools and refugee camps, the mass slaughter of Palestinian civilians, and the relentless campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank all expose the true nature of the Zionist project as one of elimination, extermination and colonial conquest.
In 1947-48, the Zionist forces established a bulkhead for Western imperialism and sought to destroy Palestinian society. Today, the daily assassinations targeting Palestinian police and security forces in Gaza serve the same end, alongside the ongoing targeting of journalists, doctors and health care workers for assassination and imprisonment.
The Ongoing Nakba as an Imperialist Project
The Nakba was born through British colonialism and sustained through imperialist power, led today by the United States and its allies, including France, Germany, Canada, Australia, and other European powers, who arm, fund and politically shield the Zionist entity while waging war across the region. The ongoing Nakba involves the theft of land and extraction of resources, including natural gas, water, and agricultural products, from Palestinian land, alongside an overt attempt to destroy the Palestinian people.
The imperialist powers not only act in Palestine to direct and sustain Zionist colonialism, they also act within their own borders to aid and abet genocide. This is why they criminalize the Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi and Iranian resistance organizations, labeling them “terrorists” or declaring them “proscribed.” This has extended beyond the targeting of the resistance to targeting organizations supporting the Palestinian prisoners — such as Samidoun; those taking direct action against the war machine — like Palestine Action; as well as Palestinian community organizations organizing Palestinians in exile and diaspora and charity institutions providing unconditional support to Palestinians in need as an alternative to imperialist-controlled institutions. There are prisoners in United States, German, Italian, French, British, and even Brazilian jails for their actions for the liberation of Palestine — or even their mere expression of Palestinian identity and rights.
At the same time, Zionist settlers openly organize illegal land theft exhibitions and colonial settlement “real-estate sales” events in Western capitals under the protection of armed police, barricades and “buffer zones” while imperialist states provide arms, intelligence cooperation and unlimited political and diplomatic support to the occupation regime.
The Regional Resistance Confronts “Greater Israel”
From Palestine to Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran, the forces of resistance confronting Zionism and imperialism stand on the front lines of a regional and international battle against colonial domination and fascist aggression. Today, it is clear to all that the Nakba does not end at the borders of occupied Palestine. The term “Nakba”, when coined by Syrian writer Constantin Zureiq, always referred to an Arab catastrophe, and not solely a Palestinian one. Today, as the occupation bombs, attacks and destroys in its attempt to occupy southern Lebanon — confronted powerfully by the might of Hezbollah’s resistance and the steadfastness of the people of the South — as it repeatedly invades and confiscates Syrian land while abducting Syrian citizens, and as it openly declares its intentions for a “Greater Israel,” the path to defeating the imperialist-Zionist assault and bringing an end to the ongoing Nakba lies in unity, mobilization and resistance.
The role of the reactionary Arab regimes and the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah stand exposed before our people and the world. These regimes and forces have aligned themselves with imperialism and Zionism, criminalized resistance, collaborated in siege and normalization, and attempted to bury the Palestinian cause beneath the framework of surrender and dependency. Their betrayal has made increasingly clear the dividing line between the camp of resistance and liberation and the camp of imperialism, normalization and capitulation.
The Resistance Confronts the Nakba
Armed resistance remains at the center of this confrontation, and is the primary means of confronting the ongoing Nakba and of fighting for liberation and return. On this Day of Palestinian Struggle, we particularly warn against all efforts to disarm the resistance, in Palestine, in Lebanon, and throughout the region. Demands to disarm the resistance are nothing more than an attempt to render the Palestinian people defenseless in the face of a genocidal enemy and serve only the interests of imperialism and Zionism. The only road to security for Palestine and the people of the region and, indeed the world, is resistance and revolutionary struggle until the defeat of Zionism and imperialism.
As we noted one year ago:
October 7, the great Al-Aqsa Flood, changed the world, irreversibly. This day made clear before the world that it is entirely within our grasp to envision a Palestine free of Zionism and a region free of imperialism, and that this resistance camp is capable of achieving that goal with its own hands.
This was utterly unacceptable to the Zionist project and to the imperialist powers. They aim to make such a revolutionary action – indeed, the date of the beginning of the new Palestinian, Arab, and international revolution – unimaginable due to the river and ocean of blood and rubble they seek to create atop that heroic memory.
At the same time, all of their bombs and billions of dollars in technological equipment unleashed upon the Palestinian people, the Arab people and the people of the region are unable to create their desired results, are unable to defeat the Palestinian people and their unshakeable bond to their land, whether in the homeland or in exile. The decaying nature of the Zionist project and the failure of US imperialism are clearer than ever…It is revealed before the world as a genocidal entity devoid of legitimacy, its mythologies and rhetoric exposed as a machinery of lies…
Despite the assassinations of great leaders, from Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine to Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Saleh al-Arouri, despite the martyrdom of every precious Palestinian and Arab life taken by the occupier, the resistance renews itself, grows and refuses surrender and compromise, turning the completion of the Nakba into an impossibility, a solid rock on which the Zionist-imperialist genocide will break and shatter.
Palestinian Prisoners Confront Genocide Behind Bars
The ongoing Nakba is inseparable from the attack on the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. Palestinian prisoners today confront systematic torture, starvation, medical neglect, sexual violence, isolation, humiliation and deliberate killing inside Zionist prisons and military camps. The execution laws and fascist legislation advanced by the Zionist regime against Palestinian prisoners are part of the genocidal campaign targeting the Palestinian people as a whole.
From Abdullah Barghouti to Ahmad Sa’adat, Marwan Barghouti, Muammar Shahrour, Hassan Salameh, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Mohammed al-Natsheh, Ibrahim Hamed, Muhannad Shreim, Mohammed Arman, and Jamal Abu al-Haija, the leaders of the prisoners’ movement are being targeted for death through torture and medical negligence, while the “Execution Law” is an attempt to legitimize and escalate the already-existing policy of assassination and genocide behind bars.
The prisons have always been a center of repression, violence and also of resistance and revolutionary struggle and organizing. The history of the imprisonment of Palestinians is that of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement — of escapes, revolts, hunger strikes and exchanges achieved by the Resistance. This is a history that has given hundreds of martyrs amid the imprisonment of over 1 million Palestinians since 1948 and that has developed hundreds and thousands of revolutionary leaders.
The prisoners remain at the forefront of the struggle, standing as leaders and symbols of resistance for the Palestinian cause and for all of the free people of the world. Confronting the ongoing Nakba means fighting for the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners and intensifying the struggle against the prison regime that stands at the heart of Zionist colonial domination.
The Right to Return: Undoing the Nakba
On this Day of Palestinian Struggle, the Palestinian refugees and the right of return continue to hold the keys of liberation in their hands and their hearts. The refugee camps remain living centers of resistance and revolutionary possibility despite decades of siege, impoverishment, displacement and assault. The repeated targeting of refugee camps in Palestine, Lebanon and throughout the diaspora, the deliberate starvation and defunding of Palestinian refugees, and the attacks on UNRWA and refugee institutions are all attempts to erase Palestinian identity and eliminate the right of return.
It is the responsibility of UNRWA and international institutions to reject all attempts by imperialist powers to turn them into frameworks of repression in the camps in Lebanon and elsewhere and to instead defend Palestinian organizing, identity, and expression. Despite all attempts to impose forced migration, starvation through denial of employment rights, siege and targeting, the camps continue to produce generations committed to liberation and return, and the Palestinian people will never surrender their homeland. It is the responsibility of not only the Palestinian people but of all who stand with Palestine to support the refugees and sustain their steadfastness on the road of return, from the impoverished Palestinians in the camps of Lebanon to the over 70% of Palestinians in Gaza who are themselves refugees.
International Movement and The Responsibility to Act
On the Day of Palestinian Struggle, an international day for action and mobilization, this is a moment that demands action and escalation. Around the world, our movements, political parties, unions and organizations have a responsibility to become the international popular arms of the resistance through organizing, political education, direct action, mobilization, boycott campaigns, labor struggle and confrontation with the institutions that sustain Zionism and imperialism, including escalated confrontation of the war machine. The growing global uprising in solidarity with Palestine has exposed the Zionist entity before the eyes of the world and shattered decades of colonial propaganda. The task now is to escalate, deepen and globalize the Intifada, particularly in the heart of the imperial core.
The Day of Palestinian Struggle is not merely a day of remembrance: it is a day to resist, organize, escalate and fight. There is only one solution: a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea. There is no future for the Zionist entity in Palestine. Return and liberation are on the horizon, carried forward by the steadfastness of the prisoners, the resistance of the fighters, the determination of the refugees, and the mobilization of the free people of the world.
Glory to the martyrs.
Freedom for the prisoners.
Victory to the resistance.
Long live the international struggle for the liberation of Palestine.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
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