The release of Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila: Resistance breaking the silence and continuing to confront the siege on Gaza

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network congratulates Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila upon their release following their illegal abduction by Zionist forces in international waters while participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla heading to Gaza to challenge the criminal blockade imposed on the Palestinian people.

Their release was the direct result of international popular mobilization, protests organized in numerous countries, and the resistance maintained by the activists themselves during their detention, including an ongoing hunger strike until their liberation. This victory once again demonstrates that popular pressure and international solidarity have an impact, and that organized struggle can win victories even against one of the most violent colonial regimes in the world and its imperialist sponsors.

During their captivity, Saif Abu Keshek and Thiago Ávila denounced conditions of isolation, abuse and mistreatment. In Saif’s case, his response was to launch a hunger and water strike, taking up once again one of the most important historic tools developed by the Palestinian prisoners’ movement inside Zionist prisons to defend their dignity and secure their most basic rights.

For decades, the hunger strike has been a central form of Palestinian resistance behind bars, used in the face of torture, isolation, administrative detention and the systematic denial of fundamental rights. Through his decision, Saif once again placed at the center the struggle of Palestinian prisoners and the historic role they have played as an essential part of the Palestinian liberation movement.

In his first statements after regaining his freedom, Saif reminded the world that there remain thousands of Palestinian prisoners — girls, boys, women and men — subjected daily to conditions of torture, hunger, medical neglect and systematic violence in Zionist prisons. He further emphasized that the conditions he and Thiago experienced are far less severe than those faced every day by Palestinian prisoners.

We insist that the global mobilization for the release of Saif and Thiago must not stop but must instead grow for the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners jailed by the Zionist regime, as well as Lebanese and Arab prisoners detained in its prisons, as well as the Palestinian prisoners and the prisoners for Palestine held in imperialist prisons around the world.

Meanwhile, the Global Sumud Flotilla has resumed its voyage, accompanied by the land-based Sumud Caravan crossing North Africa toward Gaza in order to break the illegal and genocidal blockade and challenge the attempt to isolate the Palestinian people.

The words of Saif Abu Keshek following his release summarize the profound meaning of this struggle: international solidarity must continue to grow until the siege on Gaza is broken, the prisoners are freed, and complete liberation of Palestine is achieved, from the river to the sea.