Note: The following statement is being issued on 9 October 2025, several hours before the stated ceasefire is to go into effect, at 5 pm Palestine time. We urge utmost vigilance, preparation for action, and readiness to respond in all cases, particularly as the occupation and its sponsors are already engaging in delay and denial tactics — particularly targeting the Palestinian prisoners’ movement — before the ceasefire even begins, and as this is a moment for escalation rather than complacency. We urge all to take the streets for mass organizing and direct action, for the sacrifices of the people of Gaza, the bravery of the resistance, the determination of the prisoners, and the liberation of Palestine.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes the steadfast, unbroken and unyielding Palestinian people of Gaza and their heroic and unshakeable Resistance after two years of genocide on the accomplishment of a ceasefire, wrested from the grip of the Zionists and imperialists and imposed upon them only through the valor and sacrifices of the people and the fighters from among them on the ground and under the rubble. We salute the Palestinian people throughout occupied Palestine and everywhere in exile and diaspora, the prisoners inside the dungeons of the occupation suffering torture of all forms, the heroic Lebanese resistance, the brave and steadfast Yemeni people and armed forces, and all of the forces of resistance in the region, particularly in Iran and Iraq.
Despite the terror, devastation and destruction, the genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Zionist regime and its imperialist sponsors and backers, they were unable to achieve any of their stated military goals. They have been unable to free the prisoners held by the resistance by force, and unable to destroy or uproot the forces of the Resistance. They have been unable to uproot the Palestinian people from their land or complete their ongoing Nakba: all because they have run up on the rocks of the people and their Resistance.
On this occasion, we emphasize that it is the duty of the international movement in support of Palestinian liberation, which has grown immensely due to that same steadfastness, heroism and sacrifice of Palestinians in Gaza, not to stand aside, reduce its activity, or let celebration overcome our clarity and urgency. This is the moment to escalate, intensify and cement the international isolation of “Israel” at a popular level and an official level, to increase direct actions targeting the imperialist-Zionist war machine and their war profiteers, to hold those responsible for the genocide accountable through all means and mechanisms, and to raise our level of responsibility in order to meet the necessities of the moment.
The Palestinian people and their Resistance have achieved this ceasefire through blood, sacrifice, heroism, and their refusal to be uprooted from the land of Palestine. They are dealing with entirely untrustworthy counterparties and guarantors, who already broke a similar ceasefire centered on the same fundamental issues — withdrawal of occupation forces, end of aggression, entry of aid, and exchange of prisoners — on March 18, after unilaterally blocking aid and launching a genocide of starvation on March 2. Every day, the Zionist entity, with the full support of the United States, violates its ceasefire with Lebanon; it imprisons 16 Lebanese, conducts daily assassinations and drone attacks that have taken the lives of hundreds of martyrs, and has continued to destroy villages, attack people and their land in over 4,600 separate violations. The nature of the enemy they face is well-known to all Palestinians, Arabs, and the people of the region.
They must rely on promises by the United States to enforce the ceasefire agreement — which has co-directed the genocide and provided billions of dollars in weaponry against the Palestinian people — and on the compliance of the Zionist entity, a genocidal entity that seeks only the destruction and theft of Palestine. These parties have repeatedly violated their commitments and agreements, and they cannot be trusted. Indeed, representatives of Hamas and the unified Resistance have already urged the mediators — Egypt, Qatar and Turkey — to pressure the occupation, as it is attempting to change the timelines and its responsibilities under the ceasefire before it even goes into effect. Mahmoud Mardawi said, “It seems that Netanyahu is seeking to blow up the ceasefire agreement before its implementation, by retracting the prisoner lists, in an attempt to sabotage the understandings. This step reveals his intentions regarding the other issues related to withdrawal, reconstruction, and the opening of crossings in both directions.”
Palestinian writer Yassin Izz el-Din said, “Trump promised Netanyahu to lift Israel’s isolation and to ‘bring the world back to loving Israel,’ as he said. We must ensure that this does not happen and continue to fight it everywhere in the world, for Gaza is still besieged and threatened with treachery, Israel continues to attack the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria, Al-Aqsa Mosque is violated day and night, and the right of return for refugees to their homes still stands and is denied by the occupier.”
Therefore, it is our responsibility to escalate, organize and isolate — in order to serve as popular guarantors of the end of the aggression and colonization of Palestine, to prevent the schemes of imperialism and Zionism that aim to impose submission on the Palestinian people, and to support the Palestinian Resistance and its representatives in their unified efforts to protect the Palestinian cause and the return, liberation and self-determination of Palestine. The future in Gaza — “the next day” — is a purely Palestinian future, to be decided and determined by the Palestinian people, not the genocidal Zionist occupier nor its imperialist overlords, from Donald Trump to Tony Blair.
This is only the first stage of the ceasefire, by all reports, and the launch has already been delayed by four hours so that war criminal Netanyahu will obtain the official endorsement of his genocidal, fascist “Cabinet.” We emphasize the urgency of international vigilance and support to both ensure the implementation of the ceasefire and to halt any and all attempts to continue the genocide and undermine Palestinian rights by the Zionist occupation regime and its imperialist backers and directors. It is urgent that all efforts to impose legal, political, popular and direct accountability on the genocidaires continue and escalate, with full exposure of all those responsible for the horrific war crimes and crimes against humanity targeting the Palestinian people, especially in Gaza. It is also urgent to escalate to defend Palestinians in the West Bank, whose land and lives are targeted by the paramilitary settler mobs alongside the occupation soldiers, throughout occupied Palestine, and everywhere in exile and diaspora.
Osama Hamdan, a leader in Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, said that the prisoner exchange will be forthcoming only after an end to the aggression and the end of occupation drone and surveillance flights over Gaza. He stated that 250 Palestinians with life sentences as well as 1750 Palestinians abducted from Gaza will be liberated by the Resistance in the new stage of the exchange. The names of the prisoners to be liberated will be published first by the Asra Media Office, and Samidoun will provide full reports, translations and details regarding the prisoner exchange as soon as that information is available.
We emphasize that there will remain thousands of Palestinians jailed in the torture chambers of the occupation, subjected to physical, psychological and sexual abuse, torture and inhuman treatment, starvation, deliberate denial of medical care and slow assassination. As we escalate our struggle against the genocide, we must also escalate our struggle for the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails, alongside the prisoners of the Palestinian cause imprisoned in imperialist and reactionary prisons around the world.
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all supporters of Palestine to hold rallies and public welcomes, even at a symbolic level, for the liberated Palestinian prisoners and the heroes of the resistance, at the moment of their release — alongside and as part of the ongoing mass mobilizations and demonstrations for Gaza and all of Palestine that must continue to urgently fill the streets of the towns, cities and capitals of the world. Now is a moment to commemorate their liberation, and for the global movement on Palestine to take into account the sacrifices and the central role of the prisoners in the resistance and the national liberation movement as a whole.
As Palestinian writer Ali Abu Rezeq said, “”The joy is incomplete this time; it is not like the joy of the previous truce. Our people feel a great, painful, and unprecedented anguish, for this is an enemy more insolent, filthy, and despicable than they imagined and we imagined…Every tear of joy that falls from one eye is met with a tear of sorrow from the opposite side. Therefore, we believe that the global political struggle must begin and escalate after the ceasefire, not before. A global popular umbrella must be formed to stop the war and support the people of Gaza with relief, psychologically, materially, and on a human level. Every free person must feel that they carry a debt on their neck towards Gaza and its people, a debt that will not be lifted except by the removal and complete disappearance of this occupation.”
Every achievement and every life saved by the ceasefire has been accomplished only through the determination of the masses and the brilliance and heroism of the armed resistance. It is the sacrifices of the martyrs, the over 67,000 whose names are known, the nearly 10,000 who remain missing, and the hundreds of thousands more whose lives have been or will be cut short due to siege, forced starvation and the genocidal Zionist-imperialist assault on health care, sanitation and all aspects of life, who make this ceasefire a reality, not imperialist genocidaires looking to improve their global image or Arab reactionary regimes that have been complicit in the crimes against the Palestinian people. It is also the leadership martyrs, from Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif, to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, to Ahmed al-Rawhi and Mohammed Saeed Izadi, whose path continues to light the way forward, not only to ceasefire, but to victory and liberation.
This is not the moment for our international movement to rest. This is our moment to escalate, and to make clear, that we will become a strong bulwark of support for the Resistance as it continues the struggle, as we stand for nothing less than the full accomplishment of the Palestinian people’s goals and aspirations, the complete international isolation and dismantling of Zionism and the Zionist entity, accountability and revolutionary justice for the war criminals, and the defeat of imperialism in Palestine, and throughout the region.
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Prior Samidoun statement from January ceasefire: Gaza: The Resistance Lives, The Prison Doors Open – On the Road to Liberation and Return | Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
Discover more from Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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