Each year, on 17 April, we mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day — the international day of action and struggle for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, commemorated since 1974 as a day to demand the liberation of imprisoned Palestinians and salute their leading role in the resistance and revolutionary struggle for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. This year, on 17 April 2026, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day is particularly urgent and important for global mobilization, as Palestinian prisoners face the most extreme forms of torture and isolation inside the Zionist jails as well as the new “Prisoners’ Execution Law” promulgated by the openly fascist Netanyahu-Ben Gvir-Smotrich government of the Zionist regime.
As Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, we reiterate the call to action from the moment of the passage of this infamous legislation, and urge all Palestinians and Arabs, community organizations, political parties, social movements, unions, and people of conscience to participate widely in demonstrations, protests, mobilizations and actions commemorating Palestinian Prisoners’ Day. This is the time to globalize the intifada, to take the streets in mass mobilization and direct action, to rise up for the prisoners, who sacrifice their freedom and their lives for the liberation of Palestine and the defense of humanity. It is our responsibility to organize and act to save the lives of the prisoners and free them from the horrors of captivity with an uprising for the prisoners, not only in Palestine but everywhere around the world.
There are currently over 9,600 Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails, including 350 children, 86 women, and over 3,500 held in “administrative detention,” imprisonment without charge or trial, indefinitely renewable. There are at least 1,250 Palestinians abducted from Gaza and imprisoned by the occupation, and over 21 Lebanese abducted from Lebanon and held in the occupation jails. There have been at least 89 identified Palestinian prisoners martyred inside the occupation prisons since 7 October 2023, since the Al-Aqsa Flood and the launch of the intensified Zionist genocide in Palestine, among 326 martyrs of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement since 1967. The occupation continues to imprison the bodies of the martyrs in death; they continue to imprison over 766 martyrs’ bodies, including 97 of the martyrs of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.
For the prisoners inside the occupation regime prisons, they face a daily routine of starvation, torture, abuse, medical neglect and negligence: what is, in reality, an ongoing genocide behind bars. Palestinian prisoners in the occupation’s jails face physical, psychological and sexual assault, rape, beatings and torture on a routine basis, particularly but not only while being held under interrogation. In particular, Palestinians from Gaza have been subjected to some of the most extreme forms of abuse at the infamous military camps of the occupation, such as Sde Teiman.
Even the most limited efforts to hold Zionist soldiers and prison guards responsible for their crimes against Palestinians have been swept aside; the infamous “right to rape” riots defending soldiers raping prisoners in Sde Teiman were followed by the perpetrators becoming celebrities, receiving an apology from war criminal Israel Katz, and welcomed back to continue their crimes against Palestinians as armed occupation soldiers. The Palestinian prisoners have been denied family visits for nearly three years, and their legal visits are often censored, restricted and denied, while they are prohibited from accessing basic supplies for communication and writing, in an attempt to fully isolate imprisoned Palestinians from their people and the world.
It is in this context that the “Prisoners’ Execution Law” was adopted by the Zionist Knesset on 30 March, as Ben-Gvir and his cronies celebrated with images of nooses while opening bottles of champagne on the parliamentary floor. In short, the law is at its core an attempt to legitimize the ongoing Zionist genocide behind bars and apply the “Israeli” assassination policy, long a centerpiece of its attack on the Palestinian resistance and the regional resistance forces, directly to the prisoners’ movement. Incarceration and assassination have been two of the primary colonial tools deployed by the Zionist entity in an attempt to uproot the resistance and suppress the movement for freedom and liberation; this law combines them directly, in a manner clearly directly inherited from the British colonial mandate, when it also failed to crush the Palestinian people and their resistance.
The “Execution Law” is blatantly racist and fundamentally illegitimate; it is the Palestinian people who have the right to resist the colonizer and occupier, including and especially through armed struggle. It, like the genocidal assault on Gaza and the rampaging of settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem, reflects the fundamental nature of Zionism and the Zionist entity as a racist, illegitimate colonial project. Of course, the imperialist powers, led by the United States, are also fully responsible for the “Execution Law” and the ongoing genocide and assassination campaign, providing the Zionist entity with ongoing military aid, support and trade, intelligence cooperation, and the imprisonment and repression of Palestinian communities and Palestine solidarity actions inside the imperial core.
The “Execution Law” also aims to strike at the Palestinian prisoners for the role they play at the heart of the Palestinian liberation struggle, as leaders of the Resistance and the Palestinian Revolution. By claiming to prohibit prisoner exchanges, it aims to cut off the most reliable and valuable mechanism for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners — action by the resistance to achieve an exchange. However, this also indicates not only the brutality and inhumanity but also the desperation of the Zionist entity, which is unable to break the back of the resistance in either its prisons or in the besieged Gaza Strip. Marwan Barghouti, Abdullah Barghouti, Ahmad Sa’adat, Ibrahim Hamed, Hassan Salameh, Jamal Abu al-Haija, Muhannad Shreim, Anas Jaradat and all of the leaders of the prisoners’ movement remain a compass point for the struggle as a whole, and the occupation is terrified of their role and impact. The Palestinian prisoners are those who are samidoun — whose steadfastness is an example of mobilization, organization and determination to the world. It is for this reason that it has refused to release them in any prisoner exchange, and it is attempting to prevent the development of new such leaders through their immediate execution. They are leaders of the Palestinian liberation movement, the Arab cause, the Islamic front of struggle and the international anti-imperialist movement — of all free people of the world.
Inside the Zionist jails, Palestinian prisoners continue to organize and resistiti, to educate themselves and each other, to write and think, to strategize, and to plan for a liberated future. Despite the crimes, the torture and the abuse, the Palestinian prisoners’ movement ensures that each prisoner is never alone in confronting the murderous enemy. The “Israeli” regime seeks relentlessly to abolish all that the Palestinian prisoners have built for themselves, but they are unable to shake the core of determination and commitment that enables the movement to survive and perpetuate itself.
The colonial weapon of imprisonment targets all people in resistance. Notably, there are at least 21 Lebanese prisoners inside the occupation jails, including those held from prior to the November 2024 ceasefire, and those abducted in the 15 months following. Through the past 45 days of resistance in Lebanon to the Zionist genocidal assault, the liberation of the prisoners is, alongside the liberation of the South, a primary objective of the Resistance in the defense of Lebanon. The achievement of a tactical victory of the Resistance, with the ceasefire in Lebanon beginning today, 17 April, is also an achievement for the imprisoned Lebanese. They are imprisoned, alongside their Palestinian brothers and sisters, in the notorious Rakevet underground section of Ramle prison, even as the Lebanese state has largely abandoned their responsibilities to their imprisoned citizens, while their families and the Resistance fight for their liberation. The international imperialist complicity and direct involvement in the Zionist attacks on Lebanon, and the attempts to seek the disarmament of the Resistance, are also full complicity in the imprisonment and abduction of Lebanese prisoners.
These same imperialist powers, including the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Austria and others, continue to not only supply the Zionist entity with arms, weaponry, intelligence, and diplomatic and political support, they also continue to repress and target the Palestinian movement and the legitimate resistance, including through incarceration. All of these countries are imprisoning both Palestinians in exile for their alleged participation in the struggle, whether through supporting the resistance in their homeland, fundraising for charitable support and assistance to the Palestinian people, or taking part in demonstrations and mobilizations, as well as prisoners for Palestine, free people of the world confronting imprisonment and repression because they refuse to abandon Palestine to Zionist-imperialist genocide. In just the past days, Ahmad Salem, a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon’s Baddawi camp, was sentenced to four and a half years in Italian prison for having resistance videos on his phone; six of the Filton 24 are being retried, with their sentences subjected to a secret “terrorism enhancement” hidden from the jury; and Palestinian community leader and freed prisoner, imprisoned and abused as a Palestinian child, Salah Sarsour, has been abducted by the infamous ICE in the United States.
The role of Arab reactionary regimes as a shield for imperialism and Zionism has also become increasingly visible, especially amid the U.S.-Zionist aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran, as well as the growing protest movement that has mobilized thousands into the streets against the “Execution Law.” Dozens of Palestinians have been rounded up in Syria after the widespread outbreak of protests against the Zionist entity, even though most of the protests were organized by Syrians, while numerous Palestinian and Arab strugglers for justice remain imprisoned in Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. The United Arab Emirates openly campaigns for the destruction of Palestinian resistance organizations, while Kuwait has imprisoned a Palestinian-Kuwaiti-American journalist, Ahmad Shihab-Eldin, for weeks, for documenting Iranian attacks on U.S. military bases in the country; he is one of many Kuwaitis whose citizenship has been suddenly stripped in recent months. All of these arrests and repression should be seen for what they are — part and parcel of normalization with the Zionist entity, and part of the price of hosting U.S. military bases in Arab states, where they serve as a source of destabilization and injustice for the population as a whole.
The role of imperialist forces in repression is not limited to direct arrests and imprisonment; U.S. and European sanctions, criminalization, and “terrorist designations” are key forms of attack against the Palestinian liberation movement and Palestine solidarity organizing. Not only are sanctions used to target and wage war on the independent economies of states that defy imperialism, such as Cuba, Venezuela, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, but the escalating use of sanctions on individuals and organizations is used to isolate movements and organizations and prepare the groundwork for even harsher repression. Samidoun has been subject to proscription in Germany and sanctions by the United States and Canada under “terrorist” designations since 2024, in what we view as an attempt to deprive the Palestinian prisoners of active, vocal and popular solidarity, as well as to silence visible support for the Palestinian, Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi, and Iranian Resistance forces.
However, we are far from alone; in the past months and years, the U.S. Treasury has ramped up its use of “SDGT” designations — the same type applied to Samidoun — as well as additional sanctions on organizations cooperating with the International Criminal Court to hold “Israel” accountable for war crimes and genocide. Europe is complicit in these sanctions; while itself sanctioning journalist Huseyin Dogru, France denied a visa to Al-Haq director and Palestinian human rights defender Shawan Jabarin following Al-Haq’s US sanctions for working with the ICC. Italy arrested seven Palestinians, including community leader Mohammed Hannoun, for their millions of Euro in charitable aid to Gaza, Lebanon, and the West Bank, citing both dubious “Israeli” military documents (now ruled inadmissable) and the existence of U.S. sanctions as a justification.
For freed Palestinian prisoners, displaced from their homes, families and land in occupied Palestine, they continue to face harsh injustices; many countries have denied them entry, or they are forced to live in a kind of legal limbo. Most difficult, however, is the fact that the Zionist regime continues to deny their family reunification, refusing to allow their wives and children to leave occupied Palestine to reunite with their husbands and fathers. If they are permitted to leave, their departure is conditioned on their forced, permanent exile from their homeland. This official state policy of family destruction has kept many of the hundreds of Palestinians in Egypt, Turkey, Malaysia and elsewhere, freed from lengthy sentences in the Toufan al-Ahrar exchange, from reuniting with their beloved families, and is a policy of continued collective punishment and psychological torture against the liberated prisoners and their families. The Zionist entity also seeks to silence the voice of liberated prisoners, attempting to ban or shut down events around the world where the liberated prisoners are featured as speakers, in an attempt to re-impose isolation upon them, including the recent attacks on the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, and Samidoun chapters around the world.
On this Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, we urge all movements for justice, Palestinian and Arab communities in exile and shatat, popular organizations, political parties, unions and social movements, to take action, in protests, demonstrations, direct actions and mass mobilizations, for the liberation of the Palestinian prisoners — part and parcel of the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. Given the urgency of this moment and the need to bring down the execution law, this is a moment to take the slogan, “Globalize the Intifada,” seriously — and escalate in action for the prisoners, for the resistance, for Palestine and for all of the peoples of the region.
We urge that these actions be combined with the most visible media and propaganda actions to highlight the struggles of the Palestinian prisoners inside and outside Palestine, to tell the stories of the resistance leaders, the health workers, the journalists, the students, the parents and the workers inside Zionist jails. We urge all to actively support the many campaigns and calls to action for the prisoners that are growing internationally, including the Dismantle Damon Campaign to free Palestinian women, the Free Palestinian Students campaign building a bridge from the global student movement to Palestinian students confronting occupation, the Free Lebanese Prisoners campaign, the campaign to Save Palestinian Prisoners, as well as the campaigns to defend Palestinian prisoners in shatat as well as prisoners for Palestine. Defense and support committees, like those for Tarek Bazrouk, Salah Sarsour, and Jakhi McCray in the U.S. to those for Ahmad Salem, Anan Yaeesh, Mohammed Hannoun, Raed Dawoud, Yaser Elasaly and Riyad Albustanji in Italy, the Liberez Ali campaign in France, the Filton 24 and Brize Norton 5 campaigns in Britain, the Ulm 5 in Germany, and many more, are doing critically important work to advance the movement and support its prisoners.
We urge all to escalate efforts to end the sanctioning of groups, individuals and states that defy imperialism led by the United States, as well as to end the “terrorist designations” and proscriptions of resistance organizations across the region as well as activist campaigns in the imperial core, such as Palestine Action and Samidoun. This is the moment to rally around the resistance, from Palestine to Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, and to confront the systems of sanctioning and designation that aim to criminalize not only the resistance, but even vocal support for its legitimate struggle for liberation. From Hamas to Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, AnsarAllah, multiple Iraqi resistance organizations, and even the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of Iran — a state institution — imperialist powers use “terrorist designations” against all forces that challenge their domination, exploitation and plunder as another weapon of warfare against the Resistance and the peoples of the world.
It is critical to bring down the “Execution Law,” break the isolation imposed on the prisoners, and impose popular accountability through direct action and mobilization, as well as through pursuing all efforts to impose legal and official accountability on the perpetrators of these crimes against the prisoners. Demand the entry of the Red Cross and independent international legal teams into the occupation prisons — at the same time that we are clear: every single prisoner must be liberated, and the prisons of the occupier destroyed. We must replace the isolation of the heroic prisoners with the isolation of the Zionist entity, from boycotting its products, complicit corporations, academic and cultural institutions, and government entities to imposing a complete arms and trade embargo, with a unified call to action that advances the victory of the Resistance and the revolutionary forces of Palestine and the region.
Freedom for all Palestinian Prisoners!
Victory to the Resistance!
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!
Discover more from Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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