On Tuesday, 7 October, Samidoun Spain held a discussion in Madrid about the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and the prisoners’ centrality to the resistance and liberation struggle, featuring two prominent liberated Palestinians who were freed in the Toufan al-Ahrar exchange: Ammar al-Zaben and Omar al-Sharif. The event was facilitated by Khaled Barakat, Palestinian writer and member of the Executive Committee of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement.
Both al-Zaben and al-Sharif spoke eloquently about the Palestinian experience of imprisonment and the current situation of the Palestinian cause as a whole. In his remarks, al-Zaben focused on the political situation of the Palestinian liberation movement today, especially amid the genocide in Gaza, while al-Sharif focused in detail on the situation and experiences of the Palestinians imprisoned inside Zionist occupation jails.
The two speakers both emphasized the importance of international solidarity for the Palestinian cause, and that the Palestinian people are confronting a colonial project in occupied Palestine. Therefore, the road to justice for Palestine does not come via a so-called “two-state solution” but through the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea and the entire Palestinian people.
Ammar al-Zaben noted that Palestinians face different realities in their locations — those in Gaza, the West Bank, Jerusalem, occupied Palestine ’48, in the refugee camps and everywhere in exile and diaspora. Within this context, he emphasized that all Palestinians are subjected to colonization, even if the form may vary. He said that all who struggle for Palestine are part of the “Palestinian family.” He also discussed the education system within the prisons and how Palestinians struggle to access academic education inside the prisons, as well as their internal education; he saluted the role played by Marwan Barghouti in the struggle for education.
Omar al-Sharif presented various examples of Palestinian prisoners’ experiences of exceptional steadfastness behind bars, facing torture, assassination and the ongoing practice of “slow killing.” He particularly noted the experiences of Palestinian women suffering inside the occupation prisons from direct experience, as his wife, Marah Bakir, is also a liberated prisoner who was freed in the November 2023 exchange. He emphasized that Zionist medical staff are directly involved in the torture of Palestinians, both mistreating them and failing to provide necessary medical treatment. He also discussed the experiences of Palestinian children in occupation prisons, as well as the experience of the prisoners’ movement after 7 October and amid the genocide in Gaza.
When asked about the experience, specifically, of Palestinians abducted from Gaza by invading occupation soldiers, al-Sharif said that he had only had the opportunity to see Palestinian prisoners from Gaza once, but from that one occasion and the testimonies of his fellow liberated prisoners, it was clear that there is no comparison in the experience — despite the fact that all of the imprisoned Palestinians are going through horrific treatment, the experiences of those from Gaza and the extreme levels of torture and abuse they faced were distinct.
Both of them saluted the bravery and heroism of the resistance, and the incredible steadfastness and sacrifice of the Palestinian people in Gaza in achieving their liberation and that of thousands of their fellow imprisoned strugglers.
In his remarks, Khaled Barakat emphasized that one of the goals of the Al-Aqsa Flood operation on 7 October was the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, and that we are expecting the liberation of nearly 2,000 very soon. This comes in addition to the nearly 2,000 already released by the resistance during this period, and atop the history of prisoner exchanges carried out by the Palestinian movement. This has included those, like al-Zaben and al-Sharif, sentenced to life sentences who many expected never to be released. He also saluted the role of Samidoun, which has continued to act as an international voice of the Palestinian prisoners, despite criminalization, arrests, deportations, and repression across Europe and North America, and has shown itself to be “up to the task” of confronting this phase of struggle.
Ammar al-Zaben spent 27 years inside the occupation prisons prior to his release in the Toufan al-Ahrar exchange on 22 February 2025. Born in Nablus in 1975, he became the leader of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in his area. with one of the mandates being capturing occupation soldiers in order to exchange them to liberate Palestinian prisoners. He was involved in leading several armed resistance operations in occupied Jerusalem, and when he was captured by the occupation forces in 1998, he was sentenced to 27 life sentences plus 25 years.
He is married with two sons and two daughters; he is considered the first Palestinian prisoner to use “liberated sperm” smuggled from the prison to a fertility clinic to have children, “ambassadors of freedom,” with his wife — his sons Muhannad, in 2012, and Seif al-Din, in 2014.. His mother was martyred in 2004 as she participated in a hunger strike in solidarity with one inside the occupation prisons. He earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Al-Quds University inside the occupation prisons. The following song was released in honor of him by the Ghoraba Band in 2019:
Omar al-Sharif, a Palestinian Jerusalemite, had spent nearly 22 years in occupation prisons before his release in Toufan al-Ahrar on 25 January 2025. Omar was serving 18 life sentences in occupation prisons for his role in the resistance’s military work in the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades.
He was a leader in the prisoners’ movement, participating in multiple hunger strikes and frequently transferred between prisoners and subjected to isolation.
Watch the full event video in Spanish:
Or in Arabic:
On the morning of 13 October 2025, the Asra Media Office published the lists of Palestinian prisoners to be liberated today by the Resistance in the latest stage of the prisoner exchange taking place as part of the ongoing ceasefire agreement in Gaza. News reports indicate that the Palestinian prisoners to be liberated have already boarded buses — after being subjected to torture, abuse and attempted humiliation inside the occupation prisons, once again.
This call and movement has emerged out of the popular movement and mass revulsion against the Zionist entity, which has witnessed an immense turning tide among the Dutch population. In this context, the Red Line demonstration unites around the basic demand of sanctions on Israel.
