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Monday, June 30, 2025
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Sixteen Palestinians detained in the occupied Naqab as they resist land confiscation and colonialism

Photo: Walid al-Abra/Arabs48

The occupied Naqab of Palestine is rising up to reject the colonial plans of the occupation, with the launch of a general strike in the villages of the occupied Naqab to protest against village and home demolitions.

Occupation forces attacked Palestinian protesters in the southern part of occupied Palestine, in the Naqab. Palestinians are striking to reject the Israeli occupation’s plan for ongoing ethnic cleansing and forced Judaization of the area.

Occupation forces razed a tent as heavily armed Israeli police forces surrounded the villages of Al-Atrash and Al-Ruwais, preventing residents from entering the area. The police protected bulldozers and the KKF (Jewish National Fund), which began bulldozing the land for the second consecutive day.

The continuing attacks against the people of the Naqab and their land are part of the ongoing Zionist colonial plans for ethnic cleansing and an attempt to erase the Palestinian presence, as the Israeli regime views the Naqab as a strategic location for its colonial projects. Indeed, members of the Likud party arrived at the area where the land was being razed, making clear the intention of the project. The politicians present included former ministers, war criminal Avi Dichter and Miri Regev, known for her frequent anti-Palestinian incitement and attacks on Palestinian cultural institutions. Dichter planted the first tree in the razed area, as a symbol of the seizure of the land.

Palestinian youth have risen up in recent days against the Israeli occupation police in order to confront the scheme aiming at the confiscation of 800,000 to 1 million dunums of land in the Naqab. The ongoing colonization throughout occupied Palestine is reflected in these crimes against Palestinians in the Naqab, including demolitions and forced transfer.

There is no infrastructure in the Naqab area, no hospitals or institutions, and the children of the Naqab walk dozens of kilometers daily to reach their schools. The Zionist government is racing against time to consolidate the Judaization and militarization plan for the Naqab, attracting and recruiting Jewish colonial settlers to settle on the lands plundered from Palestinian villages, which have been stripped of recognition, displacing their residents and gathering them on the smallest possible area of land, while the residents of the “fence” area in the Naqab face a further danger of displacement.

The number of the Arab Bedouin population in the Naqab before the Palestinian Nakba, perpetrated by Zionist armed forces in 1947-48 was approximately 90,000, and they were organized into 95 tribes. Most of the Bedouins in the Naqab were expelled during and after the Nakba in 1948 and became refugees in the surrounding Arab countries and in Palestinian areas that were not occupied by Israel in 1948. Therefore, only 11,000 people remained in the Negev in 1952.

As of today, a general strike called in the villages of Naqa’ Bir al-Saba, al-Atrash and Khirbet al-Watan schools began, while a sit-in was set up on the lands to be demolished. The school strike expanded to include the villages of al-Atrash, Sa’wa, Bir Hadaj, al-Zarnouk, al-Ruwais and Khirbet al-Watan.

At the same time they announced a series of measures of struggle, including a strike in some villages and a mass demonstration next Thursday.

At this moment there are already 16 Palestinian resisters arrested in the Naqab today, 11 January, by the occupation forces, of whom several are minor children and three are women.

 

 

Palestinian prisoner Nasser Abu Hmaid’s life at risk in intensive care: Freedom now!

Palestinian prisoner Nasser Abu Hmaid is in a coma fighting lung cancer as he remains separated from his loved ones. Abu Hmaid has been held in intensive care in Barzilai hospital for four days. However, his health condition has been deteriorating for a long period of time, while the Israeli occupation refused to transfer him to a civilian hospital. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Nasser Abu Hmaid and full accountability for the ongoing and systematic policy of medical neglect that threatens the lives of imprisoned Palestinian strugglers.

Abu Hmaid. 49, is sentenced to 7 life sentences and 50 years in Israeli prisons; his four brothers, Nasr, Sharif and Mohammed, were arrested with him in 2002, while his fifth brother, Islam, was arrested in 2018. All are serving life sentences for their participation in the resistance to Israeli occupation and Zionist colonialism throughout Palestine. Their sixth brother, Abdel-Moneim Abu Hmaid, was assassinated by Israeli occupation special forces on 31 May 1994.

The Abu Hmaid family, Palestinian refugees from al-Amari refugee camp near Ramallah, have been for years a symbol of Palestinian resistance and sacrifice; their home was demolished by the Israeli occupation on five separate occasions as an act of collective punishment and rebuilt each time. Their mother was denied family visits for many years by the Israeli occupation. Abu Hmaid’s mother and siblings have spoken out repeatedly and regularly participate in all activities in defense of Palestinian prisoners and their liberation.

Not only is Nasser Abu Hmaid fighting lung cancer; his lungs shut down due to a bacterial infection, acute inflammation and pneumonia. Last October, he received surgery to remove a cancerous tumor in his lung; however, he was returned to prison before he could fully recover. Palestinian prisoners’ associations report that his access to regular chemotherapy was postponed on multiple occasions since that time. After his surgery, his condition worsened instead of improving.

Today, Abu Hmaid is in a coma, on a ventilator, as he struggles to survive. His family and lawyers have repeatedly noted that up-to-date medical reports are not available, and both his family members and lawyers have been barred from seeing him in the hospital, even as he remains unconscious. His imprisoned brothers have been given little to no information about his situation.

His family point to ongoing medical neglect in Abu Hmaid’s case. His lung cancer was only detected in August 2021 despite already reaching an advanced stage. The surgical procedure was delayed until October, when he received surgery due to the protests of his fellow prisoners and legal organizations.

Protests and solidarity tents have been set up throughout occupied Palestine to support Abu Hmaid throughout occupied Palestine, even as his mother was herself hospitalized in Ramallah on 10 January due to the ongoing trauma of the situation. These demonstrations are demanding Abu Hmaid’s immediate release and that of all of the sick and elderly prisoners being denied proper medical care and connection with their loved ones behind the bars of the Israeli occupation.

Palestinian prisoners have repeatedly denounced a systematic policy of medical neglect by the Israeli occupation against them behind bars. At least 73 of the 227 Palestinians who have lost their lives behind Israeli bars suffered from medical neglect and negligence. There are over 500 sick prisoners among the 4,500 Palestinians jailed in Israeli occupation prisons. These include 200 prisoners with chronic illnesses, at least 10 with active cancer and 85 with a number of serious disabilities and illnesses. 25 Palestinian political prisoners with particularly severe illnesses are held in the Ramle prison clinic, notorious among imprisoned Palestinians for its poor care.

Medical neglect includes the denial of regular medical checkups, delay of treatment or testing, being provided with painkillers instead of proper treatment, poor sanitary conditions and overcrowding in the prisons, infestation with insects and rodents in the prisons, transfers on the “bosta” rather than in ambulances or medical vehicles, lack of supports or medical equipment for prisoners with disabilities, and other forms of mistreatment. Women prisoners are not provided with access to specialized gynecological care. All of these are practiced as a standard policy of the Israeli occupation, amounting to another form of physical and psychological ongoing torture against Palestinian prisoners and detainees.

Under the Fourth Geneva Convention and the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, Israeli occupation prison authorities have a responsibility to provide proper health care without discrimination, to provide suitable premises and access to qualified medical professionals. However, the Israeli prison system, part of the mechanisms of the colonial occupation that aims to suppress and break the Palestinian resistance, violates these responsibilities as a matter of course.

The case of Nasser Abu Hmaid and his fellow ill prisoners is not only a humanitarian outrage but an example of the ongoing attempts to criminalize and isolate the Palestinian resistance through all forms of repression and violence. The “policy of slow death” or “slow killing” through medical negligence is a systemic practice that has been repeatedly identified by the Palestinian prisoners’ movement as a key target of struggle.

Abu Hmaid became active in the great Palestinian intifada of 1987. He joined groups of youth confronting occupation soldiers and settlers. Arrested in 1990 by the Israeli occupation, he was sentenced to life imprisonment before being released in 1994 after the signing of the Cairo Agreement. He continued to resist Israeli colonialism and, along with his brothers, participate actively in the armed resistance and was arrested with his brothers once again in 2002. He was a leader of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the armed organization of the Fateh movement, in the occupied West Bank of Palestine.

During his time in the occupation prisons, he has repeatedly participated in collective hunger strikes and protest actions in defense of his fellow Palestinian prisoners. His words from the 2017 collective hunger strike continue to reverberate: “We are still pounding on the cell doors, loudly shouting, chanting and defying the jailer, his brutality and criminality. We still breathe freedom and pride. We walk to death smiling, and we sit on a black blanket, all they left us, around a glass of water and a pinch of salt. We sing for the homeland and for the coming spring of victory. Do not ask about our bodies, for they betrayed us and collapsed for days. As for our souls and our will, we assure you that they are fine, steadfast as the rock in Ebal and Galilee. We took an oath to continue until victory or martyrdom, the path to freedom and independence.”

Nasser Abu Hmaid is among 4,600 Palestinian political prisoners resisting on the front lines for justice and liberation, struggling relentlessly with an unbreakable will toward freedom. We urge all supporters of Palestine to take action to call for freedom for Abu Hmaid and all Palestinian prisoners, especially the ill prisoners who continue to face systemic medical neglect and “slow killing.”

Join Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and organizers for justice and liberation in Palestine around the world for the International Week of Action to Free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian Prisoners, 15 January to 22 January 2022. 

  1. Organize events, actions and protests to demand freedom for Ahmad Sa’adat, Nasser Abu Hmaid and all Palestinian prisoners! Protest in public squares, campuses and community spaces for the Palestinian prisoners. Organize a Palestine Stand or a letter writing event to write to Sa’adat and his fellow Palestinian prisoners  Email us at samidoun@samidoun.net to inform us about your events or actions.
  2. Boycott Israel! Ahmad Sa’adat says: “I call on all forces of progress, freedom and democracy to stand by the struggle of our people through all forms of boycott: political, economic, academic and cultural of the occupation state and the creation of a real economic cost for its industries of colonization and settlement and escalating the global campaigns for boycott of all corporations that support and invest in the occupation militarily and economically.” Don’t buy Israeli goods, and campaign to end investments in corporations that profit from the occupation. Join direct actions to challenge war profiteers and boycott complicit corporations like Puma and HP.

Five Palestinian student leaders at Birzeit University seized by Israeli occupation forces

UPDATE as of 10 am Pacific time, 10 January: Abdel-Hafez Sharabati and Waleed Harazneh were released; Mohammed Khatib, Ismail Barghouthi and Qassem Nakhleh remain imprisoned. Free all Palestinian students! 

Israeli occupation forces arrested five Palestinian student leaders outside the East Gate of the Birzeit University campus on Monday, 10 January 2022, sparking protest and outrage at the ongoing attacks on Palestinian student life. Occupation special forces violently stormed the campus with a combined force of undercover/disguised units carrying handguns and fully armed soldiers, opening fire on Palestinian students with live ammunition. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges student organizations and supporters of Palestine everywhere to organize, take action and campaign to free these five students and the hundreds of Palestinian students jailed by the Israeli occupation.

They seized five student leaders: Ismail Barghouthi, coordinator of the Islamic Bloc; Waleed Harazneh, coordinator of the Student Unity Bloc; Abdel-Hafez Sharabati, coordinator of the Progressive Student Union; Mohammed Khatib, representing the Progressive Democratic Student Pole (al Qutob); and Qassem Nakhleh, also of the Islamic Bloc.

Occupation forces came up behind the students as they were arriving at the university and opened fire on them before shoving them to the ground. The disguised soldiers drove what appeared to be a van delivering goods, while soldiers in full gear were concealed in the rear of the van. Ismail Barghouthi was shot in the thigh and taken to the hospital, and Qassem Nakhleh and Abdel-Hafez Sharabati were also injured by the colonialist soldiers’ violent assault.

All five student leaders have been part of the ongoing student mobilizations and protests challenging the university administration over its investigation and sanctioning of Palestinian student leaders and organizations for organizing and participating in campus events in December 2021 in support of the Palestinian resistance.

The university was closed for classes today due to the ongoing student protests demanding changes from the university administration and an end to policies of subservience to the demands of the Israeli occupation and the Palestinian Authority — via “security coordination” — to clamp down on student activism and organizing on campus.

All five of the arrested students are part of the leadership of the student movement. Today, they were specifically heading to campus in order to meet with the Workers’ Union at Birzeit University to discuss the ongoing protests and calls for action. Instead of holding this meeting between the student blocs and the university workers, the student leaders were fired on with live ammunition, injured and seized by Israeli occupation forces.

They traveled together to the university as they had just departed from the solidarity sit-in in Ramallah in support of Palestinian prisoner Nasser Abu Hamid, currently in a coma due to advanced cancer and dying in an Israeli occupation hospital.

The arrests of the five student leaders have sparked outrage at the ongoing policy of the Israeli occupation to attack and suppress Palestinian student organizing, and also at the Birzeit University administration and the Palestinian Authority. The PA’s role in “security coordination” with the Israeli occupation has included widespread recent arrests of Palestinian students, during which they were subjected to torture and questioned about their role in the student movement at Birzeit.

By sanctioning student leaders and bringing them before a special committee for potential discipline after the organizing of Palestinian national events on campus, Birzeit University administration has also been complicit in the criminalization and repression of the students, noted Palestinian student blocs following the arrests. While the university condemned the attack on its campus, the comments below its statement on social media repeatedly noted that the university had failed in its obligation to protect the students and support their rights.

Student blocs demanded that the university implement the demands of the student movement to support Palestinian national organizing on campus and to stop the investigatory committees against student leaders in order to take a clear position against these occupation attacks. The Islamic Bloc noted that the student movement is committed to standing firm against all attempts to weaken the university as a site of Palestinian struggle, by the occupation itself and by those acting in subordination to the demands of the Israeli regime.

Students are currently demonstrating outside the gates of the university and have called for a protest on Tuesday, 11 January in support of the student movement and to free the imprisoned student leaders.

Hundreds of Palestinian university students are detained by the Israeli occupation. At Birzeit University alone, 55 students were arrested in 2021 and there are 66 students currently held in Israeli occupation prisons, including 8 held without charge or trial under administrative detention. They are among over 4,500 total Palestinian political prisoners jailed by the Israeli occupation regime.

The #FreePalestinianStudents campaign mobilizes over 300 organizations around the world to defend Palestinian students from political imprisonment and demand their freedom.

We join together to call for action and support for Palestinian students behind bars, including: 

  • Boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, including Israeli academic institutions, which are fully complicit in the systematic deprivation of Palestinian rights.
  • Ending all military and economic aid, military transactions, joint projects and direct funding to the Israeli occupation regime by governments around the world.
  • Challenging “normalization” programs that aim to legitimize Israeli occupation — this is an attempt to legitimize the criminalization and targeting of Palestinian students.
  • Organizing to build direct links of solidarity with Palestinian students and the Palestinian student movement, to ensure that they will not be isolated from their global community of support despite all attempts by the Israeli occupation.

#ShutElbitDown Victory: Israeli arms maker sells off Oldham facilities

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Palestine Action and all the campaigners who have bravely taken direct action to confront Elbit in Oldham, who have brought about this victory and ensured that this Israeli arms factory will no longer be manufacturing weapons of death in Oldham.

This victory speaks to the successful nature of strong direct action to impose a meaningful and material cost upon the profiteers of the colonization of Palestine and Israeli war crimes against the Palestinian people. Palestine Action has pledged to continue and escalate the actions to #ShutElbitDown, and this victory can and must inspire people around the world to intensify our actions to boycott Israel and shut down the merchants of death marketing weaponry “battle-tested” on Palestinians. 

We are republishing the full statement of Palestine Action below:

After 18 months of sustained direct action taken at the Elbit Ferranti site in Oldham, Greater Manchester, with 36 people arrested, Elbit have now sold Ferranti technologies, with its continued operation in Oldham appearing unfeasible. Activists have occupied, blockaded, smashed, disrupted, and protested regularly at the site, ultimately succeeding in ending the factory’s production of specialist military technologies for Israel’s fleet of combat drones.

In December 2021, anonymous sources revealed to Palestine Action that mass redundancy notices had been issued to staff working at the factory, and that premises were being cleared in preparation for Elbit leaving the site. Today, it was publicised that Ferranti has indeed been sold to TT Electronics, a British electronics firm. This major restructuring – selling a subsidiary which Elbit has consistently promoted as a success and which has helped Elbit to land multi-million pound contracts with the British government – suggests that Elbit is under significant pressure to tighten its UK operations. This is most likely due to the impossibility of continuing at the often-occupied site, the massive financial impact of occupations, and an attempt to avoid more bad publicity.

Early in 2021, Elbit attempted to make the Oldham factory a viable production site by improving security. Elbit increased spending massively for round-the-clock security, and also benefitted from a rapid police response for protestor removal. Neither of these measures succeeded in keeping out activists, with the site continuing to be targetted regularly.

The first action taken in Oldham by Palestine Action, in late August 2020, involved spraying premises in blood-red paint, symbolising the Palestinian bloodshed made possible with Elbit Ferranti technologies. Following this, actions accelerated. Windows were smashed in an occupation in November 2020, while an action taken in collaboration with XR North in February 2021 caused over £20,000 in damages. In April 2021, activists not only occupied the site but gained entry to the factoy, smashing the roof, windows, air vents, and undermining future operations by covering equipment and computers in red paint – over £100,000 of damages were caused, and the site remained shut for well over a week. On July 5th, three activists gained entry to the site, allegedly causing £500,000 of damage and closing the factory for a number of weeks. More recently, in August of this year, activists blockaded the factory – blocking roads with vehcles and locking onto gates – and occupied the factory itself again. There have been a number of other actions taken at the Oldham site, with the factory forced to closed for a significant number of weeks in total due to damage caused.

The site has also been subject to regular protests called by Oldham Peace and Justice and Manchester Palestine Action, with large crowds gathering outside the factory on a weekly basis since the massive and brutal bombardments of Gaza by Israel in May. Sustained pressure, through both protests and an extended campaign of effective direct action, has generated immense challenges for Elbit, who have now sold the subsidiary and left the site.

A Palestine Action spokesperson has stated:

“The sale of Ferranti and the closure of the Oldham factory is a huge victory for the movement. So far, our actions have undermined and disrupted operations – but this news vindicates our long-term strategy. Direct action works – the brave individuals who occupied the factory over the past year can proudly say that drone technologies are no longer in production in Oldham. But its not enough that just one of these death-factories shuts down. We want to see Elbit itself shut down for good, and all of their businesses forced out of Britain – we will keep escalating our actions until that happens.”

This site had been targetted due to the crimes committed against Palestinian civilians using Elbit Ferranti products. The Oldham factory was used for the manufacture of specialist military products and technology, including the SkEyepersistent surveillance system aboard Elbit’s Hermes 450 and 900 drones. Ferranti also manufacture the SpectroXR ultra long-range imaging system for Hermes drones. Hermes drones have been used extensively by Israel in bombardments of Gaza, notably during Operation Protective Edge in 2014 in which over 2,200 Palestinians were killed, including 526 children. The site was also used for the production of IronVision helmets for use in battle tanks such as the Carmel – specficially designed for operations in densely built urban areas, such as Gaza.

 

Samidoun marches in Rosa Luxemburg/Karl Liebknecht memorial demonstration in Berlin

On 9 January 2022, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network marched in the Luxemburg-Liebknecht demonstration in Berlin (also known as the Liebknecht-Luxemburg-Lenin Demo). The annual march brings together revolutionary leftists throughout Germany and parts of Europe to commemorate the assassination of communist revolutionary leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht 103 years ago.

Photo: Redmediakollektiv

Samidoun marched in a bloc of dozens of participants with comrades in the Freedom Network for Political Prisoners and Grup Yorum, calling for solidarity and liberation for all revolutionary prisoners around the world and showing solidarity with Grup Yorum, facing persecution and repression for their music of struggle. The bloc further stood with the Palestinian people in the struggle against Zionism, imperialism and reactionary forces.

Around 2,400 people from many different political organizations participated in the march, which proceeds to the cemetery where Luxemburg and Liebknecht are buried, and red flowers are laid on their graves. The annual event is highly internationalist, with widespread participation from German, European, Turkish, Kurdish and other international communist organizations and parties.

The Samidoun contingent carried Palestinian flags, Samidoun banners and a large banner reading “Boycott Israel: Free Palestine from the river to the sea.” They also invited attendees to participate in an upcoming screening of “Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight,” the film focusing on the life in struggle of Lebanese Arab Communist Georges Abdallah, jailed in France for over 37 years.

The Samidoun statement for the demonstration follows:

We stand today in honor of the workers in struggle throughout the years, who carried the banners of revolution in their era, and in honor of those who suffered and struggled inside the prisons and miserable cells, for the martyrs of the cause of justice everywhere. We carry the message of over 5,000 Palestinian prisoners who are paying the price for the end of colonialism, our prisoners who sleep on the ground of the cells and make their ceilings a sky of freedom. From Palestine and from the harsh refugee camps to here in Germany, we carry forward our dream of revolution and liberation.

We stand with those who struggle for freedom against reactionary forces, imperialism, Zionism and colonialism. We direct our message to them and to the whole world that our common struggle against imperialism is the recipe for inevitable victory; our united revolutionary cause is the path to liberation and return.

Our hope for a liberated world and a clear sky of freedom today places us in the position to take joint action. Imperialism attacks the people around the world and Zionism confiscates our lives in an attempt to kill the hope of revolution inside us. A hundred years have passed, and the Palestinian people are still fighting and willing to sacrifice for freedom. We believe in the inevitability of victory and return to Palestine from the river to the sea, and there can be no just peace in the world without our victory, our return and the defeat of colonialism.

Photo: Redmediakollektiv

There is no freedom without a united confrontation everywhere against forces of reaction, imperialism and colonialism. The freedom of the peoples is all of our duty, and unless we unite our ranks today, the journey of our revolution will be much longer.

Freedom for Palestine! Freedom for all revolutionary prisoners!

Toulouse city council opposition denounces Toulouse town hall’s attempt to censor solidarity with Palestine

For several years, the municipal majority in Toulouse has been escalating  its positions in support of Israeli apartheid. In this context, the mayor of Toulouse, Jean-Luc Moudenc, has made multiple attacks on the activities of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, asking for the ban of our Palestine Stands or gatherings organized alongside many associations for justice in Palestine. The Collectif Palestine Vaincra is a member organization of the Samidoun Network.

Faced with these attacks on the rights to demonstrate and freedom of expression, several officials from the municipal opposition parties expressed their indignation at the threats of the Toulouse municipality against Palestine activism in the city.

In a press release published on 4 January, the Groupe Alternative pour une Métropole Citoyenne – Ville Toulouse affirmed:  “Article 100 of the Constitution provides that ‘freedom of expression, including the right to obtain, retain and to distribute information and to express opinions, is guaranteed to all.’ This is why we are contesting the Toulouse town hall’s right to set itself up as a censor.” It goes on to note: “The boycott of a state is a mode of action that has borne fruit, as was the case with South Africa during apartheid. “ This opposition group brings together elected representatives Agathe Roby, Maxime Le Texier, Aymeric Deheurles, Jamal El Arch, Caroline Honvault, Odile Maurin and François Piquemal.

In addition, the opposition municipal councillor Odile Maurin published a tweet on 21 December declaring: “Let’s boycott Israel as we once did South Africa, while denouncing and fighting against anti-Semitism: let’s not mix everything up!”

For his part, the elected city councillor Jamal El Arch also published a supportive tweet denouncing the attacks on freedom of expression on the part of the municipal majority, recalling that “Maxime Boyer [deputy mayor of Toulouse] seems to forget freedom of expression in attacking the Collectif Palestine Vaincra. For the AMC Group, this principle is one of the fundamentals of legally guaranteed democracy. Boycotting a state is a mode of action against apartheid.”

The Collectif Palestine Vaincra welcomes these positions in defense of freedom of expression and the right to boycott Israel and confront colonialism, racism and apartheid.

Source: Collectif Palestine Vaincra

#Palestine2022 campaign aims to bring Palestine into the French presidential campaign

In the 2022 French presidential election campaign, Palestine is largely absent from the mainstream discussion, despite the fact that it should be a central issue in addressing France’s foreign policy. French governments have always actively supported Israel, a colonial and racist state. France plays a key role in the oppression of the Palestinian people, including through its decisive support for Israel’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, imprisoning struggler for Palestine Georges Abdallah, free trade agreements and criminalization of solidarity.

Collectif Palestine Vaincra is launching the #Palestine2022 campaign to bring Palestine into the debate and demand an end to French cooperation with Israeli apartheid during the French presidential election campaign!

Join the mobilization
Sign the petition on www.palestine2022.com

Platform points of the #Palestine2022 campaign:

Denounce the criminalization of support for Palestine

  • Defend the right to boycott Israel: repeal the Alliot-Marie, Mercier and Dupond-Moretti circulars (to prosecute boycott, divestment and sanctions activity)
  • Reject the IHRA’s definition of anti-Semitism, which conflates anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism
  • Denounce the criminalization of Palestinian organizations and the Palestinian solidarity movement
  • Support Salah Hamouri, French-Palestinian lawyer threatened with expulsion from Jerusalem where he was born
  • Demand the removal of Palestinian organizations from the list of “terrorist organizations” of the European Union

Stop economic and cultural cooperation with Israel

  • End the free trade agreements between Israel and France, in particular within the framework of the EUROMED agreements
  • Exclude Israel from the Horizon Europe agreement for innovation and research
  • Stop investments by French companies in Israel, especially in illegal West Bank settlements
  • End twinning between French towns and Israeli towns

Stop all forms of military cooperation

  • Impose a military embargo against Israel
  • Stop collaboration with Israeli military companies
  • Stop the incorporation of French citizens and dual citizens into the Israeli army
  • Stop the funding of the Israeli army by French associations

Demand the release of Georges Abdallah
Lebanese communist and struggler for Palestine, he has been imprisoned in France since 1984 despite being eligible for release since 1999. He is one of the 5,000 Palestinian political prisoners who are detained not only by the Israeli occupation but also by its allies such as France, the United States or Saudi Arabia.

Supporting the struggle of the Palestinian people here also means fighting against France’s complicity with Israeli apartheid. It is therefore essential to join the collectives and associations organizing to strengthen this solidarity and anti-colonialist mobilization.

Original source: Collectif Palestine Vaincra

Remembering Chuck Kaufman: A life in anti-imperialist struggle

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network honors the life of Chuck Kaufman, a lifelong anti-imperialist activist, dedicated organizer, and co-founder of the Alliance for Global Justice. AfGJ, in addition to its own distinguished work in defense of people’s rights in the United States and internationally, is the fiscal sponsor for Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and over 150 other social justice organizations across an array of movements. 

Chuck passed away on 28 December 2021 after a long life in struggle dedicated to advancing liberation movements and anti-imperialist resistance globally. Many of us have known him for decades, and a number of his organizing efforts, including the Campaign for Labor Rights, the Mobilization for Global Justice, and the Latin America Solidarity Coalition, were crucial to our early political development. 

Chuck was on the front lines of Latin America solidarity for decades and a key voice in the anti-war movement in 2001, when he co-founded the ANSWER Coalition, and beyond. He consistently held a principled position on Palestine and always refused to allow Palestine to be excluded from anti-war and progressive movements, or stripped of the political nature of its struggle for freedom and reduced to a humanitarian concern.

Chuck’s advice and support have been invaluable for Samidoun and its growth, as well as our members as we participated in a range of organizations and movements over the years. His anti-imperialist principles will continue to inspire our work as we organize to free Palestinian prisoners and for the liberation of Palestine.

We are sharing the below statement from AfGJ as well as a link to a Zoom memorial for Chuck, which will take place on Sunday, 9 January 2022 at 11 am MST (10 am Pacific, 1 pm Eastern). AfGJ will host a virtual memorial where family members, friends from all over the world, and comrades in general, will also participate. To register, visit bit.ly/chuckpresente.

** 

AFGJ’s work continues without our visionary but with a solid team who have worked alongside him for years to build a better world. AfGJ requests hat people offer gestures of comfort and remembrance of Chuck through their continued support to AFGJ and the causes to which he dedicated his life to. Please visit AfGJ.org for articles or additional materials related to Chuck’s legacy. You may donate to AFGJ here.

Chuck was a true leader, a visionary, a master strategist and above all, a loving and kind comrade and friend. Through his wise stewardship Alliance for Global Justice grew to become a major force in building the capacity of grass roots organizers throughout the Americas to confront imperialism, neoliberalism and oppression in all forms and to strive to curb U.S. violations of human rights, both within and outside its borders.

Chuck has been a leader of the Central and Latin America solidarity movements since joining the staff of the Nicaragua Network in 1987. He gave up his successful advertising business out of disgust at Congress’ cowardice during the Iran-Contra scandal. He went on his first coffee picking brigade to Nicaragua that same year. Chuck has been in the front ranks of the movements to support the right of people in Latin America and the Caribbean to dignity, sovereignty, and self-determination. He has led delegations to Nicaragua, Venezuela, Haiti and Honduras.

Chuck has written and spoken often about US democracy manipulation programs through the National Endowment for Democracy and US Agency for International Development as well as what he calls the need to look to the Abolition Movement as our inspiration to change the culture of US militarism. He was a board member of the Latin America Solidarity Coalition and a leader of the LASC’s effort to build a stronger movement to oppose US militarism and the militarization of relations with Latin America. He was a founder of the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition and has spoken at most of the major Washington, DC anti-war demonstrations. Through AfGJ, he was a founding board member of the Honduras Solidarity Network. He held a B.A. in Government and Politics from George Mason University. His first political activism was as a high school student in 1969 when he organized student walk-out in four county high schools in his native Indiana.

 

Amsterdam demands freedom for Palestinian prisoners, celebrates Abu Hawash victory

Samidoun Nederland took to the streets in West Amsterdam on Thursday, 6 January to celebrate the victory of Palestinian hunger striker Hisham Abu Hawash and to call for freedom for all Palestinian prisoners. The event had been originally called to demand Abu Hawash’s release, but became instead a celebratory occasion. Participants shared information about Abu Hawash’s 141-day hunger strike as well as the ongoing boycott of the Israeli military courts by the 500 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under “administrative detention.”

The administrative detainees, whose detention is indefinitely renewable, based on secret evidence, are among 4,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. Participants in the action carried Palestinian flags and Samidoun banners and distributed material discussing the current situation of Palestinian political prisoners and Palestinians struggling to confront occupation and colonialism.

They also denounced the action of the Dutch government, announced yesterday, to cut funding to the Palestinian organization, the Union of Agricultural Work Committees. Despite the fact that the government’s own report completely exonerated the UAWC of the dubious allegations against it, the Dutch state chose to impose political conditions and repression on Palestinian farmers, in league with the Israeli criminalization of the UAWC and other Palestinian organizations defending people’s rights.

Samidoun Nederland is planning a number of upcoming events and actions to free Palestinian prisoners and support the liberation of Palestine. Contact Samidoun Nederland to find out more details and get involved.

Madrid protest celebrates victory of Abu Hawash, calls for Palestinian prisoners’ liberation

On Tuesday, 4 January, Samidoun España organized a protest in support of Hisham Abu Hawash in the center of Madrid at Plaza del Sol. An enthusiastic crowd of supporters of Palestine attended the event and urged the liberation of Abu Hawash, at the time on his 141st day of hunger strike against his administrative detention, Israeli imprisonment without charge or trial.

Participants carried Palestinian flags and banners calling for the boycott of Israel and calling for the liberation of Palestine, including the banners of the Masar Badil (Alternative Palestinian Revolutionary Path) movement, which convened in Madrid in late 2021.

They brought As the protest continued, participants learned that Abu Hawash had concluded his strike after winning an agreement for his release on 26 February; he will continue to receive medical treatment until his release. Protesters broke out into dabkeh — Palestinian folk dance — in celebration of Abu Hawash’s victory.

Participants emphasized the need for continued protest and organizing to free Palestinian prisoners, especially as over 500 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial are boycotting the Israeli military courts to demand an end to administrative detention. They pledged to continue struggling and mobilizing until Palestine is free from the river to the sea.

To get involved in upcoming actions for Palestinian prisoners and the liberation of Palestine in Madrid, contact Samidoun España.

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