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Support Elias Rodriguez and Casey Goonan: Call to Action – Oct 25th – Nov 1st

We are republishing the following call from Abolition Media

In commemoration of October 7th, the revolutionary Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, we are calling for a week of action for  pro-Palestinian political prisoners Elias Rodriguez and Casey Goonan.

The Palestinian Revolution, with dignity and pride, changed the course of history two years ago, and on this anniversary we must also stand up for those who took action. Former political prisoner Georges Abdallah said, “it is the duty of every revolutionary to respond with the means at their disposal” in his salute to Elias, noting that it is a duty for revolutionaries in the west to rise in response to genocide and in solidarity with the Resistance. Elias is accused of being such a figure and Casey has been convicted of fulfilling this duty.

Elias is accused of assassinating two zionist pigs in DC in solidarity with anti-colonial Resistance forces in West Asia fighting for a free Palestine. He is currently pre-trial and potentially facing the death penalty.

Casey Goonan is a political prisoner who has been convicted of torching a UC Berkeley pig vehicle in support of the pro-Palestine student movement and in support of the Palestinian Revolution. They were accused of a series of arsons in what was termed Operation Campus Flood. They were recently sentenced to almost 20 years in prison.

From October 25 through November 1st take action in support of our comrades. Direct actions, letter writing, wheat pasting, banner drops, or whatever you may have in your toolkit. Stand up for our comrades in the imperialist dungeons.

Email us any photos or reports of your actions and we will publish them in a later round up.

Email: dayofaction1025@proton.me

Casey Goonan #24611-511
FCI Mendota
33500 West California Avenue
Mendota, CA
93640
(Casey likely will not be here indefinitely so please check before sending mail.)

Elias Rodriguez
#394346
1901 D Street SE,
Washington DC
20003

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/21796/

October 7, Al-Aqsa Flood: Today’s Palestinian revolution resisting two years of genocide and the urgent tasks of our movement

Today, 7 October 2025, we mark the second anniversary of Al-Aqsa Flood, the great crossing of the Palestinian people and their resistance: the day that changed the world. Two years later, amid the horrific genocide carried out by the Zionist regime with the full involvement and joint responsibility of the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Canada and their fellow imperialist powers, it remains clear that the path forward forged by the fighters on 7 October 2023 is the path to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. 

The seventh of October is now and will remain a great revolutionary occasion, a moment that is celebrated by the oppressed peoples and nations of the world as a historic moment in the anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggle, and which will live on after liberation as a milestone in the path to victory. The red triangles of the Palestinian resistance have become international symbols of the ability to defeat the oppressor, and the legendary heroism of the Palestinian resistance has been written indelibly into the history of global revolution. 

On 7 October 2023, the Palestinian people and their Resistance, led by the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, demonstrated to the world that it is in fact possible to breach the armored structures of the Zionist regime, set up with the most advanced technologies and with billions of dollars in imperialist weaponry, to defeat the soldiers of colonialism and racism, and to roam freely in occupied Palestinian land. Indeed, “Israel” can be defeated – and will be defeated.

With every bulldozer tearing down the fences, every tank mounted by the people it aimed to shoot and kill, every military base and intelligence office trampled by the fighters of the resistance, and every paraglider sailing toward the dawn of liberation, every march forward by the sons of those exiled from this very land and denied their right to return, the Palestinian resistance carried out a brilliant, strategic military operation targeting the military bases surrounding Gaza targeting the breaking of the siege and the liberation of Palestinian prisoners. 

The effect was immediate, and not simply because the resistance imposed remarkable losses on the colonial forces who had been, for 75 years prior, massacring Palestinians, forcing from their land and confiscating it, constructing settlements, imprisoning and torturing tens of thousands of prisoners, destroying their villages, sacred places and holy sites, denying their right to return, and carrying out an ongoing genocidal assault on Palestinian and Arab existence. It was because on October 7th, with the launch of Al-Aqsa Flood, the Palestinian resistance made clear that it was capable of liberating Palestine and that a Palestine free of Zionism was on the horizon – and, furthermore, that an entire Arab nation and broader region free of imperialism was also entirely possible and within the grasp of the people and their mobilized and organized resistance.    

Imperialism and Zionism are the Reasons for Genocide

Let us be clear: The proximate cause of the Zionist-imperialist genocide targeting the Palestinian people was not the heroic operation of October 7. The cause of the genocide is Zionism and imperialism and their vicious commitment to maintaining colonial domination in perpetuity. Zionism has always been not only a form of racism and racial discrimination, as was once correctly recognized by the United Nations, but an ideology of genocide, and one created hand in hand with European and, later, U.S. imperialism. 

Palestinians are not targeted for genocide because they have continued and escalated their ongoing revolutionary struggle, but because the enemy they confront is a genocidal one, that has taken a nearly uncountable toll from the peoples of Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, the Arab nation and the broader West Asian region over decades of destruction, colonial extraction, invasions, wars, deliberate underdevelopment and brutal subjugation. 

This is borne out in Gaza today, where over 2.4 million Palestinians are subjected to the genocidal onslaught, displaced from their homes. Over 67,000 Palestinians are confirmed martyred, with nearly 10,000 more missing under the rubble. Over 90% of the Gaza Strip has been destroyed. The occupation has destroyed the health care and education systems in Gaza, targeting each hospital and university one by one; targeting aid workers, engineers, health workers, and security personnel for assassination, abduction, torture and imprisonment. 304 journalists and media workers have been targeted for reporting the truth about the genocide to the world, a truth that has outraged global public opinion and led to the international popular isolation of the Zionist regime and millions in the streets. 

Today in the West Bank, where the resistance has been subjected to severe repression and mass imprisonment, and where the Palestinian Authority security forces continue to engage in “security coordination” with the occupier, the occupation is engaging in massive, large-scale land theft, settlement construction, attacks on Palestinian villages, and open declarations of the planned annexation of huge swathes of Palestinian land. All of the PA’s complicity has not stopped the clear and overt declarations by the Zionist regime, including its notorious fascist finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, that it will never cease its theft of Palestinian land, attacks on holy sites, mass arrest campaigns, and rampant killings.

Confronting the Enemy Camp

It is clearer than ever that the enemy camp facing the Palestinian people laid out in the Strategy for the Liberation of Palestine in 1969 is the same genocidal enemy that it faces today: “Israel,” the Zionist movement, imperialism, led by the United States, and the Arab reactionary regimes, with the caveat that the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, at its leadership level and through its commitment to “security coordination” with the Zionist regime, is now lined up with that complicit Arab camp. 

Immediately upon 7 October 2023, upon the launch of the great flood, the imperialist powers identified this operation of the Palestinian resistance as not only a significant blow to the Zionist project, but a herald of a new advance in the resistance camp in the region, that with its steadfast allies, could break the stranglehold of imperialism on the region that has long deliberately undermined Arab and regional development, self-determination and true liberation. The leaders of the imperialist powers rushed to Tel Aviv to declare that their fortress was in place and immediately began shipping billions of dollars, Euros and pounds of weaponry to the Zionist regime to launch its escalated genocide in Gaza; they sent their generals to join its war rooms, and their spy planes to provide them surveillance of the Palestinian resistance to target their assault.

The rise of overtly fascist and extreme right forces within the imperialist powers is directly tied to their open embrace of genocide in occupied Palestine and repeated proclamations of support for “Israel”; indeed, they view it as a model implementation of racial supremacy. The genocide has been intertwined with Big Tech corporations, military contractors, shipping and logistics companies, and surveillance corporations, making the vicious, anti-human reality of capitalism visible to all. The U.S. aggressions against Venezuela and Iran are part and parcel of the same attempt to assert colonial domination on behalf of an empire in decline and unwilling to exist in a multipolar world as is its full-fledged partnership in genocide in Palestine.

At the same time, those who fight fascism globally stand with Palestine. Now, more than ever, the Palestinian flag is the global standard of resistance to colonialism, imperialism and injustice of all kinds. 

Popular Solidarity vs. Corporate and Imperialist Disinformation

We are subjected to a global stream of propaganda designed to misrepresent and slander the resistance, from false allegations of “mass rapes” and “beheaded babies” to the unending stream of movies, TV shows and “documentaries” promoted by major television companies and studios. On social media, Palestinian journalists and Palestine solidarity groups constantly face deplatforming and bans at the hands of Big Tech corporations, while Netanyahu himself boasts of the acquisition of TikTok in order to suppress global outrage and condemnation of the genocide. All of this is necessary in Western state-funded, corporate, and Big Tech media because of the reality: people’s natural sympathy is with the Palestinian people resisting genocide, and the heroic fighters on the front lines of that struggle, and their revolutionary military operation, would clearly be embraced by the people of the world, unless it is possible to drown the flood in a sea of lies and disinformation. 

For 16 years, the Palestinian people under siege in Gaza had built the infrastructure to withstand siege and develop their resistance, building Gaza’s underground as well as its aboveground, in order to defend their land and struggle for return and liberation to Palestine – all of Palestine. When the enemies of the Palestinian cause attempted to strangle this resistance project, with 2 million people on a tiny strip of land, through repeated violent assaults and wars, through a strangling siege, attempting to wipe out the people’s will to live or coerce them into submission, the forces of resistance instead developed an economy and infrastructure of steadfastness. This was built atop seven decades of resistance in Gaza, from the era of the late 1960s, when even Zionist war criminal Moshe Dayan was forced to admit that Mohammed al-Aswad, “Guevara Gaza,” “ruled the Strip at night,” to the great popular Intifada launched in 1987 among the entire Palestinian people, from the heart of Jabaliya refugee camp. 

Amid the tens of thousands of martyrs whose lives have been taken by the horrific genocidal destruction of the Zionist-imperialist assault include many of the great leaders who have forged today’s resistance movement, and who stand as iconic leaders of the global anti-imperialist cause: Ismail Haniyeh, the icon of Palestinian national unity and self-determination; Yahya Sinwar, the legendary fighter and liberated prisoner who fought to liberate the prisoners, Gaza and all of Palestine; Mohammed Deif, the chief of staff of the Palestinian Resistance and the architect of a generation of struggle; Saleh al-Arouri, the great Palestinian fighter; Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the great Arab leader and icon of decades of resistance, the maker of victory over the Zionists; Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, the heroic strategist of resistance; Ahmed al-Rahwi, the Yemeni prime minister alongside 11 members of his government; Ibrahim Aqil, Fouad Shukr, Ali Karaki; Commanders Mohammad Bagheri, Hossein Salami, Gholam Ali Rashid, Mohammad Saeed Izadi of Iran, Abdel Aziz Minawi, the Political Bureau member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement assassinated in Damascus; and many others, in the political and military leadership of the cause, as well as the journalists, doctors, security officials, aid leaders, government officials targeted in order to break the steadfastness, creativity and resistance of the Palestinian people. 

And yet the Resistance continues, never defeated or surrendered, with thousands of young people putting their lives on the line in order to defend their people and their cause, with just this morning, news of missiles from Gaza hitting the settlements surrounding Gaza, and seemingly impossible resistance operations carried out on a daily basis by those on the front lines of the defense of Palestine and those who defend humanity from genocide. 

The Prisoners Movement at the Heart of the Struggle

The Flood also came to seek the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, at the heart of the Palestinian cause, subjected to torture, isolation, arbitrary detention, and all forms of abuse. Infamous fascist Itamar Ben-Gvir had already been named the Zionist “Minister of Public Security,” and the Zionist entity had dramatically ramped up its use of administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial, while boasting of their threats to the prisoners. 

The same draft law for the execution of Palestinian prisoners being pushed now was on the agenda in mid-2023. Today, there are over 11,000 Palestinian prisoners including over 3,600 jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, and over 2,900 Palestinians from Gaza held as “unlawful combatants,” including not only the heroic fighters of the resistance, but kidnapped health care workers and doctors, journalists, and everyday people abducted en masse by genocidal forces invading refugee camps full of tents of displaced people. 77 Palestinians have been killed inside occupation prisons in the past two years, their bodies held hostage by the Zionist regime, often under extreme and severe torture. Multiple doctors kidnapped from Gaza have been assassinated in occupation prisons through physical and sexual assault, both in the prisons of the occupation and the infamous military torture camps like Sde Teiman. 

Today, the leaders of the prisoners’ movement, leaders of the Palestinian resistance as a whole, figures such as Abdullah Barghouti, Ahmad Sa’adat, Marwan Barghouti, Ibrahim Hamed, Hasan Salameh, Abbas al-Sayed and Mahmoud al-Ardah, are held in isolation, subjected to frequent beatings, starvation and abuse, even as the Palestinian resistance fights to achieve their liberation – and that of their brothers and sisters in captivity – through a dignified prisoner exchange. The prisoners’ movement was at the heart of Al-Aqsa Flood, just as it remains at the heart of the Palestinian liberation movement. 

The Rise of the Support Fronts

Just as the enemies of the Palestinian cause were made clear to the world on 7 October, if there were any doubts remaining, so too, were its allies and friends, who have risen in support fronts for Palestine, against the genocide in the face of an imperialist war machine seeking to destroy all who defy it. The great global movement of the people, in the streets and the squares, from the public spaces of the global South to the heart of the imperial core, is raising the flag of Palestine as the flag of justice and liberation for all. This has been met with legal initiatives from South Africa, Colombia and Nicaragua, and the mobilization of innovative legal actions and initiatives to hold Zionists accountable in the courts of the world. 

In Yemen and with its rightful, revolutionary government in Sana’a, the people, armed forces and Ansar Allah movement continue to blaze a trail of unparalleled commitment to Palestinian liberation. 

As millions fill the squares every Friday, the Yemeni armed forces continue to send their drones and missiles to disrupt the skies of occupied Palestine, and as the Yemeni navy shuts down the supply lines of genocide in the Red Sea, forcing the Zionist port in Umm al-Rashrash (“Eilat”) to declare bankruptcy. The Islamic Republic of Iran has continued its consistent and material support of the Palestinian resistance, while responding to Zionist and U.S. aggression with powerful strikes, while defying the attempts to cut off the line of support to Palestine through physical, economic and cyberwarfare.

In Lebanon, the resistance forces led by Hezbollah, who earlier in May 2000 set the region on a path of defiance of Zionist occupation when liberating south Lebanon from nearly 20 years of occupation, immediately launched a support front on 8 October, which emptied much of the north of Palestine of its settlers. The Zionist/imperialist assault on Lebanon, which continues to this day despite the ostensible ceasefire agreed to in November 2024, included the assassination of great, historic, Lebanese, Islamic and international leaders like Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, the horrific “pager attacks” which killed and severely wounded thousands of Lebanese, and daily assaults and invasions throughout south Lebanon, confronting a brave and dedicated resistance from which the occupation was never able to gain or secure territory. 

Confronting U.S. schemes to “disarm the resistance”

As we mark the second anniversary of Al-Aqsa Flood, there is a parallel assault taking place on Palestine and Lebanon – “American proposals” and the so-called “Trump 21-point plan” in Gaza. In both countries, the forces of the resistance, dedicated as they are to the protection and the best interests of their people, have pursued and continue to pursue every possibility of a ceasefire while protecting the core of the cause from colonial interventions, new illegitimate occupation entities like “stabilization forces” and a “peace board” run by notorious war criminals Tony Blair and Donald Trump, collaborator forces armed and trained by the Zionist enemy, and attempts to destroy Palestinian and Lebanese sovereignty and self-determination. 

For our global movement, however, and especially in the heart of the imperial core – amid the governments fully, jointly and severally responsible for the genocide of the Palestinian people – it is our responsibility to do everything we can to strengthen the position of the resistance and ensure the Palestinian people are not left alone to confront the genocidal forces and their complicit agents seeking to extract in the negotiating table what they have been unable to obtain on the battlefield. 

We must stand firmly and clearly behind the resistance in Palestine, and behind the resistance in Lebanon, against any attempts to impose “disarmament” – in other words, to impose helplessness in the face of the nuclear-armed Zionist regime and its billions of dollars in imperialist-provided weaponry. It is clear under international law, and under every basic tenet of humanity that the Palestinian people have the right to resist occupation and colonialism through armed struggle, and that the Lebanese people have the right to resist foreign invasions and ongoing attacks through armed struggle. The weapons of the resistance are the rights of the people, which represent, symbolically and materially, the ongoing struggle for the liberation of their land. Throughout bitter histories of betrayal and sabotage, most notably in the case of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, it is clear: any and all attempts to disarm the resistance are attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause. 

It is clear that the resistance is not only the best defender of sovereignty but also the only force with the ability to impose the self-determination of the people of the land over colonizers that seek to create “greater Israel” over not only Palestine, but also Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and even Jordan and Egypt, despite the complicity of their ruling elites and their commitment to repress resistance in the interests of their normalization with the Zionist regime. 

October 7 and the Revolutionary Promise of Victory

As we struggle to end the genocide, to break the siege, to rebuild Gaza, to defend the West Bank, for Palestinian refugees’ right to return, and for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, we continue to affirm, two years later: Long live October 7! We embrace this call and this slogan because this day represents the revolutionary potential, and indeed reality, of the Palestinian resistance and the entire resistance camp of the region, and because it represents the indelible mark of pride that the occupation has tried to erase through a fountain of bloodshed and massacres. 

This date represents the potential for victory and triumph, and the ability of the Palestinian people and their Resistance to defeat the Zionist entity and its imperialist backers, and it therefore terrorizes all of those who stand on the side of genocide, racism and colonialism, as it represents the end of their supremacy, plunder and domination. It represents the Haitian revolution, the victory of Algeria, Vietnam throwing off its shackles, and the future of liberation in our world.

We have been subjected to an onslaught of repression in the imperial core that is part and parcel of these states’ participation in the genocide, led by the United States. Indeed, just today, a demonstration in Bologna, Italy, was banned – after over two million Italians took to the street and engaged in a general strike for Gaza – because the organizers declared, “Long live October 7! Victory to the Palestinian Resistance!” The designation of Samidoun as a “terrorist entity” and the proscription of Palestine Action are meant to terrorize the mass movement, to rein in popular anger, and to compel the growing movement to be satisfied with illusory “recognitions of a Palestinian state” with no sovereignty, land, or self-determination and without even an arms embargo on “Israel.” 

This comes hand in hand with the ongoing designation as “terrorist organizations” of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Hezbollah, AnsarAllah, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), and a number of other resistance organizations as “terrorist organizations,” criminalizing “material support” and, in some countries such as Britain, even verbal support, for these resistance organizations or for courageous, newly proscribed grassroots movements like Palestine Action, who, through direct action, have caused significant damage to the British-”Israeli” – war machine. 

The targeting of Samidoun in the United States, Canada, and Germany, alongside threats in Belgium and the Netherlands, is designed to silence solidarity for the Palestinian prisoners at a time when the Resistance is fighting for their lives, and to break the bonds of solidarity between the global grassroots movement and the active resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and throughout the region. 

Perhaps these bonds of the unity of all fronts are expressed most clearly by Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, member of the Political Bureau of the AnsarAllah movement in Yemen – as always, setting an example that all sectors of the movement must strive to emulate – when he said, “Hamas has not lost its cards but gained new ones; our weapon is their weapon and the most important maritime strait in the world is now in their hands, and if you return, we return….Our theater of operations is Hamas’s theater of operations, and millions of Yemeni fighters are Hamas men, and Hamas’s war is our war and its peace is our peace.” We are, and must strive to be, one collective global movement, participating in one common resistance across many fronts.

 It is urgent to support all efforts to delist and deproscribe resistance organizations and grassroots movements from “terrorist lists,” and to meet repression with greater solidarity and overt support; the mass protests, at which hundreds have been arrested, in support of Palestine Action in Britain, are one such example. 

It is clear that the attempts to terrorize the people into supporting genocide have failed, as millions of people around the world rallied and marched, from Karachi and Rabat to Amsterdam and Rome, to bring an end to the genocide, and as hundreds sailed to break the blockade of Gaza in the Global Sumud Flotilla, followed now by the Thousand Madleens. 

The Global Flood for Palestinian Liberation

Now, on the second anniversary of Al-Aqsa Flood, it is time to renew, intensify and build our global flood for Palestine, and to take up our collective responsibilities to shut down the war machine and bring the genocide to an end, in support of the Palestinian people and their Resistance. We must escalate the struggle and impose material costs on the profiteers of war, and we must embrace all of the political prisoners in imperialist jails alongside those in Zionist jails as prisoners of the Palestinian cause and demand their liberation, from Tarek Bazrouk and Jakhi McCray, to Anan Yaeesh and Musaab Abu Atta, to Elias Rodriguez and Casey Goonan. This is our time to make the international isolation of the Zionist regime a material reality, even in the heart of the imperial core. 

Gaza is now, and has always been, the graveyard of the invaders. It is the path of resistance that is the road to liberation, with no surrender, and no defeat. It is up to our movement to truly globalize the intifada, to activate and organize ourselves as workers in the labor movement, as students in the student movement, as women in the women’s movement, as people in a revolutionary cause, to unite against imperialism, to be a truly worthwhile partner of the resistance making history on a daily basis, rising like a phoenix from the rubble of genocide.

Palestine is the center of the world. Gaza is the compass of conscience. The resistance are the defenders of humanity.

End the genocide now! 

Freedom for the prisoners!

Glory to the martyrs! 

Victory to the Resistance! 

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! 

Further Resources:

  • Mohammed Deif’s statement on 7 October 2023

They attacked the stationed worshippers and desecrated Al-Aqsa, and we have previously warned them. The enemy desecrated Al-Aqsa and dared to harm the Prophet’s path.

Hundreds have been martyred and injured this year due to the occupation’s crimes. Our calls for a humanitarian exchange were met with refusal, and daily violations continue in the West Bank.

We have decided to put an end to all of the occupation’s crimes. The time has ended for them to act without accountability. We announce the “Al-Aqsa Flood” operation, and in the first strike within 20 minutes, more than 5,000 rockets were launched.

Starting from today, security coordination ends. Today, the people reclaim their revolution, correct their path, and return to the march of return.

O, our people in Al-Quds, expel the occupiers and demolish the walls. O, our people in the interior, Al-Naqab, Al-Jalil, and the Triangle, turn the land into flames beneath the feet of the occupiers.

Oh, our brothers in the Islamic resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen, today is the day when your resistance merges with the resistance of your brothers in Palestine. It is time for the Arab resistance to unite.

We call for mobilization towards Palestine. O, our brothers in Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, and the rest of the Arab countries, take action and heed the call. 

The era of bets has ended, and the occupation must be expelled.

Oh, our people in all Arab and Islamic countries, start marching, not tomorrow, and breach the borders and barriers. 

This is the day of the grand picture to end the occupation.

Today, whoever has a gun, let him bring it out; it’s time. Everyone should come out with their trucks, cars, or tools. Today, history opens its most pure and honorable pages.

As the morning dawns on 7 October 2023, the resistance is rising throughout occupied Palestine, smashing the siege on Gaza with a comprehensive offensive confronting the occupier by land and air, taking control of Palestinian land, seizing occupation settlers and soldiers and launching thousands of missiles as Palestinian resistance forces fight to advance return and the liberation of Palestine.

The new resistance operation, titled the Al-Aqsa Flood by Mohammed Deif, commander in chief of the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, comes on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war in which Egypt reclaimed the occupied Sinai from Zionist occupation, and is set to alter the direction of the struggle in occupied Palestine, moving from resistance toward revolution and liberation.

The resistance operation comes in response to the ongoing stream of crimes against the Palestinian people, the daily murder of Palestinians on the streets of the West Bank of occupied Palestine, the siege on Gaza, the theft of land for settlements, the denial of refugees’ right to return, imposing exile for over 75 years, the torture and attacks on the Palestinian prisoners, the ongoing invasions of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the 75 years of Zionist occupation and over 100 years of imperialist domination and colonialism throughout occupied Palestine.

It also comes to bring about the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, as part and parcel of the Palestinian people and land. The occupation has repeatedly dragged its feet in conducting a prisoner exchange with the resistance, and now the resistance has announced that it has taken a significant number of prisoners from among the occupation soldiers and settlers in order to liberate the 5,250 Palestinian prisoners in occupation prisons, including the 1350 jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, 39 women and 170 children. The resistance is taking new steps to liberate Palestinian land, to confront the settlement project and to liberate the prisoners from a position of power.

News is developing rapidly; however it is clear that the Palestinian resistance is determined to reset the status quo in the region and uncover the reality that the Zionist regime can no longer rely on its technological strength and imperialist weaponry to impose its domination on the Palestinian people. In particular, coming as it does on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war, it is a decisive rebuke to the entire path of Oslo and normalization imposed upon the Palestinian and Arab people for the past 50 years, indicating a new path forward with a clear goal: liberation, and nothing less. It builds upon the liberation of south Lebanon from occupation by the Lebanese resistance, led by Hezbollah, in 2000, and the defeat of the Zionist invasion of Lebanon in 2006, as well as the successive heroic battles waged by the Palestinian resistance throughout occupied Palestine and especially from its base area of resistance land in Gaza.

In his statement announcing the operation, Deif said: “Starting from today, security coordination ends. Today, the people reclaim their revolution, correct their path, and return to the march of return.” He called upon all to participate in the resistance, and specifically to all the forces of resistance in the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen, and all of the Arab peoples from the Gulf to the ocean, to join in this battle, which is their battle for freedom, dignity and liberation, declaring, “it is time for the forces of Arab resistance to unite.”

Samidoun joins the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, in calling “the masses of our Palestinian people, supporters of the resistance in exile and diaspora, allies from the liberation forces and movements, and solidarity committees with the Palestinian people everywhere, to express their support for the heroic Palestinian resistance, raise the flag of Palestine and the banners of resistance, and organize popular, political and media demonstrations and events to expose the Zionist crimes against our people in occupied Palestine….The heroic Palestinian resistance has opened a chapter of battles of dignity and pride at the dawn of October 7, 2023, and it is now responding to decades of continuous and repeated Zionist, American and European aggression against the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation from the ocean to the Gulf, and in the face of the wars of starvation and siege that the United States and its agents have engineered against our peoples in the region, especially in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran.”

As the Palestinian resistance confronts occupation forces, it is critical that internationalists everywhere speak out, mobilize and act to confront the U.S.-led imperialist system, including the EU states, Britain and all complicit powers to end their ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people, and to defend the resistance. These crimes are reflected not only in the Balfour Declaration and the $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid to the occupation regime annually, but in the racist assaults on the Palestinian people in exile and diaspora throughout Europe, and especially in Germany, for speaking out and organizing to take up their role in the cause, for their return to Palestine and the liberation of their land.

Imperialism is the primary enemy of the Palestinian cause, creating the Zionist project and arming it to the teeth as a mechanism of attack against the Arab and Iranian peoples, alongside Zionism, the “Israeli” occupation regime and reactionary, complicit Arab forces.

Today, the resistance is making clear that despite the weaponry and brutality of the occupier, the promise of liberation is closer than ever before.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.

 

Beirut event highlights solidarity with Palestinian journalists targeted for imprisonment and assassination

The Journalist Support Committee held an event in solidarity with Palestinian journalists on Thursday, 2 October 2025 in Beirut, Lebanon, with broad participation from Lebanese, Palestinian, Yemeni and other Arab media outlets. Charlotte Kates, international coordinator of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network and the deputy secretary-general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, participated in the event, speaking about the imprisonment of Palestinian journalists in Zionist jails and international accountability for ongoing genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine.

The event, marking the International Day of Solidarity with Palestinian Journalists, highlighted the over 300 Palestinian journalists who have been martyred at the hands of the Zionist occupation forces in the past two years, especially in the Gaza Strip, under siege and genocidal assault. It was introduced by Hanan Sharaf el-Din, a member of the Executive Board of the Journalist Support Committee, emphasizing the moral and human duty to stand in solidarity with Palestinian journalists, those recording the path of history.

Maysam Butari of the Journalist Support Committee spoke first, emphasizing that Palestinian journalists do not only spread the news but are witnesses to truth, carrying out resistance through words and images and confronting an unjust war machine; she urged international parties to uphold their responsibilities to hold the occupation accountable for its crimes.

Ahmed Sabbahi of the Palestine Today TV channel emphasized that the Palestinian journalist is a voice of truth confronting injustice, emphasizing the dedication and commitment of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, maintaining their courage, commitment and faith in Palestine despite working in tents under harsh conditions without food and water.

Tawfiq Salim of Al-Aqsa TV said that “The Palestinian journalist is now on the front line of the battle for awareness, in a world where words are terrorized, images are condemned, and truth is threatened,” noting that over decades, there has been no accountability for the ongoing crimes against Palestinian journalists, writers and thinkers.

Speaking on behalf of the Palestinian Journalists Forum, Khaled al-Khalil noted that solidarity, particularly from other media professionals is an important unifying force for Palestinian journalists, supporting their steadfastness and ability to withstand all attempts to destroy their rights of expression and media work.

Journalist Hala Haddad spoke on behalf of the Syndicate of Audiovisual Media Workers in Lebanon, emphasizing that real journalists, who are flesh and blood — especially in Palestine — are the foundation of truth, while media outlets ignore their realities and instead compete on the use of artificial intelligence.

Mohammed Kazan of the Lebanese Media Group noted that all journalists are part of this battle, emphasizing that the genocide and the resistance to it are not only a military matter but instead include a psychological, media and propaganda war, in which the honesty of Palestinian journalists confronts the technological deceptions of the enemy.

Director of Al-Mayadeen office, Roni Alpha, noted that each journalist in the meeting had lost colleagues and friends practicing their profession and that their participation is an act of solidarity with their colleagues martyred as a result of the Zionist genocide. He emphasized that a responsible stance that preserves facts and credibility requires solidarity with Palestinian journalists under fire.

Charlotte Kates noted that the Zionist-imperialist assault on Palestine, particularly on Gaza, includes a systematic policy of targeting journalists and media workers as a method and mechanism of carrying out genocide. She further noted that over 50 journalists are imprisoned inside Zionist jails, many held under administrative detention without charge or trial. Criticizing Western state-sponsored and corporate media, she noted that those responsible for inciting and promoting genocide should be held accountable internationally.

Ali al-Zuhri, speaking on behalf of the Yemeni media, emphasized that Palestinian journalists are confronting not only killing and massacre at the hands of the occupation, but also a siege of disinformation, including on social media platforms that routinely silence Palestinian accounts. He emphasized that the Yemeni media stands by Palestine, noting “We are with you in every action, word and deed.”

Below are the full remarks by Charlotte Kates:

As we gather today, to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian journalists under siege, targeted for assassination, imprisoned under torture, by the Zionist regime, “Israel,” for their reporting and their truth, I want to note that we are also one day before the first anniversary of the assassination of the great and courageous leader, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, on 3 October 2024; and one week following the assassination of the great Arab, Lebanese and international figure of resistance, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, by hundreds of tons of U.S. made bombs dropped by Zionist warplanes. Their path of resistance, clarity and truth, continues on today, never stopped or erased by the horrific crimes of the occupier and the colonizer. 

Of course, we also must note that amid the ongoing, extraordinarily violent attempts of the Zionist project to shield its genocide from global exposure and international isolation through the targeting of journalists, writers, camerapeople and photographers, the Global Sumud Flotilla – many of whose participants were themselves inspired by the work of Palestinian journalists – was today targeted by the Zionists, attacking over 40 boats in international waters with 500 participants, sailing to break the siege, end the genocide, to deliver aid, but not only to deliver aid but to take action to break the siege when third states are instead complicit in the ongoing genocidal assault on Gaza. 

The assassination of journalists, writers and thinkers as a policy of the Zionist occupation is not one that began two years ago, with the inception of the escalated genocide against the Palestinian people, and particularly targeting Gaza, following the rise of the resistance and Al-Aqsa Flood, but also has been a component of the 77 years of genocide in occupied Palestine. Here in Lebanon, Palestinian writers like Ghassan Kanafani and Kamal Nasser – engaged writers who were leaders in the cultural resistance to colonialism and the propagation of the Palestinian narrative – were assassinated by Zionist forces over 50 years ago, in a clear precedent to the ongoing assassinations and en masse targeting of journalists in Palestine, especially in the Gaza Strip; Lebanon; and Yemen.

The targeting of journalists is a systematic attack on truth-telling, documentation and reality itself, particularly after well over 700 days of what has been called “the world’s first live-streamed genocide.” Palestinian journalists have played a necessary and essential role in exposing the crimes of Zionism and imperialism before the world, in conveying the horrific daily reality of genocide in Gaza internationally, and they have been brutally targeted. At the same time that the occupation refuses to allow the entry of independent international journalists, it repeatedly targets Palestinian journalists, as if the global outrage and revulsion against the Zionist project and its genocide can be stemmed by eradicating those who expose its reality.

The law is clear: journalists are protected persons. However, In the past two years, the Zionist entity has killed over 304 journalists in Palestine, mostly in Gaza Strip alone. To this is added the massacre of 36 journalists in Yemen, ten in Lebanon, three in Iran. This is the deadliest armed conflict for journalists on record in modern history, with the targeting of journalists made an explicit tool of genocide. 

It is not only assassination that the occupation pursues against journalists but also imprisonment. There are at least 50 journalists in occupation prisons, amid 11,000 Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails, subjected to routine and systematic torture, starvation, abuse, physical, psychological and sexual assault,  and even assassination behind bars. Most of these journalists are imprisoned with no charge and no trial under administrative detention orders, indefinitely renewable. 

Journalists play a critical role in documenting the crimes being carried out today in occupied Palestine,  laying out the record of genocide for prosecutions to come. However, they also play a critical role in documenting those who make history, the people and their resistance, so that their suffering, their steadfastness, their heroism and their strikes against the enemy are also portrayed before the nation and the world.

It is clear that “Israel” is carrying out a genocide in Palestine, especially in Gaza, and that the targeting of journalists is a method of genocide. However, what also must be clear is the international responsibility. The same Western imperialist powers led by the US that provide the weapons and the intelligence cooperation to enable the assassination of journalists are fully complicit in this targeting as is Western mainstream corporate and state media. Even the employers of targeted journalists like Reuters and the AP issue vague statements without naming the party responsible for the killings and publish zionist propaganda. The New York Times won a Pulitzer prize for publishing a discredited zionist article by a former occupation soldier. Big tech companies close Palestinian journalists’ accounts while zionist state ministries pay Western influencers $7000 per post to whitewash genocide. We must be clear – the official sources of disinformation and genocide denial can and must be held accountable, not only at a popular and sentimental level but legally as well, as an international responsibility.

It is the responsibility of journalists, particularly international journalists, to be engaged journalists and not stenographers for the Zionist regime, to report the stories of the martyrs and publicize the journalists who continue to document amid the crimes. And to document and expose the involvement of governments , states and occupation soldiers, to not merely comment on genocide, but to actively work to emulate the example of the martyred journalists, to be truth tellers of the people, of the resistance and of humanity.

For a free Palestine, from the river to the sea: the implementation of necessity, truth and conscience. 

October 2, 2025

Charlotte Kates

Deputy Secretary-General, International Association of Democratic Lawyers

International Coordinator, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

 

Long Live Assata Shakur, 1947-2025

On September 26, 2025, Black revolutionary Assata Shakur transitioned after leading a long and virtuous life of internationalist resistance. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Assata’s living legacy and recognizes her lifelong struggle against global oppression as a practice to inspire countless generations to come.

Assata Shakur was the target of racist, counter-insurgent incarceration from 1973 to 1979 because of her work with the Black Panther Party and the Black Liberation Army. For years from within prison walls, she fought false accusations while bearing the brunt of settler-colonial prison and police violence. After being shot twice by New Jersey State Police, Assata testified to being choked, beat, dragged, kicked, pulled by her hair, and cuffed by her ankles so tight that the handcuffs were inside her flesh. She received inadequate medical care and was imprisoned in a men’s prison because of how “threatening” she was deemed to be by the state.

Writing of her own experience, Assata noted that political persecution and incarceration is “part and parcel of the [US] government’s policy of eliminating political opponents by charging them with crimes and arresting them with no regard to the factual basis of such charges.”

In 1979, a unit of the Black Liberation Army liberated Assata from prison and in 1984 she travelled to Cuba where she lived in exile until her recent passing. Living in exile in Cuba under the protection of the socialist Cuban government only further expanded Assata’s analysis of anti-imperialism and the interconnectedness of global struggles for liberation. Assata was a true internationalist in every sense of the word, describing Cuba as “One of the Largest, Most Resistant and Most Courageous Palenques (Maroon Camps) That has ever existed on the Face of this Planet.”

Since the FBI’s commencement and alleged completion of COINTELPRO — the program that targeted Assata and other Black liberation activists between 1956 and 1971— little has changed in how the settler state attacks those who fight for the oppressed masses of the world. Assata Shakur is one of many people labelled as a so-called “terrorist” by the US and other Western and allied governments.

“They wanted to portray her as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie,” President Fidel Castro once remarked about Assata. The FBI eventually classified her as the first woman on their Most Wanted Terrorists list. A few years later, the first woman Al-Qassam Brigades member Ahlam Al-Tamimi was added to this same list illustrating the joint struggle that the Palestinian and Black liberation movements share.

Much like the case of Assata and Ahlam, Palestinian resistance factions, the Axis of Resistance, and Palestinian solidarity organizations and individual activists across the globe are designated as “terrorist[s]” for siding with the masses of the world who oppose imperialism. Those of us who recognize prisons as a colonial tool for waging warfare against a subjugated people are particularly criminalized.

Assata’s political work with the Black Panthers and the BLA specifically identified American police and prisons as racist and oppressive forces that must be eliminated. Her offerings of steadfastness remind us to continue to fight for and honour those still inside and those who have been martyred by the colonial prison system.

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, Free Abdullah Barghouthi, Free Kamau Sadiki, Free Jakhi McCray, Free Malik Farrad Muhammad, Free Ahmad Sa’adat, Free Kojo Bomani Sababu, Free Casey Goonan, Free Imam Jamil Al-Amin, Free Elias Rodriguez, and Free Them All!

Long live Assata Shakur, Sekou Odinga, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sheikh Khader Adnan, Ed Poindexter, Ismail Haniyeh, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Yahya Sinwar, and many more who have been martyred and/or have joined the ancestors.

A revolutionary freedom fighter, a political prisoner, a mother, a woman in exile— Assata Shakur’s lifelong practice of militancy and sacrifice will continue to be aspirational to all who wish to see the day that imperialism receives its final blow.

It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.

Rest in Power, Comrade Assata!

Read also:

 

Against the treacherous ‘Trump Deal’: Palestine will not surrender

The following statement was initiated by Samidoun Madrid. Read the Spanish-language original here:

Following the presentation of the so-called ‘Trump Peace Agreement’ by the Zionist-imperialist forces of the US and Israel, we recall the words of the leaders of the Palestinian resistance, from the 1970s to the present day, from Georges Habash to Yahya Sinwar, including the many people of conscience who put their minds and bodies at the service of the Palestinian cause: the struggle for the liberation of Palestine requires not only the defeat of Zionism but also the fall of the US-led imperialism that sustains it. Today, with a new imperialist proposition on the table, we reaffirm our position: there can be no peace without the total liberation of Palestine.

The so-called liberal democracies of the world in the heart of the imperial core express their satisfaction with this new colonial imposition, whose sole objective is to protect the Zionist project, given its inability to achieve political and military victory in Palestine by its own means. In the West, we have seen how the focus of media and political attention has shifted towards Palestine, in a crude exercise of conscience-cleansing by the representatives of institutional colonialism who, drowned out by the cries of popular movements, have had no choice but to begin to make concessions, even as they continue their support for the Zionist project. In a calculated balancing act, some of these governments have been able to admit that genocide is taking place, but at no point have they demanded that a genocidal regime be confronted or removed. They have attempted to substitute the necessary confrontation of genocide with a claimed “recognition of a Palestinian state” based on a series of unjust, illegitimate and indeed, illegal conditions, while leaving their relationship with the Zionist entity intact.

This new Trump-announced “agreement” — concluded, in fact, between the strategic partners in genocide, the United States and “Israel” —  and Western governments’ defence of it have finally unmasked a position that never aimed to support the necessary foundations for the liberation of the Palestinian people, but rather to establish the political conditions for the maintenance of the Zionist and imperialist project in Arab countries and to pacify the growing movement rising up against it.

As is currently happening in Lebanon and in Syria, imperialism works hand in hand with the Zionist entity in an attempt to dismantle all the sources of resistance to its political project in the region. Therefore, in the face of this new attempt to revive the project of colonisation of Palestine, it is necessary to give our full support to the forces of resistance, who, with the highest level of political and military ethics, and with the legitimacy of international law on their side, are at the forefront of the confrontation against Zionism and imperialism. We recall the words of comrade Georges Ibrahim Abdallah after his release from French prisons: “Those who resist have the last word and decide what needs to be done.”

No foreign power has the legitimacy to impose its destiny on the Palestinian people by claiming to impose a “peace” through ultimatums and demands for surrender.  We know that real peace and justice in the region can never be achieved until the genocidal Zionist project is abolished once and for all.

Similarly, we reiterate that the Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah (itself subjected to humiliating conditions in the “Trump plan”) does not represent an alternative for liberation, but rather functions as an imposed and supervised structure that administers Palestinian life, easing the burden of the occupation, and seeks to contain the resistance. Our global mass movement cannot in any way legitimise this farce, nor contribute to normalising institutions designed to stifle the struggle of the Palestinian people.

At this extremely complex moment, it is our anti-colonial and anti-imperialist commitment that must guide our actions. We therefore call on people of conscience who have demonstrated their commitment to the liberation of Palestine to confront this new manipulation by Zionism and imperialism. We make a clear and urgent appeal to governments and peoples committed to the liberation of the Palestinian people to adopt unequivocal and militant support for the cause of decolonisation. This support must go beyond the limitations of liberal demands and translate into real pressure on the institutions and powers that sustain the occupation, and into firm support for the resistance on all levels of engagement.

Internationalist solidarity in Palestine today is reflected in support for and recognition of the legitimacy of the forces of resistance, the release of all Palestinian prisoners, the total liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, and the implementation of the full right to return of the Palestinian people in the refugee camps and in exile and diaspora everywhere.

We will not congratulate ourselves for empty gestures or hollow statements that serve the European conscience more than they serve the liberation of Palestine. It is time to escalate our actions and stand firm in the face of the theatre of empty measures that our governments want us to be part of: if they want to talk about weapons, let them send weapons to the Palestinian resistance and to those who are confronting imperialism on the ground; if they want to talk about international bodies, let them establish a tribunal led by free peoples — first and foremost, the victims and survivors of the colonial genocide — to judge the leaders of Zionism.

We echo the words of Georges Abdallah: resistance has the last word, and the Palestinian people have the last word. It is the men and women who resist the advance of occupation and Zionist expansionism who uphold the struggle day after day, in seemingly impossible conditions that aim to utterly break humanity and the will to live.

“Terrorism” is a colonial term that we refuse to accept in reference to the heroic Resistance. We will not call surrender “peace” nor ultimatums “dialogue.” We will not endorse the demands of Trump and Netanyahu that aim to administer dispossession and genocide and secure gains that the occupation was unable to achieve on the battlefield, nor will we celebrate manoeuvres that seek to disarm the Resistance, whose fighters stand on the front lines in defence of Palestine, the Arab and Islamic nations and indeed, humanity itself.

It is clear: Trump’s “deal” has no “peace” to offer, only greater complicity and attempted legitimization of genocide and colonialism, which it seeks to impose through starvation and strangulation. As long as occupation, dispossession, and impunity persist, any supposed ‘peace plan’ will remain a euphemism for subjugation and an attempt to beautify the bitter reality of colonisation and genocide. Only a peace based on material justice — that is, on the dismantling of the Zionist colonial project, the return of the Palestinian people, and the TOTAL liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea — can be legitimate and lasting.

The attack on the Global Sumud Flotilla: Towards a popular intifada to isolate “Israel”

Brussels, October 2, 2025 – Responding to the Zionist assault on the Global Sumud Flotilla sailing to break the siege on Gaza today, Mohammed Khatib, Europe coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, affirmed that the only way to stop the Zionist-imperialist genocide against the Palestinian people, especially in the Gaza Strip, is “to ignite a comprehensive global popular uprising against the Zionist occupation and against all the regimes and colonial forces that sponsor it,” explaining that this uprising is not merely a protest, “but an escalating liberatory act that continues and persists and is based on boycott, strikes, civil disobedience, and the paralysis of imperialist and Zionist interests everywhere.”

Khatib said, “Palestine today is the measure of freedom and justice in the world. It is the cause of all revolutionaries, all fighters, all free people who refuse to submit to the system of plunder and extermination. Whoever stands with Palestine stands with justice and the freedom of all humanity, and whoever colludes with the occupation places themselves in the camp of murderers.”

In a media interview, he stressed the necessity of “supporting the Global Sumud Flotilla in the face of Zionist piracy and its ongoing assaults on activists in the flotilla — from ship theft and arrests and forcible expulsions to attempts to prevent aid from reaching our people in Gaza. Supporting the flotilla is a moral and political duty; every concrete act of solidarity with the flotilla is a step toward breaking the genocidal siege and demonstrating that peoples will not accept injustice.” He also called on solidarity forces and organizations to secure the safety of participants and to deliver the message clearly: “There is no place for piracy, and the Zionist entity’s attacks on these vessels will not pass without a price.”

Khatib pointed to the importance of the campaign to immediately expel the settler entity of “Israel” from the United Nations and all international institutions, considering that “the legalization of this racist and murderous colonial entity’s membership in international organizations has been nothing but a historical stain and a constant source of impunity.” He added: “There is no place for a genocidal entity in the institutions of the peoples of the world. Expelling Israel today from all sporting, artistic, cultural, and economic forums is a revolutionary duty, and any delay is complicity with the crime.”

He emphasized that revolutionary youth and student forces, global liberation movements, and radical labor unions have today become a natural part of the struggle to liberate Palestine, not only in solidarity but by practically joining the international front of resistance for Palestine.

He affirmed that “the revolutionary youth in Palestine and Lebanon and Yemen, the Arab world, Latin America, Europe, and Africa are now expressing a new revolutionary spirit that unifies the squares and fronts of struggle and opens the road toward a global revolution against occupation and domination.”

Khatib concluded: “The war of extermination will not stop and the prisoners will not be freed from the occupation’s jails unless we turn our anger into an organized and permanent global intifada that overthrows colonial policies, confronts imperialism directly, topples dependent regimes, and uproots the occupation from its roots. This is the hour of revolution and intifada against the plans of Trump, Netanyahu, and their agents.”

Beirut event stands in solidarity with assassinated and imprisoned Palestinian journalists

Beirut – Monday, 1 September 2025

On Monday, 1 September, an international day of media action and solidarity with journalists targeted for assassination by the Zionist regime as part of its genocide in Gaza, Martyrs’ Square in Beirut was the site of a solidarity stand called for by Lebanese and Palestinian journalists, in support of Palestinian journalists in the Gaza Strip who face assassinations, bombardment, and siege at the hands of Zionist occupation forces.

Participants raised slogans demanding an end to the Israeli policy of assassinations against journalists and calling for the freedom of journalists held in occupation prisons, affirming their stance alongside their colleagues in Gaza in confronting the open war on truth and the free word. Samidoun participated in the event, carrying calls to action for international journalists and rights defenders, and denouncing the assassination policy and the targeting of journalists, yet more war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out by the genocidal regime.

Over 247 journalists in Palestine have been assassinated by the Zionist occupation, including Anas al-Sharif, Ismail al-Ghoul, Hassan Esleih, Hossam Shabat, Wafa al-Udaini, Maryam Abu Daqqa, and, most recently, Islam Abed, martyred on 31 August. At the same time, over 50 Palestinian journalists are held in occupation prisons, subjected to severe torture, starvation and isolation as part of a systematic policy of the targeting of Palestinian journalists’ voices and dedicated work exposing the realities of the Zionist-imperialist genocide before the eyes of the world.

Brief speeches were delivered during the gathering by Lebanese Press Syndicate head Awni El-Kaaki, Editors’ Syndicate head Joseph Kossaifi, and Palestinian journalist Walid Kilani, who delivered the speech on behalf of Palestinian journalists collectively.

Journalist Wafaa Bahani delivered the opening speech at the event, affirming that the Israeli occupation continues targeting journalists in Gaza and across occupied Palestine “because they expose its crimes and unmask its brutality.” She stressed that “the blood of journalists is not cheap,” and that “the truth will not die, no matter how Zionist criminality escalates.”

Bahani pointed out that the caravan of martyrs of truth and the word is long, beginning with Ghassan Kanafani, Ali Fouda, and Shireen Abu Akleh, reaching Anas al-Sharif, Farah Omar, Rabie al-Maamari, Ghassan Najjar, Mohammed Reda, Wissam Qassam, Hadi al-Sayyed, and Issam Abdallah, stressing that journalists “are continuing on the path of truth until liberation.”

She also expressed full solidarity with journalists in Yemen, mourning colleague Hashem Sharaf al-Din, the Yemeni Minister of Information and former correspondent for Al-Manar. He was recently martyred in the series of assassinations targeting the Yemeni government in Sanaa, led by Prime Minster Ahmad al-Rahwi, on 28 August, affirming that “his message will remain alive as long as the Yemeni people fight in the trenches of freedom and dignity.”

For her part, Charlotte Kates, international coordinator of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, praised the media initiative in Beirut, considering the step “a strong message confronting the occupation and its attempts to assassinate the voice of truth,” calling for “defense of the Palestinian people and their right to resist until liberation and return.”

Kates emphasized, during meetings with a number of journalists, “the importance of supporting the voice of Palestinian journalists imprisoned in occupation jails, and their colleagues who convey to the world the reality of daily Zionist-U.S. crimes committed against Palestinians in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine.”

She further denounced the notorious statements made by U.S. envoy Tom Barrack against Lebanese journalists while demanding that Lebanon concede to the demands of the U.S. and “Israel” to disarm the resistance, describing them as “an arrogant colonial language that reflects the moral degradation of Barrack and those he represents among the war criminals in Washington and Tel Aviv.” She noted that the dehumanization of Palestinian and Lebanese journalists evident in Barrack’s words is part of the same deliberate dehumanization used by the Zionist regime to perpetuate the genocide and the assassination of hundreds of Palestinian journalists in Gaza, and called on Western journalists to uphold their responsibilities to stand by their colleagues and expose the crimes of the Zionist occupation and the imperialist powers.

Text of Wafaa Bahani’s introductory remarks:

Beloved ones, free journalists,

In the name of truth, and in the name of the word that cannot be assassinated…

We meet today in a stand of anger and loyalty, raising our voices for the journalists who are assassinated every day in Gaza, because they exposed and continue to expose the crimes of the occupation.

And this criminal occupation needs no justification for its assassinations… for it is criminal by nature: whoever kills the child will not hesitate to assassinate those who expose his crimes.

From Ghassan Kanafani, to Ali Fouda, to Shireen Abu Akleh, to Maryam Abu Daqqa, to Mohammed Mansour, to Mohammed Balousha, Anas al-Sharif, and a long constellation of martyred journalists — they are the ones who walked their path of giving and sacrifice, who preserved their words and images, and who remain like the elderflower in our memory, fragrant; steadfast like the roots of the olive tree; lofty and unyielding; martyred while standing upright.

And we also recall the souls of the martyrs of journalism in Lebanon, who were assassinated by the occupation in the South: Farah Omar, Rabie al-Maamari, Issam Abdallah, Mohammed Shehadeh, and the list goes on.

They are like the mighty cedar that no storm can shake, like the phoenix that rises from its ashes stronger, keeping the voice of truth alive, and their word a flame that stirs the human conscience.

And we do not forget the militant journalist and Yemeni Minister of Information, Hashem Sharaf al-Din, who was once a correspondent for Al-Manar, and whom the Zionist enemy treacherously assassinated in a targeted strike, adding his name to the caravan of martyrs of truth and the word.

We say it today in a bold voice:
The blood of journalists is not cheap… Their crimes will not silence us… and the truth will never be extinguished.

Our martyred colleagues are present in every image they captured, in every word they wrote, and in every tear they carried from Gaza, from the South, and from Yemen to the conscience of the world.

We shall continue to write, to photograph, to bear witness… until the truth triumphs, and the projects of death and falsification fall.

Call to action! Political Prisoners for Palestine on hunger strike from Britain to the U.S.

T. Hoxha is a Palestine activist who has been imprisoned for 9 months without trial in connection with the so-called Filton 24 case. This case is part of the targeting of Palestine Action — including its recent proscription in Britain — the activist group accused of participating in an action against the site of leading Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems in Filton in April 2024. Palestine Action has been playing a leading role globally in directly confronting the producers of arms fueling the ongoing Zionist-imperialist genocide against the Palestinian people, particularly in Gaza.

She has been on hunger strike at Peterborough Prison since August 11. Her demands are that she be able to return to her job at the library and receive all the mail she has not yet received.

Casey Goonan, political prisoner of the student intifada in the United States, is charged with firebombing a cop car at UC Berkeley in response to the police’s brutal and violent treatment of students, who were protesting to demand an end to university complicity in the ongoing genocide. Upon hearing of T. Hoxha’s hunger strike, Casey Goonan and their cellmate have decided to join her in solidarity declaring:

Today I learned about T Hoxha, a Pal Action prisoner in the UK who is on day 16 of their hunger strike at HMP Peterborough. As of 4pm eastern time, August 26, 2025, 2 out of 3 of her demands have been met, but she is still on strike to demand that the prison release the mail they have been withholding from her.

As captives imprisoned for our participation in the Palestinian liberation movement in the west, we have a responsibility to each other across borders to pursue our lives in prison with the same steadfastness as the Palestinian Prisoners movement held captive in ‘Israeli’ prisons.

The states we have been captured by are the enablers of the Zionist entity’s accelerated genocide of Palestinians, as well as the ongoing genocides of black and indigenous people who’s lands they continue to occupy.

As the Western left continues to move from crisis to crisis, avoiding their responsibilities to Palestine, we are all that we have. By we I am referring to people facing repression for their support for Palestine, the people who are truly sacrificing. Such as T Hoxha, who has suffered through 16 days of starvation just to get her mail.

The Palestine solidarity movement in the west cannot abandon people like her who have risked their lives and continue to do so in resistance to the intolerable condition of genocide.

As of today one of my cellmates and I are on hunger strike at Santa Rita jail until her demands are met.

Solidarity with T Hoxha and all prisoners of the Palestine Solidarity movement!

Raze the walls!
Liberate all prisoners of the settler empire!
Casey Goonan

Hoxha’s and Goonan’s hunger strikes must not go unheard. We must make clear as a movement that our prisoners will not be left behind! They are incarcerated for their participation on the front lines of the Palestinian solidarity and liberation movements, because they heard the Palestinian people’s call to escalate, and responded by attacking the structures that enable the Zionist Entity within the imperial core.

Free T. Hoxha, Casey Goonan, The Filton 24, Anan Yaeesh, Elias Rodriguez, Jakhi McCray, Tarek Bazrouk, Ghassan Elashi and Shukri Abu Baker of the Holy Land 5;

Free the Black prisoners resisting the U.S Empire from its interior, free Mumia Abu Jamal, Imam Jamil al-Amin, Joseph Bowen, Fred Burton, Veronza Bowers, Kojo Bomani Sababu, Kamau Sadiki, and all of the prisoners of the Black Liberation Movement;

Free the 16 Lebanese and dozens of Syrian prisoners in Zionist jails, abducted and held hostage to impose Zionist-Imperialist control over Lebanon and Syria;

Free the over 10,800 Palestinian Prisoners who are routinely subjected to physical and sexual assault, psychological torture and abuse, sleep deprivation, starvation and denial of access to food and medical care, who continue to lead, inspire and guide Palestinian, Arab and international Resistance.

FREE THEM ALL!

CALLS TO ACTION TO SUPPORT T. HOXHA

Toolkit for T. Hoxha and Casey Goonan

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yxIYqU-ql7mJ-veozApe-aS2fqZtPcnWgycgNeM1U3o/edit?tab=t.0

Follow Prisoners 4 Palestine

https://www.instagram.com/prisoners4palestine

Against the attempt to silence Palestine Week in Salvador, Brazil!

The civil and political organizations that organize the Week Against Israeli Colonization in Salvador strongly condemn the attempt by the Bahia Law School and the OAB/BA (Brazilian Bar Association of the State of Bahia) to suppress the “Palestinian Women’s Cultural and Political Gathering” scheduled for TODAY at 6:00 p.m.

In clear betrayal of their supposed progressive principles, the School and the OAB/BA (Brazilian Bar Association of the State of Bahia) suddenly informed the organizers, one day before the event, without justification and without even mentioning the source of the order, that the event could no longer be held in the auditorium of the ESA (Higher School of Advocacy) building.

This is an attempt to prevent Palestinian voices from occupying the space, in particular that of activist Rawa Alsagheer, who will speak at the event, and by extension the Samidoun Network, of which she is the coordinator.

This cowardly attitude comes after a vigorous week of workshops, conferences, and film debates that mobilized Bahian society in support of Palestinian rights, both in occupied Palestine and among refugees and the diaspora.

WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN!
Let’s all mobilize in front of ESA (Higher School of Advocacy) today—Friday, August 29, 2025, at 6:00 p.m.—to demand that the Cultural and Political Gathering take place!

Centro Cultural João Mangabeira, ao lado do Fórum Ruy Barbosa — Rua do Carro, Largo do Campo da Pólvora, Nazaré, Salvador

Solidarity with Mohammed Khatib! 

On Wednesday 6 August 2025, Mohammed Khatib, coordinator for Samidoun in Europe, was notified of the revocation of his refugee status by the Belgian asylum authorities. This is the latest development in a comprehensive attack upon the Palestinian population in Belgium and upon the growing movement in solidarity with Palestine, following on the heels of the right-wing government’s announcement that it is seeking to ban organizations engaging in advocacy it wishes to silence, including Samidoun. This dangerous development threatens not only Mohammed, but all Palestinians in Belgium who are active and involved in the struggle to end the ongoing Zionist-imperialist genocide in the Gaza Strip and throughout occupied Palestine and aims to silence the growing movement at the same time as the “Israeli” regime is engaging in daily massacres and engineered starvation in Gaza.

This decision concludes a one and a half year-long procedure which started in April 2024 when the then Secretary of State for Migration announced her intention to revoke Mohammed Khatib’s refugee status, based on the arbitrary designation by OCAM of Mohammed as a ‘hate preacher’. This designation is clearly made on racist grounds – the term is almost always used for people racialised as Muslim, and never for right-wingers such as Bart de Wever, Theo Franken and the Vlaams Belang, not to mention the Zionist ‘ambassador’ who has engaged in ‘diplomacy’ based on threats and lies throughout her tenure. Mohammed is appealing the decision and will be continuing the legal struggle.

This decision illustrates and is a result of:

  • The growing repression orchestrated by Belgian authorities against Palestinian people and activists, and more broadly the solidarity movement for Palestine and other social movements.
  • The anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab and Islamophobic campaign used by Belgian politicians, some journalists, academics and public figures, as well as by representative of the Zionist entity to defame Samidoun and the Palestinian movement.
  • The power and political influence of the Zionist state on Belgian politics
  • The attempt to stifle all support to liberation and resistance. Imperialists, in Belgium as everywhere else, cannot tolerate the voice of the people, when this voice rejects and combat colonialism, racism, genocide and exploitation.
  • The denial of fundamental liberties as freedom of speech and association for Palestinian refugees, a project that operates hand in hand with aiding and abetting genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine. 

Mohammed Khatib is targeted because he is Palestinian. He is targeted because he supports the resistance on the path to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, because he advocates for liberation of all Palestinian prisoners, and because he honours the lives and legacy of the martyrs of the Palestinian liberation struggle.

Meanwhile, the Belgian citizens who went to Gaza to commit genocide as part of the israeli occupation forces are not prosecuted at all and no investigation is carried out.
Meanwhile, those who make statements lauding genocide and praising war crimes as ‘genius’ are allowed continued impunity.

Instead of repressing Palestinian voices, the Belgian state should turn its attention to the long-list of actual threats to human rights and justice that threaten the fabric of Belgian society. The right-wing politicians that advocate for genocide in Palestine, the open displays of fascism and racism that occupy the majority of government seats, the Arizona regime that wants to strip the rights and protections of the working classes and migrants in order to cosy up to warmongerers, the multiple condemnations of Belgium by the UN /WHO for its failure to comply with many international conventions to which it is a signatory, the grotesque violence of the Belgian police violently assaulting protestors and running over children on scooters, the Zionist organisations supporting genocide in Belgium, and the continued normalization with a colonial and genocidal entity.

The “Arizona” regime should know better. Refugee status is not something the state can give and take as a reward or punishment. Mohammed has a right to this status and to international protection, as a Palestinian refugee born in Lebanon, stateless, a consequence of the zionist colonisation of Palestine. This obligation for Belgium to protect Mohammed and other refugees is rooted in international laws and conventions of which Belgium is a signatory. Furthermore, the decision itself makes a mockery of international law, referring to support for Palestinian resistance as “contrary to the United Nations.” On the contrary, the Palestinian right to armed resistance — and not merely advocacy for the right to resist — is explicitly enshrined in international law and United Nations resolutions. No Palestinian resistance organizations are classified as “terrorist” by the United Nations. To the contrary, the “Israeli” entity is currently violating hundreds of United Nations resolutions.

The Arizona regime’s abuse of state power is further underline because Mohammed has not been convicted nor even accused of any crime. There has been no substantive or meaningful due process through the courts to date. The regime fears the movement that has grown across Belgium in protest at settler colonialism and genocide, it fears the support that daily protests have from locals, transplants, and tourists alike, and it fears that its vocal support for this genocide will be remembered when justice is dealt to the perpetrators. The regime seeks to make an example of a visible figure in the movement, with a clear political line.

This is a move that should give pause to all in Belgium who would advocate for a better world. This gross overreach will be used as a precedent to silence dissenting voices not just on Palestine, but on all issues where the people are not in lockstep with the Arizona regime.

As the cases of Congo, Algeria or Vietnam illustrate, the attempt to repress the voice of the oppressed will not succeed. Liberation is on the horizon, and neither the Palestinian people nor the solidarity movement will give up, no matter how egregious the repression.

Samidoun strongly condemns this attack on Mohammed Khatib, on the Palestinian solidarity movement, and on the right of refugees. Samidoun expresses its support to all Palestinian activists and solidarity activists in Belgium and around the world to stand with Mohammed and with all Palestinians persecuted for standing up against the genocide and for the liberation of Palestine. Samidoun reaffirms our core principles, reflected in Mohammed’s advocacy and work, and for which he has been targeted: the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, support for all forms of Palestinian resistance, the liberation of all the prisoners and the right of return of all Palestinian refugees.