Ibrahim Nabulsi and the Lions of Nablus: Prelude to the Flood

12 August 2024

9 August marks the second anniversary of the martyrdom of the Lion of Nablus, the ghost of the mountain of fire, Ibrahim al-Nabulsi, and his fellow fighters, martyrs and prisoners of the Lions’ Den.

Two years after his martyrdom, Nabulsi and his comrades remain symbols of courage, resistance, pride and combativeness for an entire generation of Palestinians but also for all supporters of the Palestinian resistance throughout the world.

Nablus: From the Mountain of Fire to the Lions’ Den

Since the period of the British Mandate, Nablus has played a central role in Palestinian political life, and therefore in the resistance of the Palestinian people.

It was in Nablus that the great strike of 1936 was declared. By 1936, Palestine had been under the British colonial mandate for 20 years. In 1917, the Balfour Declaration promised that the British Empire would support the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Mandatory Palestine. In a few years, aided by a British colonial policy of land grabbing and confiscation, expulsion and a discriminatory and racist tax policy, the Zionist colonial project developed rapidly in Palestine. On the side of the indigenous Palestinian people, who suffered the full brunt of this colonial policy, anger was growing.

On 19 April 1936, in a family-run soap factory in Nablus, the newly founded Arab National Committee declared a major general strike. It called on Palestinians to withhold tax payments and boycott Zionist settler products in protest against British colonialism and increasing Zionist immigration. Within days, national committees were formed in all major cities and some large villages to strengthen the strike. Under pressure from the rank and file, which seized upon the movement with force, the five largest Palestinian political parties created the Arab Higher Committee and took charge of the strike.

The strike grew and blossomed throughout Palestine, and in other countries in the region support movements were organized. A real popular movement was being built and in the countryside peasants took up arms to fight the colonial troops, with Syrian sheikh Izzedine al-Qassam playing a leading role in mobilizing the peasantry for armed struggle. A few months later, in October 1936, faced with diplomatic pressure, the Arab Higher Committee decided to end the strike.

This general strike is a central event in the history of Palestinian resistance. It will serve as an impetus for another major event in the history of Palestine: the Great Arab Revolt of 1936-1939. The fellahin – the peasants – who played a central role in the 1936 strike and constituted at that time the heart of the Palestinian armed resistance, targeted Zionist and British interests. In response, more than 25,000 British soldiers were sent to Palestine to crush the rebellion. The colonial empire also provided weapons to the Zionist militias that were formed and served as auxiliaries to the colonial army. After a bloody repression, the Great Revolt gradually stopped, when the British Empire promised to significantly reduce Zionist immigration. It is estimated that in three years, 5,000 Palestinians were killed, 15,000 to 20,000 injured and 5,600 imprisoned, or a total of 10% of the population.

Abdulqader al-Husseini’s troops during the great revolt of 1936

During the years following the Nakba and the establishment of the Zionist entity on the land of Palestine, Nablus remained a stronghold of the resistance. In 1967, with the defeat of the Arab armies and the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, the old city became a stronghold of the resistance and hosted cells of organized fighters. Significant armed actions were carried out and a number of them had a strong impact on the Zionist army. Shadia Abu Ghazaleh was one of these fighters. A member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, she led a network of urban resistance fighters in the city of Nablus at the time. Shadia considered education, knowledge and science as weapons in the struggle for liberation, and had participated in cutting-edge operations that inflicted significant losses on the colonial army. She fell a martyr in 1968, while preparing a bomb at her home, in a district of the old city. In tribute, Leila Khaled later took up her name as a nom de guerre during her external resistance operations. Several schools bear her name in the West Bank and Gaza — and both Zionist forces and European funders have repeatedly attempted to force Palestinians to remove her name, like those of other martyrs of the liberation movement.

From the beginning of the 1980s, a new generation of resistance fighters decided to rebuild Palestinian organizations and factions in the city and surrounding camps. This revitalization of resistance in the city and its outskirts would allow young people to physically and concretely oppose the Zionist army. And a few years before the first intifada, in Nablus and in the Balata camp, stones and Molotov cocktails were already raining down on the colonial soldiers. In 1987, when the uprising started in Jabalia camp in Gaza and spread throughout Palestine to break out in the West Bank, the city and its outskirts became a stronghold of clashes.

During the 2nd Intifada, the city was once again a center of resistance. Among its most ardent defenders, names recur like Nayef Abu Sharkh, Jaafar Al-Masri and Fadi Al-Bahti, and the two fighters of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, Yamen Faraj (Abu Nasreen) and his comrade Amjad Mlaitat. Pursued and hunted for years, they carried out a significant number of operations, before being assassinated on 6 July 2004, after a four-hour confrontation against Zionist soldiers.

Historically, the city of Nablus has been a stronghold of Palestinian resistance. The history of martyred fighters and prisoners is passed down from generation to generation, can be read on the walls, and through the discussions of parents or elders. Each Palestinian city has its history of resistance, and this history constitutes the foundations of the future of the revolution, whether it is the story of the battle of the Jenin camp during the second intifada or that of a prisoner fighter from a small village. Experiences complement each other, experiences respond to each other, the failures and successes of the elders are evaluated and liberation draws closer.

IBRAHIM NABULSI: THE LION OF NABLUS

Ibrahim Al Nabulsi is a child of Nablus. He was born there in 2003, during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. At that time, it was a city ravaged by raids and attacks by the Zionist occupation army. It painfully counts its inhabitants who fell as martyrs to defend the city, and notes the material damage left by tanks, bombs, bulldozers and other colonial soldiers.

At the age of 15, wanted by the Zionist state, he was arrested with two childhood friends, Muhammad Dakhil and Adham Mabrouka, by the Palestinian Authority. In detention, they suffered physical violence that would deeply mark them and develop their commitment to the resistance. Upon their release, they joined the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in the city of Nablus. The group would join a larger coalition, the Nablus Brigade, a unified brigade that brought together fighters from various factions present in the city and its outskirts.

Very quickly, the group became a priority for the occupying forces. Operation “Break the Wave” was launched on the city at the beginning of 2022 to eliminate the brigade. A campaign of raids, murders and bloody executions then began. Because these resistance fighters, sons, fathers, cousins and children of Nablus benefit from unwavering support from the population, a popular support that makes the colonial army tremble.

On February 8, 2022, the occupation forces, infiltrating the city of Nablus, ambushed a car carrying Ashraf Mubasalat, Mohammad Dakhil and Adham Mabrouka. A hail of several dozen bullets fell on the group of friends who died instantly. These three young men were resistance fighters, members of the Nablus Brigades. But above all, they were Ibrahim’s childhood friends, who were with him during his incarceration. After the murder of his three companions, Ibrahim learned that he too was actively sought by the occupation forces and that he had just narrowly escaped assassination.

After the murder of his three friends, Ibrahim became one of the main targets of the colonial army, which then launched a relentless hunt for the Lion of Nablus and his comrades. Despite everything, as usual and as he would do until his martyrdom, it was not uncommon to see him walking around the old city, taking the time to greet people and talk to them.

On the day of the funeral procession of his three friends, while he was actively sought, he broke through the crowd to salute his brothers in arms one last time. This public appearance, like a challenge to the colonial war machine and its secret services, further forged his legend.

The founders of the Lions’ Den, the martyrs Muhammad al-Azizi and Abdul Rahman Subuh

At dawn on 24 July 2022, residents of the Al Yasmina neighborhood were awakened by intense gunfire. The colonial army had launched an operation against a house in the city that was said to be sheltering resistance fighters. For more than 5 hours, Zionist soldiers riddled the house with bullets and explosives. The resistance fighters held their own, aided by their network of tunnels running throughout the city. Despite everything, the occupying forces had the upper hand, and two prominent fighters from Nablus, considered the founders of the future “Lions’ Den,” fell as martyrs: Muhammad al-Azizi and Abdul Rahman Subuh. Ibrahim, who was present at the scene, managed to escape once again. His public appearance during the funeral procession had the effect of a thunderclap. Surrounded by his people, rifle in hand, he pierced the crowd to carry the shrouds of his friends.

On Tuesday, 9 August 2022, in the early morning, the Israeli army launched a new raid on Nablus. Clashes broke out with residents and several dozen of them were injured. At the same time, the occupation forces surrounded a block of houses in the old city. Inside were Ibrahim Nabulsi and a comrade, Islam Subuh. The two fighters refused to surrender, and chose to resist. The colonial army unleashed itself on the house, riddling it with bullets and finally destroying it with a missile launcher. The walls exploded under the violence of the shock. Despite their courageous resistance, the two brothers in arms fell as martyrs under the colonial bullets.

On the same day, 16-year-old Hussein Jamal Taha was shot in the heart by Israeli soldiers during clashes that broke out in the city.

“I love you so much. If I am martyred, guys: I love my mother. Take care of the homeland after I am gone, and my last wish for you, on your honor: do not drop the rifle – on your honor. I am surrounded and I am going to my martyrdom. Pray for me.”

These are Ibrahim’s last words, from a voice recording sent while he was surrounded by occupation soldiers. These words, “don’t drop the gun,” will resonate strongly with all Palestinian youth, in historic Palestine and in the diaspora.

The city was filled with people, with a dense and electric crowd accompanying the remains of the martyrs during the funeral procession. The mother of his comrade who fell martyr before him, Muhammad Al Dakhil, washes his face while addressing his last words to him. In the hubbub, his body is carried for a time off the stretcher. Ibrahim’s mother, splits the crowd and carries the shroud with her son’s companions. She pierces the crowd that clusters around the bodies of the resistance fighters, who sacrificed what was most dear to them for their collective liberation. Then Um Eyad, the mother of the Lion, seizes the weapon that her son was carrying.

Ibrahim Nabulsi was long considered a fighter of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Following his martyrdom, the Saraya Al Quds Brigades published a statement and a video from him, announcing that Ibrahim was also one of their leaders. He also had bonds of comradeship and alliance with the Izzedine Al-Qassam Brigades. In truth, Ibrahim Al Nabulsi and his companions were fighters of the Resistance. The creation of the Nablus Brigade, an informal alliance across political lines, is the most concrete expression of this. Previous generations have struggled to overcome intra-Palestinian divisions, and the project of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades during the second intifada in Jenin, to see the different brigades of the resistance unified under a collective command, was eventually realized in Gaza under the impetus, leadership and direction of Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Hamas and the Al-Qassam Brigades. For these young people from the Jenin, Lions’ Den, Tulkarem or Balata brigades, the question of factionalism does not arise. This post-Oslo generation has only known betrayal by the Palestinian Authority, continued colonization, the loss of momentum of the traditional parties, and has been directly confronted with colonial savagery. For them, the only way to defeat the Zionist forces, to be able to defend the camps and liberate their land is to unite the rifles without factional considerations.

Shortly after his death, his comrades announced the creation of a new group in Nablus: “Lions’ Den”. The culmination of this reflection on the unification of the brigades under a common banner, it is a group bringing together young people from different political families, united in the struggle for national liberation. Inside we find leaders and fighters belonging to resistance parties and their brigades, and others who are not affiliated and only active in the Den, all without distinctive signs. The only visible logo is that of the Lions’ Den. A white circle in which two rifles stand guard over Al Quds, placed on a black crescent on which the name of the group is written.

The Lions’ Den: Prelude to the Flood

The success of the Lions’ Den lies in an effective formula: an ability to carry out a significant number of operations against Zionist interests and the occupying forces, impactful communication, and above all a limitless sacrifice for national liberation. The number of martyrs of the group is incalculable, all the leaders are either martyrs or in prison (those of the Zionist state but also those of the “Palestinian” authority). The tribute posters follow one another on the walls, and each fallen fighter leaves an immense scar in this landscape of white bricks.

The repression of the Zionist entity was brutal and merciless, it cut off the head of the brigade very quickly, in an ultra-violent manner, seeking to send a message: The person who chooses the path of arms in Nablus will end up riddled with bullets or dynamited. And the significant human toll paid by the Lions’ Den has impacted its military capabilities. The group is less visible and less active. But it has given impetus to other groups which, in turn, hold the occupation forces in check, as in Nour Shams, Jenin, Balata, etc.

The Lions’ Den played a key role in the revival of armed resistance on this scale in the West Bank. The lions of Nablus showed the way forward to Palestinian youth seeking liberation. There was a before and an after. And it impacted the entire Palestinian society, including Gaza, where tributes to the fallen fighters and congratulations for the group’s military actions were sent. After October 7, the Gaza resistance called on the whole of Palestine to stand by its side. The Lions’ Den was the first organization to respond with a statement encouraging all available forces to join the battle.

In short, while the Palestinian armed resistance was in a state of decline, denied even by components of the Palestinian “civil society,” a group of young people from the “mountain of fire” awakened a volcano. And recalled that the path of armed resistance was the path that would allow liberation.

Behind the Lions: The Popular Cradle

In early September 2022, less than a month after the martyrdom of Ibrahim, Islam and Hussein, the Lions’ Den organized its first meeting, for the 40 days of the martyrdom of the founders Muhammad al-Azizi and Abdul Rahman Subuh . For the first time, the fighters of the Den went out in formation and presented themselves to their city. Dressed in black, a white headband with the image of the group, a red cloth tied around the barrel of the rifle to signify that these weapons are only intended to confront the settler, and that no bullet will be wasted by firing it into the sky.

Old Nablus welcomed them in the best possible way, the sons who grew up in its centre. They who know every nook and cranny of the old city, every underground passage, every back shop, every stone scarred by bullet holes, every leaf rocked by the morning breeze. Each time they appear, the streets are crowded, the whole city wants to greet the fighters, the children admire those they imitate during their games, the parents feel the pride of seeing their child be part of these proud resistance fighters.

This is the true strength of the Lions’ Den: it finds its source in every family, in every street. The city is the cradle of the fighters. More than once the population has massively supported the resistance fighters in a difficult situation (as we saw recently in Tulkarem where the population snatched Abu Shujaa, leader of the Tulkarem Brigades, from the clutches of the PA security services) by taking to the streets to face the bullets of the Zionist army.

The group’s flags flutter in the alleys and squares, the faces of the martyrs are enthroned on the walls or cover the walls of shops and street food trailers. Commemorations are regularly organized to keep alive the memory of the fallen fighters so that their struggle finds continuity in previous generations.

The group’s communication has also played a huge role in its success among the population. The official Telegram channel has reached more than 250,000 subscribers. Not to mention all the unofficial channels created to share content about martyrs and fighters.

The simple fact that in hiding, and hunted by the Zionist intelligence services, Ibrahim Nabulsi could walk around the old city and take advantage of that connection with the street, shows to what extent the city and its inhabitants were a protective veil that lovingly closed over the resistance fighters.

Faced with the ongoing genocide, and faced with the full alliance of imperialist powers with the Zionist regime, seeking to grant it total impunity, we must stand with strength and dedication alongside the fighters of the Palestinian Resistance. We can, through our mobilization in the imperial core, open a breach that can significantly weaken the Zionist genocidal regime and strengthen the Resistance! Through economic, sporting, and cultural boycott, by fighting for the release of prisoners of the resistance incarcerated in our countries like Georges Abdallah imprisoned in France for 40 years and eligible for release since 1999, the Holy Land Five detained in the USA for 16 years, or our comrades from Palestine Action! Through our mobilization, let us create an international popular cradle for the Palestinian Resistance and support the Palestinian resisters and fighters!

Glory to the martyrs, long life to the fighters, freedom to the prisoners!
Glory to the Palestinian Resistance!

Nida Abu Baker on the Holy Land 5: “They put these men in prison because they don’t want you in the streets today protesting a genocide.”

11 August 2024

27 July 2024 marked the 20th anniversary of the unjust FBI raids on the offices of the Holy Land Foundation, then the largest Muslim and Palestinian charity in the United States, and the homes of five men — Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi, Mufid Abdulqader, Mohammed al-Mezain, and Abdulrahman Odeh — and their families. 20 years later, Abu Baker, Elashi and Abdulqader are still imprisoned, serving lengthy sentences as Palestinian political prisoners in the United States. The following interview, by Samidoun organizer Salma al-Nour with Nida Abu Baker, the daughter of Shukri Abu Baker, highlights the family’s experience and the continuing struggle to free the Holy Land Five.

See the toolkit:

20 Years Of Struggle: Free the Holy Land 5, Palestinian political prisoners in US jails!

At the same time that the Zionist regime, hand in hand with US imperialism, is pursuing an active genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, we are also witnessing a significant escalation of repression in the imperial core. Thousands of people have been arrested, jailed or detained by police in the United States, Britain, Canada, Germany, France and other imperialist states for their activism and organizing against the genocide and for Palestinian liberation. In addition, Zionist organizations and right-wing media outlets have launched a series of smear campaigns against the growing movement that is increasingly escalating its actions for Palestine, including recent attacks on the Holy Land Five as part and parcel of attempts to attack currently active organizations for Palestine in the United States.

In this context, it is particularly urgent for supporters of justice for Palestine to include calling for the liberation of Shukri Abu Baker, Ghassan Elashi and Mufid Abdulqader in organizing for the liberation of Palestinian political prisoners in campaigns and actions, as part and parcel of the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

Please read and share the new article by Salma al-Nour in Mondoweiss: 20 Years of Struggle: Renewing our commitment to liberation for the Holy Land 5

The interview between Salma and Nida follows:

Salma: Okay. Can you tell me about the early years of the Holy Land Foundation before the raid and before it was shut down?

Nida: Okay. So, the Holy Land Foundation, the office, was basically my second home. I was there almost every day and I would literally shadow my dad at such a young age. I remember being in the studio with him, watching him film his infomercials. I remember seeing all the artwork that he produced in-house in the office. Some we even used as props for his infomercials. Some we even had as murals all around the office. Being there was like being in a museum. There was something everywhere for you to look at, just like always in awe. Always daydreaming, pretending that you’re in Palestine, because it was like my dad made it look like you were in a Palestinian village.

It was truly amazing. We had summer camps there, youth camps. There would be kids there all the time. They would be like brought in, what do you call it? They would come in as field trips. They’d learn about humanitarian aid. They’d learn about the work that HLF would do and volunteer. What else? It was just a wonderful place to be at.

I would meet some wonderful people at such a young age as well, like politicians, actors, singers. You name it. At that time it didn’t… I mean, yeah, I don’t know. What else should I add? I feel like I forgot what I was about to say. What else? Yeah, it was our second home. I’d be running around all the time.

Salma: It sounds like a really special and beautiful place to grow up.

Nida: It was. It really was. I’m really happy that I spent my childhood there. It was a blessing to have a space like that to grow up in. I really believe that who I am today is because of where I grew up as a kid. I grew up at the HLF office.

Salma: Kind of like growing up in Palestine. You had a little piece of Palestine there.

Nida: It was exactly that, yeah.

Laila: So the second question is threefold: tell me about the day your house was raided and your dad was first arrested. How did you feel? Do you remember any things that your mom or dad said or that anyone who was there said on that day?

Nida: This was a great question. A really great question. Okay. So I was only 10 years old at the time and it was the summer of 2004. The sun was hardly up yet. And at this time the FBI agents were at all five homes of the soon-to-be persecuted men. So it was my father and Ghassan in Dallas, And then Abdulrahman Odeh in New Jersey. Mufid Abdulqader in Dallas as well. And then they had agents in California. And I think that was it. And mind you California was two hours behind. So I think it was around 4am over there. I remember my eyes were just starting to open when we were hearing some weird sounds outside. Almost sounded like raccoons. You know just like random tapping sounds here and there and it felt weird. You know, just something did not feel right. And I heard knocks on the door. And they were kind of light at first and I get up and my room is down the hall the very last room. And my mom’s and dad’s room is right before mine but to the left. And as I’m walking I hear my dad tell me “don’t open the door.” But I thought they said “open the door.” And this is when everything happened all at once. It happened so sudden. They started banging on the door and they said FBI open up. My hand hardly touched the knob. It was like slow motion. I touched the knob. The door swung open. And my dad picked me up from behind. And literally like it was just so swiftly like he picked me up with like one arm. And I flew to the back. He was like trying to protect me and then a stampede of agents forced them themselves into the house. And at this point we had dozens of agents and Garland [Texas] PD in our home with guns pointed at our heads. They all started to, like, disperse around the house.

Some went to the left, some went to the right, some went all the way down. It was a movie scene. Everything we had ever seen in the movies happening in our home. In fact, it looked just like what we would see on the news growing up of IOF soldiers raiding a Palestinian home. It was that. Everything that, you know, my father had taught us about. Everything we had learned about Palestine, we were living it at that moment. I remember them rounding us up into the living room. My little sister was hardly three at the time. One of the agents had picked her up from her crib. I can’t even imagine being a baby, a toddler at the time and being picked up by a stranger who had a gun in their hand. And they threw her at us.

And they threw her at us in the living room. One agent who was like four times our size. He was a heavy-set white man who was over six feet tall. He swung open my eldest sister’s room, the door to her room. And she had just woken up from that. She was 19 and she wore the hijab at the time. He didn’t let her wear the scarf. She was confused. She woke up and saw a man in her room. I mean, think of all the things a young woman is going to think at that time. She was confused. She was like, who are you? What are you doing? And he told her to get up, get out of her bed. He, like, pulled her out of bed. She still had, she had bruises for a while on her arm.

He pulled her out of bed. She said I want to wear my scarf. He said no you can’t wear your scarf. He eventually, like, gave in and let her wear it but it took some time. And he grabbed her and she was trying to tell him that he’s holding her too tight. And you know she just woke up. She was confused. She’s yelling and he told my dad, “You need to control your daughter.” And my dad said “Well, hmm, maybe. It’s because her father is being violently arrested right now. What would you do?” I also remember my sister Sanabel was in the hospital that day. And she was set for a surgery. And one of the agents had me walk to the other side of the house to grab toilet paper for my dad. My dad needed to use the bathroom.

All the agents walked into the bathroom with him. And you know my dad, he’s like, he’s like me. We make a joke out of everything. So he was like, “oh, you want to invite everyone else to come in? Come on, it’s a party.”

You know, there’s just a way, that’s just such a Palestinian way of coping, you know, to make a joke out of everything, to be sarcastic. Anyway, because they needed toilet paper, she walked with me to the other side of the house to grab toilet paper. And you know, if you think of it right now, it’s actually so odd for an agent to be alone with a 10 year old minor. You know, they should have had another adult, one of the adults going with her. Because at this point, she took this opportunity to start asking me questions without an adult president. We walked past my sister’s room and she goes, oh, this is such a nice room. Whose room is it? And they probably thought I was some dumb 10 year old who didn’t know what was going on. But I looked at her and I was like, “This is my sister’s room, you know, Sanabel, you know, exactly where she is. Because she asked me, “oh, where is she?” And I was like, “oh, you know exactly where she is. She’s at the hospital.”

Salma: Because you knew that they knew everything.

Nida: I knew, like, yes, I was 10 years old, but you know, being a Palestinian in America, you’re taught at such a young age that like, you know, the reality of things, right?

So, I mean, never did I expect us to have our home raided or anything, but you know, my dad did always tell us to respect people. But at this moment on this day, I knew these people were not our friends and I knew everything was planned out. So I told her what she needed to hear, that they know exactly where my sister is. They knew about everything. Everything she’s asking me about, they already know the answer. So she got quiet. She didn’t ask me any other questions after that. We got the toilet paper and we proceeded back to the main area of the house. And I remember them searching through all the closets under the bed.

My mom, also very comedic, she started yelling at the agents. She’s like, “who do you think we’re hiding here? Do you think we’re hiding Osama bin Laden?” And after that, while we were around it in the living room, I saw my dad get pinned against the wall. And he was put in handcuffs very tightly. And at this moment, I remember him like winking at us and just saying “Everything will be okay. Everything’s okay.” And they walked him to the police car. I tried to go outside, but there was a cop standing in front of the house. And then I remember the police car was parked next to the mailbox. And then my sister and I were crying hysterically looking out the window because obviously we couldn’t be in the front by the front door. And the cops saw us looking through the window and he acted like he was about to come back into the house. So we hid. And that was that. That was that day. And after that, we just had nonstop media outlets just posted up in front of our house. These big vans, the reporters standing outside our home. There was no privacy. I mean, and you can just imagine how scary it was being all girls in this house. And now everyone knows where we live. And there’s this whole post 9/11 hysteria, you know, like it’s just scary. And if anything happened to us, I would have blamed the media at this moment. Like there was no privacy for us.

I even remember in the winter, just a few months after that, we had like these trolls who rang our doorbell in the middle of the night. It was freezing cold outside. My sister opened the door. And this man, this white man just jumped out in his underwear and yelled. And there was a guy across the street filming this and he unplugged his camera and they both ran down the street after that. And my sister ran after them. She called the cops and the cops said nothing. They couldn’t find him, whatever. It was just rude. My dad was in prison for, I think, 10 days. We didn’t really know anything about him. It was basically kidnapping. If you think about it, you know, they come into your home, take him away. And you know nothing about your dad for two weeks. And after that, he was put on house arrest. You know, we had to be back home at a specific time. He wasn’t able to leave the zone that they gave him. He wasn’t allowed to travel unless he had a special request. And it was like this for a few years leading up to the first trial. So that was about three years. Yeah.

Salma: So basically, just so that I can get the timeline right, basically there was the raid and the day that he was essentially kidnapped. And then after that, it was three years of just waiting and him being on house arrest.

Nida: Yep. And he was out of work during this time too.

Salma: Right, because they shut down the foundation.

Nida: He kept trying to come up with a backup plan. He came up with a media management group. He even started giving courses on starting your own business, which a lot of people in the communities attended. It was amazing. He was a life coach as well. My dad always came up with a backup plan and he had another backup plan to his backup plan. He always made it work. He always figured it out. From 2001 to 2004, he was out of work as well.

Salma: So the raid was in 2004 as well, right?

Nida: Yes. But when they shut down the HLF they raided the office, it was in 2001, just two months after September 11th. Convenient. Yes. Everything to me, I believe everything was carefully planned out and the timeline of everything is not a coincidence. It was not a coincidence. So between 2001 and 2004, my dad actually kept flying back and forth between here, Florida, and the Emirates, because in the Emirates, they wanted him to teach some courses. So he was in between helping the family business in Florida and teaching courses overseas in the Emirates. And then he came back. So during the raid in 2004, he was essentially just visiting at the time. He was supposed to go back to the Emirates for work. They planned it. They knew he’d be back because, like I told you, he was supposed to be at the hospital.

Salma: So it’s stalking and kidnapping, essentially.

Nida: It’s stalking the whole family. I actually remember there would be an undercover cop car at the end of our street, like at the end of our block, just watching us the whole time. And before the raid on our home between 2001 and 2004, it was just a lot of run-ins with the cops as well. Because like, you know, now that I think of it, it’s because we were being watched. You know, like one time we were just driving. We had a family outing. There were a couple other kids in the car. I don’t even remember who, and a cop pulled us over for absolutely no reason at all. And he asked my dad to get out of the vehicle. And my dad was like, well, am I being arrested? He’s like, sort of like, just get out of the vehicle. And he pinned my dad down to the hood of the car. And us kids were just like scared, like what’s going on? And they just harassed my dad for a while and let him go. This was between 2001 and 2004 before they raided our home. And then a couple of times my sister would get followed around by the cops. She was driving my dad’s car at the time and she was a college student. They would stop her and ask her whose car she is driving, where she is going. And one time they were harassing her and asking her all these questions. She’s like, you know exactly whose car this is. This is my dad’s car and I’m going to school. I actually have a final to complete right now. She made it to the last 15 minutes of her final.

Salma: Can you tell me about the time your dad came back after being held by police?

Nida: I don’t remember the day he came back, but I do remember a time where it could have been after he came back the same day. But I do remember when we had like just a group of FBI agents and a parole officer at our house telling him the rules and the step by step on how to maintain his ankle monitor and installing it and everything. We even had to go pick up an extra landline for the house, I guess, so that they could call us whenever, whenever they needed to reach him.

Salma: How did that feel to watch that process?

Nida: You know, I felt much older than my age. I mean, I had to grow up so fast. I was only 10 years old, but I’m thinking about these FBI agents and what their real motive is and what this ankle monitor is and its purpose and seeing all of these people in my living room in uniform and I’m sitting there properly. But at the same time in my head, I’m like, talking to myself sarcastically about everything they’re saying, you know, because I felt like it woke me up in a sense that like I knew what they were really up to. And I’m only 10 years old.

Salma: Can you tell me about the day of the not guilty verdict? Three years after the raid.

Nida:On that day, honestly, everything was a blur. But I do remember the amount of people that were standing outside of the courthouse. The whole community and people from out of town as well. There were hundreds of people. Like, think of the amount of people you would see at a Palestine protest in downtown Dallas.. Everyone was outside of the courthouse. When the men came out, people started singing. They were picking up my dad. They were picking up all the members and putting them on their shoulders and dancing. It was a party and we had the news following us from the front of the building to our cars. It was the happiest day ever. Truly. I’ve never felt happier. Later that night or the next day, we had a party at the community center, the MAS community center here in Dallas. We had speeches, poetry from my dad and the men, Ammo Mufid sang, there was dabke, of course. It was just a beautiful day to be with the community. The day of the not-guilty verdict was the happiest day of our life. But we were taken aback a little when the prosecutors were asked if they will take this to trial again and they said yes, because this was a mistrial. It wasn’t actually a not guilty verdict. It was just like a hung jury. You know, there was no answer because they couldn’t find any evidence, but it’s like they wanted them guilty so bad. They just couldn’t find them guilty. They just didn’t charge them with anything.

Salma: How did it and does it feel for you to see that kind of showing of support for your dad?

Nida: It was so special. Yeah. And it was surreal that like all these people are here to support me, my family and my dad. These people are here to support all five families because truly these men were loved by everyone. There was not one enemy.

Salma: Can you tell me about the day of the guilty verdict?

Nida: So the day of the guilty verdict. So during the last month, during November, it was just a waiting game. My dad and the five men would show up, drive downtown every single day and wait in a lobby of a hotel nearby until they were called to let them know that the verdict came out. And there would be some false alarms, they would tell us there was a verdict, and we would come, and they would say “nevermind”. On this day specifically, I remember I was at school and my sister worked at the school. I attended and we were in the prayer hall. My sister came in and she pulled me by the shirt and she was like, we have 45 minutes to get to downtown. It’s the verdict. We went home quickly to grab a change of clothes and sped our way downtown. I don’t even know how we made it on time.

Salma: And how old were you at this time?

Nida: 14, I believe. Yeah, 14. We made it. You know, the crazy thing is we felt unstoppable this trial. We went in feeling invincible. But something deep inside of me, my gut feeling told me that something was not right. I was just highly emotional that day. No, I wouldn’t even say highly emotional. I just had a feeling. But I didn’t think that this feeling meant that they would be guilty.. I went in, I was wearing a sparkly black hijab and a nice satin blazer thinking like, oh, if it’s like, if it’s anything like last time, we’re going to have the cameras all around us, so I was ready. I was ready to celebrate. We went to the seventh floor. I believe it was either the fourth or seventh floor. And as soon as you exit the elevators, it’s basically like TSA. You have to go through a detector and get checked before you enter the hall. Now, the community had already shown up. The room was full. People were all already in the room. They were filled, filling up the hallway. They even had filled up the extra, the viewing room where there’s a TV on the one of the higher floors. So they were not going to let me in. The guard at the time was not letting me get in. He let my sister go through, but he wouldn’t let me in. And I started yelling at him. I said, you have to let me in. My dad is there. He’s about to get his verdict. And how would you like it if it was your dad and you couldn’t get in? And at that moment I broke, I started crying. Then my dad came in, he came, he got out of the room, which I don’t know how because they had already started. He came out and he told him, I need my daughter. So he took me by the hand.

I went through the metal detector, they didn’t even check me or anything. He just grabbed me by the hand and we walked together holding hands through that hall. And I described this day or this moment as if I was being walked by an angel, when I try to remember the hallway, I just see all white and my dad, my dad holding me. It was crazy and just, it felt like just me and him, and the fact that he came out of nowhere. That’s why I say I describe it as if he was like an angel that just appeared and I really don’t remember anything around me but me and him and it was all white. But that’s probably just from all the distress and you know, blanking out. So I’m hugging him as we’re walking and I’m crying and I cry so hard that as soon as the door opens, everyone’s looking at us, me and him. And I fall to the ground crying. Everyone is looking at us because they had paused the session for my dad to get out. So these big wooden doors open, they’re like French doors. They open, and he and I are in the middle. We walk in and I just fall to the ground and I cry so hard. And he picks me up or like he comes at my level. And he’s like, he tried to joke with me. He’s like, “hey, listen, yalla. So when we go back on our way back home, we can go get McDonald’s on the way,” which is hilarious because we’re boycotting McDonald’s now. Oh, how times have changed. I sure have. So I get up and I sit next to my mom on this cold wooden seat. And I remember seeing my dad. I think we were in the first row or the second row and my dad is right behind this little wooden barrier. And his table was facing the judge, his back facing me.

So fast forward – all I hear is the judge saying, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty. And the room is silent, but I hear everyone gasp. And I’m like, in my head, I’m like, no. Like, what is this? There’s no way. And something inside of me just like, you know, I felt something inside of me. I stood up and I started yelling at the judge when they were about to take my dad away. Before this my dad had turned around and winked at us and said, it’s okay. Like he gave us a nod of reassurance. But when I heard that click till this day, that sound triggers me. The sound of the clicking of the handcuffs, so silent but loud at the same time. That’s exactly how I describe it. And anytime someone asks me about it, silent yet loud. And it echoes throughout the whole room. I stood up and I started yelling at this judge.

It’s this little 14 year old girl yelling at this old man. Everyone was surprised that someone would do this and it was me. I yelled at him and I said, “You can’t do this.” I said, “All they did was help children all over the world and here in America. And this is how you repay them.” I said, “My dad is not an animal. You can’t put him in a cage.” The judge looks at me, his face is red because also the jury is in there and they don’t like the stuff to happen when the jury is there. Because they don’t want the jury to even see the family part of this, to see the human side of this. They want the jury to see everything that they only showed them in evidence. Which is everything that they feed people to. They only showed them the stereotypical things to feed people and brainwash them into thinking all Arabs and Palestinians are terrorists. So when they saw this, you can imagine how stunned everyone was. The judge looked at me and he told me, “Listen young lady, you better sit down. Or I will have you arrested too.” And he said that while all these guards were standing around me and they were about to take me.

My mom stood up and she put her hands in front of me and she put her whole body in front of me actually. Basically ready for them to take her instead. And she said, “No you can’t take her. She’s only a child.” And because my mom stood up and put her body in front of me, those guards kind of took a step back and they were confused. They were like, what do we do now? So they eventually just went back to their area and we all sat back down. And my dad told me it’s okay and I remember, I don’t even remember who it was, but two men from our community came and they hugged me and told me everything’s gonna be okay. It was a blur. I can’t even remember their faces. I also remember my dad coming out another time during this court session. I just don’t remember when exactly it was. When they were taking them away, I yelled I love you. And we went out of the room. They allowed three family members to say their final goodbyes. Just three. Yeah and we were I think like much more than six people. They let my grandma, my grandpa, and Sanabel, my sister who passed away, say goodbye. They gave them three minutes to say goodbye. And during this time I was looking through the crack of the door. These big wooden doors. Everyone was in the hallway. But I was standing, we weren’t allowed to open the doors, but I was looking through the cracks and I was able to get a little glimpse of Sanabel talking to my dad. Everyone in the hall was crying. Everyone was shocked. It was completely quiet. Everyone’s eyes were just like, wide open, you know, in complete shock. And then we went back down and it felt like a funeral. When we went back home we had community members come to our house and people were showing up like all week. You know, it was literally like everyone was in mourning. Just showing up, giving us their condolences and bringing food and just being there for us.

And then on the sentencing day it was basically the same thing. I got up and yelled something. I don’t even remember why. I think I also said “I love you”. And the judge already knows me. His face turned red and he yelled back at me. When we went out of the room, oh, when the judge said that he’s sentencing my dad to 65 years, he also mentioned that this was him being generous and kind because they were facing up to like 400 years. But a life sentence is a life sentence and it’s basically a death sentence. It’s just a slow death in jail. I mean, what is the difference between 65 and 400 if you’re going to end up dying in prison?

One of the members of the jury actually came out, and came to my sister crying. She told my sister that she never would have thought in a million years that these men would get sentenced to 65 years. She thought they were going to get like five years in prison, or something, because nothing they showed them was worth a 65 year sentence. She thought it was going to be just like any other court case or any other sentencing that they’ve already experienced. So that in itself, that in itself is proof that none of the evidence that they showed is evidence enough to convict them. Let alone give them a 65 year sentence.

Salma: They really are political prisoners.

Nida: It is political, yes.

Salma: Like in every sense of the word.

Nida: So these men, the Holy Land Foundation in itself shouldn’t have been political. It was about serving humanity, about giving back to the people. Politics aside, but they made it a political thing because quote by quote, they were winning the hearts and the minds of the Palestinian people. And this is exactly what the prosecutors said in court. They were winning the hearts and the minds of the Palestinian people.

Salma: Is there a moment when your dad was particularly hopeful, triumphant or steadfast or a moment that you returned to in your mind when he said something or did something that stuck with you or gave you strength?

Nida: So, you know, resilience and I would say, sumud, was instilled in us at such a young age, just growing up in the Holy Land Foundation and always hearing my dad speak, always watching him do his thing. We learned at such a young age what the Palestinian plight was, what the Palestinian cause was, why we’re fighting for liberation, why we’re doing what we’re doing and what it really means to be a Palestinian. And there would be times where my sisters and I would be arguing, he would take us to the office and run a tape of the footage that they recorded on their trips to Palestine and he would show us the videos of the orphans and he would tell us this is why we’re doing what we’re doing. And he would basically teach us that we have everything we ever need. And they would do anything to be in our shoes to have what we have. So we also were taught to always be grateful for what we have and to always give back to the people in need because they’re just like us. You know, and I think that’s something, just seeing that and just knowing that made me realize how steadfast my dad is. And I think it really made us, his daughters, resilient.

My dad has gone through a lot, a lot. The death of my sister was a big thing. The HLF was born because of her. It was born with the birth of my sister, Sanabel, when she was diagnosed with cystic fibrosis and thalassemia. Thousands of orphans were sheltered and given homes because of Sanabel. And he wanted to give them everything that Sanabel had because, you know, like she’s just like them. They’re just like her. We’re just living on different soil. Why is it fair that she’s getting this type of medical treatment and they’re not? When she passed away, my dad’s spirit was, I mean, he always has such a high spirit and he’s always so positive, even when she passed. He was the one making us laugh on the phone. He was the one checking in on us. He was the one telling us that everything is okay. When he is alone in a prison cell and he doesn’t have anyone to hold him or to hug him or to console him. So that right there showed me or proved to me what hope is, what resilience is.

You know, and I’ve only seen my dad cry a couple of times because he’s always trying to be so strong for us. But another thing that gave me strength was one of my dad’s moments of weakness, ironic enough. After my divorce, my divorce was really tough on my dad. Because I have a special place in my heart. We’re both the artistic ones. We have this little connection, he tells me, when he sees me happy, he’s happy. He’s like my biggest fan. So yes, this one of his moments of weakness gave me strength. He was in tears telling me, “I’m sorry.” And he told me, “I wish I was there for you. I wish I was more present. And I feel like I failed as a father.” And then, you know, there’s any time I hear something that’s not true, something grows inside of me. So I told Baba, and I was very firm with my voice, I said, “Baba, don’t you ever say that because you have been there for me. More than any other father who lives with their own kids.” He wasn’t physically present, but he was so present in our lives. You know, there are fathers who live with their kids in the same house and they don’t even talk to their kids. But my dad made sure, you know, that our bond would never break because that’s exactly what the government wanted. They wanted to break our family. They wanted to break us and to weaken us, but it only made us stronger. So that is exactly why I say his one moment of weakness gave me strength because I don’t ever want to hear my father say that again. My father is always so strong and he’s always so resilient and positive for us. And at this time, I had to be the one to lift him back up and tell him, no, you’ve been doing an amazing job.

Another thing is, you know, if you ask my dad if he regrets anything he’s ever done like with the HLF, he would tell you that he does not regret one thing. He would do it all over again if he knows he can help one more orphaned child in need and help kids survive this genocide.

Salma: There’s just one more. What is the best thing that others can do to support you and your family?

Nida: Keep talking about it. We already have so many people silent on Palestine and Palestinian political prisoners have been forgotten enough and it’s enough. I’ve had enough of people staying silent on Palestinian political prisoners. It’s not a taboo. It’s not something you’re going to get in trouble for talking about. They want you to think that you’ll get in trouble. They want you to be scared. That’s the goal of everything. That is exactly why they put these men in prison because they don’t want you in the streets today protesting a genocide.

And this is why I tell you the timeline of everything is not a coincidence. They specifically put people like this in prison. They put the most intellectual people in prison so that you can be afraid and stay silent because they don’t want you to be just like them. But you being silent is complicity in a genocide. You being silent is complicity in charging people with a crime they did not commit. We should be speaking up for political prisoners. We should be speaking up for Palestine because standing with Palestine and Palestinians is standing with or for humanity.

Free the #Filton6, Free Palestine Action Political Prisoners!

11 August 2024

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins our comrades in Palestine Action and the broad movement for Palestinian liberation in demanding the release of the Filton 6 and all Palestine Action political prisoners held in British jails.

Since 6 August, six actionists are being detained under the Terrorism Act (2000), which allows British police to hold them for 7 days with no charges. As onf 11 August, three more actionists were seized by the police and are being detained under the same provisions. Activists are rallying beginning at 4 pm British time at the Newbury Police Station in Newbury and the Hammersmith Police Station in London to demand the immediate release of all of the detainees.

The #Filton6 were arrested on Tuesday, 6 August for entering infamous Zionist war profiteer Elbit Systems’ Filton, Bristol site in order to stop its manufacture of weaponry for genocide. The action at the Filton site made use of a repurposed prison van — specifically in honour of and solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails and military camps struggling for freedom — to enter the premises.

BREAKING: Actionists crash inside the Bristol-based research, development and manufacturing hub for Israel’s biggest arms producer.

By dismantling machinery and weapons, they directly intervened in Elbit’s genocidal supply chain👇 pic.twitter.com/YY0GKY0nEa

— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) August 6, 2024

Britain is now and has consistently been a partner in the Zionist colonization and genocide throughout Palestine, from the Balfour Declaration of 1917 seeking to provide the Zionist movement with a “Jewish national home” in occupied Palestine, to the British colonial mandate of Palestine that included the assassination and imprisonment of Palestinian leaders and strugglers in intifada after intifada, to the ongoing British arming and funding of the Zionist regime. As an imperialist power and part of the US-led imperialist camp internationally, it is a leading force in the alliance of genocide, bombing Yemen while participating in the assault on Gaza. In this context, it is further worth noting that the British colonial mandate was the first to introduce “administrative detention” — imprisonment without charge or trial — to occupied Palestine, a policy enthusiastically adopted by their Zionist colonial successors, currently used to detain nearly 4,000 of the nearly 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners held hostage in Zionist jails.

The actions undertaken by the Palestine Actionists are not only justified but necessary amid the ongoing genocide in occupied Palestine. Elbit Systems produces 85% of the drones used by the Zionist regime to carry out its genocidal assault, and putting an end to genocide is a moral, political and legal obligation of all people of conscience.

In May, Palestinian students in Gaza further called: “Today, we call on you, from the midst of massacres and siege, to a new revolutionary phase of comprehensive escalation, and to raise the pace and ceiling of your struggle and your honorable stances, quantitatively and qualitatively, against the institutions, corporations, and governments that participate in the slaughter of our children, our students, and our people in Rafah, Jabalia, Khan Younis, and the entire Gaza Strip, and against the settler gangs, armies of Zionist killers, and so on that commit their crimes in camps, cities and villages in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.”

We demand the immediate release of the #Filton6 and all other prisoners for Palestinian liberation held in British and other imperialist jails. Thousands of people have been arrested, detained and jailed by police in Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Canada in the past 10 months of genocide. These repressive attacks on the movement for Palestinian liberation are part and parcel of these imperialist powers’ participation in the genocide in Gaza and seek to repress the growing, massive international movement in support of Palestinian resistance and liberation from the river to the sea.

We urge not only the immediate liberation of these prisoners, but also echo the call from the students of Palestine for broad and comprehensive escalation to confront the Zionist war machine everywhere, particularly in the heart of the imperial core.

Freedom for the Filton 6 and all prisoners of the Palestinian cause!

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

The #Filton6 have been detained without charge for over 130hrs. Join us at Hammersmith police station NOW to tell the cops:

FREE THE #Filton6!
SHUT ELBIT DOWN!

Use the Terrorism Act against those fuelling Israel’s genocide – not against the activists trying to stop it! https://t.co/6L6B4ahEbq pic.twitter.com/w8qrwDi0yM

— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) August 11, 2024

We are republishing the statement from Palestine Action below:

Actionists are being detained under the Terrorism Act, allowing the police to hold them for up to 7 days, with possible extension to 14 days, without charge. This comes after six were arrested on Tuesday 6th August for entering Elbit Systems’ Filton, Bristol site, to prevent its manufacture of weapons for genocide.

The Filton premises are the brand new £35m R&D hub of Israel’s biggest weapons firm. Its June 2023 opening was attended by the UK-Israeli Ambassador Hotevely, and Elbit’s CEO Bezhalel Machlis – who has frequently boasted of the company’s central role in Israel’s military, during the ongoing Gaza genocide.

Direct action against Elbit aims to disrupt this: targeting the source of colonial violence and genocide against the Palestinian people, undermining Elbit’s profiteering from Israel’s daily massacres.

As well as detaining them under unprecedented powers, police have launched a smear campaign against the detained actionists, alleging violence against police and security guards. The activists are unable to respond to these claims, and unable to describe for public record the force used against them by police and private security. Palestine Action contends that these statements are designed to prejudice opinion and legal proceedings against activists, and to lay the groundwork for the police’s unjust use of authoritarian powers.

Now, more than ever, Palestine Action and the #Filton6 need the support of the public, to push back against these authoritarian attempts to protect Israel’s weapons industry. Show the British state and Israeli arms companies that we refuse to be intimidated into allowing a genocide to happen.

Here are three things you can do to support:

Mobilise from 4PM on Sunday 11th August outside Hammersmith police station, W6 7NX or Newbury police station, RG14 5QU
Share this statement or publish your own
Visualise your support for the #Filton6 and Palestine Action either at protests or by sharing a picture with a sign saying ‘I stand with the #Filton6’ on social media

The martyrdom of Wafa Jarrar: A life of dedication cut short by Zionist attack and medical neglect

11 August 2024

On Monday, 5 August, Wafa Jarrar, 50, was martyred in Jenin, dying of her injuries caused by the colonial occupation Zionist army when they invaded her home two months earlier on 21 May, abducting her and throwing her into a military jeep when an explosion in the jeep severely injured her legs. The Zionist military then took her to the hospital, where both of her legs were amputated at the thighs, without seeking her consent or that of her family. Her husband, Abdel-Jabbar Jarrar, has been imprisoned since February; he is jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention.

Despite her severe injuries, she was initially ordered to 4 months in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. However, in order so as not to be held responsible for her health condition, the occupation forces released her 10 days later, on 30 May. During that time, her family was told that she was in a coma in a Zionist hospital, and also deliberately misled her family by providing incomplete and misleading information about her health condition at some times, while blocking all information at other times.

Upon her release, she was transferred to the intensive care unit at Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin in critical condition. Her doctors found that she suffered from fractures of her rib cage, a fracture of the 12th vertebra of the spine as well as the amputation of her legs; her left lung was also infected due to an accumulation of blood inside it. Although she remained in intensive care, her severe injuries led to further ulcers and infections. She received additional surgery and antibiotics, but her condition continued to worsen until she passed away on 5 August.

The occupation retained Wafa Jarrar’s amputated legs, refusing to return them to the family to bury with the rest of her body, instead saying they were “discarded,” in offense to Islamic funeral traditions.

Wafa Nayef Zuhdi Jarrar (Umm Hudhayfah) was born in 1974 in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, Palestine. She married Abdel Jabbar Muhammad Ahmed Jarrar, a leader of the Hamas movement, on February 22, 1990, and they had four children, Hudhayfah, Taqwa, Amjad and Zaytouna.

A well-known and beloved activist and educator, she was the coordinator of the Association of Families of Martyrs and Prisoners of Jenin Governorate. She was widely respected in the city of Jenin in particular and in the cities of the West Bank in general and was known for her committed participation in solidarity vigils demanding the liberation of the prisoners and the return of the bodies of the martyrs held by the Zionist state.

In 2021, she was a candidate on the Hamas list in the legislative elections, Jerusalem is Our Promise, before the Palestinian Authority canceled the elections.

She also held a bachelor’s degree in Arabic language teaching methods and completed her master’s degree in Arabic language at An-Najah University.

Wafa Jarrar’s husband, Abdul Jabbar Jarrar, is an organizer in the resistance movement in Jenin Governorate. At a young age, he participated in protests against the occupation forces and was active in the Islamic Bloc while studying at Al Khalil University. He joined the Hamas movement immediately after its founding in 1987. In total, he was arrested 30 times and spent about 16 years in Zionist prisons.

He has been in administrative detention since last February. On 5 August, only hours after the announcement of his wife’s martyrdom, the occupation forces declared that they were renewing his administrative detention was renewed for 6 additional months. (Administrative detention orders are indefinitely renewable.)

A huge crowd accompanied Wafa Jarrar’s funeral procession in Jenin, accompanying the martyr one last time. In other cities in occupied Palestine, rallies and initiatives in her honour were organized, including at Bir Zeit University, where student organizations marched, carrying her portrait.

Saadia Farajallah and Israa Jaabis: two precedents of this policy of deliberate medical negligence

This policy of deliberate medical neglect has already caused death and serious injury among Palestinian female prisoners, the two most egregious recent examples being those of Saadia Farajallah and Israa Jaabis.

Saadia Farajallah was arrested on December 18, 2021, while she was passing through the city of Al Khalil to visit her daughter. The colonial army accused the 68-year-old woman of attempting to stab a 38-year-old settler from the illegal settlement of “Kiryat Arba” in front of the Ibrahimi Mosque. Attacked by a group of settlers and held at gunpoint by Zionist soldiers, she was violently taken to an interrogation center. From the time of her arrest until her martyrdom, her family was prevented from visiting her.

On July 2, 2022, while performing her ablutions in the colonial prison of Damon, Saadia Farajallah lost consciousness. She was carried by her fellow prisoners to the prison clinic where she would fall a martyr.

Her condition deteriorated very quickly after her arrest. At her trial she appeared in a wheelchair, unable to walk. During the hearing, her lawyers demanded that she be given access to a specialist doctor, as she was clearly already suffering from health problems. Instead of receiving the medical care she needed, the military court sentenced her to 5 years in prison and a fine of 15,000 shekels. It was this policy of deliberate medical neglect in the colonial prisons that caused her martyrdom, as it caused the martyrdom of Walid Daqqah, Khaled Al Shawish, Nasser Abu Hmeid, Khader Adnan, Asif Al Rifai and many others of the 258 Palestinian prisoners murdered by the Zionist state in its prisons.

Israa Jaabis, an educator and social worker from Jerusalem, was arrested on October 11, 2015. That day, as she was returning home, an electrical fault in her car’s airbag caused a fire as she approached a colonial army checkpoint. While she was trapped in the burning car, a bus driver came to her aid and managed to open the door. Severely burned, she asked for help from the Zionist soldiers who rushed to the scene. But instead, Israa was held face down by the soldiers, while her burns continued to worsen.

15 minutes later, the ambulance arrives but it is too late. Held on the ground by constraint, burned alive, Israa is seriously injured: the educator has suffered first, second and third degree burns on more than 60% of her body. She is transferred to the hospital where she will have eight fingers amputated. Her face is partially disfigured by the burns: her ears are stuck to her head. She has great difficulty breathing through her nose and has serious respiratory problems. She often suffers from major attacks during which she says she feels like she is burning from the inside. Her lower lip having melted, she cannot drink and eat as before, she needs a straw and a special cup because she has great difficulty moving her hands .

She was immediately arrested and placed in detention. At the end of the trial she was sentenced to eleven years in prison and a fine of 50,000 shekels.

Before her accident she worked in a retirement home and used to do activities with the residents. She also volunteered in several associations, in hospitals, schools, etc., where she dressed as a clown to entertain the children.

In prison, her fellow prisoners, who took care of her every day, making sure she lacked nothing and monitoring her condition as best they could, described her as a loving friend full of love and joy, who always welcomed the new prisoners as best as possible. Many spoke of the fact that she worried about each of them and that despite her condition she remained filled with a superhuman strength of character.

Saturday, November 25, thanks to the exchange agreement obtained by the struggle and offensive of the Palestinian Resistance and the immense sacrifice of the population of Gaza, Israa Jaabis was freed from Zionist prisons. That day, in infinite joy, her son, Mu’tasim , who had not been able to see her for more than 6 years, finally welcomed his mother, after a separation that will have left a significant trauma in the family.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network extends our deepest condolences to the family, loved ones and comrades of Wafa Jarrar, and the Palestinian people as a whole. May she watch over the living and guide their steps along the long path to liberation. May the sweetest rest be granted to her, may the infinite love of her people ease the pain of her loved ones. Glory to the martyrs, liberation for the prisoners, victory for the resistance, in a free Palestine from the river to the sea.

Dismantle Damon: Free the ReSisters!

11 August 2024

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network endorses the new campaign, Dismantle Damon: Free the ReSisters! We urge all to follow the campaign at https://instagram.com/dismantle_damon, join in campaign activities and share news and materials widely!

DISMANTLE DAMON : FREE THE RESISTERS!

August 3, the International Day in Solidarity with Gaza and the Prisoners, marks 300 days since the start of the US-Europe backed Zionist genocide on Gaza. In answer to the calls from Palestine to mobilize for Gaza and the prisoners we launch a new campaign:

Dismantle Damon: Free the ReSisters.

In this campaign, our demands are simple: we call for the destruction of Damon prison, we call for the freedom of all the Palestinian women* prisoners held there. While in this campaign we focus on Damon prison and its detainees, we also call for every colonial prison to be destroyed and for every Palestinian prisoner to be free.

The Zionist practice of imprisonment has intensified since October 7. Mass kidnappings have been occurring across the West Bank and 48 Palestine, with the number of prisoners in the Zionist prisons currently at over 9,300 and many more thousands of prisoners in concentration camps in Gaza. The systematic use of torture, isolation and sexual assault (regardless of gender) is a normalised practice by the IOF.

Just last week when Zionist media itself reported of use of rape as weapon of war used by their military, and in response to this we saw crowds of settlers take to the streets in support of this criminal practice. The regime of imprisonment of Palestinians and their mistreatment is an attempt to undermine the Palestinian resistance, to rob it of its leadership and to deter others from continuing the struggle. But this will never succeed, the resistance will continue until every prisoner is free, until every inch of Palestine is liberated from Zionism and return becomes a lived reality.

Currently in Damon, which has historically being used as a central prison for Palestinainian women* and girls there are 88 prisoners, including Khalida Jarrar, Hadeel Shatara, Hanan Barghouti and Layan Kayed to name a few. The prisoners are from all sectors of society, they are teachers, students, journalists, mothers, community leaders, lawyers, healthcare workers and so on.

The oppressive practices inside the prison have become even more harsh and inhumane, the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs has been reporting on the worsening conditions inside the Zionist occupation jails. Many rights the prisoners have fought for, such as cooking their own meals, conducting education, and family visitation, have been banned and lawyers barely have access to their clients. The prisoners are isolated from the outside world with cell phones, radios and televisions confiscated. They are being kept hungry, subjected to isolation and solitary confinement, beatings from the prison guards, threats of abuse and threats to their families.

Upon her release, Baraa Odeh reflected with us on the harsh treatment, torture and humiliation the prisoners are subjected to, yet she assured us that they remain steadfast, in the spirit of Palestinian resistance.

A similar reflection was shared by former prisoner and long time resistor Etaf Alayan – in June , the International Women’s Alliance (IWA) honoured Etaf at with their Women of Valour Award for her steadfast resistance both inside and outside of Zionist prison. In her acceptance message she greeted all the women prisoners “the free women of Palestine, who are still being tortured but remain unsilenced”.

As activists, organizers, as people of conscience in solidarity with Palestine it is our task to uplift and advocate for our prisoners, our leadership, and our compass in the Palestinian liberation struggle.

In this campaign we strive to highlight every prisoner in Damon prison, to share their stories and to amplify their struggle. We do not seek justice or their liberation through illegitimate Zionist courts, we know the freedom of the prisoners and the end of Zionist colonial prisons can only come with the complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. We call on all those who stand for justice and liberation to join the campaign.

In the coming weeks we will release publish more extensively on the campaign, prisoner profiles, resources, calls to action and how you can become involved.

Free our reSisters!

Free all Palestinian prisoners!

Free Palestine from the river to the sea!

Long live the Palestinian Resistance!

Video: Palestinian Prisoners, Genocide, and Repression of Pro-Palestinian Organizations

3 August 2024

On Thursday, August 1, Charlotte Kates, Samidoun’s international coordinator, joined Millennials Are Killing Capitalism Live to discuss the current situation of Palestinian prisoners, the Sde Teiman military concentration camp and the severe torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners, the assassination of Palestinian national leader and chair of the Hamas political bureau Ismail Haniyeh, the regional resistance alliance, and the importance of coming out on August 3 for the prisoners and Gaza, noting that the call for participation was Haniyeh’s final full political statement, as well as political repression targeting the movement for Palestine.

Watch the full video here:

3 August, Toronto: Fundraiser and Letter Writing for Palestinian Prisoners

31 July 2024

Join us to commemorate August 3, the 300th day of escalated genocide in Gaza, as an international day of action for the liberation of Palestine and all Palestinian prisoners!

This Saturday from 2-6PM at York University’s Vari Hall, we will hear directly from Palestinian ex-prisoners, write letters, and collect donations for Palestinian prisoners.

We at Samidoun Toronto, Students & Workers for the Liberation of Palestine, and the Jewish Anti-Zionist Collective Toronto look forward to learning, organizing, and mobilizing with you.

In solidarity,
SamidounTO, JAZCto, and SWLP TO.

You can find Samidoun Toronto on Telegram at t.me/SamidounTO, SWLP TO on Instagram @SWLP_TO and JAZCto on Telegram at t.me/jazcto!

31 July, Vancouver: Emergency Vigil – Confront Genocide and Assassination

31 July 2024

VANCOUVER: ALL OUT FOR PALESTINE, IRAN, IRAQ, YEMEN, LEBANON

CONFRONT GENOCIDE AND ASSASSINATION

Wednesday, July 31, 2024
4 pm to 8 pm
Vancouver Art Gallery

Join us for salah, dua, speeches. Open invitation for people to pay their respects to the martyrs of Palestine and the region.

Zionist forces bombed Beirut today, attempting to assassinate a leader in the Lebanese resistance; they then assassinated Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh through a brazen attack on Iran, where Haniyeh was attending the inauguration of the newly elected President.

This outrageous crime, part of the systemic assassination policy of the Zionist regime, aims to target the Palestinian people as a whole, and to target the entire region for aggression in an attempt to manufacture consent for war on Iran. The Zionist regime also once again indicated that it intends to continue the genocide, specifically targeting the lead negotiator for the Palestinian Resistance.

Join us in a collective emergency vigil to honour the martyrs. Share in our collective outrage and our commitment to end the genocide, end the assassination policy, and make it clear that their assassinations will never kill Palestine or the Palestinian people.

Glory to the martyr: Ismail Haniyeh, Palestinian leader, assassinated in Zionist attack

30 July 2024

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins the entire Palestinian national movement in condemning the assassination, mourning the martyrdom and saluting the life of the leader, Ismail Haniyeh, Abu al-Abed, the chair of the Political Bureau of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement, in Tehran, Iran.

Haniyeh was in Iran to attend the inauguration of newly elected Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian and also met with Imam Khamenei today, alongside Ziyad Nakhaleh of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, and was assassinated along with his bodyguard and companion, the martyr Wassim Abu Shaaban, in the residence where he was staying by a “treacherous Zionist raid,” as Hamas stated in the movement’s first statement on the assassination.

The assassination policy of the Zionist regime has attempted to erase the leadership of the Palestinian people for over 76 years now. The names of the martyrs of assassination are great, shining figures of history. Ismail Haniyeh. Saleh al-Arouri. Abu Ali Mustafa. Fathi Shiqaqi. Ghassan Kanafani. Kamal Nasser. Abdel-Aziz Rantisi. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. Abu Jihad. Mohammed al-Najjar. Basil al-Kubaisi. Tareq Izzedine. Samir Kuntar. Kamal Udwan. Imad Mughniyyeh. Sheikh Khader Adnan. Ibrahim al-Rai: A parade of martyrs on the road to the liberation of Palestine.

Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated as part of a comprehensive policy of the Zionist regime that aims to eliminate the leaders, spokespeople and revolutionary voices of the Palestinian liberation movement.

This aggression was also an act of war against Iran, and came on the same day as the attempted assassination of a leader of Hezbollah, the Lebanese resistance movement, through the Zionist bombing of the southern suburbs of Beirut, and on a day that the US bombed Iraq, targeting the Iraqi resistance, assassinating three members of the resistance forces. It is also clear that this is not a Zionist crime alone, but a crime bought and paid for by the United States and its imperialist partners.

These assassinations have not undermined the strength, solidarity, commitment and firmness of the alliance of resistance forces in the region. From Iran to Lebanon, Yemen to Iraq to Syria, and of course, to Palestine, where the people and the Resistance daily confront the genocidal Zionist regime, the people have the right and the determination to resist, to respond and to confront the assassins and genocidaires. Further, this crime does not demonstrate the “strength” of the Zionist entity but rather its desperation and decline. These assassinations and international aggressions come as the Zionist regime is rent with internal contradictions and riots as settlers and soldiers demand the right to rape imprisoned Palestinians, reflecting the death throes of a wounded colonial monster.

Ismail Haniyeh, 61, a husband, father and grandfather, was born a Palestinian refugee in al-Shati camp and struggled all his life for the liberation of the Palestinian people. From his days as a student, a football player, and a leader in the Islamic Bloc at the Islamic University of Gaza, he was dedicated to the Hamas movement and to Palestine. In 1989, amid the great popular Intifada and shortly after the founding of the movement, Haniyeh was abducted and imprisoned by the Zionist regime for three years, before he was among 415 Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders and members forcibly deported to Marj al-Zuhour in southern Lebanon on 17 December 1992, alongside Dr. Abdelaziz al-Rantisi, Sheikh Youssef Sarkji, Sheikh Saleh al-Arouri, Dr. Mahmoud al-Zahhar, and, among many others, Mustafa Abu Ora, the martyr of the prisoners’ movement just five days ago.

He headed the office of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in Gaza and was elected the leader of Hamas in Gaza in 2004, following the assassination of Abdel-Aziz al-Rantisi. In 2017 Haniyeh was elected by the Hamas movement to lead its Political Bureau and was reelected to this position in 2021.

Haniyeh was the chief negotiator mandated by the Hamas movement and all of the organizations of the Palestinian Resistance, and this assassination aims to prevent him from seeing and directly welcoming the prisoners freed by the Resistance and once again underlines that the Zionist regime is only interested in continued genocide.

Over 60 of his family members have been martyred, killed by the Zionist regime in the past 10 months, including three of his children and five of his grandchildren. “The blood of my children is not more valuable than the blood of the people of Palestine and all the martyrs in Gaza are my children,” he said, cherishing all of the martyrs of Palestine.

“There is no difference between the martyrs, and they have all been chosen by the Most Merciful to pave our way to victory and freedom,” he said. “The blood of the martyrs demands that we do not compromise, do not relent, do not change or alter, do not weaken, and do not despair, but continue our path with determination.”

The martyr Tareq Izzedine, of the Islamic Jihad movement, gave his last statement before his assassination on the martyrdom of Sheikh Khader Adnan, himself assassinated through deliberate refusal of medical care in the Zionist prisons. His words remain resonant today (video by Resistance News Network): “Whenever a leader ascends, ten will emerge to replace them. When a martyr ascends, 100 martyrs will emerge to replace them. The march continues, and it does not stop until the defeat of the occupation.”

Just today, Ismail Haniyeh said, in his meeting with Imam Khamenei, “Yesterday marked the 300th day of the Gaza War, and we have now reached a critical and historic stage in which the Palestinian people and the Resistance Forces must sustain their heroism and victory.”

His last major statement was for the prisoners, and for popular mobilization, urging people everywhere to participate in the August 3 call to action for Gaza and the Prisoners. “Freedom is near for our dignified prisoners and honorable female prisoners, and victory is coming for our people and our valiant resistance.”

“We call for active and massive participation on this national and global day in defense of our prisoners and our people in the Gaza Strip, to expose the brutal crimes of the occupation against them, and to support their rights and just cause….We look forward to making the 3 of August a pivotal day in all parts of Palestine, in the refugee camps and the diaspora, in our Arab and Islamic world, & among all the free people of the world, to support our people in Gaza and our free prisoners in the occupation’s prisons.”

We must all mobilize, on August 3 and beyond. We must all act. We must all continue the struggle, to confront Zionism and imperialism everywhere and to hold them accountable for their crimes.

From Beirut to Tehran to Gaza to Haifa, to all of our communities, this is the time for action and confrontation. They have never killed the resistance and will not succeed in doing so today.

Ismail Haniyeh and all of the martyrs live on, and their legacy of commitment, sacrifice and love for the people is an inspiration to generations to come. The defeat of Zionism is forthcoming, as is the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. Every one of the honourable martyrs have sacrificed everything in order to make that vision a material reality that is closer every day.

Glory to the martyr Ismail Haniyeh and all the martyrs of Palestine and the Resistance. Return, liberation and victory to Palestine, all of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Sde Teiman: the true face of the Zionist project

30 July 2024

Since the establishment of “Israel’s” notorious Sde Teiman concentration camp, filled with thousands of Palestinian civilians from Gaza, rounded up and abducted from cities, refugee camps, schools and hospitals by the invading Zionist army as part and parcel of their genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, those who are released have spoken about the horror of their experiences at the hands of the occupation soldiers. Palestinian survivors have testified about rape and sexual assault, starvation and denial of food, people being handcuffed 24/7, forced amputations of limbs due to torture, denial of medical care, beatings, noise and sound torture, “hooding” and binding of detainees, attacks by trained dogs, and all other forms of abuse and torture.

Palestinian survivor after survivor have spoken on the record about their experiences. At least 38 Palestinian detainees from Gaza held at Sde Teiman have been martyred under torture and denied medical treatment, even though the full scope of the crimes are not yet visible due to the secrecy surrounding the torture camp. Palestinian lawyer Khaled Mahajneh, the first lawyer to speak to detainees held at Sde Teiman recounted multiple instances of rape and sexual assault, electric shock torture, dangerous hygiene conditions (the journalist he visited was “covered in dirt and bird droppings”) and brutal beatings. Even CNN, the Washington Post, the New York Times, imperialist outlets that have eagerly promoted Zionist propaganda about its genocide in Gaza, have covered the horror that is Sde Teiman — and, indeed, the entire Zionist prison system.

Sde Teiman is a systemic crime

Sde Teiman is not an aberration or an unusual case. It is part and parcel of the military system and the use of imprisonment to target Palestinians en masse. It is the labour camps of the 1947-1948 Nakba, the interrogation centres throughout occupied Palestine. Sde Teiman is, of course, also Guantanamo, and Abu Ghraib, as the US and the Zionist regime share strategies of torture, interrogation and abuse directed, largely, at Palestinian and Arab men. In short: Sde Teiman is Zionism and imperialism; it is the fruit of the perpetrators of the genocide; it is the experience of Palestinian prisoners and the entire Palestinian people, for over 76 years, distilled and condensed into a concentration camp to torture the victims of genocide.

Sde Teiman burst once more into global visibility on July 29, after nine Zionist soldiers were arrested by military police for their role in the mass rape and sexual assault of at least one Palestinian detainee, who was injured so badly that he was hospitalized due to the damage to his rectum and anus. The arrest is itself extremely uncommon, given that Zionist soldiers have been essentially given free rein to engage in a widespread, systemic campaign of torture, rape and abuse against the Palestinian people, part of the same genocidal campaign that has taken over 40,000 Palestinian lives in Gaza, from the bombing of water wells and treatment plants to the systematic destruction of hospitals and the health care system to the bombing of refugees in tents and children at play to the numerous TikTok videos made by Zionist soldiers boasting of their war crimes and displaying them to the world.

From the daily settler violence in the West Bank of occupied Palestine to the leading politicians of the regime ordering more genocide on a daily basis, complete impunity is built into the system. However, the growing international pressure, including the legal pressure at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice — as well as, reportedly, new forthcoming restrictions on British arms trade with the Zionist regime, has mandated that the Zionist regime make at least the appearance of some form of discipline for the most extreme examples of abuse. The crimes at Sde Teiman were not perpetrated by nine occupation soldiers, but by the entire occupation regime.

Zionists demand the right to rape

However, the arrest of the nine soldiers did not stop there. Military police entered the compound and seized the soldiers, taking them away. It must be noted that this “raid” was conducted with far greater care and non-violence than the daily dozens of raids throughout occupied Palestine, where occupation soldiers blow the doors off Palestinian homes, steal children from their beds and terrorize families on a nightly basis. However, it is the response to the arrests that truly has put the reality of Zionism on display, if the past ten months of videos and photos of livestreamed genocide did not consolidate that reality: throngs of paramilitary settlers and fascist politicians rioting to demand the right to rape Palestinian detainees. These fascist mobs were allowed to engage in violent riots and invade military bases, in sharp contrast to the occupation opening fire with live bullets on Palestinian demonstrators.

This is the reality of Zionism: Masses of fascists screaming for their unlimited right to rape and abuse Palestinians, with Members of the Knesset affirming it openly, with Likud MK Hanoch Milvetsky declaring that “everything is legitimate” in response to a direct question about rape with foreign objects and politician after politician declaring it unacceptable that Zionist soldiers could be tried or arrested for their crimes. And, as expected, occupation authorities have reportedly “acknowledged mistakes” — not for allowing the rapes to continue, but for arresting the rapists too visibly! This is the point that the internal crisis and decay of the Zionist regime has reached, in full view of the world.

The rape-supporting riots and the exposure of the crimes at Sde Teiman have also thrown a sharp light on the campaign of lies and misinformation directed against the Palestinian resistance. Released “Israeli” detainees held by the Palestinian resistance and released in prisoner exchanges have, despite massive incentives to do otherwise, largely spoken of their well-treatment by the Resistance. The photos of released Zionist detainees, compared to those of released Palestinian detainees, speak for themselves. Despite conditions of genocide and starvation throughout Gaza, the captives of the resistance received all the food available, while the Zionist forces deliberately starve Palestinian detainees despite an abundance of resources supported and funded by the world’s imperialist powers, including the US, Germany, Britain, France, Canada and Italy.

The smear campaign against the Palestinian resistance

Further, the drumbeat of misinformation and misrepresentation about Al-Aqsa Flood and the 7 October military operation of the Palestinian Resistance is perhaps more exposed than ever. Despite the loud claims and propaganda campaigns of Zionist officials, U.S. officials, and even complicit international institutions, not a shred of evidence for rape and sexual assault as part of the Al-Aqsa Flood has been produced. Indeed, the unproven and fantastical allegations have largely been sourced from right-wing Zionist men, the same ones responsible for false allegations of “beheaded and burned babies.” Now, right-wing Zionist men are rioting against their own state for the right to rape, burn and kill Palestinians. Sde Teiman is not “revenge” for October 7 — the institutional crimes that are crystallized in Sde Teiman are part of the reason why the Palestinian resistance has been willing to undertake such tremendous sacrifices, before, during and after October 7 in order to liberate the Palestinian prisoners — and of course, to liberate Palestine, from the river to the sea.

It cannot be any clearer that the defamation of the Palestinian resistance is perhaps the clearest exmple of “every accusation is a confession” on the part of the Zionist regime. The Palestinian resistance forces have consistently and firmly conducted themselves with honour, faith and commitment to the liberation of their land and people, while the Zionist occupation forces have engaged in a genocidal orgy of destruction. After Sde Teiman, the reality must be clear to all.

Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the NYPD and Sde Teiman

Of course, the crimes of Sde Teiman are part and parcel of the Zionist alliance with imperialism as well. They are sharply reminiscent of the reliance on sexualized torture and abuse of Arab men at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, just as the torture in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib recalled decades of torture of Palestinian prisoners, so much that one chair used for torture was referred to as the “Palestinian chair” by U.S. interrogators. This practice is not confined to U.S. imperialism in the Arab nation, of course; NYPD cops’ rape of Haitian American Abner Louima with an object in 1997, so severe as to require three surgeries, once again highlighted the systematic violence against Black people carried out by US cops, including sexual violence directed at Black men and women.

Sexualized torture has not been confined to Palestinian and Arab men, of course; Palestinian women have been subjected to extreme sexual assault, torture and abuse. Rasmea Odeh exposed these crimes to the world at the United Nations and the Sunday Times in 1979; of course, she was later deported from the United States for her bravery. Algerian women were subjected to mass rape by French colonizers, including political prisoners jailed for their resistance to colonialism. Palestinians — and Zionists — documented the rape of Palestinian women and girls in the Nakba of 1947-48. The allegorical references to the rape of the land of Palestine by the occupation forces, their settlements and their land confiscation, are built on a material foundation of the physical rape of Palestinian women and men.

The Zionist regime is not only subjecting Palestinian prisoners — in Sde Teiman and in the “regular” Israel Prison Service prisons, directed by Itamar Ben-Gvir, one of the “right to rape” leaders — to severe torture and abuse, it is imprisoning the bodies of the martyrs after they are killed. Approximately 38 Palestinians have been confirmed to have been martyred at Sde Teiman, including famed surgeon Dr. Adnan al-Bursh, and approximately 21 in the Zionist prisons. Several of the martyrs’ and survivors’ stories are told in a new article in the Washington Post.

Organize, resist and act!

Despite all of these crimes, the Palestinian prisoners’ movement continues to play a leadership role in the liberation struggle, to develop the movement and to organize together, confronting the Zionists with their bodies and lives on the line on a daily basis. The Resistance, led in Gaza, in the West Bank, throughout occupied Palestine, in Lebanon, in Yemen, in Iraq and throughout the region, is fighting to defend humanity and to bring these crimes to an end, once and for all. There can be no accomodation with the Zionist regime, a criminal regime built upon genocide, dispossession and destruction, but only its defeat and dismantlement.

As we join in the global outrage at the crimes of Sde Teiman, we must redouble our efforts to organize to end the genocide, to stand with the resistance, to liberate the prisoners and for a free Palestine, from the river to the sea. We urge all appalled by the “right to rape riots” to join in the global actions on August 3 for Gaza and the prisoners: take direct action, organize mass rallies, educate your communities, and shut down Zionism and imperialism.

Nablus: From the Mountain of Fire to the Lions’ Den

The Lions’ Den: Prelude to the Flood

Behind the Lions: The Popular Cradle

Sde Teiman is a systemic crime

Zionists demand the right to rape

The smear campaign against the Palestinian resistance

Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, the NYPD and Sde Teiman

Organize, resist and act!

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