Saturday, September 28, 2024
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Women of Resistance: The women martyrs’ bodies held captive by the Zionist occupation

On the international and Palestinian day for the retrieval and liberation of the bodies of the martyrs, the Dismantle Damon campaign highlighted the 9 women martyrs — among the 552 Palestinian martyrs in total — whose bodies are held captive by the Zionist occupation regime in morgues and “numbers cemeteries,” where Palestinians and Arabs are buried with only a number and without their names.

Today, there are 552 known Palestinian martyrs held in the morgues and “numbers cemeteries,” including 256 in “numbers cemeteries” and 296 imprisoned in morgues and refrigerators since the re-implementation of the policy of imprisoning bodies in 2015. Among them are 9 female martyrs, 32 martyrs from the prisoners’ movement, 55 children under the age of 18, 5 martyrs from the 1948 occupied territories, and 6 martyrs from Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

However, these numbers do not convey the full extent of the crime; multiple released detainees from Gaza held at the Sde Teiman torture camp, where extreme physical torture, sexual abuse and assault, murder, starvation and abuse of all forms have been routinely used against masses of Palestinians from Gaza abducted by the invading genocidal army, have testified to the presence of over 1,500 bodies of martyrs held there; the occupation regime has returned around 428 martyrs’ bodies en masse.

The nine women martyrs whose bodies are being held by the Zionist regime include a woman, Bayan Mohammed Jumaa Salama Eid, targeted just one month ago in an assassination attack in Tulkarem, a 17-year old girl, Asmaa Daraghmeh, as well as some of the most well-known women of the Palestinian resistance across generations, Dalal al-Mughrabi, Wafa Idriss, Dareen Abu Eisheh and Hanadi Jaradat.

These are the stories of the imprisoned women martyrs whose bodies are detained by the Zionist regime, with the full support, funding, and partnership of the United States and its fellow imperialist partners in Germany, Britain, France, Canada, Australia and elsewhere.

Bayan Mohammed Jumaa Salama Eid was martyred in Tulkarem refugee camp on 23 July 2024, when Zionist forces invaded and attacked the camp for 16 hours. They bombed a home in the camp with a drone airstrike, killing five Palestinians, including 22-year-old Bayan and her mother, 50-year-old Iman Mohammed Jumaa, and three prominent leaders of the Palestinian resistance in the camp, Ashraf Eid Zaher Nafeh, a leader of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades in Tulkarem camp, and Mohammed Ibrahim Awad and Mohammed Badie, leaders of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades in the camp. The occupation forces invaded the refugee camp — whose residents have been denied their right to return home to Palestine for over 76 years — with 25 military vehicles, then abducted the martyred bodies of Bayan, Ashraf Nafeh, Mohammed Awad and Mohammed Badie, after they attacked the camp with bulldozers, destroying neighbourhoods and tearing up electricity poles.

Maimouna Abdul Hamid Harasheh from the village of Bani Naim, east of al-Khalil, was martyred on 24 April 2024 when “Israeli” occupation forces shot her in the head at a checkpoint in occupied al-Khalil. Maimouna, 20, a university student with an exam scheduled later that day, was shot dead at the Beit Anun checkpoint, referred to as the “checkpoint of death.” Occupation forces deliberately left her to bleed to death and denied access to ambulance crews seeking to provide her with medical attention before they kidnapped her body, where they now hold her body hostage in their morgue.

Labiba Faze’ Sawafta was martyred on 21 April 2024 when “Israeli” Occupation forces opened fire on her at the Hamra checkpoint in the northern occupied Jordan Valley, in Palestine’s West Bank. Occupation forces claimed that Labiba, 43, from Tubas, wanted to carry out a stabbing operation in retaliation for the ongoing genocide in Gaza. After they shot her in cold blood, once again, as in Maimouna’s case, the occupation forces denied access to ambulance crews, instead kidnapping her body.

Asmaa Imad Daraghmeh was martyred on 8 April 2024 when she was shot dead by the “Israeli” Occupation Forces at the Tayasir checkpoint east of Tubas in the northern West Bank of occupied Palestine. Asmaa, a 17-year-old girl, was shot at a distance of 10 meters (33 feet) away, when the heavily armed soldiers claimed that they were at mortal threat from a knife Asmaa held. As in the cases of Labiba and Maimouna, once again the occupation forces blocked access to a Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulance, forcing the teen girl to bleed out without receiving medical care, and instead kidnapped her body.

Wafa Abdul Rahman Baradei was martyred on 19 May 2021 when she was shot dead by an illegal Zionist settler near the so-called “Kiryat Arba” settlement. The settlers claimed that Wafa, 34, from al-Hallajil area near the village of Bani Naim in the Al-Khalil district, was carrying a gun and intended to carry out a resistance operation at the settlement. After the settlers murdered Wafa, occupation forces invaded her village and ransacked her home in the late night hours, as they stole her body and have held it hostage for over three years.

Hanadi Tayseer Jaradat was martyred on 4 October 2003 in a martyrdom operation she carried out in the Maxim restaurant in Haifa, occupied Palestine. Hanadi, 28, was a law student who was scheduled to qualify as a lawyer in the coming weeks, following the completion of her study at Yarmouk University in Jordan. Hanadi was a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, as was her younger brother, Fadi, and her cousin, Salah, both of whom were martyred after being assassinated by an undercover Zionist infiltrator in Jenin. In 2012, Hanadi Jaradat was honoured by the Arab Lawyers Union for her commitment and sacrifice for Palestine. “By the power and determination of God, I decided to be the sixth female martyr who will make her body into shrapnel that explodes to kill the Zionists and destroy every settler and Zionist. And because we are not the only ones who must continue to pay the price and reap the reward for their crimes, and so that our mothers do not continue to pay the price for the Zionist crimes…” she said before embarking on her operation. The occupation forces collected Hanadi’s remains and buried her in the “numbers cemeteries,” alongside Dareen Abu Eisheh and Wafaa Idriss.

Dareen Abu Eisheh was martyred on 27 February 2002 when she decided to become the second woman to carry out a martyrdom operation as part of the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Dareen, 22, was a student at An-Najah National University and an ardent activist with the Islamic Bloc, where she studied English language and literature. She was deeply religious and very politically active, described as the first to attend rallies and demonstrations. Dedicated to Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, Dareen first approached the movement to join the al-Qassam Brigades and carry out an operation, but was denied because, at that time, the movement’s interpretation was that the struggle was the task of men, unless there were no men to carry out the fight. However, she was committed to participate directly through carrying out an operation, and then approached the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades of Fateh, who agreed to arm her to carry out a bombing at the Maccabim checkpoint between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. She wore the banner of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, layered over with a green banner for the Al-Qassam Brigades that she made, in the video she recorded, declaring: “I wanted to be the second woman to carry out a martyrdom operation and take revenge for the blood of the martyrs and the destruction of the sanctity of al-Aqsa mosque.” After her martyrdom, she was known as the “daughter of all factions,” with Fateh, Hamas and Islamic Jihad coming together to jointly claim her, while the occupation held her remains, burying her in the “numbers cemetery” where she has remained for 21 years.

Wafaa Idriss was martyred on 21 January 2002 in the first martyrdom operation carried out by a Palestinian woman against the Zionist occupation. A longtime Fateh activist, Wafaa, 28, was a Palestinian refugee who was born and raised in al-Ama’ri refugee camp in Ramallah. During the first intifada, she joined the camp’s women’s committee, providing social support, engaging in food distribution and supported prisoners’ families. She trained as a medic and volunteered with the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. She went to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Fateh’s armed wing, when she decided to carry out an operation in the middle of Tel Aviv. Her remains were confiscated and buried in the “cemetery of numbers” by the Zionist regime, but a mass memorial held for her in Ramallah in January 2002 drew thousands of women, as a Fateh women’s leader said, “Nobody can prevent the women from taking part in this war toward liberating Palestine,” and attendees chanted: “Women standing beside men, hand in hand, will march toward Jerusalem.”

Dalal al Mughrabi is an icon of the Palestinian resistance movement and one of the most widely-known women Palestinian fighters. A Palestinian refugee born in Sabra refugee camp in Lebanon to her Palestinian father, forced from his home in occupied Yafa during the Nakba, and her Lebanese mother, Dalal was trained as a nurse and joined Fateh and the Palestinian liberation movement in 1975, at the age of 16, at the beginning of the Lebanese civil war. She became a lieutenant in Fateh’s armed organization and was offered a political post in Italy, but declined in order to remain part of the armed struggle. She led a group of 11 Palestinian and Lebanese fighters in a boat to enter occupied Palestine via the beach near occupied Yafa, seeking to attack the Zionist war ministry or to reach the Knesset for a military operation to demand the release of Palestinian prisoners. The group seized a bus, holding the inhabitants captive, before Zionist forces stopped the bus. During a shooting battle between the resistance fighters and the occupation soldiers, Dalal raised the Palestinian flag and declared a Palestinian state. In a manner reminiscent of the “Hannibal doctrine” vividly illustrated by the IOF’s mass attacks on 7 October to prevent Zionists from being taken captive by the resistance, occupation forces bombed the bus from a helicopter gunship, exploding it, killing 38 of those held captive and 9 of the resistance fighters. Dalal al-Mughrabi’s body was supposed to be returned in 2008 to her family in Lebanon as part of the prisoner exchange achieved by Hezbollah, but the Zionist regime dubiously claimed they could not “locate her body” in the numbers cemetery, sending a coffin containing stones to her family.

After her martyrdom, Dalal al Mughrabi has become an icon of Palestinian resistance. Palestinian institutions inside and outside Palestine are named after her — and Palestinian organizations have been routinely pressured by the United States and various European Union countries, including Norway and Denmark, to remove her name from these women’s centers and fellow institutions, in an attempt to erase the legacy of resistance, liberation and commitment to struggle that she represents.

These are the stories of just nine of the Palestinian martyrs, the Palestinian women whose bodies are held captive by the occupation, even as they remain immortal in the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people and all who care for justice and liberation. The Zionist regime has been unable to erase their legacy of struggle, the meaning of their names, and their love for Palestine by holding their bodies hostage. 

We call upon Palestinian and Arab networks, solidarity groups supporting the prisoners’ struggle and boycott campaigns around the world to join in the international campaign to recover and release the remains of Palestinian martyrs, and to expand the support and solidarity for Palestinian prisoners and martyrs everywhere around the world, for their liberation and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. Specifically, we urge women’s organizations and feminist movements to take up the campaign for the liberation of Palestinian women prisoners and of the imprisoned martyrs’ bodies, for the liberation of their people and their homeland.

It is critical that we take action on an international level to popularize the campaign to liberate the bodies of the martyrs. This is part and parcel of the struggle for the dignity and lives of the Palestinian people — and of humanity — being led by the Palestinian armed resistance confronting the genocidal Zionist regime and its imperialist partners in the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and fellow imperialist powers.

Liberate the Imprisoned Martyrs: Over 550 Palestinians’ bodies detained by the Zionist occupation

27 August marks the International Day for the Retrieval and Liberation of the Bodies of the Martyrs, held captive by the Zionist regime in occupation morgues, freezers and so-called “numbers cemeteries,” as well as in the notorious torture camp, Sde Teiman. The day of action was called for by the Palestinian National Campaign for the Recovery of the Bodies of Martyrs, as well as the Palestinian prisoners’ institutions. In the past year — as part and parcel of the ongoing Zionist/imperialist genocide in Gaza as well as the ongoing assault on the Palestinian people as a whole — the number of the martyrs known to be held captive by the Zionist regime has risen dramatically.

Today, there are 552 known Palestinian martyrs held in the morgues and “numbers cemeteries,” as well as at least 9 Lebanese martyrs of the Jammoul resistance movement, Elie Harb, Michel Saliba, Hussam Hijazi, Jamal Sati, Farjalla Fouani, Iyad Kser, Hassan Daher, Hasan Moussa and Yehya Khaled. This is in comparison to 398 bodies of the martyrs held one year ago, in 2023.

However, this number does not convey the extent of the crime; multiple released detainees from Gaza held at the Sde Teiman torture camp, where extreme physical torture, sexual abuse and assault, murder, starvation and abuse of all forms have been routinely used against masses of Palestinians from Gaza abducted by the invading genocidal army, have testified to the presence of over 1,500 bodies of martyrs held there; the occupation regime has returned around 428 martyrs’ bodies en masse.

As the International Campaign to Liberate the Remains of Palestinian Martyrs, a project supported by over 150 Palestinian, Arab and international organizations, including Samidoun, noted in the call to action it issued in March 2023:

“The occupation pursues a fascist policy in its treatment of the Palestinian and Arab martyrs. By refusing to give their families the opportunity to bury their loved ones, the occupation uses the remains of the martyrs as a mechanism for psychological torture of their families by detaining them for years and using them as a card for negotiation with the Palestinian resistance.”

“The Palestinian people have made clear that this barbaric policy will never ‘deter’ Palestinian youth from taking part in the resistance. These martyrs remain prisoners of the occupation even after death, and their families and the Palestinian people as a whole have every right to liberate, honour and bury them in ceremonies worthy of the sacrifices they made for the cause of Palestine, for return and liberation.”

Click here to endorse and support the campaign. Read the call to action in English, French, Arabic, Spanish, German, Swedish

Of the detained martyrs, 256 Palestinians (as well as the 9 Lebanese martyrs) are detained in “numbers cemeteries,” where martyrs are buried with a number, rather than a name, affixed to their graves; and 296 are held in the occupation’s freezers and morgues since the return of the policy of imprisoning bodies in 2015. While the martyrs are free, the occupation imprisons their bodies as a mechanism of collective punishment targeting their families and communities as a whole.

Of the imprisoned martyrs, there are 32 martyrs of the prisoners’ movement whose bodies are held captive by the Zionist regime. These include, infamously, the leader, freedom fighter, intellectual and writer Walid Daqqa, martyred inside Zionist prisons on 7 April 2024 after being repeatedly denied release and subjected to systematic medical neglect, and Sheikh Khader Adnan, whose life was taken after 86 days of hunger strike and the occupation’s deliberate refusal to provide him with medical care. Walid Daqqa’s wife, Sana Salameh, and their young daughter, Milad, have been vigorously campaigning for the release of his body in a case that highlights the racist nature of the Zionist regime and its war upon the entire Palestinian people, including Palestinian citizens of “Israel” like Daqqa and his family.

The 32 captive martyrs of the prisoners’ movement, whose lives were lost behind bars, many due to medical neglect and/or torture and abuse, are:

It is critical that we take action on an international level to popularize the campaign to liberate the bodies of the martyrs. This is part and parcel of the struggle for the dignity and lives of the Palestinian people — and of humanity — being led by the Palestinian armed resistance confronting the genocidal Zionist regime and its imperialist partners in the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Canada and fellow imperialist powers.

We call upon Palestinian and Arab networks, solidarity groups supporting the prisoners’ struggle and boycott campaigns around the world to join in the international campaign to recover and release the remains of Palestinian martyrs, and to expand the support and solidarity for Palestinian prisoners and martyrs everywhere around the world, for their liberation and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.  

We are republishing the statement below from the Palestinian National Campaign to Retrieve the Martyrs’ Bodies:

National Day for the Retrieval of Martyrs’ Bodies – August 27th

Facts about the Martyrs Whose Bodies are Held in Numbers Cemeteries, Morgues, and the Sde Teiman Military Base:

The number of martyrs whose bodies are held amounts to 552, including 256 in numbered cemeteries and 296 since the return of the policy of holding bodies in 2015. Among them are:

  • 9 female martyrs.
  • 32 martyrs from the prisoners’ movement.
  • 55 children under the age of 18.
  • 5 martyrs from the 1948 occupied territories.
  • 6 martyrs from Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Since the start of the genocide against our people in Gaza, the occupation has escalated its policy of holding bodies. Since the war, the occupation has held 149 bodies, which constitutes more than half of the martyrs held since 2015. It is important to note that this figure does not include the bodies held from the Gaza Strip. The number of martyrs from Gaza held by the occupation is estimated to be in the hundreds, but there is no official statement from the occupation regarding the actual number of bodies from Gaza to this day.

Key Data on the Crime of Holding Martyrs’ Bodies (As a Systematic Historical Policy):

The crime of holding martyrs’ bodies, practiced by the Israeli occupation, is one of the prominent historical policies used as part of the crime of collective punishment against martyrs and their families, and as a mechanism of control and punishment of Palestinians. This issue has passed through several stages and has been closely linked to the escalating level of resistance and confrontation against the Israeli occupation system. Since the occupation of Palestine in 1948, the occupation has used this policy, continuing its implementation until 2008, and resumed it with a decision by the Israeli cabinet in 2015, at the beginning of the popular intifada. The occupation did not stop at holding the bodies but also imposed certain conditions when returning the bodies. It also applied a classification policy as part of the conditions imposed on families, particularly affecting martyrs who hold Jerusalemite identity cards, by imposing harsh and unjust restrictions in the context of the occupation’s desire for revenge against the living and the martyrs.

This issue underwent legal transformations since 2017. On December 14, 2017, the so-called Israeli Supreme Court decided to postpone its ruling invalidating the holding of martyrs’ bodies to allow the Israeli authorities to legislate clear and explicit provisions authorizing the military and police leadership to hold martyrs’ bodies. In September 2019, the Supreme Court issued a decision allowing the military commander to hold the martyrs’ bodies and bury them temporarily for use as bargaining chips in negotiations. It also imposed broad conditions authorizing the previously mentioned authorities to issue orders to hold the bodies of some martyrs. In reality, the vast majority of the martyrs whose bodies are held do not meet the conditions imposed by the court, making this issue a new phase in the role played by the so-called Supreme Court in consolidating the crime of holding martyrs’ bodies. This was followed by efforts by the Israeli Knesset to legislate a law authorizing the occupation police to hold martyrs’ bodies, and later an amendment was made to the “Anti-Terrorism Law.”

Holding Martyrs’ Bodies Since the Start of the Genocide:

The ongoing genocide against our people in Gaza has brought about transformations on all levels, with the enormous crimes committed by the Israeli occupation. The issue of martyrs’ bodies is one of the most prominent of these issues, with the number of bodies held by the occupation increasing. After the beginning of the genocide, the number of bodies held reached 149, which constitutes more than half of the martyrs held since 2015. This number does not include the martyrs from Gaza whose bodies are held, estimated to be in the hundreds.

To this day, there is no official statement from the occupation regarding the actual number of bodies held from Gaza, in addition to the fact that the occupation employs a policy of concealing identities as another face of the systematic crime of enforced disappearance, instead assigning numbers to the bodies. The only information that has emerged regarding the bodies of martyrs from Gaza held by the occupation was in July 2024, when the Hebrew newspaper Haaretz revealed in an article that the Israeli occupation holds about 1,500 bodies of Palestinians whose identities are unknown, stored in refrigerated containers inside the military base known as Sde Teiman, and they were classified by numbers rather than names. The newspaper mentioned that the condition of the bodies had reached a certain stage of decomposition, with some missing limbs and others without identifiable features.

During the war, the occupation handed over the bodies of 428 unidentified martyrs in several batches, and they were buried in mass graves in Khan Younis and Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. The scene of the occupation handing over the bodies of martyrs in blue bags was one of the most striking images, reflecting the level of savagery of the occupation and its disdain for human dignity as one of the aspects of the ongoing genocide for more than ten continuous months.

Holding Martyrs’ Bodies in Violation of International Conventions and Charters:

This policy contradicts all international customs and charters that stipulate respect for the victims and the return of their bodies. The relevant rules of international humanitarian law concerning the treatment of the dead, their remains, and their graves include Rule 112 on searching for and collecting the dead, Rule 113 on protecting the dead from pillage and mutilation, Rule 114 on the return of the dead’s remains and their personal belongings, Rule 115 on the disposal of the dead, and Rule 116 on identifying the dead.

The First Geneva Convention of 1949, in Article 17, emphasizes the importance of decent and respectful burial, stating that the parties to the conflict must “ensure the dead are honorably interred, if possible according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged, that their graves are respected, grouped according to nationality, and properly maintained and marked so that they can always be found.”

In addition to Article 17 of the First Geneva Convention, Article 120 of the Third Geneva Convention, Article 130 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and Article 34 of the Additional Protocol require facilitating the return of the bodies and remains of the dead.

The National Campaign for the Retrieval of Martyrs’ Bodies and Palestinian human rights organizations renew their constant demand for the international legal system to resume its necessary role in stopping the genocide and to stand up for humanity by addressing the terrifying state of paralysis that surrounds its role in the ongoing Palestinian tragedy that has persisted for decades and to exert pressure to free the bodies of our martyrs.

Free the Martyr Captives’ Bodies, Free the Martyr Captives:

We have names… We have a homeland.

No to Zionism! No to submission! 23 years on the martyrdom of Abu Ali Mustafa

The statement and article below are updated from the previously published article, Abu Ali Mustafa: A life in struggle for the liberation of Palestine:

Today, 27 August 2024, we mark the 23rd anniversary of the assassination of Palestinian revolutionary and national leader Abu Ali Mustafa by Zionist occupation forces, using US-made and US-provided helicopter-fired missiles, in a bloody illustration of the alliance of Zionism and imperialism that is amplified today in the genocidal Zionist assault on Gaza, armed with U.S.-made and -sponsored weaponry. The General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Abu Ali Mustafa was targeted in his office in occupied Al-Bireh, Palestine, part of the systematic mechanism of assassination that continues to characterize the attacks on the leading martyrs: Ismail Haniyeh, Fouad Shukr, Saleh al-Arouri, and so many others. He has become a symbol of resistance, Palestinian unity and confrontation of the occupation, known by his famous words when entering Palestine: “We return to resist, not to compromise.”

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Abu Ali Mustafa, a popular, revolutionary leader of the Palestinian liberation movement, who remained committed to the Palestinian resistance, the Palestinian people and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea, until his last moment. He continued his work even though he knew that he was targeted, because he was determined to never abandon the cause of the people, resisting and struggling in the Al-Aqsa Intifada and developing the struggle after the devastation of Oslo.

Pan-Arab struggler of the Palestinian working class

Abu Ali Mustafa was a son of the Palestinian popular classes, born in 1938 in Arraba, Jenin, Palestine. He left school in the third grade and worked as a boy in the factories of Haifa before and during the Nakba and the Zionist colonization of Palestine. At the age of 17, he joined the Arab Nationalist Movement, founded by Dr. George Habash (al-Hakim), Wadie Haddad, Abu Maher al-Yamani (himself a labour leader), Basil al-Kubaisi, Ahmad al-Khatib, Hani al-Hindi and their comrades, and played a leading role in the ANM of the 1950s and 1960s.

He was committed to the vision of pan-Arab liberation and resistance to Zionism and confronted the imperialist-aligned Jordanian regime, which banned political parties and acted to defend the interests of imperialism in the region at the expense of the Palestinian people and the Arab people as a whole. He was arrested and sentenced by a Jordanian military court for his organizing and spent 5 years behind Jordanian bars. Throughout his life, he was committed to the liberation of the prisoners from Zionist, imperialist and reactionary regime prisons, recognizing the use of imprisonment as a tool of colonial control aimed to target the liberation movement.

Developing the Palestinian revolution

Abu Ali was finally released from Jordanian prison in 1961 and became responsible for the northern district of the West Bank of Palestine, before he joined with his comrades in establishing the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine following al-Naksa in 1967. The PFLP reshaped the Arab Nationalist Movement along Marxist-Leninist lines, for the mobilization of Palestinian, Arab and international forces toward the defeat of Zionism, reactionary forces and imperialism.

In the context of this struggle, Abu Ali Mustafa played a key role from the earliest days in developing the PFLP and in developing the Palestinian liberation movement. He was always active behind the scenes and did not seek the spotlight; thus, he was well-placed to establish the underground organizations of the Front. In 1965, he attended the Egyptian military course to graduate officers at the Anshas school, skills he then dedicated to building the Palestinian military resistance. He led some of the earliest guerilla patrols to cross the Jordan river into the West Bank, working to coordinate resistance activities throughout occupied Palestine without being detected.

He struggled throughout years of exile in the resistance, from the battles in Jordan against the attacks of imperialist-backed monarchy, to the Palestinian camps of Lebanon. He became the military leader of the Front in Jordan until 1971 and commanded its forces, before leaving to Lebanon in July 1971. In 1972, he became the deputy general secretary of the PFLP, a position he served in for many years while continuing his work of building its organizations and military capacity.

Throughout his life, he was renowned for his caring, humbleness and sincerity, who loved his family, spoke with the people and integrated the experiences and ideas of the Palestinian popular classes to further deepen his leadership and action.

Returning to resist, not to compromise

He returned to the occupied West Bank of Palestine in 1999 — to his place of birth, Arraba, Jenin. He expressed clearly that his return to Palestine was accompanied by a very clear commitment to resistance and liberation, including and particularly the armed resistance. In 2000, at the sixth congress of the PFLP, Abu Ali Mustafa was elected General Secretary of the Front.  His presence as a principled national leader in occupied Palestine was not a concession to the Palestinian Authority and the Oslo framework but served as a challenge to the so-called “peace process” — and this is why he was targeted for assassination. Over 50,000 Palestinians marched in his funeral in central Ramallah.

As a response to the targeted assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa, the PFLP elected its general secretary Ahmad Sa’adat — today imprisoned in Zionist jails and one of the leadership figures of the imprisoned Palestinian resistance, alongside Abdullah Barghouthi, Marwan Barghouthi, Ibrahim Hamed, Abbas al-Sayyed, Hassan Salameh and over 9,500 Palestinian prisoners — and targeted the notoriously racist Zionist tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi several weeks later on 17 October. Of course, Ze’evi was widely known and notorious for his demands for the complete ethnic cleansing of Palestine. The successful assassination of Ze’evi sent a clear message from the Palestinian resistance – that the Israeli assassination policy would not be tolerated and that an assassination of Palestinian leaders would be met with an equal response. This project remains critical today, as Hezbollah responds to the assassination of Fouad Shukr (Sayyed Mohsen), and as the entire alliance of resistance forces in the region awaits the coming response to the Zionist assaults on Yemen, the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, and the ongoing Zionist/imperialist genocide in Gaza.

Confronting, resisting and defeating the assassination policy

The assassination policy of the Zionist project has always been part of a comprehensive project of elimination targeting the leaders, organizers and revolutionary voices of the Palestinian pople and their liberation movement. Abu Ali Mustafa’s name is joined with that of Fathi Shiqaqi, Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin Abu Jihad, Kamal ‘Udwan, Mohammed Yousef al-Najjar, Kamal Nasser, Wadie Haddad, Ghassan Kanafani, Mohammed Boudia, Basil al-Araj, Imad Mughniyyeh, Samir Kuntar, Saleh al-Arouri, Ismail Haniyeh and many more. This assassination policy includes the attacks on the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, from Ibrahim al-Rai, killed under torture, to the systematic denial of medical care to Sheikh Khader Adnan, martyred after 86 days of hunger strike, to Walid Daqqah, killed behind bars through the policy of “slow killing” through medical neglect. This policy has become particularly vividly institutionalized in the post-October 7 era of the Al-Aqsa Flood, as the Zionist regime targets the prisoners for starvation and brutality, inside the colonial prisons as well as in the notorious concentration camp of Sde Teiman, where Palestinians abducted from Gaza are subjected to the most severe forms of torture, abuse, sexual assault, starvation, and murder.

The heroic Al-Aqsa Flood changed the world and has exposed the horrors of Zionism and imperialism to all, as the brave resistance fighters chart new epics of confrontation on a daily basis. Perhaps never before have Abu Ali Mustafa’s words, “No to zionism, no to surrender….we are fighting an enemy that has attacked humanity” rung more clearly and truly. From the heart of Gaza, the red triangle of the resistance fighters has become the international symbol of resistance and steadfastness, making clear that it is possible and indeed inevitable to defeat such a vicious, colonial and anti-human enemy. From Yemen to Lebanon, Iraq and Syria to Iran and beyond, the resistance front is more unified than ever, confronting the unified forces of the Zionist regime and its imperialist backers, with the United States at the forefront, alongside Germany, France, Britain, Canada and fellow imperialist forces.

From the response to the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa on October 17 2001, to the battles of the Unity of the Fields and the Revenge of the Free, to the great and glorious Al-Aqsa Flood, to the battle against the genocidal Zionist regime, it is quite clear that the Palestinian resistance will not relent under the assassination policy. They have never killed the resistance and will never succeed in doing so; instead, the Palestinian people, their revolution and their resistance, brings forth new leaders and fighters at the forefront of struggle, until return and liberation — a liberation that, despite the devastation, the war crimes, the genocidal rampages of the Zionist regime and its imperialist co-conspirators, is closer than ever before.

Abu Ali Mustafa was known throughout his life as an organizer and a builder of organizations. Thus, it is appropriate that many institutions have been named to honor him after his martyrdom, from schools and sports clubs to the armed wing of the Popular Front, which continues to fight today as part of the armed resistance to genocide in Gaza, reflecting his wide-ranging legacy in the Palestinian liberation struggle.

This legacy lives on in the Palestinian, Arab and international revolutionary organizations and movements, and the people, always his compass, who continue to struggle for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, for the return of the refugees, for the defeat of Zionism, for the uprooting of imperialism from the region and the world. These strugglers lead and fight so heroically from behind bars, under siege and in exile, despite all the internal and external difficulties that are being imposed upon them, confronting the forces of imperialism, Zionism and Arab reaction, as Abu Ali Mustafa did throughout his life.

He said: “We are all targets as soon as we start mobilizing. We do our best to avoid their weapons but we live under the brutal Zionist occupation of our lands and their army is only a few meters away from us…We have a job to do, and nothing will stop us.”

The legacy of Abu Ali Mustafa must inspire us all to action: to support the prisoners in their struggle, to fight back against imperialism, to organize to bring an end to the assassination policy, and to confront the genocidal Zionist regime and its imperialist partners and sponsors everywhere: to march, to take direct action, to organize for their defeat. Most fundamentally, Abu Ali Mustafa, a truly revolutionary Palestinian national leader, firmly upheld the Palestinian and Arab resistance, making clear that the people say “No” to normalization and negotiations, their eyes fixed on return and liberation.

When we act and organize on the path of Abu Ali Mustafa and his fellow resistance leaders targeted for assassination and imprisonment, from Basil al-Kubaisi and Ghassan Kanafani to Fathi Shiqaqi, Fouad Shokr and Ismail Haniyeh, we make clear that the assassination policy will never succeed in defeating the Palestinian people and the Palestinian, Arab and international liberation movement. This anniversary is not merely a historical occasion, but a call to action at an urgent moment for the Palestinian liberation movement – to act together with the Palestinian people and their resistance, to stand with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, to confront the genocidaires with our growing movement everywhere, and to realize the vision of Abu Ali Mustafa and of the Palestinian people – for victory, and for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

More resources:

We are republishing below Khaled Barakat’s 2017 article on Abu Ali Mustafa, “The Lessons of the Revolutionary Worker:”

Published in Al-Adab, September 2017 issue (Original in Arabic)

“We are a party with a glorious history and high respect among the people, but this does not justify the state of retreat or decline that is facing us. A party that does not renew itself, with more giving and more action, is one that will fade away…” (The martyr Abu Ali Mustafa, al-Hadaf, 31 July 2000)

What is the main historical contribution of the martyred leader Abu Ali Mustafa in the Palestinian and Arab resistance movement in general, and in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as whose secretary-general he was assassinated by the Zionists on 27 August 2001, in particular?

What are the elements of the self-motivation that made an impoverished boy working in the Haifa factories, who did not complete the third grade, from the village of Arraba in the occupied district of Jenin, to become one of the most prominent Palestinian and Arab revolutionary leaders of our time?

And if his fellow leaders, such as “al-Hakim,” Dr. George Habash; the writer Ghassan Kanafani; the “Revolutionary Engineer” Dr. Wadie Haddad; and many others have left important imprints in the fields of political thought, revolutionary literature, journalism, media and guerrilla action, then what is the imprint of Abu Ali Mustafa on the Palestinian and Arab struggle in general and on his party’s march in particular that made him the exceptional leader who says little, but does much?

The answer is one word: organization.

Yes, the construction of the organization was the craft of his diligent and stubborn perseverence: building the pillars of the Arab Nationalist Movement and then the Popular Front. It is an arduous task for those who take it seriously, as did this great leader. Organization is a part of the struggle that some comrades “evade” even though they may not run away from death itself(!) because it requires the mixture of the determination and patience of dedicated workers and the wisdom of a special type.

This work – party building – is rarely highlighted. This is due to its close association with burning internal issues directly related to the life, security, relations and tasks of the party. Those with long experience in armed action and the building of revolutionary organizations realize the difficulty of the tasks associated with this aspect of party and struggle activity.

What is organization?

It is the daily workshop that the eye does not see, but without it, one does not see at all. Without this workshop, you will not see any real results in the streets and the field, and it will be difficult to measure the level of progress and regression or gain access to the criteria for proper evaluation and criticism.

Internal organizational work not only lays the “foundations” of party principles, but also establishes theoretical, intellectual, and moral principles. This painstaking work is akin to the circulation of blood in the body of the party, which ensures the integrity of its line and the democratic processes of its ranks. It strengthens its ability to continue the struggle and develop its immunity and ability to eliminate the manifestations of corruption, calcification and stagnation.

Abu Ali Mustafa treated the Popular Front as his “daily workshop” that does not rest and does not sleep. If the party is the embodiment of the will of its members and supporters, all of them must participate in its construction and give their opinions in absolute freedom, so no one rank will confiscate the rights of another rank, nor one comrade confiscate the rights of another comrade.

How can each body and institution guarantee its rights while doing its duty at the same time? How do you know its role and limits? And how to preempt conflicts before they occur? What is the relationship of the Popular Front organization in the occupied territory with the status of the party organization and its leadership outside Palestine? How is the daily relationship organized with the Prison Branch? And many other questions.

All this happens within this daily workshop, which is called organization. Abu Ali was firmly convinced that the members of his party were the cells of one body: skilled workers who built the house together, advanced by revolutionary cadres that serve as “work crews” for the home, engineers, technicians, maintenance workers, electricians, and so on…

Therefore, there is no real construction without real participation, harmony in vision, and without this set of theoretical and ethical values that draw members of the party together, one to the other. But the role of the leadership is to provide the solution and lay out the vision and adjusts it according to the collective principles of the work, away from personalization, hypocrisy, flattery and opportunism. This is a necessity in order for the members not to be lost.

In an internal letter after receiving the duties as the General Secretary of the Popular Front, written in September 2000, Abu Ali said the following:

“How do we understand internal conflicts in the party, especially in the framework of the leadership bodies? Is this new? Is it a negative phenomenon or a natural phenomenon? Have the new circumstances of the Palestinian national liberation movement come to deepen these contradictions, exacerbate them, or did it raise them to a new level? And what is the nature of these levels? These are some of the questions that may be raised in the mind of any comrade, and even need to be asked with other questions to understand the changing of attitudes and interpretations within a sound, correct framework at the theoretical and organizational levels.”

Therefore, Abu Ali Mustafa was not only fighting for the rights of his people to liberation and return, but he was equally as strongly building the revolutionary tools that could create the act of liberation and help people to extract their confiscated rights: from the women’s institutions to the youth organizations, to the institutions for students, workers and charity, and for military action. These tools are the vehicles of the revolutionary organization.

Early on, Abu Ali realized that the readiness for struggle for Arab unity and the liberation of Palestine was not a sufficient condition for active participation in change and confrontation. Therefore, if he wanted to advance in the ranks and fields of sacrifice and redemption, it was first necessary to “build himself with his hands.” This means that he must read books, newspapers and magazines, talk with his comrades, listen to what people say, and participate in various fields of work: from distributing pamphlets (Al-Thaer, Al-Rai), to collecting donations, reaching to preparation of armed struggle. Abu Ali Mustafa listened more than he spoke in order to gain more knowledge of the pulse of the people and their needs, guided by ancient wisdom: “Those who do not renew themselves, will inevitably dissipate.”

For further self-development, the martyr Abu Ali joined Anshas Military College in Egypt and subjected himself to internal development processes that included refining his mind, body and will. It was a stage that provided him with practical and direct knowledge of weapons, theoretical knowledge of people’s experiences and strategies for wars of popular liberation and guerrilla wars. And, most importantly, that he received his share of the vibrant culture of Greater Egypt in the time of the late President Jamal Abdel Nasser.

Thus, this professional revolutionary worker fought a series of battle experiences and gained new skills. But he also tasted powerlessness, like hundreds of fighters and revolutionaries in the 1950s; that is an inevitable tax that militants must pay if they walk on the path of unity and the liberation of Palestine. Abu Ali knew these experiences prior to the establishment of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1967, and before its real renewal (as a united party) in February 1969, and he was subjected to prosecution, imprisonment, injury, financial deprivation and the loss of his job. He was forced to clash with friendly forces, sometimes with comrades. He tested many other experiences and challenges, and he developed a leader’s personality, which combined firmness with goodness, intelligence and flexibility.

***

This young worker was not in great need of the books of Constantine Zureik and Michel Aflaq to convince himself that he was a colonized Arab citizen. He did not need Karl Marx and Lenin to know that the poor worker was forced to sell his labor power for bread, and it was not necessary for Mao Zedong to convince him that the peasant must carry weapons to liberate his land from colonialism, oppression and subordination. But his devotion to his people pushed him beyond the “school and university” learning of which he was deprived, so that he could turn to the deep, quiet reading. The phrase “Abu Ali worked on his condition and built himself” is a common phrase in the Popular Front, especially on the tongues of those who knew and lived with him.

This young peasant from Jenin discovered that what he and all the young Arabs needed was a revolutionary youth wing: a vigilant student group that studied in Beirut and announced the launch of an Arab project that promised Arab change and unity. It was the “Arab Nationalist Movement,” which embraced various groups, but its focus was on the masses of refugees who had been displaced from their homeland. This was the natural response to the Nakba of 1948. This movement was discovered by Abu Ali Mustafa in Amman in the early 1950s and he joined its ranks without hesitation, and became one of its cadres, costing him 5 years of torment in the cells of the Jordanian regime without any reason or crime committed.

Abu Ali addressed the big guerrilla missions: transferring equipment and weapons to the occupied territory, building cells, providing money to fighters, direct supervision of training camps, building a network of secret contacts and other heavy and dangerous daily tasks that led him to become the military commander of the PFLP forces in Jordan. These tasks gave him more experience in the field each day; the more the enemy camp would close doors in front of his comrades, he would open new doors, roads and fields with determination and cleverness, in their vast Arab homeland, in exile and in distant lands.

This secret and solid effort, which was founded by Abu Ali and his colleagues, transferred the movement of the Palestinian people and its cultural and political elite from the stage of preaching the revolution to the stage of actual implementation of it by fire, speech and popular organization, and by building bases for the establishment of the revolution around occupied Palestine, especially after the defeat of 1967. His focus was on the path of the long-term popular liberation war, through its revolutionary apparatus, represented by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

***

Abu Ali was not looking for fame. The Kuwaiti newspaper, Al-Rai Al-Aam, interviewed Palestinian leaders on the 16th anniversary of the launch of the Palestinian revolution. Among them was Abu Ali Mustafa: “… the man who does not like the spotlight and is known in the Palestinian circles for his silent, hard work, far from the noise and clamor.” (Al- Hadaf magazine, 17/1/1981, p. 16). However, his choice to stay away from the lights and noise in order to build the organization did not prevent him from reading and researching in order to develop his perception, culture and Arabic language skills. His presence in Iraq, when he was in charge of “the rear command in Baghdad,” allowed him to read more, to engage with Arab forces and figures and to balance politics and culture.

In that period he wrote an important economic and political study in 1975 on the “economic foundations of the coming settlement project” and presented it at a political symposium in Baghdad. In this symposium Abu Ali predicted the inevitability of the collapse of the Sadat regime, and that the Egypt of Sadat cannot be the Egypt of Nasser, but is on the road inevitably to a “peace deal” that will have serious implications for the whole region, because what determines the direction of systems and their relationship to the United States and Israel is, in his view, the nature of the political, economic and social system.

As for the Jordanian regime, he considered it a reactionary power and an agent of colonial powers. He believed that this regime had specific functions: protecting the Israeli occupation in order to preserve the power of the ruling class and the authority of the financial tycoons of Jordan, and that this regime will continue to work for a peace deal with Israel along the lines of the Sadat approach. Abu Ali said to his colleagues in a graduation ceremony of the Ghassan Kanafani Officers Course at the Military College of the Popular Front in Beirut in response to those who claimed that the Jordanian regime has changed and that the relationship between it and the Palestine Liberation Organization must be rearranged:

“On what do we agree with the Jordanian regime? Is the Jordanian regime a partner in determining the fate of our people? Is it permissible to have a single military base there? It is an actual partner in the second stage of Camp David.” (Al- Hadaf magazine, 5 April 1980).

Of course, Comrade Abu Ali did not expect in his worst nightmares that the leadership of the PLO would sign agreements with Israel and “precede” the Jordanian regime, albeit in a formal and public sense. But this step did not break the spirit of will in this stubborn revolutionary worker, and did not prevent him from being aware of its potential effects in the organization. So he wrote to us, his comrades at the Front, in an internal message:

“Comrades, as a people, a cause and a party, we are facing and living in the midst of a difficult and complex stage that dictates harsh challenges to us, and this stage has its political, intellectual, social, cultural and military problems which are constantly moving and changing. If we do not understand our diversity of views on the basis of preserving unity and cohesion, the leadership bodies will suffer from the vibrations and tensions that will affect them and their work,” he said.

***

The martyr Abu Ali Mustafa did not leave us a book to read. However, his experience in struggle is a living book that no one can confiscate. We must read it time and time again. In his experiences, you find most of his thoughts, observations and convictions, which he confirmed with blood and did not retreat for one moment. Indeed, reading this leader’s experience is a true introduction to the experience of the entire PFLP and its reality between yesterday and today, and helps us understand the very meaning of revolutionary leadership.

15 September, Philadelphia: Register Now — Running Down the Walls 2024

Sunday, September 15, 2024
11 am sharp (Yoga warm-up at 10am)
FDR Park

Register here before Sept 1: https://phillyabc.org/rdtw/

Philadelphia Anarchist Black Cross invites you to our seventh annual Running Down The Walls (RDTW)! This year marks the 25th anniversary of this non-competitive 5K and political education event in support of political prisoners and prisoners of war. Every year we split the proceeds between the ABCF Warchest —which has provided over $240,000 in stipends and other material support to prisoners with little or no other financial means—and a specific political prisoner, organization, or movement we want to uplift. This year we’ll be supporting and amplifying the voices of people struggling for freedom in Gaza, the world’s largest open-air prison.

Resistance is a continuous endeavor.

– Bassel Al-Araj, Palestinian scholar and former political prisoner, martyred

How will proceeds go to support Palestine? If you’ve participated in previous years, you know that we announce the recipient from day one. We have to take a slightly different approach this year due to how rapidly the situation is changing in Palestine. Given the unpredictability, the exact recipient(s) are subject to change. For example, in our initial planning meeting we were in touch with people in Cairo gathering funds for evacuations. With Rafah crossing since closed, other potential beneficiaries include vetted mutual aid groups in the Gaza Strip, and we will coordinate with trusted folks on the ground to distribute resources appropriately after the event. More information will be made available in the reportback.

Running is not required! You can also walk, roll, or cheer. We’ll begin with warm-up stretches at 10am (bring a mat if you can). At 11am, those who want to participate in the 5k will take two loops around the park; at a walking pace, this takes about 45-60 minutes. Afterwards, stay for socializing with speakers, tabling, and light refreshments.

Remote participation is encouraged! Every year we are joined by incarcerated comrades who take part in this by running, walking, or otherwise exercising at the same time as us–from behind bars. If you can’t attend the event at FDR Park for any reason, leave your shipping address in the comment box at registration, and we’ll mail you a t-shirt. If you would like to make an additional contribution beyond your own registration, please sponsor a participant either outside prison, inside prison, or one of each. Contact us for more information on sponsoring.

Due to the abominable conditions that political prisoners and freedom fighters are subjected to, let’s drum up support now more than ever. Join us as we celebrate our successes this last year, including the releases of Veronza Bowers and Eric King, and build momentum for the struggles ahead!

Drone assassinations in Jenin: The resistance continues until victory!

On Saturday, 17 August, Zionist forces assassinated two Palestinian resistance fighters in Jenin camp with a drone strike on their vehicle, the martyrs Raafat Dawasi and Ahmed Abu Ora of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement. This was the latest in a series of drone-driven assassinations aiming to target the leadership of the growing and strengthening resistance movement throughout the West Bank of occupied Palestine, which despite the martyrdom of many fighters and leaders, has remained consistently and, indeed, increasingly, capable of confronting the invading occupation forces and driving them out of Palestine’s refugee camps, cities and villages.

Raafat Dawasi was a leader and fighter in the Al-Qassam Brigades in Silat al-Harthiyeh village in Jenin governorate, while the leader and fighter Ahmed Abu Ora was from Aqaba village in Tubas governorate. In a statement following their assassination, the Al-Qassam Brigades noted the significant role of both in developing and leading the current stage of armed resistance in the West Bank:

“As the Qassam Brigades exalt its martyred fighters, it reveals their significant jihadist role, where they were responsible for planning and executing several high-profile operations, most notably the operation to blow up the Namer vehicle in Jenin on June 27, 2024, the complex triple ambush near the village of Al-Mutila on July 23, 2024, and the Al-Aghwar Jordan Valley operation on August 11, 2024.”

Both of the martyrs were repeatedly pursued by the occupation forces, yet they were unable to arrest or assassinate them for months; they pursued Ahmed Abu Ora for a year and a half. His brother, Mohammed, is imprisoned by the Zionist regime. Another of his brothers, Musharraf, had been imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority for 40 days, under its “security coordination” regime with the Zionist entity, in order to coerce his brother to turn himself in. He was finally released only after Ahmed’s martyrdom. At the same time they abducted his brother, the PA posted photos of resistance weapons they had confiscated when they failed to capture Ahmed. Amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza, the daily assaults of settler colonialists rampaging through the West Bank, and 76 years of violent Zionist/US imperialist colonialism in Palestine, the PA continues to act not in defense of the Palestinian people but to suppress and undermine their heroic resistance that is, nonetheless, growing and blossoming on a daily basis.

This reality was confirmed today, when a Palestinian resisting youth near Qalqilya at the so-called “Kedumim” settlement confronted an colonial settler security guard with a hammer, killing the guard (an active settlement guard and reservist IOF soldier who had reportedly been part of the genocidal invasion of Gaza) and taking his weapon, retreating safely from the scene; only days after over 100 settlers in the area invaded the village of Jit and launched a pogrom, killing a Palestinian, wounding many more and damaging homes and property. Rather than terrifying the Palestinian people into submission, the settlers’ attack – watched over by the IOF the whole time – only further lit the flames of resistance. And this was further confirmed once again in the mass marches and funerals in Jenin, Silat al-Harthiya and Aqaba for the martyrs Raafat Dawasi and Ahmed Abu Ora, with pledges to continue their path of resistance until liberation.

 

In fact, it is because of the strength of the resistance on the ground that the occupation has increasingly resorted to drone attacks; here, it is worth noting that Elbit Systems produces 85% of the Zionist entity’s drone fleet. As this is not a Zionist genocide alone, but a Zionist-imperialist genocide, with the full backing and support of the United States and its imperialist partners, this is fully demonstrated in Elbit’s intertwined relationships throughout the imperial core. Canadian top bank Scotiabank has been pushed to halve its stake in Elbit twice in the past 11 months; while claiming that the broad protest movement has had no effect, Scotiabank branches across the country have been repeatedly shut down due to protests and actions against the bank’s investment in Palestinian death and Zionist warmongering, and Scotiabank sponsorship has been rejected and challenged at cultural events across the country.

Meanwhile, Elbit’s office in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been essentially shut down due to the direct actions of Palestine Action US and the mass campaigns of BDS Boston. As the Palestine Solidarity Working Group noted, “The local movement against Elbit put the idea of ‘diversity of tactics’ into action, deploying weekly pickets and canvasses, home demos, secondary/tertiary targeting, and militant direct action and property damage to build pressure on Elbit and its enablers.In response to arrests and state repression, the movement did not back down. Its militancy is what gave the movement teeth. We encourage other locales to learn from the successful tactics used in Cambridge to go on the offensive against their local police/military infrastructure.” This campaign is an example for people everywhere seeking to confront the physical presence of the Zionist-imperialist war machine in their cities.

Of course, this campaign and many others build on the exceptional work of Palestine Action in Britain, which has taken the lead in shutting down two Elbit sites and causing significant damage to many others. Palestine Action’s direct actions have expanded the boundaries of the boycott movement and caused immediate and material damage to the Zionist entity’s drone factories.

The armed resistance on the ground in Palestine, throughout all of the land of occupied Palestine from the river to the sea, confronting the genocidal invaders everywhere from besieged Gaza to every inch of Palestine, is accompanied by their brothers and comrades in the regional resistance forces, as Hezbollah empties the north of occupied Palestine of its soldiers and settlers, as the Yemeni government, people, armed forces and AnsarAllah movement shut down the supply lines of genocide in the Red Sea, as the resistance in Iraq confronts the U.S. occupiers, as steadfast Syria holds together the spine of resistance, as Iran nurtures the broad resistance of the region and prepares for its own great response.

The battle of the Al-Aqsa Flood has exposed before all the true face of Zionism and imperialism – the US sending its navy and billions upon billions of dollars in weaponry to “defend” its illegitimate colonial project in occupied Palestine, the German police beating and attacking people in the streets calling for an end to genocide, the French state seeking to imprison hundreds for expressing support for the Palestinian resistance, all while they arm, fund and defend the Zionist-imperialist genocide in occupied Palestine. It has also exposed before all the true heroism, dignity, dedication, commitment and self-sacrifice of the Resistance, their faith and love, for their people, their land and for God, for justice and liberation.

And for those of us in the imperial core the choice is clear: this is the time to build our resistance, to be a worthy participant in the struggle, to confront the imperialists and Zionists, and to hasten the defeat of imperialism and Zionism and the victory of Palestine and of the Resistance, and the crumbling of the temporary genocidal entity. The task is before us: to build the international popular cradle of the Resistance everywhere, and to advance that victory. Let us take it up.

Glory to the martyrs; freedom to the prisoners; victory to the Resistance; and return and liberation to Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Joint Letter to Greek Government: We Demand Urgent Action Against the Overseas Santorini and Overseas Sun Coast

The following joint letter was sent as part of the No Harbour for Genocide campaign, focusing on a demand to the Greek government to take action against the Overseas Santorini and the Overseas Sun Coast, two US vessels in the business of transporting military fuel for the Zionist regime. Around the same time that the letter was delivered (i.e. 03:00 Palestine time on 14th August) the Overseas Sun Coast moved out of Greek waters and is not heading back towards France. The Overseas Santorini remains in Greek Waters, and is still anchored in Piraeus at this time, where Greek workers have already been protesting its presence.

Mr. Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Prime Minister of Greece
Mr. Giorgos Gerapetritis, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece
Christos Stylianides, Minister of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy

13th August 2024

Dear Ministers,

We write to express our dismay at the Greek government’s decision to allow the Overseas Santorini and Overseas Sun Coast into Greek territorial waters. As of 13th August, both vessels are anchored in Greece, the Overseas Santorini at Piraeus and the Overseas Sun Coast at Agioi Theodoroi.

The Greek government was alerted on 6th August, via the Greek Missions to the United Nations, that both of these vessels deliver military jet fuel to Israel. This includes kerosene-based jet fuel and JP8 used for Israel’s F16 and F35 warplanes. These vessels have a history of delivering such fuel to Israel for many years, which has included docking in Greek ports, with 6 shipments of military jet fuel having been made from the USA to Israel since October 2023.

Included with this alert was a letter signed by international legal experts advising the Greek government that allowing these vessels to transit in Greek territorial waters or to provision these vessels at ports within Greece’s jurisdiction amounts to complicity in grave breaches of international law, including genocide and apartheid. This advice was substantiated with reference to recent rulings made by the International Court of Justice, actions taken by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court and statements made by U.N. Special Rapporteurs.

We are gravely concerned that this advice appears to have been disregarded, with the Greek government now intentionally assisting in the grave violations of international law conducted by Israel, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, apartheid and genocide.

We call upon the government of Greece to remedy this by taking the following immediate actions:

Regarding the vessels currently anchored in Greek waters:

  • To impound both the Overseas Santorini and Overseas Sun Coast and conduct an independent inquiry into their facilitation in providing military jet fuel to Israel, including assessment of criminal liability for breach of international law and complicity in war crimes.

Regarding all future transit of military fuel to Israel:

  • Issue a Government Declaration prohibiting the facilitation of transit of military fuel to Israel by preventing all such vessels, including the Overseas Santorini and Overseas Sun Coast, from entering Greek territorial waters or docking in Greek ports.

We remind the Greek government of their legal obligation to take all necessary measures within their influence to prevent genocide, and we look forward to your cooperation.

Signed

16 August, Vancouver: Mass March and Rally – End the Genocide Now! Palestine Resists!

ALL OUT FOR PALESTINE! 

Vancouver Rally and March to end the genocide in Gaza now! 

Friday, August 16
7:30 pm
Olympic Cauldron – 1055 Canada Place

The Zionist-US genocide has continued in Palestine for over 10 months. Just yesterday, the US approved another $18 billion in weaponry for the Zionist regime, only days after the occupation forces bombed the Al-Tabaeen School with US missiles, killing over 100 Palestinian civilians as they gathered to pray the dawn prayer.

10 months of genocide have been met with 10 months of unceasing, steadfast resistance, in Gaza under siege, throughout occupied Palestine, everywhere in the region and around the world.

Join us to raise our collective voices in outrage. Stand with the Palestinian people and their Resistance. Demand an end to Canadian participation and complicity in genocide. Make it clear that we will not stop, we will not rest, until Palestine is free from the river to the sea!

16 August, Paterson NJ: Film Screening of “Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight”

Join us this Friday in Paterson, Nj for a screening of the film “Fedayin” on the corner of Main St (Palestine Way) & Gould Ave @ 8pm! ✌️🇵🇸

Fedayin traces the course of an indefatigable Arab Communist and fighter for Palestine. From the Palestinian refugee camps that shaped his conscience to international mobilizations for his release, this powerful film explores the situation of one of the longest-held political prisoners in Europe.

For over 35 years, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah has been imprisoned. A Lebanese communist engaged in resistance alongside Palestinian fighters, he has been imprisoned by the French judicial system and successive governments since 1984. Beyond the judicial harassment to which he has been subjected, this documentary film will trace the political course of Georges Abdallah and seeks to show how his ideas and struggle are still vital and necessary. Come through!

16 August, Chicago: Film Screening of “Fedayin: Georges Abdallah’s Fight”

Join us Friday at 6:30pm for a film screening of Fedayin: Georges Abdullah’s Fight w/ an introduction from Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network.

Fedayin traces the course of an indefatigable Arab Communist and fighter for Palestine. From the Palestinian refugee camps that shaped his conscience to international mobilizations for his release, this powerful film explores the situation of one of the longest-held political prisoners in Europe.

For over 35 years, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah has been imprisoned. A Lebanese communist engaged in resistance alongside Palestinian fighters, he has been imprisoned by the French judicial system and successive governments since 1984. Beyond the judicial harassment to which he has been subjected, this documentary film will trace the political course of Georges Abdallah and seeks to show how his ideas and struggle are still vital and necessary. Come through!

Part of the Week of Action to Resist the DNC!

10-17 August, Chicago: Week of Action – Shut Down the DNC for Gaza! Including “Fedayin” Screening

Now that the butchers of Gaza are coming to Chicago it’s time to take this political battle into high gear. With dozens of out of town volunteers coming, we’re holding two weeks of intense programming, geared around going to the people, and getting in the streets to actually shut down Genocide Joe and Killer Kamala, combined with training and educational events.

Join Behind Enemy Lines every day between now and the end of the Coronation, to get trained in anti-imperialist politics, connect with other people who are dedicated to ending the Gaza genocide and standing with the people of the world, and get ready to throw down against the criminals who are invading Chicago to celebrate their genocide. Check the schedule for public events, DM us to get linked in, make a donation to support all of these efforts.

What better place than here?
What better time than now?
Shut down the DNC for Gaza!

Week organized by Behind Enemy Lines: https://www.instagram.com/p/C-dNbALxlY7/ (Join us particularly on Friday, August 16 for a screening of “Fedayin”!)

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