On the second anniversary of the Freedom Tunnel, in which six Palestinian prisoners: Mahmoud al-Ardah, Mohammed al-Ardah, Yousef Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, Munadil Nafa’at and Zakaria Zubaidi — liberated themselves from the Israeli occupation’s Gilboa prison, this iconic event continues to highlight the commitment of the Palestinian prisoners and the Palestinian people as a whole to strive towards and achieve liberation despite the most seemingly impossible circumstances. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network affirms that 6 September 2021 is now an anniversary of justice for the Palestinian people, the Arab nation and the international movement for justice and liberation. 

This year, the anniversary of the Freedom Tunnel comes as the prisoners are preparing a battle to confront severe oppression and targeting at the hands of openly fascist Zionist minister of security, Itamar Ben Gvir. Most recently, Ben Gvir, on top of multiple other attacks on the prisoners, declared that the prisoners would be restricted to family visits once only every two months. This is in addition to the fact that family visits are frequently banned or denied due to “security” restrictions targeting the prisoners. Not only have the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and numerous international organizations spoken out against this latest assault, it has also put the contradictions of the Zionist regime on full display. Various Zionist officials, including prison administration director Katy Perry and intelligence officers, have declared that Ben Gvir’s order should not go through — not because they are concerned about the rights and humanity of Palestinian prisoners, but because they fear their resistance, noting that it will undermine “security” in the prisons and of the Zionist regime overall.

The Higher Emergency Committee of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement issued a statement commemorating the occasion:

In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful

To our great people, greetings of defiance, steadfastness and return…

We communicate with you today through this statement, and two years have passed since an event changed the course of national struggle within the prisons, an event that reminded the world, and its free and honourable people, that freedom is a necessity and striving for it by all means is an obligation of our time,  after six of our prisoners were able to wrest their freedom – albeit temporarily – from the prisons of the Zionist occupation, despite all the security mechanisms of the enemy, declaring the victory of free will over tyranny and deception.

Then the enemy decided, through its agents represented by the prison administration, to try to impose penalties and measures against all the prisoners to break their will for freedom, so it was necessary for the captive national movement to unite and overcome every disagreement and division to confront this challenge. It was – with the grace of God – up to this challenge, and succeeded in repelling this aggression. At that time the Higher National Emergency Committee was formed to manage the crisis with competence, unity of action and decision-making, and after that has fought more than 6 rounds of challenges and battles with the occupier, and has succeeded each time in strengthening unity and victory.

Today, two years after this event, which represents victory, unity, and the quest for freedom, and as the challenges recur and the rounds of struggle continue, and as the meaning of unity has become entrenched in the ranks of all prisoners from all of the national and Islamic forces and factions, this comittee has proven its unity through action, a unity that has never been and will not be simply a matter of emergency. Therefore, from this position, we announce our adoption, starting on this honourable day in the history of the prisoners’ movement, that our official name as the united force of the prisoners’ movement is the Higher National Committee for the Prisoners’ Movement. 

This announcement and this occasion come as we are confronting a new criminal attack by our enemy in its attempts to reduce visits to once every two months while threatening other measures to affect our lives and existence in detention. Therefore, our decision is to announce a hunger strike next Thursday, 14 September 2023, unless the enemy backs down and commit not to undermine our rights that we have taken with our blood, our flesh and our torture.

To our great people, the renewed unity in the dungeons of imprisonment, among the heirs of the martyrs, must be embodied in practice in all arenas and institutions of the Palestinian national liberation struggle. Your support for us is the key to our victory, God willing, so be, as we have always promised to you, our strong pillar and our impenetrable fortress.

The Higher National Committee for the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement

6 September 2023

On this occasion, we are republishing our analysis (slightly edited) issued on the first anniversary of the Freedom Tunnel, below. As we commemorate this liberatory anniversary, we urge all to organize to liberate the Palestinian prisoners currently hunger striking for freedom,  to join with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement in its next great battle against repression, and to join us on Saturday, 21 October in Lannemezan, France to march for the liberation of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah (Lebanese struggler for Palestine jailed in France for 39 years), all Palestinian prisoners, and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

The Freedom Tunnel: Palestinian prisoners leading the resistance

• Historic Palestinian prisoner escapes
• Inside prisons: confronting the occupier
• The Freedom Tunnel and the resistance
• Internationalism and the Freedom Tunnel
• The Freedom Tunnel Prisoners
  • Mahmoud al-Ardah
  • Mohammed al-Ardah
  • Yaqoub Qadri
  • Munadil Naf’at
  • Ayham Kamamji
  • Zakaria Zubaidi
• Samidoun statements on the Freedom Tunnel

Today, 6 September, marks the anniversary of the Freedom Tunnel, when six Palestinian prisoners liberated themselves in 2021 from the high-security Gilboa prison of the Israeli occupation. The six Palestinians — Mahmoud al-Ardah, Mohammed al-Ardah, Yousef Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, Munadil Nafa’at and Zakaria Zubaidi — became national and international symbols of resistance and of the Palestinian will to freedom in seemingly impossible circumstances, while the simple spoon became a new icon of the resistance and steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their resistance leaders behind bars. While the six were eventually re-captured, their daring, well-organized escape from Gilboa exposed the weakness and cracks hiding beneath the propaganda exterior of “impenetrable Israeli security,” throwing the occupation prison system into internal crisis.

Five more Palestinian prisoners — Iyad Jaradat, Mahmoud Abu Shreim, Ali Abu Bakr, Mohammed Abu Bakr and Qusay Mar’i — are also imprisoned for their role in supporting the Freedom Tunnel actions. The six Freedom Tunnel prisoners and the five who supported them are held in solitary confinement and isolation, in a fruitless attempt to prevent their actions from remaining a bright example to the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and the Palestinian people.

Coming as it did so soon after the battle of Seif al-Quds/the Unity Intifada, the Freedom Tunnel captured the imaginations and consciences of the Palestinian people and Arab nation but also of all around the world who struggle for justice and liberation. Despite decades spent behind bars, the occupation was unable to break the will of the Palestinian prisoners or their leadership in resistance, and the six heroes of the Freedom Tunnel have once again demonstrated this clearly to the world.

Following the Freedom Tunnel, the occupation imposed a new series of repressive measures targeting Palestinian prisoners, many of which have once again been defeated through the action and resistance of the prisoners’ movement.

Palestinian Prisoner Escapes

The Freedom Tunnel built on a long history of Palestinian prisoners’ resistance actions, from hunger strikes to collective rebellions behind bars, as well as successful escapes and self-liberations from occupation prisons. Some of the major escapes in Palestinian history include:

• Atlit prison, 1938 – One of the leaders of the 1936-1939 revolt in Palestine against British colonialism, who fought alongside Sheikh Izzedine al-Qassam, Issa Hajj Suleiman al-Battat, escaped with several other Palestinian prisoners jailed by the British in 1938 before
• Shata prison, 1958 – Many estimate this was the largest prison uprising and escape since the Nakba. Approximately 190 Palestinian and Arab prisoners revolted inside the Shata prison in the Jordan Valley on 31 July 1958. 77 prisoners escaped after fierce fighting in which 11 prisoners and two jailers were killed.
• Hamza Younes prison escapes, 1964, 1967 and 1971 – Palestinian prisoner Hamza Younes, from Ara, south of Haifa, escaped from occupation prisons on three occasions: from Asqelan prison, from a hospital and a third time from Ramle prison. In 1971, he escaped to Lebanon where he joined the Palestinian resistance there.
• Ramallah prison, 1969 – Mahmoud Abdullah Hammad from Silwad, near Ramallah, escaped during a prisoner transfer in 1969. He evaded occupation forces for nine months and successfully made it to Jordan.
• Nasser Issa Hamed and Majdi Suleiman Abu al-Safa, 1983 – Nasser was 15 years old at the time and was taken to the occupation court on 27 January 1983. The prisoners launched a confrontation inside the court and Nasser escaped into Ramallah, where he took shelter in an unfinished construction project. He hid in a well as he attempted to make his way home to Silwad, but eventually turned himself in after his mother was arrested by the occupation forces. One month later, learning of the story, Majdi Suleiman Abu al-Safa escaped in the same way from the occupation courts, making his way to Jordan and then to Colombia and Brazil, where he has remained until the present day.
• Gaza prison, 1987 – Six Palestinian prisoners escaped Gaza prison on 17 May 1987; three were later assassinated by occupation forces and one more was re-imprisoned. Imad Saftawi and Khaled Saleh fled the Gaza Strip and maintained their freedom.
• Nafha prison, 1987 – Three Palestinian prisoners, Khaled al-Rai, Shawqi Abu Nasir and Kamal Abdel-Nabi escaped Nafha prison successfully in 1987 but were recaptured eight days later as they attempted to make their way to Egypt.
• Omar Nayef Zayed’s prison escape, 1990 – On 21 May 1990, Omar Nayef Zayed escaped from occupation prisons four years after his arrest as he was transferred to a hospital in Bethlehem. He made his way to Jordan and then to Bulgaria in 1994. In 2016, occupation forces attempted to have him extradited from Bulgaria to occupied Palestine, and he took refuge inside the Palestinian Authority embassy where he was later killed on 26 February 2016. His fight against extradition sparked an international campaign to support him and demand his freedom.
• Escape of Saleh Tahaineh, 1996 – Saleh Tahaineh escaped from Ofer prison in a complicated plan involving his fellow struggler Nu’man Tahaineh — later also assassinated by the occupation — and another Palestinian prisoner scheduled to be released. He took the place of the prisoner whose release was scheduled, who then noted that he had not been released. He had earlier switched places with Nu’man, who had a much lower sentence. He was pursued and eventually killed by occupation forces after being captured. Both Saleh and Nu’man Tahaineh were mentors of Mahmoud and Mohammed al-Ardah.
• Kfar Yona prison, 1996 – Two Palestinian prisoners, Ghassan Mahdawi and Tawfiq al-Zaben, escaped through a tunnel in 1996, the first prisoner escape that made use of a tunnel. While Mahdawi was seized the next year, al-Zaben was pursued by the occupiers for four more years.
• Ofer prison, 2003 – Four Palestinian prisoners escaped from Ofer prison in 2002 during the Al-Aqsa Intifada, including Palestinian student Amjad al-Deek, using spoons and other implements to tunnel their way outside the prison. Three were later recaptured while Riyad Khalifa was killed by occupation forces.
• Freedom Tunnel, 2021 – Six Palestinian prisoners escaped from Gilboa prison after digging a tunnel beneath the prison. While they were eventually recaptured, their bravery and commitment inspired Palestinians, Arabs and people around the world, especially in an era of advanced technological surveillance.
• Multiple escape attempts – Over the years, Palestinian prisoners, including Mahmoud al-Ardah, who led the Freedom Tunnel operation, attempted to escape, including digging lengthy tunnels before being blocked. These included prisoners in Shata prison in 1998, Asqelan prison in 1996, Gilboa prison in 2014, and Eshel prison.

Inside the Prisons: Confronting the Occupier

The Freedom Tunnel action not only captured the imagination of Palestinians, Arabs and internationals seeking justice, in an era in which such actions had come to seem nearly impossible due to the high level of technological and electronic surveillance, it also sparked a crisis for the occupation. It exposed the weaknesses and failures in the system of military occupation that could not be protected by technology alone and remained highly vulnerable to the human element of the drive for freedom.

Since the Freedom Tunnel, the occupation has deployed large sums of money and resources to “enhance security” in the prisons, especially as they completed their self-liberation from Gilboa Prison Section 5, which had been constructed in 2004 and was touted as “invulnerable” to escape attempts. Over a period of time, the six prisoners dug the tunnel to the outside below the toilet area. They proceeded through the tunnel at approximately 1:49 am, and they were discovered not by an alert within the prison but by a settler who reported the presence of a “suspicious person” nearby. Images of occupation soldiers staring at the hole in the ground left by the tunnel and puzzling over the prisoners’ route were widely distributed.

The prison administration immediately began to implement measures against the prisoners following their public security humiliation. When the six heroes of the Freedom Tunnel were re-arrested, they were thrown in solitary confinement in difficult conditions, not provided medical care for their obvious injuries from beating and torture upon arrest, and transferred from prison to prison. However, they were not alone; the prisoners’ movement inside the prisons rose up, taking protest actions and burning cells to demand the rights of the Freedom Tunnel heroes. Outside, the Palestinian resistance announced that the six Freedom Tunnel prisoners would be at the top of the list for any upcoming prisoner exchange agreement.

Prison officials imposed a lockdown on many prisoners, particularly those of the Islamic Jihad movement and all prisoners with high or life sentences. Five of the six Freedom Tunnel prisoners are part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement, while the sixth, Zakaria al-Zubaidi, is a longtime Fateh leader; all six are from Jenin. The occupation authorities attempted to impose transfers every six months on those with high sentences, engaged in mass transfers of the Islamic Jihad prisoners, blocked family visits and engaged in ongoing raids, invasions and aggressive searches throughout the prisons.

In March 2022, the united Palestinian prisoners’ movement escalated toward a collective open hunger strike to stop such measures from going into effect, and the occupation was forced to back down. When it attempted to do the same again in August 2022, the prisoners’ movement again planned for an open hunger strike to begin on 1 September 2022, which was again averted as the occupation backed down. Further, the Islamic Jihad prisoners also achieved an end to the ongoing transfers of their prisoners and to return the prisoners to the sections from which they were originally transferred, while two prisoners, Abdullah al-Ardah and Abed Obaid, were returned to the general prison population from isolation.

In May 2022, the six heroes of the Freedom Tunnel were sentenced to five additional years of imprisonment, while five more Palestinians — Mohammed Abu Bakr, Iyad Jaradat, Ali Abu Bakr, Mahmoud Abu Shreim and Qusai Mar’i — were sentenced to four years for assisting their fellow prisoners.

In response to the sentences, Yaqoub Qadri affirmed: “We do not care what the sentence is. The important thing is that we made the impossible possible; we were able to break through the Israeli security services and dealt a blow. We were able to achieve something that was unthinkable for Israel and its security mechanisms.”

Even the judge in the court essentially affirmed Qadri’s comments that the sentence is a form of revenge for exposing the fragility of colonial domination in Palestine, noting that their self-liberation, “paralyzed the nation for days” and caused large financial expenditures, imposing additional costs on the occupation.

The response to repression following the Freedom Tunnel has been increased resistance inside the prisons, strong unity between all Palestinian political forces and a continued promise of freedom that no amount of repression has been able to suppress.

The Freedom Tunnel and The Resistance

Estimates indicate that the occupation spent tens of millions of dollars in less than 12 days in their pursuit of the Freedom Tunnel heroes. They further launched a project to fortify the prisons at a cost of $2.5 million. Thousands of police and army forces participated in the searches, with 720 police patrols, dozens of military vehicles and 250 checkpoints set up in the panicked reaction to the self-liberation of these Palestinian prisoners.

The effect of this action on the occupier and the self-liberation of these six Palestinians from Jenin has continued to inspire and inflame the growing resistance in Jenin, which has been the site of harsh battles as occupation forces attempt to suppress the resistance. Many referred to the Freedom Tunnel heroes as the Jenin Brigade, the name taken up by the fighters resisting the occupation in Jenin and heroically fighting back a massive invasion in July 2023.

The Freedom Tunnel came only months after the Seif al-Quds Battle/Unity Intifada throughout Palestine and served to confirm once again that the prisoners are at the heart of the resistance and are a truly unifying factor for the Palestinian people and the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian resistance upheld the centrality of the prisoners in the defense of Gaza in the Unity of the Fields battle of August 2022 and again in the Revenge of The Free of May 2023, amidst massacres by the occupation and through the placement of the Freedom Tunnel prisoners at the top of the list for an exchange agreement.

Internationalism and the Freedom Tunnel

The message of the Freedom Tunnel was not confined to occupied Palestine nor even to Palestinians in exile and diaspora around the world. In protests and demonstrations in many international cities, the symbol of the spoon and the images of the Freedom Tunnel heroes inspired people to take to the streets to demand justice and liberation for Palestine and the Palestinian prisoners and an end to Western imperialist complicity with and support for occupation crimes.

From the Philippines to Colombia to France, where Georges Abdallah has been jailed for 39 years, the message of the Freedom Tunnel resonated among political prisoners and those fighting for their liberation. It proved the indomitable will of revolutionary prisoners and of the Palestinian people in seeking freedom in the most unfavorable circumstances, inspiring many to mobilize and join the movement to liberate Palestinian prisoners — and Palestine itself, from the river to the sea.

The Freedom Tunnel and the six heroes of the self-liberation operation represent the irrepressible hope of freedom and commitment to liberation that no amount of militarized repression and Zionist colonization has suppressed, for over 75 years. The actions of this “Freedom Brigade” are not only a symbol of hope for Palestinians but also for everyone in the world who seeks justice and freedom.

Building on the experiences of Palestinian prisoners who liberated themselves in the past, they exposed the crumbling edifices of the Israeli occupation and forced them to waste tens of millions of dollars in their massive manhunt. Their bravery and commitment to freedom is celebrated throughout Palestine, from the river to the sea, and everywhere around the world. Spoons – symbols of the rusty kitchen tools they used to dig their way to liberation – have come to represent the irrepressible drive to freedom.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all to build on the example of the Freedom Tunnel to stand with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and the Palestinian people to demand justice and liberation for Palestine, from the river to the sea. We urge all to join us on 21 October in Lannemezan, marching for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners as a key demand and central core of the Palestinian struggle.

The Freedom Tunnel prisoners

Mahmoud al-Ardah

Mahmoud Abdullah al-Ardah, the leader of the Freedom Tunnel escape, was born on 8 November 1975 and grew up in Arraba, Jenin. He first became active as a boy during the great popular intifada of 1987 and was seized and imprisoned for the first time in 1992 on allegations of targeting occupation jeeps and military patrols with Molotov cocktails. He became a part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in prison before his release in 1996. Eight months later he was arrested again by the occupation forces for shooting a military officer invading Salfit and harbouring the martyr leader Saleh Tahaineh, who had himself escaped from occupation prisons. He was already sentenced to 99 years in occupation prisons before the Freedom Tunnel operation.

After his imprisonment, he attempted to escape on multiple occasions, in 2001, 2011 and 2014. In the latter instance, he was accused of digging a tunnel to escape from Shata prison and on each occasion he was placed in isolation. He obtained both his high school diploma and bachelor’s degree in prison and became a leader of the prisoners’ movement before designing and planning the Freedom Tunnel self-liberation.

Mohammed al-Ardah

Mohammed Qasem al-Ardah, is 39 years old, from Arraba, Jenin. He has been imprisoned since 14 May 2002 and is sentenced to 3 life sentences and 20 years (now 25 years) in occupation prisons for his role in the military resistance to occupation, particularly during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. He is a struggler with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. His brother, Ahmad, said that Mohammed was like a second father to their family after the death of their own father. He became the imam of the mosque in the area and a beloved, respected figure in Arraba. Like Mahmoud al-Ardah, Mohammed al-Ardah knew Nu’man Tahaineh, involved with Saleh Tahaineh in his escape, closely, as well as fellow escapees Iyad Sawalha and Iyad al-Hamran, both of which were involved in the 2002 escape from Ofer prison.

Yaqoub Qadri

Yaqoub Mahmoud Qadri (Ghawadra) was born on 22 December 1972 in Bir al-Basha, Jenin, growing up in Bir al-Basha and neighboring Arraba. As a teen, he was active in the great popular intifada of 1987. Seized by the occupation forces, he became more active following his imprisonment. He was later detained by the Palestinian Authority in 1996 under its “security coordination” with the Israeli occupation, and with the Al-Aqsa Intifada, became active in the resistance with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement, fighting to defend his village and neighboring villages and refugee camps from invasions by occupation soldiers.

He participated in the battle to defend Jenin camp in 2002 when it was subjected to massacres by occupation forces, and in operations targeting illegal settlers stealing Palestinian land. He was “wanted” and pursued by the occupation for over a year before he was seized in October 2003 in a cave near Zababdeh. He was sentenced to two life sentences and 35 years after spending four months under severe torture in interrogation in Jalameh interrogation center. He joined Mahmoud al-Ardah in the attempt to escape Shata prison in 2014 before once again joining in the Freedom Tunnel escape. He described the days of his self-liberation as the most beautiful of his life.

Munadil Nafa’at

Munadil Naf’at, 26, is one of four brothers from Ya’bad, Jenin. His family is heavily involved in the struggle for Palestine, and the four brothers have not been able to meet in one room for 16 years, as one has always been imprisoned. He and his family are farmers; he has been arrested repeatedly since he was 14 years old. He had been detained for 19 months without trial on allegations of involvement with the resistance and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement at the time of his self-liberation through the Freedom Tunnel.

Ayham Kamamji

Ayham Fouad Kamamji, 36 years old, is from Kufr Dan, Jenin. He has been imprisoned since he was 20 years old in 2006 on the basis of involvement in the resistance with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. Sentenced to two life sentences, he said that the inspiration for his escape was to see his mother’s grave, as he had been denied permission to attend her funeral in 2019. He had been active in the Palestinian prisoners’ movement since his arrest. On 14 April 2022, again only weeks before the additional sentencing of the Freedom Tunnel prisoners, his brother Shas Kamamji was killed by the occupation forces in Kfar Din. Many of Ayham’s brothers are also former prisoners for their role in resisting occupation.

Zakaria Zubaidi

Zakaria al-Zubaidi, born in 1976 in Jenin refugee camp, became one of the most prominent leaders of Fateh’s armed wing, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Both his mother and his brother were killed by occupation forces in 2002. He was repeatedly pursued by the occupation and was eventually promised an amnesty brokered by the Palestinian Authority. He married and had two children, a son and a daughter, and became a prominent advocate for Palestinian arts with the Freedom Theatre in Jenin. In this capacity, he met with many international activists and supporters of Palestine. His amnesty was revoked in 2011 and he was detained without charge by the Palestinian Authority for six months and then later held in a PA jail in “protective custody.” In 2018, he began his master’s degree studies at Bir Zeit University, but in 2019, he and his lawyer, Tariq Barghout, were seized by occupation forces and detained on allegations of armed resistance to the occupation. He finally obtained his master’s degree behind prison bars.

In May 2022, shortly before he was re-sentenced, occupation forces killed Daoud al-Zubaidi, Zakaria Zubaidi’s brother, a former Palestinian prisoner and a longtime struggler of the Palestinian resistance in Jenin.

Samidoun statements on the Freedom Tunnel

• “Freedom Tunnel” heroes sentenced to additional five years in occupation prisons after self-liberation
• The light of the Freedom Tunnel shines toward liberation
• Freedom Tunnel prisoners recount their drive for liberation: Organize to support the Palestinian prisoners
• The resistance continues: Prisoners announce new steps of struggle
• Liberation through the Freedom Tunnel: Stand with Palestinian Prisoners’ Uprising
• Developing news: Six Palestinian political prisoners liberate themselves from colonial Israeli prison

Portions of the statement and article below were previously published in our article, Abu Ali Mustafa: A life in struggle for the liberation of Palestine:

Today, 27 August 2023, we mark the 22nd 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. 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. 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, 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 targeted the notoriously racist Zionist tourism minister Rehavam Ze’evi several weeks later on 17 October. Ze’evi was widely known for his demands for the complete ethnic cleansing of Palestine. This response 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.

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, Samir Kuntar 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 the current attempt to assassinate Walid Daqqah behind bars through the policy of “slow killing” through medical neglect.

Just this morning, Zionist prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu once again declared his desire to assassinate Palestinian leaders, after the recent widely distributed interview of Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri. As in the response to the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa, the battles of the Unity of the Fields and the Revenge of the Free made clear that the Palestinian resistance will not relent under the assassination policy. In fact, Arouri himself stated: “Does the occupation expect that after its assassination threats, we will announce our surrender? No, these threats do not frighten us. We in Hamas are martyred like our people, we are arrested as they are arrested, our homes are demolished and we are being chased and pursued. This is the normal situation under the occupation. We fight because we must.”

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, 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, and to organize to bring an end to the assassination policy. 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 Palestinian leaders targeted for assassination and imprisonment, 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 – to act together with the Palestinian prisoners, to support the Palestinian people and their resistance, 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:

• Abu Ali Mustafa website

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.