Lebanon’s Popular Democratic Party and Arab Socialist Labor Party: We Hold the Zionist Entity Fully Responsible for the Life of Leader Sa’adat

10 May 2025

The following statement was issued by the Popular Democratic Party and the Arab Socialist Labor Party in Lebanon, in solidarity with Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Sa’adat, alongside fellow leaders of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, is being subjected to isolation, beatings, torture, starvation and denial of medical care — targeted for “slow assassination.”

To the sons and daughters of our nation,
To the free people of the world,
To our comrades in the path and in resistance,

From the isolation cells in Megiddo prison, where the Zionist executioner attempts to break the will of a man the size of a homeland, we raise our voice loudly, in the name of the joint leadership of the Popular Democratic Party and the Arab Socialist Labor Party – Lebanon, to condemn the systematic torture and brutal isolation inflicted upon the national and internationalist leader, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the imprisoned comrade Ahmad Sa’adat, in a clear attempt to eliminate him physically and morally.

This aggression does not target an individual, but a symbol of Palestinian and Arab resistance, a mind and a heart in the battle for freedom that our people have waged for decades. The torture of comrade Sa’adat is torture of all resisters, and his isolation is a failed attempt to isolate the voice of truth in a time of complicity.

We hold the fascist Zionist entity—along with its imperialist sponsor, the United States, and the regimes involved in normalization—fully responsible for the life and safety of comrade Sa’adat. What is taking place is part of a war of extermination against a people being killed in Gaza, tortured in the West Bank, and pursued in exile.

The silence of the official world, the complicity of the nations, and the cowardice of the regimes will only make us hold tighter to the trench of resistance, until the last breath.

We direct our call to all the free people: in the nation, in the diaspora, and around the world — to trade unionists, intellectuals, students, and all forces of liberation:
Strengthen the resistance. Raise your voices for Ahmad Sa’adat and for all the prisoners. Confront the Zionist-imperialist machine of repression with full force.

Our battle is one of existence, dignity, and identity, and it will not end except with the liberation of all of Palestine, from the river to the sea, and the sweeping away of the settler-colonial project from our land.

Glory to Sa’adat, symbol of revolutionary defiance,
Freedom for the prisoners and detainees,
And victory to the struggling peoples.

Beirut – 10 May 2025

80 years after the massacres of Setif, Guelma and Kherrata: Algeria has won, Palestine will win!

10 May 2025

On 8 May 2025, we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the massacres of Setif, Guelma, and Kherrata, during which 45,000 Algerians were assassinated by French colonial troops and European militias on 8 May 1945 and in the days that followed.

We commemorate this bloody date this year, as at the same time, in Gaza, the Zionist occupation army has been committing genocide for 19 months, still preventing humanitarian aid from entering the blockaded enclave, condemning the Palestinian population to famine and disease, while continuing to bomb what remains of ruins and tents, and announcing an imminent massive ground invasion of Gaza. At the same time, a bloody offensive has been carried out for over 100 days on the refugee camps of Jenin and Nour Shams, forcing tens of thousands of residents into exile, in an attempt to annihilate the resistance and liquidate Palestinian refugee camps and the right to return.

Despite this violence, the Palestinian resistance continues to inflict significant losses on the occupying forces and to defend its people and land with courage and dignity.

The French colonial empire carried out its massacres in Algeria, in Madagascar, in Indochina, in Cameroon—more than a century and a half after having drowned in blood Delgrès and his comrades in Guadeloupe, and nearly a century after the crushing of the great Kanak uprising.

Today, France is part of the imperialist powers which, in various ways and on different scales, support, finance, equip, enable, and legitimize the ongoing genocide in Gaza. At the same time, it is participating in attempting to impose by force the disarmament of the resistance in Palestine and in Lebanon and the governance of a corrupt and collaborationist Palestinian Authority, while it continues to imprison the Palestinian resistance fighter Georges Ibrahim Abdallah after 40 years of political and judicial persecution. This same government also represses the solidarity movement with Palestine, by demanding the dissolution of Urgence Palestine and, before it, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra.

This genocide is made possible only through the support and direct participation of imperialist and colonial powers such as France, the USA, Canada, Britain and Germany, and the complicity of the Arab normalization regimes.

The martyrs we see in Palestine, whose bodies and blood flood our screens and minds, for whom our eyes no longer have enough tears, and whose memory tears our hearts apart with incomparable pain, are in every way like our martyrs of Algeria, of Vietnam, of Cameroon, of Guadeloupe, and of Kanaky.

In one week, on 15 May 2025, we will commemorate the 77th anniversary of the Nakba. In memory of our martyrs, in memory of the ancestors and peoples cut down by colonial and imperialist violence, mobilizing against genocide, Zionism, colonialism, and in support of the Palestinian resistance is the greatest tribute.

“Each time one of us gives their life, they become a promise we are responsible for keeping” — Mohamed Boudia

Faced with the ongoing genocide in Gaza, where horror follows horror, where the martyrs water the land with their blood, where dismembered bodies appear before our eyes, we must remember that neither mass rapes, nor massacres of entire villages, nor torture and assassinations, nor smoke killings were able to break the resistance of the Algerian people.

We must remember that neither Napalm, nor Agent Orange, nor massive bombings across the entire Vietnamese territory were able to crush the determination and resistance of the Vietnamese people.

Today more than ever, in tribute to those whose lives were taken and crushed by colonial savagery, we must continue to mobilize in support of the Palestinian resistance and echo, here, its struggle against genocide, colonialism, and imperialism. Awaiting the day when the Palestinian people will taste freedom, when colonialism and oppression will be erased from their land, when the dreams of the martyrs will bloom through the smiles and hands of future generations. That day when the colonizer will be truly defeated and pay for their crimes. On that day, a part of the promise to the martyrs will be fulfilled.

Glory to the martyrs, may the infinite love of their people soothe the pain of their loved ones, and may their memory accompany the living along the long road to liberation.

Glory to the martyrs of Gaza, those whose memory is everything, those whose ruins are their dwellings, whose land weeps for their absence and for not being able to embrace their remains.

Glory to the martyrs with cold hands, to the mothers with hearts of fire, to those whose faces cover the walls and whose names are inscribed in the register of the eternal.

Algeria has won, Palestine will win!

Liberated prisoner Moatassem Raddad martyred in Egypt after years of medical neglect in occupation prisons

8 May 2025

One year ago, in the occupation prisons, severely ill prisoner Moatassem Raddad sent a message, saying: “I feel like the next martyr in the occupation’s prisons.” Tonight, 8 May, Moatassem Raddad was martyred, after years of struggle against cancer and years of medical neglect and mistreatment in the occupation prisons, in hospital in Egypt, where he has been for the past several months. Liberated by the Resistance in the Toufan al-Ahrar exchange on 26 February, he has spent his entire time in Egypt hospitalized due to his advanced cancer.

Born in 1982 in Saida, near Tulkarem, he was an athlete in his youth, with three brothers and six sisters. He was one of many youth in Palestine who got involved in the resistance and the liberation movement amid the Al-Aqsa intifada in 2000. He was arrested for the first time in 2002 and sentenced to 17 months in prison. Upon his release, he deepened his involvement with the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, working in student and popular organizing, before joining its military wing, Saraya al-Quds. On 12 January 2006, Moatassem Raddad was severely injured when he and his comrades, the martyrs Ali Abu Khazna and Moataz Abu Khalil, resisted an attack by occupation forces assaulting the Hittin building in Jenin city.

The occupation forces bombed the house with shells and missiles, and arrested Moatassem while he was wounded and bleeding. He was severely injured in his abdomen and had shrapnel throughout his body. He was subjected to a harsh military investigation and sentenced to 20 years in occupation prisons by a Zionist military court. A few years after his imprisonment, following severe weight loss and multiple intestinal infections and bleeding, he was diagnosed with colon cancer, which advanced rapidly. His medical treatments were frequently delayed, and he was repeatedly denied early release. Since 7 October 2023, he was transferred from the Ramle prison clinic to Ofer prison, held in a cell without the basic needs for human life, and many of his medications were stopped. In May 2024, he issued an anguished call for his release, urging action so he would not be left behind to be martyred in prison.

He was included in the Toufan al-Ahrar exchange agreement, but after years of medical neglect and severe complications, he was martyred tonight, in Egypt. While he passed away in freedom, the circumstances were caused by years of systematic medical neglect and abuse at the hands of the occupation.

We salute the martyr Moatassem Raddad and extend our condolences to his loved ones, comrades, family and the Palestinian people on the loss of Moatassem Raddad, after years of medical neglect in the occupation prisons. We urge that his story and legacy be taken as a call to action to our entire movement to escalate our work and action to free all Palestinian prisoners, particularly the seriously and chronically ill prisoners threatened daily with martyrdom behind bars and subjected to systematic medical abuse and neglect.

We are republishing the following statement below from the Prisoners’ Media Office:

In the name of God, the most gracious, the most merciful
Press release issued by the Prisoners’ Media Office

The Prisoners’ Media Office mourns the martyrdom of liberated prisoner Moatassem Raddad, who was martyred a short while ago in Egypt. Raddad’s death came after a long and painful struggle with illness, caused by deliberate medical negligence by the Israeli prison administration.

Martyr Raddad, from the town of Saida in the Tulkarm district, is considered one of the most difficult medical cases the prisoners’ movement has witnessed. He had been diagnosed with cancer for more than 16 years and spent most of his captivity in the Ramleh prison hospital, without receiving even the slightest modicum of medical care.

He was arrested in 2004 and released as part of the final batch of the Toufan al-Ahrar prisoner exchanges, after a long and agonizing journey behind bars. Today, he has ascended as a martyr outside prison, suffering from complications resulting from medical negligence.

We hold the Israeli occupation fully responsible for the martyrdom of freed prisoner Raddad, and we affirm that the policy of deliberate medical neglect against prisoners is nothing more than a slow death tactic whose effects extend even after their release.

We call on the international community and human rights and humanitarian organizations to assume their responsibilities and pressure the occupation to halt this criminal policy, which violates all international laws and conventions.

Mercy for the martyr and freedom for our prisoners.

Prisoners’ Media Office
Thursday, May 8, 2025

Occupation forces arrest Palestinian lawyer Banan Abu al-Haija as her family fights imprisonment and injustice

7 May 2025

On Wednesday, 7 May, Zionist occupation forces arrested Palestinian lawyer Banan Abu al-Haija as she passed through the illegitimate Jabara checkpoint south of occupied Tulkarem, in the West Bank of occupied Palestine. Banan was traveling, at the time, to visit her mother, Asmaa Abu al-Haija, who is receiving cancer treatment and has suffered from recurrent brain tumors, and is currently hospitalized in the Istishari Hospital in Ramallah.

Banan Abu al-Haija is the daughter of Jamal Abu Al-Haija, the Palestinian resistance leader and political prisoner serving 9 life sentences in occupation prisons and currently held in isolation alongside fellow leaders of the prisoners’ movement. She is the sister of Abdel-Salam and Asem Abu al-Haija, both of whom are currently held in administrative detention, arbitrary imprisonment without charge or trial; her third brother, Imad, a freed prisoner, has been imprisoned by the collaborationist “Palestinian Authority” for months on end, under “security coordination” with the Zionist regime. Their fourth brother, Hamza, is a martyr who was assassinated in 2014 by the occupation regime.

Banan herself was detained by the occupation in the past, and her mother Asmaa served nine months in administrative detention without charge or trial. Her husband is Abdullah Rusrus, who is also a liberated prisoner who spent six years in occupation prisons and was also detained by the PA as a political detainee under the “security coordination” regime.

Banan’s father, Jamal Abu al-Haija, is one of the prominent imprisoned leaders of the the Hamas movement. A hero of the Jenin refugee camp resistance in 2002, he is serving 9 life sentences plus 20 years in occupation prisons for his role in the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Prior to his arrest in 2002, he had been arrested four more times since he returned to Palestine in 1990. He was born in Jenin refugee camp in 1959 to a family forcibly displaced from Ein Hod, near occupied Haifa, in the Nakba.

During his childhood, he was influenced by his father, Sheikh Abdel-Salam Abu al-Haija, the imam of the mosque in the camp. Their home was known, then and decades later, to shelter resistance fighters from Jenin and all areas of the West Bank of occupied Palestine. He graduated from Jenin’s high school before attending university in Amman. After his graduation, he taught in Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait until returning to Jenin in 1990, amid the great popular Intifada. He joined the Hamas movement, founded in 1987, and became its spokesperson and coordinator with other national and Islamic resistance forces during that period.

Throughout the 1990s, he became a leader in the Hamas movement in the northern West Bank and a member of the Jenin refugee camp support committee, a body established to defend the rights of its residents. During this time, he was arrested first in 1992, then held for five months in 1993, for another four months in 1995, and for over a year between April 1998 and July 1999. He was also imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority in 1996 for six months under its “security coordination” with the occupation for protecting members of the resistance in his home.

Amid the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, he was heavily involved in leading and organizing the resistance, including in the 2002 battle to defend Jenin refugee camp against the invading occupation forces. The occupation openly declared their intent to assassinate him; while they failed to do so, he was hit with an explosive bullet in his left hand, which caused shrapnel to spread throughout his body. His left arm was amputated due to his injuries.

Jamal Abu al-Haija with his children before his imprisonment.

Upon his arrest on 26 August 2002, he was held under “military interrogation” and tortured for months. The occupation directly targeted the family’s home with a missile and later destroyed their home in Jenin camp, which they rebuilt. During his imprisonment since 2002, he has been repeatedly held in isolation and solitary confinement. Classified by the occupation as a “dangerous prisoner,” he was held in isolation for 10 years until he was returned to the general population by the 2012 Karameh hunger strike, alongside other isolated leaders. Today, like fellow leaders of the prisoners’ movement, he has been held in isolation repeatedly following Al-Aqsa Flood and the escalated Zionist-imperialist genocide in Gaza since 7 October 2023.

Both of her brothers, Asem and Abdel-Salam Abu al-Haija, are currently held in administrative detention and have spent years in occupation prisons, and both have also been repeatedly pursued and detained by the collaborationist Palestinian Authority under its “security coordination” with the occupation. Asem Abu al-Haija was last released by the occupation on 24 January 2023, where he received a warm reception from the resistance fighters and the people of the camp. However, he was re-arrested only six months later, in July 2023, and has now been held under administrative detention once again, without charge or trial, for nearly two more years. He has spent over eight years in occupation prisons, mostly under repeatedly renewed administrative detention orders.

Abdel-Salam Abu al-Haija has been held in administrative detention since August 2022; his detention has been repeatedly renewed. During this time, he has gone on hunger strikes to demand to be reunited with his brothers and father. He has spent around 15 years in occupation prisons over multiple arrests and was also detained by the Palestinian Authority for multiple months.

Imad Abu al-Haija was held in administrative detention, imprisoned by the occupation for multiple years alongside his brothers and father, until being released in April 2023. His detention came after a previous release after two and a half years in occupation prisons, and he has spent over seven years in occupation prisons. Like his brothers, he also went on a hunger strike to be reunited with his family members, a demand that was repeatedly denied inside the occupation prisons. He has now been imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority under its “security coordination” with the occupation for over five months, held in Junaid prison since 3 December 2024, separated from his wife, their four children and his ill mother.

Hamza Abu al-Haija, Jamal and Asmaa’s youngest son, born in 1992, was also a struggler in the Al-Qassam Brigades. He was martyred in March 2014, assassinated by occupation forces after multiple years pursuing him. He resisted the occupation forces, which fired a missile at his apartment, until the last moment. He was martyred alongside two fellow resistance fighters, Yazan Jabarin and Mahmoud Abu Zeina, at dawn on 22 March 2014. He had been imprisoned by the occupation under administrative detention, and, upon his release, was imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority for one month. At the time of his assassination, he was wanted by both the occupation and the PA.

Asmaa Abu al-Haija, the wife of Jamal and mother of Banan, Abdel-Salam, Asem, Imad, Hamza and Sajida, currently receiving cancer treatment

In 2003, Asmaa Sabaaneh Abu al-Haija, Jamal’s wife and the mother of Banan, Abdel-Salam, Asem, Imad, Hamza and their sister Sajida, was held in administrative detention for nine months. Asmaa, 61, has battled serious illness for years. She underwent surgeries for brain tumors in 1992 and 1998; she was hospitalized in 2014 at the time of Hamza’s martyrdom. His last words to her were to apologize for being unable to bring her a Mother’s Day gift because he was wanted by the occupation, the day before he was martyred. Over the years, Asmaa was prevented from traveling to Jordan to receive specialized treatment for her recurrent cancer; she was even prevented from visiting a French hospital in Jerusalem for surgery, even after she lost sight in her left eye.

Banan was previously detained for 23 days in 2007 in the Jalameh interrogation center; like her mother, she has been subjected to travel bans preventing her from traveling abroad. Banan emphasized that she chose to study law in order to support the prisoners, attending their court hearings, following up with their families and highlighting their cases. She, like her brothers and mother, inside and outside prison, has been repeatedly denied permission to visit her father. They have only had a few family visits over the years, and almost all of their applications are routinely denied.

Sajida, Banan’s sister, shared the message that her father had sent to her for her wedding day in 2022, when Jamal, Asem, and Imad were all imprisoned, speaking about the reasons for their sacrifice and struggle:

“This is for you, my daughter, and for the sake of all young men and women. We accept captivity today so that tomorrow we may bequeath to you a free homeland without captivity or restrictions. We accept fear and deprivation today so that tomorrow you may live in safety, where there is no occupation or aggression. This is for you, my daughter.

Tomorrow, when you tell your children the story of the liberation before bed, you will tell them: Raise your heads to the clouds, for this dear, free homeland in whose shade you enjoy, your grandfathers and uncles sacrificed their lives for the sake of God to expel the occupier from its soil.”

A banner for Jamal, Asmaa, Abdel-Salam, Asem, Imad and Hamza Abu al-Haija hanging in Jenin refugee camp

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network demands the immediate release of Banan Abu al-Haija, her brothers and father from the occupation prisons. The arrest of Banan is another form of targeting of the family and an attempt to deprive her beloved mother of support at a critical time for her health. It also represents the ongoing targeting of Palestinian lawyers defending the Palestinian prisoners, their resistance and the Palestinian people as a whole. It also comes as Jenin refugee camp, where Banan was born, is under attack by the occupation alongside all of the refugee camps of the northern West Bank, with thousands displaced in an attempt to steal more land for settler-colonial confiscation, suppress the Palestinian resistance, and liquidate the core Palestinian right to return to their original homes and lands.

It is those who resist the occupation who are on the front lines fighting the genocide, and they are targeted for mass slaughter, assassination and imprisonment by the Zionist-imperialist genocidal occupation forces. As in the ongoing genocidal slaughter in Gaza, which has taken the lives of over 52,000 precious Palestinian martyrs, including well over 100 in just the past day, these crimes are carried out with the full support, complicity and responsibility of the imperialist powers: the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany and other EU countries. We urge all supporters of Palestine to raise your voices for the Abu al-Haija family and for all Palestinian prisoners. Their liberation is part and parcel of ending the genocide in Gaza and throughout Palestine — on the road to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

Over 100,000 sign petition to stop the dissolution of Urgence Palestine

7 May 2025

Over 100,000 people have already signed on to the petition to stop the French state’s planned dissolution of Urgence Palestine, the large national coalition and collective for Palestine that has risen to the forefront of the movement in France over the past 18 months of resistance to Zionist-imperialist genocide.

Please sign the petition at https://stop-dissolution.fr/

On the evening of 29 April, Urgence Palestine revealed that the French state had delivered a notice of dissolution, stating that the organization would be dissolved effectively on 7 May if the attack is not blocked by legal action. While Urgence Palestine’s legal team has already declared that it will file the necessary legal documents as soon as any ban is implemented, the campaign is also focusing on building mass, popular support to stop this latest attack by the French state against the Palestinian diaspora and the Palestine solidarity movement.

This attack also comes alongside another dissolution attempt — announced by French Minister of the Interior Bruno Retailleau in the National Assembly, also on 29 April — on Jeunes Gardes, a youth antifascist organization. Of course, it also follows the dissolution of the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and multiple similar attacks on anti-fascist groups, Muslim organizations, local mosques and campaigns against Islamophobia, and as France continues to imprison Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the Lebanese Arab struggler for Palestine jailed in French prisons for the past 40 years and awaiting yet another hearing on his case in June, despite being eligible for release since 1999.

People from all walks of life have expressed their opposition to the dissolution order, with prominent trade unionists, artists, elected officials, musicians, actors, writers, athletes and public intellectuals joining the campaign, documented on the Urgence Palestine Instagram.

A mass outdoor public meeting against the dissolutions drew thousands in Paris alongside multiple elected officials, while demonstrations and public meeti

ngs against the dissolution are also being organized in Lyon, Strasbourg, Chambery and many other French cities.

Like its fellow imperialist powers, France fully supports the Zionist project in occupied Palestine as an outpost of Western imperialism in the region. After aligning with Britain and the Zionist regime in 1956 — and being defeated by Egypt — France collaborated with “Israel” to develop its nuclear weapons program that it continues to use today to threaten the entire region. Today, this same alliance is reflected in the ongoing arms trade conducted by the French state with the Zionist regime amid the escalated genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine.

France is fully complicit with that genocide, through its provision of arms, aid and support to the Zionist regime, but it is also aiding and abetting genocide by engaging in a concerted attack on the freedom of expression of all in order to suppress, criminalize and silence those working to bring an end to the genocide, epitomized by the latest attack on Urgence Palestine.

We urge all in France and around the world to stand with Urgence Palestine and Jeune Garde.

Sign on to the Urgence Palestine collective petition, join over 100,000! https://stop-dissolution.fr/
Demonstrate at a French embassy, consulate, or Alliance Française (official government representative of French cultural activities) in your area against the dissolution and repression — and against France’s ongoing complicity with Zionist genocide throughout occupied Palestine. Use the signs below!
For more information, read our full statement.

In this moment, it is clearer than ever that it is critically important to build the broadest, strongest alliance for Palestine, insisting on full and clear support for the Palestinian resistance to occupation by all means, led by the armed resistance forces; the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea; and a firm commitment to anti-imperialist organizing and solidarity. These attacks must mobilize us to escalate our actions and build the international popular cradle of the Resistance. We must not back down or seek to comply with these illegitimate and indeed, illegal attacks, but only escalate our international solidarity to defend freedom of expression, defend Palestine, and defeat the repression — and, of course, to defeat imperialism and Zionism.

Stop the dissolution of Urgence Palestine!

End the genocide in Gaza and throughout Palestine!

Stop the aggression against Yemen, Lebanon, Syria and the people of the region!

Haiti won, Algeria won, Vietnam won, and Palestine will win!

Victory to the Resistance!

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

Download PDF Signs (English and French)

Imprisoned Palestinian leader Mohammed Arman isolated, starved and tortured

7 May 2025

As part of the ongoing assault on the Palestinian prisoners’ movement leadership, one of the prominent leaders of the movement, Mohammed Arman, is being subjected to ongoing physical and psychological torture, starvation and medical neglect in solitary confinement in Megiddo prison. At least 66 identified Palestinian prisoners have been martyred in Zionist occupation prisons amid the ongoing Zionist-imperialist genocide in Gaza. Palestinian prisoners with high sentences who are priorities in a prisoner exchange with the resistance, like Arman, face particularly cruel and inhuman conditions as part of the “slow assassination” policy, part and parcel of the ongoing Zionist-imperialist assassination regime targeting the Palestinian national leadership and all resistance forces.

Mohammed Arman has been imprisoned since 18 August 2002, sentenced to 36 life sentences for his role in the Palestinian resistance during Al-Aqsa Intifada in the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades of the Hamas movement. Since Al-Aqsa Flood, he was transferred to solitary confinement in Megiddo prison. In his dark solitary cell, he faces repeated incursions and attacks by repressive units, who storm the cell, tie his hands and feet and beat him, accompanied by police dogs.

He has lost tens of kilograms in weight and now weighs around 65 kg, while being provided with very little food insufficient to sustain his life and health. Despite repeated injuries due to beatings and his ongoing health deterioration due to malnutrition, he is being denied medical care or treatment.

A number of leaders of the prisoners’ movement have been targeted, held in isolation, repeatedly beaten, starved and denied medical care, including Abdullah Barghouti, Hassan Salameh, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Ibrahim Hamed, Muammar Shahrour, Abbas al-Sayyed, Marwan Barghouti, Mohammed al-Natsheh, Muhannad Shreim and Ahmad Sa’adat.

In a statement, the Prisoners’ Media Office said:

“In the depths of the dark cells, where light barely reaches, the symbols and leaders of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement in the occupation’s prisons are waging an unequal battle against a systematic machine of death, specifically designed to eliminate the remaining living consciences that embody the memory and will of Palestinian struggle…The leaders of the prisoners’ movement are not merely names topping prisoner lists. They are the nucleus of resistance consciousness and the symbols of this stage, and of Palestinian steadfastness behind bars. They face a vicious assault targeting their very human and revolutionary existence, under the cover of international silence and moral complicity…

These men were never mere numbers in the registers of captivity; they are lanterns that lit the path for an entire generation of strugglers, bearing the responsibility of preserving Palestinian human dignity inside the occupation’s cells…

We, at the Prisoners Media Office, are not merely warning — we are crying out to the world: the leaders are being killed slowly, and we are losing the pillars of patience and steadfastness one after the other.

The Media Office further stated, urging “immediate action”:

“The leader Mohammed Arman is being subjected to a slow assassination attempt in isolation, and today he stands between life and death, fighting hunger and resisting pain, alone in a narrow cell.

As we sound the alarm, we warn that the horrific violations committed against the leaders of the prisoners’ movement will lead to a destiny that may reach their martyrdom at any moment.

We hold the occupation fully and directly responsible for the lives of the imprisoned leaders, and we affirm that the torture and abuse committed against them is a full-fledged war crime that history will mark the disgrace of the silent international community.

We join the call of the Prisoners’ Media Office and urge all supporters of Palestine and the Palestinian cause to speak out actively and take action through demonstrations, mass actions and direct actions to confront the abuse of Palestinian prisoners. The imperialist powers, like the US, Canada, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands, that continue to arm, support and provide cover for the Zionist genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine, are fully implicated in these inhuman actions.

Mohammed Arman

Born on 22 November 1975 in the village of Beitlu, Mohammed Arman is from a family forcibly displaced in the Nakba from the village of al-Burj near occupied Ramla in occupied Palestine ’48. His family now lives in the village of Kharbatha Bani Harith west of Ramallah. He has been imprisoned since 18 August 2002, sentenced to 36 life sentences for his role in the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades. Like other residents of Kharbatha Bani Harith, he daily passed through a checkpoint outside his village, where he witnessed the routine cruelty, assaults and abuse directed at his fellow Palestinians at the hands of the occupation forces, and was motivated to join the resistance.

He was arrested for the first time in 1994 as a university student, and held in administrative detention for four months; in 1998, he was arrested again and sentenced to 14 months in occupation prisons.

He worked as a technician in the Palestine Telecommunications Company, and escalated his involvement the ranks of the resistance with the emergence of the Al-Aqsa Intifada and soon began working alongside the leaders Ibrahim Hamed and Abdullah Barghouti to plan, execute and carry out resistance operations. They formed the Silwan cell of the al-Qassam Brigades, the resistance cell that the occupation described as “the most dangerous” to its security.

He was subjected to harsh interrogation for over three months after his arrest, and has repeatedly been held in solitary confinement; he was returned to the general prisoners’ population in 2012 in the Al-Karameh hunger strike alongside dozens of other imprisoned leaders.

Mohammed Arman is married and the father of a son, Bilal, and two daughters, Iman and Salsabil; his youngest was only a year old at the time of his arrest. Inside the prisons, he has been heavily involved with the prisoners’ movement, serving on multiple occasions as the head of the leadership council of the Hamas prisoners, or as a member of the leadership body. During his time in isolation, he wrote a book, “A View of the Resistance from Within.”

His father passed away in 2019 and Mohammed was denied the ability to bid him farewell; he was barred from visiting Mohammed for years.

The Palestinian prisoners and their leadership — and the entire Palestinian people — is under Zionist-imperialist genocidal attack. Our entire movement must respond collectively to such aggression by organizing even more loudly, clearly and effectively to shut down the imperialist-Zionist war machine, to support the Palestinian resistance and all forces of resistance in the region, and to ensure that the Palestinian prisoners are not now and will never be isolated from the Palestinian people, the Arab, Islamic and regional liberation causes, and the international movement for justice.

Freedom for all Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails! Victory to the Resistance!

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

Liberated Palestinian prisoners Wael Jaghoub and Thaer Hanani re-arrested by occupation forces

7 May 2025

On Tuesday, 6 May, occupation forces targeted several liberated prisoners as part of their daily assaults on the villages, towns and refugee camps of the Palestinian people throughout occupied Palestine, including Wael Jaghoub, the Palestinian leader who was released on 25 January from his life sentence in occupation prisons as part of the Toufan al-Ahrar exchange with the Palestinian Resistance, and Thaer Hanani, who previously served 20 years in occupation prisons, both in Nablus.

The occupation routinely targets liberated prisoners in its campaigns of arrest, viewing them as leaders in the Palestinian liberation movement that serve as a perpetual challenge and confrontation to the occupation. In previous prisoner exchanges — notably, the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange — the occupation deliberately targeted liberated prisoners and reimposed their previous sentences on them when rearrested. Almost all of the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoners were freed again in the Toufan al-Ahrar exchange, and the Palestinian Resistance ensured that the exchange agreement itself explicitly prevented the occupation from arbitrarily re-arresting and re-imposing their former sentences on the liberated prisoners.

Nevertheless, the occupation regime has continued to harass and pursue the liberated prisoners. Nearly all of the liberated women prisoners have been summoned to interrogation, and many have been subjected to travel bans. Samah Hijjawi, released in the November 2023 prisoner exchange and then re-arrested, was released once again in the January 2025 Toufan al-Ahrar exchange. However, she — and her father, Bilal — were once again abducted by the occupation forces from their home in Qalqilya on 1 April 2025.

On Sunday, 4 May, occupation forces detained liberated prisoners Mahmoud Kleibi and Ihab al-Sharafa, both from the Shweika neighborhood of Tulkarem; however, the two were released that night. Both were released in February from life sentences in occupation prisons in the Toufan al-Ahrar exchange.

Wael Jaghoub has been a highly visible public spokesperson for the cause of the prisoners and of Palestinian liberation since his release, writing multiple articles and appearing on podcasts and interviews. This builds upon his years of study and leadership inside the occupation prisons; his targeting by the occupation is a direct attack on the liberated movement leaders. He was seized in the early morning hours of Tuesday, 6 May, from his home in the Rafidia neighborhood of occupied Nablus.

Born on 23 May 1967, Wael was involved in activism from an early age, especially with the advent of the first great popular Intifada. In 1992, he was arrested and sentenced to six years in prison for his resistance to the occupation, before being released in 1998.

With the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, his leading role reemerged, and on 1 May 2001, the occupation arrested him, where he was subjected to harsh and long interrogation, and later the occupation sentenced him to a life sentence for his role in the resistance to the occupation regime as a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

During his years of captivity, Wael Jaghoub was subjected to solitary confinement on multiple occasions, as the occupation prison administration deliberately isolates active prisoners from their comrades because of their effect on the development and growth of the prisoners’ movement. As a result of this isolation, he was deprived of family visits for years.

He was active within the prisoners’ movement at an organizational level, serving as deputy head of the PFLP’s prison branch for several years, and has also been one of the most prominent writers of the prisoners’ movement.

During his imprisonment, he published several books and studies, reflecting the collective concern of the prisoners’ movement, including “Letters of the Detention Experience,” through which he chronicled various stages of the struggle of the prisoner movement and its martyrs; “The Organizational and Detention Experience of the Prison Branch Organization,” which covers the period between (2006-2016), written together with his comrade, fellow prisoner Kamil Abu Hanish; and “Asira Dreams,” which was published in 2007. He also published articles and political studies related to prisoners, and various intellectual studies, including a study on the crisis of the Palestinian left and seeking its renaissance.

He has continued this work since his liberation, after, over two periods of imprisonment, 30 years in the occupation jails.

Also on the morning of Tuesday, 6 May, occupation forces re-arrested Thaer Hanani, of Beit Dajan, Nablus, as he was crossing the Beit Furik military checkpoint. Abducted by the occupation in 2004, he was sentenced to 20 years in occupation prisons for his role in the resistance with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and its armed wing, the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades; he was released on 30 June 2024 at the end of his sentence. During his time in prison, he was an active part of the prisoners’ movement and participated in hunger strikes in 2004, 2011, 2012, 2016 and 2017.

He also was very involved in both political/organizational and cultural work inside the occupation prisons; he served as a member of the Central Committee of the Prison Branch of the PFLP, and published multiple articles in Palestinian and Arab newspapers and magazines during his imprisonment, as well as writing and publishing the novel, “Live Where You Perish,” released in 2022.

The situation inside occupation prisons is dire, with the prisoners’ movement as a whole, and leaders in particular, being subjected to a policy of “slow assassination.” At least 66 identified Palestinian prisoners have been martyred in the occupation prisons since 7 October 2023 alone, alongside the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Palestinian prisoners from Gaza are particularly subjected to horrific conditions of torture and abuse, while denial of medical care, torture and beatings, physical and sexual assault, starvation and isolation are systematic practices against the over 10,000 Palestinians imprisoned by the occupation.

We urge supporters of Palestine around the world to act and organize to demand the liberation of Wael, Thaer, Samah and that of all Palestinian prisoners as part and parcel of ending the genocide in Gaza — on the road to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

Muhannad Shreim: The occupation attacks and isolates a voice of the prisoners’ movement

7 May 2025

The leadership of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement is under attack. Amid the ongoing assault on the Palestinian prisoners as a whole, where denial of medical care, torture, physical and sexual assault, and starvation have become systematic attempts of “slow assassination,” in which at least 66 Palestinian prisoners have been martyred since 7 October 2023, the leaders of the movement are particularly targeted for mistreatment and abuse.

Palestinian prisoner leaders with high sentences who are priorities in a prisoner exchange with the resistance are facing solitary confinement, torture and medical neglect, including Muhannad Shreim, 49, a leader in the prisoners’ movement serving 29 life sentences plus 20 years for his role in the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades’ resistance during the Al-Aqsa Intifada.

For the past seven months, he has been held in solitary confinement, transferred between the isolation section of Gilboa prison to the isolation section of Megiddo prison, facing complete isolation in narrow cells with no light. During this time, he has lost 45 kilograms of weight and now weighs only 60 kg.

He has severe pain throughout his body, continues to be denied food and medical care, and is held in solitary confinement to deny him access to any independent monitoring of his status. This is the policy of “slow assassination” being carried out against the leaders of the prisoners’ movement, being put in practice.

This policy of “slow assassination” is part and parcel of the ongoing Zionist-imperialist genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine, one manifestation of the ongoing assassination policy of the occupation targeting the leadership of the Palestinian resistance. We urge supporters of Palestine around the world to act and organize to demand their liberation and that of all Palestinian prisoners as part and parcel of ending the genocide in Gaza — on the road to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

Muhannad Shreim

Muhannad Talal Mansour Shreim was born on 12 November 1975 in Tulkarem, where he grew up and graduated from high school in 1993. He began his education at An-Najah National University in Nablus in 1994, where he became one of the most prominent and visible leaders of the Islamic Bloc on campus.

He was known for being present, speaking and chanting, at every demonstration, celebration, funeral procession or memorial, speaking about the resistance and the liberation struggle, the defense of Al-Aqsa Mosque and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. He was often the leader of the youth in chants, mobilizing the people and urging greater action.

He was repeatedly arrested by the occupation forces for his activity in the student movement, and he soon joined the Hamas movement and became a fighter in the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades. He was unable to continue his studies due to his repeated detention, although he later returned to study Islamic law at Al-Quds Open University (and in 2021, achieved his master’s degree in Israeli studies from inside the Zionist prisons).

He was arrested for the first time in October 1993 and soon released, and arrested again one month later in November 1993, where he was held in administrative detention for nine months until he was released in August 1994. Several months later, in January 1995, where he was imprisoned for over three years until his release in May 1998.

Muhannad Shreim was arrested by the occupation forces on 8 May 2002 after a lengthy pursuit for months as a leader in the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, particularly for his role alongside Abbas al-Sayyed and Muammar Shahrour in the Park Hotel operation in Netanya. Hundreds of occupation soldiers invaded the city of Tulkarem with dozens of armored vehicles and tanks in order to arrest Muhannad, invading the building where he was staying in hiding. He had earlier escaped the Zionist soldiers despite being detained, after presenting a fake identification card.

He was held under harsh military interrogation and torture for over two months, and three months after his arrest, occupation forces demolished not only his home but the entire building, including the floors owned by his father and his brothers, Mansour and Mohammed. Both Mansour and Mohammed are also former prisoners who were imprisoned by the occupation during the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Muhannad Shreim was sentenced to 29 life sentences plus 20 years inside the Zionist prisons.

Since he was imprisoned, his father passed away in 2005, and Muhannad was denied the ability to bid him farewell. He has been repeatedly transferred from prison to prison, and was held in solitary confinement for several years before being released from isolation along with other imprisoned leaders following the Karameh hunger strike in 2012.

He was publicly listed with several fellow imprisoned leaders prior to the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange as one of the prisoners that the Zionist regime would refuse to release in the exchange. He has written many articles inside the occupation prisons, but none of his words have escaped the prison walls since the beginning of Al-Aqsa Flood and amid the Zionist-imperialist genocide in Gaza. He is currently being isolated and starved in an attempt to prevent his words and his voice from reaching the Palestinian, Arab and international people again — and the challenge is to us to act to defend him and his fellow imprisoned Palestinian resisters, strugglers and leaders.

We urge all supporters of Palestine and the Palestinian cause to speak out actively and take action through demonstrations, mass actions and direct actions to confront the abuse of Palestinian prisoners. The imperialist powers, like the US, Canada, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands, that continue to arm, support and provide cover for the Zionist genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine, are fully implicated in these inhuman actions.

Our entire movement must respond collectively to such repression by organizing even more loudly, clearly and effectively to shut down the imperialist-Zionist war machine, to support the Palestinian resistance and all forces of resistance in the region, and to ensure that the Palestinian prisoners are not now and will never be isolated from the Palestinian people, the Arab, Islamic and regional liberation causes, and the international movement for justice.

Freedom for all Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails! Victory to the Resistance!

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

Horrific conditions for Palestinian prisoners from Gaza exposed in new report

6 May 2025

“I was arrested in December 2023 and was immediately transferred to interrogation, which lasted for six days. These were some of the most intense and difficult days. I was subjected to what is called the ‘disco’ and ‘diaper’ interrogation methods. Throughout the six days, I was exposed to nothing but extremely loud music. I was forced to use diapers to relieve myself, and they were only changed twice. I was deprived of food and provided with very little water—half a glass a day. I was handcuffed and blindfolded during the entire interrogation.” – One Palestinian detainee from Gaza held in the Rakefet prison

A new report, “Israel’s Underground Prison for Palestinian Political Detainees Abducted from Gaza,” issued by the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society exposes the horrifying reality for Palestinians from Gaza abducted by the occupation’s genocidal invading forces.

In particular, the report exposes the “Rakefet section,” an underground wing of the Nitsan-Ramle prison set aside for Palestinian political prisoners from Gaza. As the authors of the report state:

The visit began with the legal teams being led to the entrance of a building resembling an old warehouse. A door was opened, revealing a staircase descending underground, as described by the lawyers. The area was full of cockroaches with holes in the floors and walls. The visits were conducted under strict guard and heavy surveillance. Lawyers were instructed not to inform the detainees of anything related to their families or events happening outside.

The lawyers documenting the visits noted that “This section, which the occupation has designated for prisoners who it calls ‘elite’ prisoners, is part of those who were visited and is classified by the occupation as ‘illegal combatants.'” The occupation claims that it may indefinitely detain Palestinians from Gaza by labeling them ‘illegal combatants,’ the same term used by the United States to hold prisoners indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay naval base. It uses this term against a broad array of Palestinians from Gaza, including Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the heroic pediatrician and director of Kamal ‘Udwan hospital, abducted by the occupation for his heroic defense of Palestinian healthcare.

Many Palestinians from Gaza, seized en masse by the invading genocidal forces throughout the besieged Strip over the past 19 months, have been subjected to extreme forms of torture and abuse, including sexual and physical assault and rape, mass starvation, beating and torture to the point of severe injury or death, and various forms of abuse, combined with the almost complete denial of medical care. While many of these assaults have taken place in the military camps, like Sde Teiman and Anatot, the abuse continues inside the official Zionist prison system.

Of the at least 66 identified Palestinian prisoners who have been martyred in the occupation prisons since 7 October 2023, amid Al-Aqsa Flood and the ongoing genocide, at least 40 have been from Gaza. The locations and identities of abducted Palestinians have largely gone unreported, as the occupation refuses to turn over this information, leaving many Palestinians missing — with their families unable to learn whether they are being held in an occupation torture camp or martyred under the rubble.

As the report notes, “It is worth noting that the number of Gaza detainees acknowledged by the Israeli Prison Services as of early April 2025 stands at 1,747, classified as ‘unlawful combatants.’ This figure does not include all Gaza detainees held in camps run by the Israeli army—only those under the jurisdiction of the prison system.”

“Disco” interrogation, discussed in many testimonies, refers to being shackled while loud music is played continually for days at a time. (This technique was also notoriously used by U.S. interrogators at CIA black sites and at Guantanamo Bay.) “Diaper” interrogation refers to Palestinians being forced to wear diapers, shackled to chairs, and prohibited from accessing toilet facilities, also for days on end. One detainee who provides testimony in this report was subjected to these interrogation methods for six days straight without interruption.

The detained Palestinians note that:

Finger-breaking is used as a method of torture, punishment and control by occupation guards;
No sunlight enters their cells or even the yard;
They have been beaten with objects on the genital areas;
They are denied access to underwear;
They are denied medical treatment;
They are frequently forced to curse their mothers by the guards.

We are re-publishing the full text of this important report below and urge its broad distribution.

We urge supporters of Palestine around the world to act and organize to demand the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners as part and parcel of ending the genocide in Gaza — on the road to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.

Download the report in PDF.

Issued by the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club

“Underground Visit to Gaza Detainees”

The first visits to Gaza detainees in the section under Nitzan-Ramla Prison, or what is called the Rakefet Section.

6/5/2025

Note: This section, which the occupation has designated for prisoners who it calls “elite” prisoners, is part of those who were visited and is classified by the occupation as “illegal combatants.”

The Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs and the Palestinian Prisoners’ Club are reviewing new testimonies that will be added to the list of shocking and horrific testimonies about the details experienced by Gaza detainees during their arrest, interrogation, and transfer from one prison to another, and from one camp to another, over the course of several months of detention. They faced systematic crimes, which were, in their entirety, crimes of torture that they experienced moment by moment since their arrest. These testimonies were obtained through visits, the first of their kind that legal teams were able to conduct recently, during which a group of detainees were visited under strict conditions and under a high level of supervision in the (Rakefet) section located under the (Nitzan – Ramla) prison.

An underground visit to Gaza detainees in the Rakefet section

In the details of the visit that took place to a group of detainees, the visit began with the legal teams entering the entrance of an old warehouse-like building. A door was opened, which is the entrance to an underground staircase, according to what the lawyers described, full of cockroaches and holes in the ground and walls. The visits took place accompanied by the prison guards and under strict supervision, during which the lawyers were informed that it was forbidden to tell the detainees anything related to their families or anything that was happening outside. Signs of terror and fear were evident on the bodies of the detainees who were visited. At first, there were great difficulties in starting a conversation with any detainee, due to the level of supervision imposed on the visit. However, after attempts made by the lawyers, they were able to reassure the detainees and confirm to them that they were lawyers who had come to visit them.

Here, we review some of the detainees’ testimonies, including the shocking details they contain. These testimonies are an extension of dozens of testimonies and statements obtained from Gaza detainees since the beginning of the genocide.

The Rakefet section is the most difficult and harsh in terms of detention conditions compared to other prisons and camps.

Detainee (S.J.) testimonial: “I was arrested in December / December 2023, and I was immediately transferred to the investigation that lasted for 6 days, which was the most intense and difficult, during which I was subjected to the (disco) and (pampers) investigation, and throughout the 6 days I only listened to very loud music, and throughout these days I was forced to use (diapers) to relieve myself, they were changed only twice, and I was deprived of food, and the water was very little, half a cup a day, and throughout the investigation period I was handcuffed and blindfolded, and later I was transferred from (Sde Teiman) camp to (Ashkelon) prison, where I remained for (45) days, then I was transferred to the (Moscobiyya) detention center for (85) days, then to (Ofer) prison, and finally to the (Rakefet) section in (Nitzan) Ramle prison.

The detainee indicated that the detention conditions in the Ramleh Rakefet section are the most difficult compared to all the prisons he was transferred to during his detention. In each cell there are three prisoners, one of whom sleeps on the floor. The exit to the “furah” (prison yard) takes place day after day, during which we remain handcuffed, knowing that this area is not exposed to the sun. Throughout their time in the “furah” they are exposed to humiliation and degradation, and they are also forbidden from raising their heads throughout the “furah”.

We don’t know when the sun rises and when it sets.

Detainee (W.N.): “I was arrested in December / December 2024, I was interrogated by the occupation army before being transferred to a camp in the Gaza Strip. I was interrogated by the intelligence service, threatened and beaten, and later transferred to Ramla prison. Today, I suffer from health problems and severe pain in my body. What increases my suffering is that we are forced to sit on our knees for long periods. I was also sexually assaulted by being beaten with a scanner on sensitive parts of my body. Today, we are completely isolated from the outside world. We do not know when the sun rises or sets. We are provided with worn and damaged clothes, but we are forced to wear them. We are denied underwear. In addition to all of this, they force us to curse our mothers, and we are subjected to beatings and oppression. The beating during my transfer to the prison caused one of my fingers to be broken, knowing that the prison guards use the method of breaking fingers, and this has happened to more than one detainee.

Finger breaking is a method of torturing detainees.

In the same context, the detainee (Kh. D.) indicated that he was subjected to a “disco” investigation, and later to investigation by the occupation intelligence, and this was repeated 3-4 times. They deliberately hung him on a chair for long periods, and threw him on the floor while handcuffed. The investigation continued for 30 days in the cells of Ashkelon prison, and throughout this period he was subjected to severe beatings. Today he suffers from scabies, which he contracted during his detention in Ofer prison, and the disease continued with him after he was transferred to Ramla prison. Today, in addition to scabies, he suffers from severe chest pains that increase in severity as a result of the handcuffing operations that are carried out from behind. The detainee indicated that the prison administration punishes prisoners by breaking their thumbs.

Cameras inside the cells document the detainees’ movements around the clock.

“As for the detainee (A.G.), he said: “I was detained for (35) days in the (Sde Timan) camp. I was subjected to a (disco) investigation for five days. When I was arrested, I was suffering from an injury and did not receive any treatment. I had a high fever at the beginning of the detention, and I was screaming all the time from the severity of the pain in my body. In addition, I suffer from heart problems and I lost consciousness several times. They were satisfied with just confirming that I was alive. In the first stage of detention, I did not have clothes or a blanket. I felt very cold because I was detained in a (barrack) open from several sides, which exacerbated my suffering. For 15 days, my hands were tied and my eyes were blindfolded all the time. Then I was later transferred to the (Rakefet) section in the (Ramla) prison. In all the rooms here, there were cameras that documented our movements constantly. We were forbidden to pray, and they threatened us with death all the time. The process of taking us out for a break was an opportunity for the prison guards to assault us with severe beatings and insult us while our hands were tied. We never see the sun, we are forced to curse our mothers, the jailer decides when and for how long we can shower, every three days each cell is given a roll of toilet paper, and the amount of food is very small. We know it’s dawn because the jailers pull out the mattresses and blankets.

Rakefet Prison – Ramle is one of the prisons and camps that the occupation has established since the genocide or that have been reopened again to detain detainees from Gaza. The most prominent of them are: (Sde Teiman), (Anatot), (Ofer) camp, (Rakefet) and another camp that was opened for detainees from the West Bank, which is (Manashe) camp. These camps were the most prominent headlines for torture crimes, as the occupation turned them into spaces for torturing detainees physically and psychologically on the spot.

It is noteworthy that the number of Gaza detainees recognized by the Israeli prison administration until the beginning of April / As of April 2025, 1,747 people were classified as “illegal combatants.” This figure does not include all Gaza detainees held in Israeli military camps, but only those under Israeli prison administration.

Gazatestimonies_May2025_ENG

Ahmad Sa’adat under attack as Zionist regime targets prisoners’ movement leadership

6 May 2025

Amid the ongoing assault on the leadership of the prisoners’ movement, in which prominent leaders of the Palestinian people and their resistance, especially those who are a high priority for release in a prisoner exchange, are being subjected to solitary confinement, beatings, starvation and torture, Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is being held in isolation in Megiddo prison.

He was assaulted and brutally beaten during his last transfer to isolation in Megiddo and has faced dangerous health conditions and denial of medical care, imprisoned in a situation not fit for human life. In a statement, the PFLP said that the attack on Sa’adat “comes in the context of a systematic and dangerous escalation targeting the leaders of the prisoners’ movement, aiming at their slow physical and psychological liquidation, through medical neglect, torture, abuse, isolation and systematic starvation.”

Ahmad Sa’adat is the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. One of over 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners, he has been sentenced to 30 years in Zionist prisons for a range of “security-related” political offenses. These charges include membership in a prohibited organization (the PFLP, of which Sa’adat is General Secretary), holding a post in a prohibited organization, and incitement, for a speech Sa’adat made following the Israeli assassination of his predecessor, Abu Ali Mustafa, in August 2001, in which he declared “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” In retaliation for the murder of Abu Ali Mustafa, on 17 October 2001, fighters from the PFLP’s armed wing assassinated Rehavam Ze’evi, the notoriously far-right, racist Tourism Minister in Ariel Sharon’s Israeli government, in the Hyatt hotel in Jerusalem.

Born in 1953, Sa’adat is the child of refugees expelled from their home in the village of Deir Tarif, near Ramleh, in the Nakba of 1948. A math teacher by training, he is married to Abla Sa’adat, herself a noted activist, and is the father of four children. He has been involved in the Palestinian national movement since 1967, when he became active in the student movement. He was elected General Secretary of the PFLP following the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa.

On 15 January 2002, Sa’adat attended a meeting with “Palestinian Authority” security chief Tawfiq Tirawi under false pretenses, from which he was abducted and taken to the Muqata’a compound in Ramallah, then-PA President Yasser Arafat’s headquarters, as part of “security coordination” with the Zionist regime. In a deal involving the Zionist regime, Britain and the U.S., Sa’adat was then held in a Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho for over four years under the oversight of U.S., Canadian and British guards along with Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Hamdi Qur’an, Basil al-Asmar and Fouad Shobaki. The director of the US/British “supervision” of the prisoners at Jericho Prison formerly ran the infamous Maze Detention Center for Britain in the occupied North of Ireland, where Irish republican prisoners were held, and another British official there was later involved in creating the “White Helmets” in Syria.

In January 2006, he was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council on the Abu Ali Mustafa slate. These were the famous PLC elections won by the Change and Reform bloc, aligned with Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement. On 14 March 2006, days before Ismail Haniyeh was to take office as prime minister — after making a clear commitment in the electoral campaign to free Palestinian prisoners held in PA jails under “security coordination” — the Zionist military stormed that prison at Jericho as the U.S., British and Canadian guards stepped away to aid the assault. They killed two Palestinian guards and abducted Sa’adat and five fellow prisoners and took them to occupation military prisons.

He was arrested by the Israeli occupation on numerous occasions, notably in 1970, 1973, 1975, 1976, 1989 and 1992 for a total of 10 years of detention.

In 1993, he was elected to the Political Bureau of the PFLP and became responsible for the West Bank sector in 1994. In this context, he was arrested several times between 1994 and 1996 by the Palestinian Authority as part of security coordination with the Israeli occupation established following the Oslo accords of 1993.

On 25 December 2008, Sa’adat was sentenced to 30 years in the colonial occupation prisons. His lengthy sentence, produced by a Zionist military court, was intended as a mechanism for imprisoning the resistance and the commitment of the Palestinian people to seek freedom, justice, liberation and self-determination. Sa’adat consistently and repeatedly refused to recognize the legitimacy of the illegitimate court, refusing to stand and delivering statements of rejection.

Since that time, he has continued his leadership of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement behind bars. He was held in isolation for nearly three years, and was repeatedly denied family visits. Several major Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strikes, including the September-October 2011 hunger strike and the April-May 2012 hunger strike, placed an end to isolation as a central demand, including an end to the isolation of Sa’adat. Sa’adat was finally released from isolation and returned to the general prison population in late May 2012, following the agreement to end the prisoners’ hunger strike. During the strike, Sa’adat was hospitalized due to the severe physical stress of consuming only salt and water.

He has participated in multiple hunger strikes and collective protests, including the 2015 hunger strike against administrative detention, the 2017 Dignity Strike, the 2016 strike in solidarity with Bilal Kayed, and the 2019 hunger strike.

Today, over 66 Palestinian prisoners have been martyred due to torture, assault, starvation and medical neglect since 7 October 2023, and leaders of the prisoners’ movement like Sa’adat are being particularly targeted for torture, isolation and liquidation behind colonial bars.

Freedom for all Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails! Victory to the Resistance!

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

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Mohammed Arman

Muhannad Shreim

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