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150+ organizations endorse the International Campaign to Liberate the Remains of Palestinian Martyrs: Join the Week of Action March 11-18

Over 150 organizations around the world have endorsed the International Campaign to Liberate the Remains of Palestinian Martyrs and the week of action, March 11-18. Political parties, trade unions, Palestinian movements, solidarity groups, anti-imperialist organizations and anti-war coalitions have come together to stand with Palestinian families demanding the release of their loved ones’ bodies, detained for years and decades by the Israeli occupation.

There are 256 Palestinian martyrs whose bodies are documented to be held in the “numbers cemeteries,” where Palestinians are buried with numbers, rather than their names, while another 131 Palestinian martyrs’ bodies are held in the occupation’s morgues.

These martyrs gave their lives in the Palestinian resistance movement, and their bodies remain imprisoned even after their death. A number of the martyrs were imprisoned before their death, and this battle remains an integral part of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

Announcing the launch of the international campaign to liberate the remains of Palestinian martyrs held in the morgues and “cemeteries of numbers” of the Zionist occupation

Call to action, 11 March through 18 March 2023

“We will not abandon the last duty we owe our sons, to bury them with dignity”
– Azhar Abu Srour, the mother of the martyr Abd al-Hamid Abu Srour who has been imprisoned in the Morgues of the occupation since 2016

It is critical that we take action on an international level to popularize this campaign. We call on resistance organizations, Palestinian and Arab networks, solidarity groups supporting the prisoners’ struggle and boycott campaigns around the world to join us in this international campaign to recover and release the remains of Palestinian martyrs. This campaign aims to expand the support and solidarity for Palestinian prisoners and martyrs everywhere around the world, for their liberation and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.  

Click here to endorse and support the campaign

Hold an event: You can organize stands and demonstrations, prepare seminars, distribute leaflets and hang posters, and send your activities to samidoun@samidoun.net or to our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages.

Endorsers


Click here to endorse and support the campaign

Days of Action:

Below are the events for each day throughout the week! We encourage you to schedule events and actions on any day during the week, regardless of theme or topic, focusing on the Liberation of Palestinian Prisoners and Martyrs. We also present a schedule of the events we know of taking place during the week.

The speakers in the online seminars are parents and family members of martyrs whose remains are withheld by the zionist occupation. Join us and listen to their stories and learn more about the morgues, cemetries of numbers, children martyrs still in the hands of the occupation, the legal struggle to retrieve the remains, the martyrs in the prisoners movement, and much more. English translation will be provided.

Hold an event: You can organize stands and demonstrations, prepare seminars, distribute leaflets and hang posters, and send your activities to samidoun@samidoun.net or to our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages.

09.03.2023

Rally demanding the retrieval of the remains of the Martyrs
Nablus, Palestine
In front of the red cross office
12 midday Jerusalem time

10.03.2023

Rally demanding the liberation of the remains of Palestinian martyrs in the morgues and “cemetries of Numbers”
Bahnhofsvorplatz,
Cologne, Germany
At 2 p.m. CET
For more Information

11.03.2023

Online seminar
Cemeteries of Numbers – Palestine’s martyrs imprisoned by the occupation
مقابر الأرقام – شهداء فلسطين في قبضة الاحتلال
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85824406823?pwd=NVNKRXhIR2lINk1OeFgzbmhWWTBUUT09
Meeting ID: 858 2440 6823
Passcode: 332440

Seminar in Cologne
The Struggle of the Palestinian, Turkish and Kurdish Prisoners Movements
Followed by an intervention by the sister the imprisoned martyr Bilal Rawajbeh
Kalk-Mülheimer Str 124
51103 Köln, Germany
At 4 p.m. CET
For more information

12.03.2023

Online seminar
Birds in Paradise and prisoners under the soil – the remains of our martyred children
طيور في الجنة و أسرى تحت التراب – رفات أطفالنا الشهداء
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82957118542?pwd=Q0FJSHlTMnBqcXU3c0N1eFRlOGxyQT09
Meeting ID: 829 5711 8542
Passcode: 457088

14.03.2023

Online seminar
The legal struggle to free the imprisoned martyrs
المعركة القانونية في قضية الجثامين المحتجزة
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84122661614?pwd=TmVJWjEwSWJkdDhlRUhQZVdONnR2UT09
Meeting ID: 841 2266 1614
Passcode: 063571

15.03.2023

Online seminar
Bodies frozen, awaiting spring – Our martyrs in the morgues of the occupation
أجسادٌ في الصقيع بانتظار الربيع – شهداؤنا في ثلاجات الاحتلال
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87083754781?pwd=RGkycDRaS3JJLzVFTi9xaDg2amFuZz09
Meeting ID: 870 8375 4781
Passcode: 169695

17.03.2023

Online seminar
From one cell to another – the martyrs of the prisoners movement
عمرين في زنزانتين – شهداء الحركة الأسيرة
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85005742322?pwd=UHNLUjNJWWhxODdZTnJRZlVCaWxJZz09
Meeting ID: 850 0574 2322
Passcode: 805836

Seminar in Berlin
Karanfil at 7pm CET

18.03.2023

Demo in Köln
International Day of Political Prisoners
Bahnhofsvorplatz
Cologne, Berlin
At 2 p.m. CET
For more Information

Demo in Berlin
International Day of Political Prisoners
Hermannplatz
At 3 p.m. CET

11 March, Online Hearing: Lebanon at the International People’s Tribunal on U.S. Imperialism

Join the International People’s Tribunal on US Imperialism: Sanctions, Blockades, Coercive Economic Measures for a hearing on the effects and impacts of these policies and practices on the people of Lebanon. We will hear testimony and reports from expert and direct witnesses, with questions and discussion from our jurors.

The hearing will take place on Saturday, March 11 at 10:30 AM EST/7:30 AM PST/3:30 PM UTC. Register to listen online: https://bit.ly/lebanonhearing

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is a co-sponsor of the Tribunal. Visit the Sanctions Tribunal website to learn more, watch videos of past hearings and register for upcoming hearings.

 

Updated Schedule of Events: International Campaign to Liberate the Remains of Palestinian Martyrs

View this call to action in Arabic

View this call to action in Spanish

View this call to action in French

View this call to action in German

Join us to take action between 11 and 18 March to demand the release of the remains of Palestinian martyrs held in the Zionist occupation’s morgues and “numbers cemeteries.” This week of action aims to combat the Palestinian, Arab and international official silence and neglect of this critical issue and internationalize the struggle to free these imprisoned martyrs and end the collective punishment of Palestinian families and communities.

There are 256 Palestinian martyrs whose bodies are documented to be held in the “numbers cemeteries,” where Palestinians are buried with numbers, rather than their names, while another 131 Palestinian martyrs’ bodies are held in the occupation’s morgues.

These martyrs gave their lives in the Palestinian resistance movement, and their bodies remain imprisoned even after their death. A number of the martyrs were imprisoned before their death, and this battle remains an integral part of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

We announce the launch of an ongoing, open international campaign to release the remains of the Palestinian martyrs that continue to be detained by the Zionist occupation. 11 March through 18 March 2023 are days of action and struggle to recover the Palestinian martyrs’ remains. As 18 March also marks an International Prisoners’ Day, we also highlight that our martyrs in the morgues and the “numbers cemeteries” are also prisoners of the Zionist project. 

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

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

Read the Full Statement

Endorse the Campaign

Days of Action:

Below are the events for each day throughout the week! We encourage you to schedule events and actions on any day during the week, regardless of theme or topic, focusing on the Liberation of Palestinian Prisoners and Martyrs. We also present a schedule of the events we know of taking place during the week.

The speakers in the online seminars are parents and family members of martyrs whose remains are withheld by the zionist occupation. Join us and listen to their stories and learn more about the morgues, cemetries of numbers, children martyrs still in the hands of the occupation, the legal struggle to retrieve the remains, the martyrs in the prisoners movement, and much more. English translation will be provided.

Hold an event: You can organize stands and demonstrations, prepare seminars, distribute leaflets and hang posters, and send your activities to samidoun@samidoun.net or to our Facebook, Twitter or Instagram pages.

09.03.2023

Rally demanding the retrieval of the remains of the Martyrs
Nablus, Palestine
In front of the red cross office
12 midday Jerusalem time

10.03.2023

Rally demanding the liberation of the remains of Palestinian martyrs in the morgues and “cemetries of Numbers”
Bahnhofsvorplatz,
Cologne, Germany
At 2 p.m. CET
For more Information

11.03.2023

Online seminar
Cemeteries of Numbers – Palestine’s martyrs imprisoned by the occupation
مقابر الأرقام – شهداء فلسطين في قبضة الاحتلال
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85824406823?pwd=NVNKRXhIR2lINk1OeFgzbmhWWTBUUT09
Meeting ID: 858 2440 6823
Passcode: 332440

Seminar in Cologne
The Struggle of the Palestinian, Turkish and Kurdish Prisoners Movements
Followed by an intervention by the sister the imprisoned martyr Bilal Rawajbeh
Kalk-Mülheimer Str 124
51103 Köln, Germany
At 4 p.m. CET
For more information

12.03.2023

Online seminar
Birds in Paradise and prisoners under the soil – the remains of our martyred children
طيور في الجنة و أسرى تحت التراب – رفات أطفالنا الشهداء
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82957118542?pwd=Q0FJSHlTMnBqcXU3c0N1eFRlOGxyQT09
Meeting ID: 829 5711 8542
Passcode: 457088

14.03.2023

Online seminar
The legal struggle to free the imprisoned martyrs
المعركة القانونية في قضية الجثامين المحتجزة
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84122661614?pwd=TmVJWjEwSWJkdDhlRUhQZVdONnR2UT09
Meeting ID: 841 2266 1614
Passcode: 063571

15.03.2023

Online seminar
Bodies frozen, awaiting spring – Our martyrs in the morgues of the occupation
أجسادٌ في الصقيع بانتظار الربيع – شهداؤنا في ثلاجات الاحتلال
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87083754781?pwd=RGkycDRaS3JJLzVFTi9xaDg2amFuZz09
Meeting ID: 870 8375 4781
Passcode: 169695

17.03.2023

Online seminar
From one cell to another – the martyrs of the prisoners movement
عمرين في زنزانتين – شهداء الحركة الأسيرة
At 7 p.m. Jerusalem time
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85005742322?pwd=UHNLUjNJWWhxODdZTnJRZlVCaWxJZz09
Meeting ID: 850 0574 2322
Passcode: 805836

Seminar in Berlin
Karanfil at 7pm CET

18.03.2023

Demo in Köln
International Day of Political Prisoners
Bahnhofsvorplatz
Cologne, Berlin
At 2 p.m. CET
For more Information

Demo in Berlin
International Day of Political Prisoners
Hermannplatz
At 3 p.m. CET

 

Solidarity with Palestine and Georges Abdallah at France’s labour protests against pension reform

More than 3.2 million people demonstrated on Tuesday, 7 March in France according to the CGT labour federation, including 120,000 in Toulouse, on the sixth national strike day against the pension reform proposed by the Macron government at the expense of workers in France.

As they have since the beginning of the mobilization, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra — a member of the Samidoun Network — set up a solidarity stand alongside the route of the Toulouse demonstration to emphasize that a workers’ victory against the Macron government would also be a major blow to the strategic cooperation between French imperialism and the Israeli occupation.  As several Palestinian trade unions noted in a statement of support for the strikers, “these are the same companies and governments that support the Zionist occupation of Palestine. For example, the French ‘Carrefour’ group recently opened stores in ‘Israeli’ settlements in the occupied West Bank.”

https://twitter.com/Collectif_PV/status/1633112153069699080

Despite heavy rain, our presence attracted the interest of many participants, in particular our large banners and signs calling for the release of Georges Abdallah, the Lebanese Arab struggler for Palestine imprisoned in France for over 38 years, and against the twinning of Toulouse with Tel Aviv. In addition, participants unfurled a large banner about the international campaign to boycott Israel, presenting the anti-colonialist objectives of this mobilization and the main brands and companies to be boycotted. Many people stopped at the Collectif’s stand to collect flyers, stickers or small Palestinian flags to show their solidarity during the demonstration.

Emphasizing their internationalist and anti-imperialist perspective, several contingents chanted pro-Palestinian slogans while passing in front of the Collectif’s stand.

https://twitter.com/Collectif_PV/status/1633357288256708608

Throughout the march, the Collectif distributed thousands of leaflets and delivered an appeal over the sound system to explain why it was important to support the Palestinian people while defending social justice. The speaker emphasized the importance of combating cooperation between French institutions and Israeli occupation institutions, such as the twinning between Toulouse and Tel Aviv. Welcoming Barcelona City Hall’s recent decision to suspend its twinning with the Israeli apartheid capital, many people posed for solidarity photos to join the campaign in Toulouse. Among them were Hakim Amokrane from the Zebda group, municipal councillor Odile Maurin, and trade unionists and activists from various organizations.

Elsewhere in France — for example, in Bordeaux, Paris , Rodez, Limoges, Annecy, Grenoble , Marseille and Tarbes, various people and associations have raised banners and signs of solidarity with Georges Abdallah and Palestine in the mass demonstrations for the strike. Georges Abdallah and the Palestinian cause have become symbols in the social mobilizations in France of the fight against imperialism, racism and colonialism!

Bordeaux:

Grenoble:

Marseille:

Rodez:

Annecy:

Paris:

Tarbes:

Limoges:

The brutality of normalization: Palestinian Authority “security” forces attack martyr’s funeral in Nablus

The Palestinian Authority’s ongoing policy of “security coordination” with the occupation was once again revealed and on full display on Wednesday, 8 March. PA forces fired stun grenades and tear gas at the funeral of the martyr Abdel-Fattah Kharousheh, resistance fighter and former Palestinian prisoner, assassinated yesterday with five of his comrades (Tariq Natour, Ziyad al-Zureini, Moatassem Sabbagh, Mohammed Ghazzawi and Mohammed Khallouf) by Israeli occupation forces in Jenin refugee camp.

The attack on Jenin was an assassination raid, a practice used repeatedly by the occupation — as, for example, in the cases of Basil al-Araj and Moataz Washaha — and escalated intensely in recent months. As Maureen Clare Murphy of the Electronic Intifada noted, “Israel appears to have used the ‘pressure cooker’ procedure during the raid, a form of extrajudicial execution by which occupation forces fire progressively more powerful weapons at a targeted building in an effort to force those inside to surrender. If they refuse to do so, the military demolishes the building, killing all those inside.”

The martyrs of the occupation attack on Jenin

While thousands of people filled the streets of Nablus to mourn the martyr, PA security forces’ attack caused Kharousheh’s body to fall to the ground, and dozens of Palestinians were injured by tear gas while the PA arrested multiple participants in the funeral for carrying flags of Hamas — Kharousheh’s political party — or advocating for Palestinian armed resistance.

Following the funeral, PA security forces have carried out a series of arrests in Nablus, targeting people for participating in the popular funeral. They have kidnapped Palestinians from all political forces, including Fateh members who participated in the funeral and chanted for the resistance, upholding Palestinian national unity. This reflects no national interest of the Palestinian people, but instead seeks to distort the Palestinian liberation struggle in the interests of the colonial occupier.

It is worth noting that Kharousheh not only spent 9 years in occupation prisons — including a three and one-half year sentence from which he was released less than three months ago — but also in Palestinian Authority prisons, where he wa detained on the grounds of his political affiliation and resistance activity. Kharousheh was the resistance fighter who targeted settlers in the village of Huwwara after the Nablus massacre, and the assassination raid by occupation forces yesterday in Nablus was aimed at his extrajudicial execution.

In this context, the attack on the funeral was even more egregious, as Kharousheh represented a martyr of the Palestinian resistance and a fighter who was targeted for violent assassination and liquidation by the occupation forces just yesterday alongside five of his comrades. It also recalled bitter memories of the attack carried out by occupation forces on the funeral of assassinated Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh.

Despite the suppression, the funeral procession continued, completing the funeral ceremonies and marching to the Balata refugee camp before burying Kharousheh in the cemetery of the Askar refugee camp.

The attack was met with widespread outrage from Palestinian people, political forces and resistance organizations.

Hamas said:

“The suppression of the funeral procession of the martyr Abdel-Fattah Kharousheh by the security services in Nablus is a new moral degradation that adds to its nefarious record of oppression and abuse of our people and their national symbols and a flagrant violation of our national and religious values. The atack on the mourners and the arrest of a number of them crossed all red lines and violated the will of our people and their national aspirations. This followed a day of heroic confrontation in Jenin and did not take into account the history of the resisting martyr, his record of imprisonment, confrontation and pursuit.”

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said:

“At a time when Palestine is bidding farewell to its martyrs, when Jenin and Nablus mourn the symbols of resistance and those who overthrew all attempts to liquidate or settle the Palestinian cause, the shameful forces attacked the participants in the funeral of the martyr Abdel-Fattah Kharousheh.” The Front called on all to participate in a rally in Dheisheh camp against the Zionist attack on Jenin yesterday and the assault on the funeral of the martyr today.

The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine said:

“We condemn in the strongest terms this disgraceful behaviour that violates our authentic national traditions. We consider it a degradation of our moral and national values. This is rejected by the Palestinian people, whose free sons united in the Jenin camp and Nablus and embraced each other to confront the enemy.”

Khaled Barakat, Palestinian wrier and member of the Executive Committee of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path, said:

“The vicious attack on the funeral of the martyr Abdel-Fattah Kharousheh comes within the framework of the Authority’s role as a security tool that works in the service of U.S. imperialism and the Zionist project…These practices are an integral part of a U.S.-Zionist campaign to distort the image of the national liberation struggle…The Authority acts as an agent of the colonizer and reproduces its practices in order to gain acceptance and recognition, as was seen before in Algeria, Ireland, South Africa, India and everywhere that ‘local authorities’ were appointed by the colonizer to implement its policies against their people.”

The Palestinian Democratic Student Pole said:

“Today, the servants of the occupation bring down the body of the martyr Abdel-Fattah Kharousheh, thinking that they will overthrow his ideology, his path and his deeds. However, it is they who fell and not his thoughts or honor.”

The Follow-Up Committee of the National and Islamic Forces said:

“This attack contradicts the values and traditions of our people and their unity. It affects the sanctity of the martyrs of our people who give more than all of us, espeically in light of the Israeli fascist attack on our people,” demanding the formation of an independent investigation committee.

Further statements came from the Federation of Independent Personalities, the Palestinian National Initiative, the Palestinian People’s Party, Fateh Intifada, Abna’a al-Balad, the Popular Resistance Committees, the Al-Ahrar Movement, and the International Commission to Support the Rights of the Palestinian People, among others.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network denounces the attack on the funeral of the martyr Abdel-Fattah Kharousheh, intended as a continuation of the criminal assassination raid carried out by occupation forces one day before in Jenin camp. The attack once again reveals the nature of the Palestinian Authority, which is not a project serving the Palestinian people’s needs and interests, but a mechanism created by the Oslo so-called “peace process” to provide security for the colonizer.

When the occupation forces assassinated Kharousheh and his five comrades one day earlier, as they fought back until their last breath, PA security forces were nowhere to be found, as they had cleared out of the area. Meanwhile, local reports indicated that PA security forces had been stationed in large numbers around the area of the funeral in preparation for its repression.

This attack emerges not only from three decades of “security coordination” with the occupier and imprisonment of the resistance at the behest of the Israeli occupation and its funders in the U.S. It is the direct result of the Aqaba meeting just last week, intended to further militarize the PA against the Palestinian resistance at the same time that the fascist Israeli government is escalating its assassination raids, killings, mass incarceration, home demolitions, land confiscation, and settler pogroms while passing laws to strip Palestinian prisoners of their nationality and kill them behind bars. Despite the wide condemnation and revulsion of the Palestinian people toward the Aqaba meeting and normalization with fascists to suppress the resistance, the PA is implementing its policies.

This comes in advance of a follow-up meeting scheduled in Sharm al-Sheikh in the coming days in order to further sharpen the knife of PA and Arab reactionary regime normalization with the occupier against the Palestinian people and their growing resistance throughout occupied Palestine, particularly in the West Bank and behind prison bars.

It must be noted that this is not an aberration; instead, it reflects the purpose for which the PA security forces were created, not to provide security to the Palestinian people but to their colonizer. The PA is funded, trained and directed by the United States, which provides $4 billion annually in military aid to the Israeli occupation, the European Union, and other imperialist powers that provide constant support to colonialism at the expense of the Palestinian people.

This is not an isolated incident. It follows upon the imprisonment by the PA of Basil al-Araj and his comrades; Al-Araj was later assassinated by the occupation as he fought back until the last moment. Even though the PA originally claimed to be “protecting” Al-Araj and his comrades — even as they launched a hunger strike for their release — it pursued criminal charges against them which continued even after Al-Araj’s assassination.

Palestinian activist and struggler against corruption Nizar Banat was assassinated by Palestinian Authority security forces on 24 June 2021 as they invaded his home in al-Khalil. Banat was a tireless advocate of the Palestinian and Arab resistance who was targeted by PA security forces after demanding the PA’s accountability for its ongoing collaboration with the Israeli occupation.

Palestinian liberated prisoner Omar Nayef Zayed, who escaped from occupation prisons in 1990 and made his way to Bulgaria, where he lived for 22 years. The Israeli occupation sought to extradite him from Bulgaria in 2016 and he took refuge in the Palestinian Authority’s embassy, where rather than being given security, he was repeatedly subjected to pressure about his situation. On 26 February 2016, he was suddenly found dead outside the embassy, having plunged to the ground from a great height.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat and his comrades Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, Majdi Rimawi, Hamdi Qur’an and Basil al-Asmar, along with longtime Fateh struggler Fuad Shobaki, were imprisoned by the PA in Jericho prison — where they were held under foreign guard that included U.S., British, Canadian and Turkish forces — from 2002 until 2006, when occupation forces invaded Jericho prison and abducted all of them. Today, all six remain political prisoners of the Israeli occupation, a crime in which the PA was and remains fully complicit.

The Palestinian people and their resistance, including the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, inside Palestine and in exile and diaspora, are the representatives of the Palestinian people — not the so-called “Authority” that derives its power from an alliance with imperialism, Zionism and Arab reactionary regimes. Freeing all of the Palestinian political prisoners in Palestinian Authority jails is part and parcel of the demand to liberate all Palestinian political prisoners in Zionist, imperialist and reactionary jails — on the road to the liberation of Palestine. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! 

International Women’s Day: Palestinian women prisoners on the front lines of the liberation struggle

On International Women’s Day 2023, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Palestinian women, on the front lines of the liberation struggle, and demands the liberation of the 29 Palestinian women jailed behind occupation bars. Palestinian women prisoners — and all Palestinian women — are the samidaat, the steadfast ones who refuse to give up or back down despite all circumstances of repression and colonization.

On this International Women’s Day we also extend a special salute to Leena Jawabreh Abu Ghoulmeh, liberated today and returning home to her beloved family — including her young daughters Natalie and Naya — and her friends and comrades.

Leena Abu Ghoulmeh welcomed home today, 8 March 2023.

Palestinian women struggle on a daily basis for national and social liberation throughout all fields of activity, from educating the next generation of Palestinians to direct participation in the fields of armed resistance. Like Palestinian women as a whole, the Palestinian women prisoners reflect all of these sectors of Palestinian society: students, activists, organizers, parliamentarians, journalists, health workers, farmers, laborers, mothers, sisters, daughters, aunts, strugglers, freedom fighters.

As former Palestinian prisoners and Bir Zeit University students Layan Kayed, Elia Abu Hijleh, Ruba Assi and Shatha Tawil said two years ago on International Women’s Day, “Our battle is united, as we are all fighting oppression on the basis of gender, fighting class exploitation and fascist colonialism and foremost among which is the occupation on our land…For all Palestinian women, we believe that our social struggle is an inherent part of the struggle of our people, and for the liberation of land and people, we sacrifice, struggle and bring forth strugglers.”

It cannot be forgotten that International Women’s Day is International Working Women’s Day, a day rooted in working class women’s struggles. Palestinian women are workers, farmers and strugglers, working inside and outside the home to sustain and uplift Palestinian society in defiance of Zionism and imperialism. Today, we salute the Palestinian women workers, inside Palestine and everywhere in exile and diaspora, who confront super-exploitation, harassment, violence, police repression and exploitation on a daily basis, including the Palestinian working women locked behind bars. It has always been the Palestinians of the popular classes, including Palestinian women, who form the basis of the resistance and the prisoners’ movement.

Over 75 Years of Repression and Revolution

Since 1948, there have been well over 18,000 Palestinian women imprisoned and detained by Israeli occupation and Zionist colonialism. These include Palestinian women in Jerusalem, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Palestinian women holding Israeli citizenship in occupied Palestine ’48. Outside Palestine, Palestinian women in exile and diaspora have been denied their right to return to Palestine for over 75 years yet continue to struggle, facing racism, political repression, criminalization, deportation and imprisonment. Dalal Mughrabi, the Palestinian resistance fighter, is one of the earliest of the hundreds of bodies of the martyrs who continues to be held in the infamous “numbers cemeteries” of the occupation, the target of the International Campaign to Liberate the Bodies of the Martyrs. From the earliest days of Zionist colonialism, Palestinian women have been expelled from their homes and targeted for gender and sexual violence and repression on multiple levels, their very capacity to reproduce and raise their children labeled as an unacceptable threat to the racist Zionist settler-colonial project.

Samidoun Netherlands marches in Rotterdam to free Israa Jaabis and all Palestinian prisoners.

The 29 Palestinian women prisoners include one administrative detainee, Raghad al-Fani, jailed without charge or trial, among 1,000 total administrative detainees, two minor girls, six mothers deprived of their families and children, and 15 sick prisoners. Israa Jaabis, from Jerusalem, faces some of the most severe health conditions inside occupation bars, as she has been burned over 70% of her body, with fingers amputated, and she relies on her fellow women prisoners for assistance with the activities of daily living. She requires at least four more surgeries, which have been rejected by the prison administration, part of the systematic policy of medical neglect that forms another aspect of torture and slow killing. In the past year, Saadia Farajallah Matar, Palestinian mother, lost her life behind bars, another casualty of this deadly policy.

Women Confront the Intensified Attacks on Palestinian Prisoners

Today, the Palestinian women prisoners are subjected to a new onslaught, side by side with the male prisoners, under the auspices of the fascist Ben Gvir policy that seeks to target the prisoners as living symbols of resistance and steadfastness. In particular, they have faced in recent months, the imposition of new cameras throughout the prison yard, denying the women prisoners privacy, especially from male guards; physical attacks and brutality during “inspections” of the prison rooms; denial of family visits and isolation; interrogation under brutal methods of torture; solitary confinement; isolating Palestinian women with Israeli Jewish “criminal” prisoners in a deliberate attempt to foster mistreatment and abuse; confiscating books and denying their entry; medical neglect and mistreatment; transfers on the “bosta,” a painful and difficult experience characterized by mistreatment and physical pain; denial of access to education, including high school exams. Of course, all of these poor conditions of confinement are an attempt to break the resistance and steadfastness of the Palestinian women prisoners that continue to fail.

The Collectif Palestine Vaincra out on the streets for 8 March in Toulouse, France

In January 2023, the Palestinian women prisoners were subjected to a new attack in Damon prison, beaten by invading prison guards and subjected to collective punishment, especially after they made and raised a banner in the prison yards declaring, “Not bread or water, we want our freedom!” Yasmine Shaaban, the representative of the women prisoners, was thrown in solitary confinement and multiple Palestinian women prisoners were barred from the “canteen” (prison store) and family visits for a month.

Damon prison, where the women prisoners are held, was previously a stable for animals, is located in occupied Palestine ’48 — in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and making it even more difficult for Palestinian women’s family members to visit them. All visits are subjected to an arbitrary permit regime which is often obstructed by the Israeli occupation regime.

Palestinian Women Prisoners in Resistance

Of course, Palestinian women prisoners are among the over 4,750 total political prisoners, but Palestinian women are broadly affected by the mass incarceration of Palestinian men as well. Palestinian women are the mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, lovers and friends of Palestinian male prisoners. They make homes for themselves and their children, denied access to their husbands and fathers. They lead the movement outside prison to highlight the names, faces, voices and stories of all Palestinian prisoners struggling for liberation.

Despite all forms of attack and repression, the Palestinian women prisoners continue to resist and to lead the resistance, toward national and social liberation. In April 1970, imprisoned Palestinian women at Neve Tirza prison launched one of the earliest collective hunger strikes of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement when they refused food for nine days. They demanded access to women’s sanitary supplies as well as an end to beatings and solitary confinement. Palestinian women have joined all of the prisoners’ general hunger strikes and protest actions, while strikes led by women prisoners in 1985, 2004 and 2019 that inspired global women’s solidarity. Despite the denial of formal education by the Israeli colonial regime, Palestinian women prisoners developed revolutionary self-education for all prisoners, expanding their knowledge and commitment to struggle.

Palestinian women prisoners are not alone; they struggle alongside fellow women political prisoners in the Philippines, Turkey, India, Egypt, the United States and around the world. Their imprisonment is an international crime: it is funded, backed and supported by the diplomatic, military, economic and political backing given to Israel by the imperialist powers, including the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and the European Union states. Palestinian women also confront the role of the Palestinian Authority’s “security cooperation” regime under Oslo, the arbitrary arrests and repression of Palestinian resistance by PA forces, and the normalization politics and repressive attacks of reactionary Arab regimes.

On International Women’s Day and throughout the year, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes the Palestinian women prisoners, their steadfastness, resistance and continuing revolution despite torture, abuse, mistreatment and violent repression by the Israeli occupation regime. We urge all women’s organizations and supporters of Palestine to highlight the struggle of the Palestinian women prisoners, escalate the campaigns to boycott and isolate the occupation, its institutions and complicit corporations, and resist with all Palestinian prisoners as they confront fascism with their bodies and their lives. Palestinian women prisoners are on the front lines of struggle for national and social liberation, and we urge their immediate release, the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners — and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Action Campaigns – What You Can Do?

  • On a monthly basis, Samidoun Paris Banlieue sets up a table at an outdoor market in the Paris region of France, where they not only provide education and information about the Palestinian cause, but collect dozens of letters to send to the women prisoners in Damon. Samidoun Paris Banlieue maintains a list of all the women and girls in Damon along with their biographies to ensure they all receive letters and support from internationalists.To organize your own table, bring pens, envelopes and paper (and sometimes stamps!) to send a letter to a particular woman prisoner, and mail to: Damon Prison, POB 98 Daliat El-Carmel, Israel
  • Alkarama, the Palestinian Women’s Mobilization, organizes in Spain with women’s and feminist organizations. They participate in women’s campaigns against colonialism, forging alliances with women’s movements across Europe and throughout the Arab region, to highlight Palestinian women prisoners and all women’s struggles.
  • In Charleroi, Belgium, Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine and Vie Feminine organized a workshop for members of Vie Feminine, students, and girls about Palestinian women and the prisoners’ movement. Participants wrote letters to severely injured Palestinian mother, the imprisoned Israa Jaabis, expressing their solidarity. This comes after the Plate-forme published a book in French on Palestinian women prisoners, SUMUD.

  • The International Women’s Alliance organizes anti-imperialist women around the world. It launches joint campaigns for the freedom of women prisoners in the Philippines, Palestine and around the world as part of building a global anti-imperialist struggle in the women’s movement, with events, actions and educational sessions.

Take Action to Support Palestinian Women Prisoners

Here are some actions that you can take to join the campaign and spread it in your local area and community!

We join together to call for action and support for imprisoned Palestinian women: 

  • Boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel and isolation of the Zionist regime internationally
  • Ending all military and economic aid, military transactions, joint projects and direct funding to the Israeli occupation regime by governments around the world.
  • Challenging “normalization” programs that aim to legitimize Israeli occupation.
  • Organizing to build direct links of solidarity with Palestinian women’s organizations and movements, to ensure that they will not be isolated from their global community of support despite all attempts by the Israeli occupation.

Writing Solidarity Letters

Palestinian prisoners and detainees repeatedly report that receiving letters from supporters around the world boosts morale and provides them with support. Israel wants to isolate Palestinian student leaders by keeping them behind bars, and letters help to break their isolation. This is a simple activity that can be done with physical distancing or combined with other prisoner support efforts. Contact us at samidoun@samidoun.net for a physical mailing address, or send us your letters — Samidoun in Occupied Palestine will share directly with the families and lawyers of detained women. 

Adopt a Prisoner

Share the stories of Palestinian women detainees with your community by “adopting” a prisoner. Share their stories, write letters to them and include their name and photo in your activities. Please contact us at samidoun@samidoun.net for even more info on your organization’s adopted prisoner. 

Boycott Israel!

Join the movement for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel. Highlight the complicity of corporations like Hewlett-Packard and the continuing involvement of G4S in Israeli policing and prisons. Build a campaign to boycott Israeli goods, impose a military embargo on Israel, or organize around the academic and cultural boycott of Israel.

Protest, Rally and Organize

Organize a protest or direct action! The United States, Canada, EU states, Australia and Britain, among others, provide ongoing military, economic, diplomatic and political support to Israel to continue the repression of Palestinian women. Protest on your campus or in your city, highlighting government and media complicity, or act and organize at Israeli embassies, corporations and institutions in your area. Ad hacks, postering and other outdoor actions – especially near an Israeli embassy or consulate – can draw a significant amount of attention to the Palestinian women prisoners and the Palestinian cause at this critical time.

Share These Stories on Social Media

You can support Palestinian women on social media as well. Use the prisoner photos above on your individual or group social media pages, on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. Take a selfie or a group photo with our posters or just post these images with a message of your own.

We recommend the following resources for more information on Palestinian women prisoners:

  • Film, Tell Your Tale, Little Bird, Dir: Arab Loutfi, 2007:

Brussels: No to normalization and racism, yes to return and liberation!

The Palestinian people today are facing a multifaceted attack inside and outside occupied Palestine. Palestinians are under siege, confronting daily killings, invasions, home demolitions, bombings of Gaza, land confiscation, mass arrests, settlement building and denial of the right to return for over 75 years. This reality means that it is more critical than ever to organize for justice in Palestine on the basis of clear principles that uphold the right of the Palestinian people to resist, to return, and to liberate their land from the river to the sea.

The blatant fascist rhetoric and actions of Israeli officials like Itamar Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Benjamin Netanyahu has been accompanied by the emergence of “liberal Zionist” protests in Tel Aviv and throughout occupied Palestine ’48, most of which have taken the Israeli flag as their symbol. It appears that multiple Western organizations ostensibly concerned with justice in Palestine have interpreted this moment of crisis as a time to call, rather than for greater clarity on the principles of anti-Zionism and Palestinian liberation, for some sort of “common front” with Zionists opposed to Netanyahu. We want to make clear: now, more than ever, our principles remain – liberation, not normalization!

Here in Belgium, we have most recently witnessed this on Thursday, 2 March, when multiple organizations, including the Association Belgo-Palestinienne (ABP), CNCD 11.11.11, Broederlijk Delen, Intal, Palestina Solidariteit, Viva Salud and others, held an event with a Palestinian speaker and an Israeli speaker, entitled, “Palestine/Israel, are we close to the end game?” While the name of this event is in itself problematic and offensive, as 75 years of colonialism are not a mere game played on the land of occupied Palestine, the problems with the event go far beyond the name. Palestinians, the people of the land struggling for liberation from colonization and ongoing Nakba, are placed in a “dialogue” with Israelis, even critical Israelis, advocating for “two democratic states” – in other words, apartheid as a “solution.”

Rather than ramping up the struggle to expose the racist and illegitimate nature of the Zionist settler colonial occupation of Palestine, this type of event only serves to normalize “Israel” as a state. Once again, the atrocities of colonization are recognized only in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Jerusalem, while the ongoing Nakba, colonialism and even apartheid remain unrecognized and undiscussed.

One speaker, a former Israeli occupation soldier proposed nothing but colonization with a “human face” by promoting the “two-state” solution, in other words, recognizing as legitimate the ethnic cleansing against the Palestinian people since 1948 and the theft of the lands of historic Palestine.  Even the Palestinian speaker who was invited to this event is one who repeatedly publishes work in Zionist publications and publicly critiques the Palestinian resistance. What people who live under occupation and struggle for their right to self-determination could accept such an iniquitous and violent situation? Why do organizations that claim to be left-wing find it legitimate to organize an event with the executioners of the people they say they support? Would we accept these circumstances in anti-racist struggles or struggles against sexism and sexual violence?

During this event, the Palestinians who spoke out about the normalizing framework of the event, criticized the speakers and upheld the Palestinian resistance were told to be quiet. They were lectured to about the difficulties the Israeli speaker has faced due to Zionist harassment. They were treated in a fundamentally racist manner, in which their experiences and analyses as Palestinians were degraded and dismissed. In fact, one organizer demanded the three Palestinians who spoke out leave, when they said that if you want them to leave to call the police, that organizer then said that they would (although no police were called). Another person told the Palestinians speaking out – including Palestinian refugees exiled from their homeland and denied their right to return – that the priority was to “listen to Palestinians in Palestine.”

This racist approach came side by side with the event’s approach to the role of Belgium and the European Union in Palestine. Rather than recognizing the destructive role of European powers in occupied Palestine for over a century, European sponsorship of Zionist colonialism, European persecution of Palestinians and European labeling of Palestinian resistance as “terrorist,” this framework attempts to situate the imperialist European powers as naive forces requiring “education.” The European Union is a partner in the ongoing dispossession, state terror and Nakba directed against the Palestinian people, while officially marketing the illusion of “two states” and the so-called “peace process” of Madrid, Oslo and beyond, which has brought nothing but more war, devastation and colonialism to Palestinians. In its promotion of “peace,” the EU seeks instead the surrender of the Palestinian people. Belgium, like France, Germany and all of the imperialist countries is part of the problem and not part of the solution!  In fact, this approach seeks to use the Palestinian cause as a means to stake out positions in Belgian and European politics – all of which fall far short of what is actually needed for Palestinian liberation today.

It is the Palestinian resistance that continues to provide a path for true justice and liberation for Palestine and the region. This can never be obtained through normalization or an alliance with “liberal Zionism” but through the defeat of the Zionist project in its entirety. Despite all odds, mass imprisonment, executions and violent attacks, the Palestinian people continue to resist. The Palestinian resistance and its armed struggle represent true hope not only for the Palestinian people, but for all who struggle to be free of imperialism and colonialism.

The colonizers have their alliances of racism, imperialism, exploitation and domination. We know that the Palestinian struggle is, as Ghassan Kanafani noted, “not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary… as a cause of the exploited and oppressed masses in our era.” We need a revolutionary Palestine solidarity movement that builds an internationalist alliance with all of the peoples of the world resisting colonialism, Zionism and imperialism, upholds the Palestinian resistance, and struggles for a liberated Palestine from the river to the sea.

We can never achieve this through normalization. We will not be silent and speechless in the face of attempts to redefine the Palestinian struggle or push us back to the path of the failed “two-state” project, especially as our people face massacres, home demolitions and settler pogroms with even stronger resistance. As Palestinians in exile and diaspora, Arabs and internationalists in the liberation struggle, we are committed to confronting and defeating normalization as a tool of imperialism and Zionism. We call upon all organizations that seek justice for Palestine to also take a clear position and reject normalization, reject Zionism, and firmly act against all manifestations of racism against Palestinians and Arabs, particularly those expressed by official representatives and/or employees of these institutions.

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

Samidoun Brussels

Khader Adnan enters 32nd day of hunger strike for freedom

Palestinian prisoner Khader Adnan enters the 32nd day of his hunger strike for freedom on 8 March 2023. Adnan, 44, is married to Randa and the father of nine children, the youngest of which is one and a half years old and the oldest 14 years old. He is a former long-term hunger striker who has won his freedom on multiple occasions through lengthy public confrontations with the occupier behind bars. On Tuesday, 7 March, the Israeli occupation military court was scheduled to hold a hearing in his case, which was postponed for the fourth time to 4 April in what appears to be another clear attempt to break his hunger strike.

Adnan, from Arraba, Jenin, is currently held in the Al-Jalameh detention center, where he refuses any medical examinations or supplements despite facing a continuous deterioration in his health. He is experiencing pain throughout his body and blurred vision, said Tamer Za’anin, the spokesperson for Muhjat al-Quds Foundation. He is frequently transferred from the prison to the military court in the “bosta,” putting further pressure on his body, and roused from his isolation cell for “inspection,” despite the fact that his belongings have already been confiscated.

He launched his hunger strike immediately after his arrest on 5 February. He is being held in isolation in harsh, cold winter conditions without blankets to protect him from the weather in retaliation for his hunger strike.

Khader Adnan has been detained 12 times by occupation forces and spent 8 years in Israeli jails, mostly in administrative detention — imprisonment without charge or trial — or accused of membership in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement. In order to avoid another confrontation with Adnan over administrative detention, the Israeli occupation has brought “charges” against him in the military courts — this time, for membership in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement and for “incitement” for his public speeches and political activity. In short, he is being charged for public Palestinian political expression while he conducts a hunger strike, putting his body and life on the line for freedom.

He has launched five previous hunger strikes, including four to reject administrative detention, and participated in collective hunger strikes. His first hunger strike was in 2004, when he went on strike for 25 days to protest his isolation. Eight years later, in 2012, his 66-day hunger strike captured the attention of people in Palestine and around the world, as he challenged his administrative detention with no charge or trial and won his freedom. Adnan’s hunger strike helped to kick off a wave of individual and collective hunger strikes, particularly those challenging administrative detention. There are currently approximately 900 Palestinians jailed in administrative detention out of 4,750 total Palestinian prisoners.

In 2015, he again went on strike against his detention for 56 days and again in 2018 for 58 days. In 2021, he was once again arrested and ordered to administrative detention, and he went on hunger strike for 25 days. In each of these occasions, he was able to obtain his freedom and confront the jailer, breaking the chains of arbitrary administrative detention.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses our strongest solidarity with Khader Adnan and all Palestinian prisoners struggling for freedom. We call for his immediate release and the release of all imprisoned Palestinians in Zionist, Palestinian Authority and imperialist jails. Khader Adnan is a symbol of Palestinian courage, steadfastness and commitment to the struggle for freedom; he has become an international symbol of prisoners’ resistance. We will organize until the prisoners are free — and until Palestine is free, from the river to the sea! 

Boycott Tour demands an end to Toulouse-Tel Aviv “twinning” relationship

On Saturday, 4 March, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra — a member of the Samidoun Network — organized a Boycott Tour in the city center of Toulouse, France, bringing together several dozen people to raise awareness in Toulouse about the campaign to bring an end to the “twinning” or “sister city” relationship with apartheid Tel Aviv. The Boycott Tour left from the Jeanne d’Arc metro station through the busy weekend shopping streets of Toulouse, displaying Palestinian flags, banners and placards calling for a boycott of Israel and and an end to the shameful cooperation between the city and the capital of Israeli apartheid and colonialism.

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Outside of the Primark store, participants chanted in support of the Palestinian people while others distributed leaflets explaining the reasons to bring the “sister city” relationship to an end. An activist from the Collectif Palestine Vaincra said, “Boycotts have always been a weapon against colonialism. We’ve seen this in South Africa, which succeeded in putting an end to apartheid in part thanks to the boycott. Israel, the colonialist and racist entity, is afraid of this powerful people’s weapon! Let’s boycott every day, until the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea!”

Participants continued to walk along rue Alsace-Lorraine, with slogans in French and Arabic, calling for an end to the twinning, the boycott of Israel, and the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. Several passers-by joined in to chant with the demonstrators and show their solidarity with the Palestinian people.

The Boycott Tour continued to the Capitole metro, where the streets were very crowded with outdoor shoppers. Activists from the Collectif Palestine Vaincra spoke in French and Arabic, noting that “Since 1962, Toulouse has been twinned with Tel Aviv, developing sociocultural and economic exchanges with this city. Supporting the twinning of Toulouse with Tel Aviv supports the daily policy of Israel and its successive governments: occupation, massacres, home demolitions, confiscation of land, settlement expansion, arbitrary arrests. Now more than ever, we must mobilize to put an end to this partnership of shame!” The participants continued marching to Toulouse’s city hall, where a member of the Collectif spoke about the decision of the mayor of Barcelona, Ada Colau, to suspend institutional relations with Israel, including twinning with Tel Aviv. He also recalled the city of Lille interrupting its cooperation with occupied Safad in 2014.

“In order to end this shameful cooperation, we will need to rely on the solidarity of the people of this city and not on the officials of the municipality of Toulouse,” he said. “Indeed, Mayor Jean-Luc Moudenc is an unwavering supporter of the Israeli occupation. As we did in 2020 during the municipal elections, let us make this a central issue so that our city stops supporting the crimes against the Palestinian people in our name!”

Participants in an anti-war march also joined the tour as it moved down rue Alsace-Lorraine to the Monoprix. Another member of the Collectif said, “Since the beginning of the year, the Israeli occupation army and settlers have murdered nearly 70 Palestinians during military attacks, as in Jenin and Nablus, while settler pogroms have run rampant in the village of Huwwara. This unleashed colonial violence continues the ongoing attack on the Palestinian people for over 75 years. Israel is a settler colonial project organizing an ethnic cleansing against the Paletinian people with fierce repression in a failed attempt to break their resistance. Today, the Israeli far right is in power and its crimes are permitted thanks to the unceasing support of Western powers, which continue their strategic cooperation with this apartheid state. The twinning between Toulouse and Tel Aviv is an example of this cooperation. For us, it is essential to put an end to it as well as to any form of cooperation with Israel.

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The Boycott Tour came to a conclusion at the Esquirol metro station with a call to develop and intensify the campaign against the Toulouse-Tel Aviv twinning. It was clear at this third Boycott Tour that solidarity with Palestine is alive more than ever in Toulouse! We work to build this solidarity to provide meaningful support to the Palestinian resistance fighting colonialism, occupation and apartheid. Thank you to everyone who participated and those who showed their support. The Collectif Palestine Vaincra regularly organizes actions and various initiatives to support the Palestinian people in Toulouse. Do not hesitate to contact us  if you wish to participate and to follow us on our various social networks (Facebook ,  Twitter ,  Instagram ,  TikTok  and  Telegram ).

Over 30 Years: Pre-Oslo Prisoners — Profiles of Juma’a Adam, Raed al-Sa’adi, Ibrahim and Mohammed Ighbariya

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network is providing the materials for the third week of the educational campaign, Over 30 Years: Pre-Oslo Prisoners.
Read the previous two sets of materials:

This week, we will highlight the Palestinian prisoners: Juma’a Adam, Raed al-Sa’adi and Ibrahim and Mohammed Ighbariya. You can print the posters below, hang them in your cities and communities, and share this link to highlight the struggle of long-held Palestinian prisoners for justice and liberation.

This campaign highlights the “deans of the prisoners,” a term used by Palestinians to describe those who have been held in Israeli occupation jails for over 20 years continuously. Over the years, many Palestinian prisoners were liberated through prisoner exchange deals or other forms of political concession, such as those released in 1995 after the Oslo Accords; the prisoner exchange deal imposed by Hezbollah in 2004 with which 400 Palestinian prisoners were freed; the Wafa al-Ahrar prisoner exchange in 2011, where 1027 Palestinian prisoners were liberated in exchange for the release of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit captured by the resistance; or in 2013 when the occupation announced the release of 104 Palestinian prisoners coinciding with the return of the Palestinian Authority to negotiations and the continuation of its security coordination with the occupier under the terms of Oslo and its corollaries.

This campaign aims to ensure that these veteran Palestinian prisoners are not only not forgotten but highlighted and central to the prisoners’ struggle and the Palestinian liberation movement as a whole. Contact us at samidoun@samidoun.net to let us know about actions and events in your area.

Juma’a Ibrahim Adam

Palestinian prisoner Juma’a Ibrahim Adam was born on 9 March 1969 in Sweileh, Jordan, and lived northwest of the city of Jericho, occupied Palestine, in the town of al-Dyouk. He is one of six brothers, and his father died while he was still a young child in 1972. While imprisoned by the Israeli occupation, he lost his mother, and the prison administration did not allow him to see her before her death or to attend her funeral. “The most difficult and painful situation that I went through during my time in prison was the death of my mother,” he said.

He has been repeatedly and systematically denied family visits. His one brother in Palestine has been denied permission to visit him on the basis of “security,” while the rest of his brothers are in exile from Palestine. Within the prison walls, Juma’a has dedicated himself to education, completing high school and undergraduate studies, obtaining a bachelor’s degree from the Hebrew University in political science. He is now studying remotely for a master’s degree in political science, specializing in Israeli affairs, from Al-Quds University.

He recently entered his 35th year in the Zionist occupation prisons, one of the “old prisoners” seized before the Oslo agreement. He was arrested on 31 October 1988 at the age of 19 for participating in the Palestinian resistance, specifically for throwing Molotov cocktails at a bus of occupation soldiers, along with fellow prisoner Mahmoud Abu Kharabish and former prisoner Ahmed al-Takrouri. After this resistance action, which came at the height of the great popular Intifada in occupied Palestine, the occupation army closed all areas of the West Bank and imposed a siege on Jericho, searching the homes of Palestinians house by house. Occupation forces destroyed the homes of the imprisoned resistance fighters, including the Takrouri family home, the home of his uncle Abdel-Rahim Moamen Takrouri, and the home of Juma’a Adam’s grandmother, where he was raised from childhood.

After his arrest and under interrogation, Juma’a and his companions were subjected to severe torture. “We were tortured sadistically and brutally from the moment we were arrested, and we were threatened with murder at the hands of soldiers and interrogators for a period of 70 days in al-Moskobiyeh,” the notorious interrogation center. All this was done to force them to confess to the charges against them. The occupation courts issued a life sentence against them.

He had been arrested previously in December 1986 on charges of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at occupation soldiers and sentenced to 22 months in occupation prisons. He was released in July 1988 and seized again months later for his role in the resistance. Juma’a Adam is today held in Hadarim prison, and as a result of the long years he has spent behind occupation bars, his health has deteriorated and he suffers from blood disease. He was transferred to the Ramle prison clinic for examinations more than once, and the occupation did not provide him with follow-up or proper treatment.

Raed Mohammad Al-Sa’adi

Palestinian prisoner Raed Mohammed al-Sa’adi was born in Silat al-Harthiyya, west of Jenin, on 20 February 1966, and he is today 57 years old. He is the longest-held prisoner from Jenin governorate. He was arrested for the first time when he was 18 in 1984 and imprisoned for six months for raising the Palestinian flag on the electricity poles in Silat al-Harthiyya.

He lived underground for several years, especially since the beginning of the 1987 Intifada. The occupation arrested his mother and detained her for four months, and then several of his siblings, in order to pressure him to surrender. Finally, disguised occupation soldiers dressed as Palestinians seized him when he went to visit his family home to check on them on 28 August 1989. He was accused of belonging to the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine and carrying out resistance operations against soldiers and settlers. He was sentenced to two life sentences and 20 years behind bars.

During his years behind bars, he finished high school and obtained a bachelor’s degree and he is currently pursuing his master’s degree. He has been repeatedly denied family visits under the pretext of “security” violations, including one of his brothers who was forbidden visits for 12 consecutive years. He has lost a number of his family members while imprisoned, including his grandmother in 1999, his grandfather in 2001, his uncle Abdullah in 2008, his older brother Imad in 201 and his mother, Hajja Umm Imad in 2014. She was eagerly awaiting her son’s freedom until her last days. Several years ago, his father lost his sight and is no longer able to see.

Al-Sa’adi was supposed to obtain his freedom as part of an agreement with the Palestinian Authority in late 2013, but the occupation reneged on its commitment, releasing three batches of long-term prisoners but not the fourth, including 29 Palestinian prisoners jailed since before Oslo, including al-Sa’adi.

Today, Raed is held in Ramon prison, after he was recently transferred from Gilboa prison. As a result of the lengthy torture he was subjected to and his continuous transfer from one prison to another, he suffers from several diseases, especially heart disease, blood pressure, intestinal disease and stomach ulcers, and he has had several surgeries inside occupation prisons.

Ibrahim and Mohammed Ighbariya

Palestinian prisoners and brothers, Ibrahim Hassan Ighbariya and Mohammed Hassan Ighbariya, are some of the longest-held Palestinian prisoners from occupied Palestine ’48. Ibrahim, known as “Abu Jihad,” is 57 years old, while his brother Mohammed, “Abu Abdullah,” is 55 years old, from Umm al-Fahm. They have been detained since 26 February 1992 and have been sentenced to life imprisonment on charges of carrying out a resistance operation in an occupation military camp that led to the death of three occupation soldiers. They were arrested two weeks later along with fellow prisoner Yahya Ighbariya.

On 28 April 2016, Ibrahim and Mohammed’s father, Hajj Hassan Mahmoud Ighbariya, died at the age of 77. Throughout his life, their father joined all activities in support of the prisoners to call for the release of his sons. He urged their inclusion in all releases and prisoner exchanges negotiated by the Palestinian forces. In 2011, Israeli officials refused to include the brothers in the “Wafa al-Ahrar” prisoner exchange. Like other Palestinian prisoners from occupied Palestine ’48, the occupation refuses to include the brothers in exchanges with the Palestinian resistance, labeling their imprisonment “an Israeli matter,” not a Palestinian matter, because they carry Israeli citizenship. (Despite this frequent excuse used to keep Palestinian prisoners from ’48 behind bars, they face the same conditions of confinement as other Palestinians; now, they face the stripping of their citizenship upon their release, rendering them stateless, part of the fascist assault on the prisoners’ movement.)

Mohammed completed his education inside occupation prisons and obtained a master’s degree in politics and international relations in 2005. He has published many articles and books behind bars, including “Leaders’ Guide to the Art of Leadership,” “The Arabs Inside: Between the Illusion of the Knesset and the Mirage of Equality,” and “Embers in the Darkness of the Prisons.”

Ibrahim proposed marriage and is now engaged to fellow prisoner Mona Qa’adan, from the village of Arraba, Jenin, the sister of Tariq Qa’adan, a leader of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine and a Palestinian prisoner held in Megiddo prison. Mona Qa’adan spent more than 5 years behind bars in Israeli occupation jails on the grounds of her activism and involvement in women’s organizations in the occupied West Bank of Palestine.

The two brothers have been moved from prison to prison on many occasions over the years and are frequently separated in order to increase their suffering. Their older brother, Mahmoud, died while they were in prison, and the occupation refused to allow them to see him before or during his funeral.

Poster of Juma’a Ibrahim Adam

Poster of Raed Mohammed Al-Sa’adi

Poster of Ibrahim and Mohammed Ighbariya

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