Join us to mark Palestinian Land Day and call out the BC Government and corporations complicit in war crimes profiteering off Israeli apartheid wines.
Major international and Israeli human right groups, including Amnesty International, have determined that Israel is committing the crime of apartheid. Yet the BC government insists to carry Israeli wines in publicly owned BC liquor stores, even though most are linked to the illegal Israeli settlement enterprise.
The wines in question are either from the Golan Heights Winery and its joint venture the Galil Winery; or from the Israeli Teperberg Winery, which proudly displays a map on its website showing vineyards in occupied Palestinian territory.
More info: http://cpavancouver.org/boycottisraeliwines-campaign/
This event is taking place on the unceded and occupied territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil-Waututh) and xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) peoples. The organizers stand in full solidarity and support of Indigenous sovereignty and self-determination and with the ongoing movements to defend land, water and Indigenous peoples from plunder and settler colonialism.
Join us this Friday March 17th as we take to the streets to condemn the latest massacres in Jenin and Nablus, honor our martyrs, defend the Palestinian right to resist & mobilize as part of the International Week of Action to Liberate the Remains of Palestinian Martyrs.
NYC Rally In Solidarity With Jenin • Nablus • Huwarra • Palestine • Friday March 17th 2023 • 5:30 pm • Outside the United Nations
Over 150 organizations have endorsed the campaign and the week of action, which is already underway, taking place from March 11th-18th. In recent days, actions have been held in Palestine and Germany, with seminars taking place throughout the week online in Arabic with English translation, featuring the parents and family members of martyrs whose remains are withheld by the zionist occupation.
There are over 250 Palestinian martyrs whose bodies are held in the “numbers cemeteries,” where Palestinians are buried with numbers, rather than their names. And over 130 Palestinian martyrs’ bodies are currently being held in the occupation’s morgues.
Join us this Friday as we bring this campaign and the demands of the martyr’s families to the streets of NYC once again, demand the immediate return of our martyrs remains to their families so that they are able to bury them with dignity. We hope that more organizations across the US and around the world will join the campaign in the coming days by tuning in to the remaining seminars, holding events, posting on social media and bringing the campaign to our communities and campuses.
To sign on and endorse the campaign, and for more information on the events taking place this week and resources, check out @samidounnetwork’s recent posts or visit their campaign page online at samidoun.net or at the link below:
bit.ly/4012uk9
Join the International People’s Tribunal on US Imperialism: Sanctions, Blockades, Coercive Economic Measures a hearing on Sunday, March 19, on the effects and impacts of these policies and practices on the people of Syria. We will hear testimony and reports from expert and direct witnesses, with questions and discussion from our jurors.
The Syria hearing will take place on Sunday, March 19 at 10:30 AM EST/7:30 AM PST/2:30 PM UTC/5:30 PM Damascus. Register to listen online: https://bit.ly/syriahearing
NOTE: We had previously scheduled our Gaza, Palestine, hearing on Monday, March 20. Due to the health of speakers, this hearing has been postponed and will be rescheduled in the future. We will provide updates when the date is set.
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.
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.
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
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
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
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.”
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.
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!
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!
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.
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 Banlieuesets 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:
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!
09.03.2023
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
