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Against the EU-Israel Association Council: Samidoun letter to MEPs, gatherings in Brussels and Gothenburg

Photo: Hbaash Awaad

On 3 October, the “EU-Israel Association Council” convened in Brussels, Belgium, with the participation of 27 European foreign ministers, EU foreign affairs head Josep Borrell, and the Israeli Intelligence Minister Elizar Stern, with prime minister Yair Lapid appearing over video call. This was the first meeting of this council in 10 years after meetings were suspended over settlement expansion. Read our statement calling for an end to the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which rewards the occupation for its war crimes and crimes against humanity with preferential trade status and EU funding, here.

In line with our statement, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network sent a letter to all Members of European Parliament in protest of the meeting. In the letter, Samidoun draws attention to the letter of 47 MEPs which called for the meeting to be cancelled due to ongoing Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people, as well as the press conference and letter by the National and Islamic Forces in Gaza, occupied Palestine, demanding an end to the EU-Israel Association Council.

The Samidoun letter focuses on the situation of Palestinian prisoners, particularly the 30 Palestinian prisoners currently on hunger strike to end administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. It draws particular attention to the case of French-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri, an EU citizen currently on hunger strike and held in isolation to end his detention.

Click here to download our letter to all MEPs.

Letter to MEPs on EU-Israel Association

 

Photo: Hbaash Awaad

In Brussels, several organizations, including the Association Belgo-Palestinienne, organized a rally outside the headquarters of the European Commission, with the participation of Samidoun members and others, who shared information about the 29 October March for Return and Liberation from Lumumba Square to the European Parliament, and the Week of Action for Palestinian Liberation.

Earlier, “Free Palestine” graffiti had been sprayed in the vicinity of the EU buildings with slogans highlighting European complicity in Israeli crimes.

In Gothenburg, Sweden, organizations in the Palestine Coordination, including Samidoun Gothenburg, gathered together to send a solidarity message declaring that Lapid and the EU-Israel Association Council are not welcome:

On October 29, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network will join with our comrades in the Masar Badil (Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement), CAPJPO-EuroPalestine, Collectif Palestine Vaincra, Plate-Forme Charleroi-Palestine, Classe Contre Classe, Secours Rouge and many more to march from Lumumba Square to the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. The March for Return and Liberation will begin at 2 pm, calling for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, and including demands to end the EU-Israel Association Agreement and kick the occupation regime out of EU bodies and agreements. This march is the culmination of the Week for Palestinian Liberation in Brussels, from 24-29 October. Join us! 

9 October, NYC: Solidarity With Palestine Action and the Elbit Eight Rally

WHAT: Solidarity With Palestine Action and the Elbit Eight Rally
WHEN: Sun, Oct 09 at 2pm
WHERE: 200 Park Ave, NY, NY, at East 45th St.

Come through and show your support for the activists physically confronting the Zionist war machine

On Monday October 10th eight activists from Palestine Action (@pal_action) known as the #ElbitEight will be facing down the zionist entity’s largest arms manufacturer – Elbit Systems – in the courts as they stand trial on trumped up political charges in the UK for putting their bodies on the line and carrying out direct action protests to disrupt Elbit’s operations and #ShutElbitDown.

In the last 24 hours alone, four activists from Palestine Action shut down a factory for 9 hours after locking themselves to a car at the front gate, in the latest act of confrontation and disruption with the zionist war machine in the UK. From the UK to Palestine the people continue to resist by any means necessary! 🇵🇸

Join us in NYC next Sunday October 9th the day before their trial begins as we take to the streets to stand in solidarity with the #EblitEight and protest against the financial institutions in NYC that are invested in Elbit and profiting off of the ongoing genocide of the Palestine people.

For more info and to receive future updates:
➡️ Follow @pal_action on Twitter and Instagram
➡️ Visit www.palestineaction.org/elbitisguilty

Organized by Samidoun NY/NJ, Within Our Lifetime and the Palestinian Youth Movement

Al Falasteniyeh: New Palestinian media network committed to return and liberation

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes Al Falasteniyeh Media Network, a new Palestinian media initiative that aims to link Palestinians inside occupied Palestine and everywhere in exile and diaspora together with Arab and international liberation movements, with a clear and principled commitment to anti-normalization, return and liberation.

With the slogan, “From the River to the Sea to the World,” Al Falasteniyeh illustrates its commitment to Palestine as an indivisible unit, and the Palestinian people everywhere they are. Among its core principles is a commitment to amplify the voices and narratives of Palestinian prisoners, leaders of the Palestinian resistance locked behind colonial bars and subjected to torture, abuse and isolation. The Media Network will launch on 29 October at the March for Return and Liberation. We urge all to follow and share Al Falasteniyeh on Twitter and Instagram, and share their mission statement below:

Al Falasteniyeh is an independent English and Arabic language media network with in-country Palestinian journalists collaborating with staff around the globe.

Mission

Al Falasteniyeh aims to be an independent Palestinian media network that reports and produces unique creative content on all matters relating to the Palestinian people in Palestine and around the globe.

We wish to develop a contemporary and forward looking news network that uplifts the voices of Palestinians in the world today and resists the racist and oppressive narratives of Western and Zionist mainstream and state sponsored outlets. Our mission is to inform the world of the vast plurality of the Palestinians people, to share the richness of their history, and to highlight the present realities of their resistance and struggle for freedom.

Stance

Our political, ethical, and intellectual allegiance is with Palestinians living under israel occupation Palestine, from the river to sea, struggling for their liberation and seeking justice. Also, with Palestinians around the globe who engage in this struggle and who are striving for return to their homeland. We wish to empower the people of Palestine by spreading awareness, preserving their identity, amplifying their calls for organizing, and documenting their global movements for freedom.

Al Falasteniyeh recognizes and respects comprehensive resistance to occupation, imperialism and colonialism. As a media network we will amplify and highlight the militant, cultural, popular, political resistance of the Palestinian, Arab and international struggle for social and national liberation. We respect the political diversity of our region and will depict that in our programming. We respect the necessity for discussion, debate, and greater understanding.

We stand firmly against normalization with zionist occupation regime and its institutions and will support those struggling against occupation, racism, colonialism and western interventionism.

We reject the false designations and defamation by the occupying state and reactionary regimes that wish to silence the work of organizations working for prisoners rights, workers rights, woman’s right, access to healthcare, judicial rights, and freedom from journalistic oppression in Palestine , the Arab world, and all over the globe. We will expose these deceptions and untruths propagated by zionist media and their false portyal of the Palestinian peoples struggle.

Our network will also be a strong voice for gender equality within our movement and we will actively work against systems of racism, patriarchy and sexism that marginalize and bias within our movement.

We recognize the central role that the younger generations play in our movement and we wish to humbly follow this generation’s energy, vision, and leadership into the future.

End the EU-Israel Association Agreement! #EndAdministrativeDetention

On Monday, 3 October, the EU-“Israel” Association Council convened in Brussels, Belgium, after a gap of 10 years. While the meeting was originally touted as including the participation of Zionist prime minister Yair Lapid — responsible just two months ago for the bombing of Gaza that took the lives of 49 Palestinians, including 17 children — Lapid did not attend the meeting in person, sending Intelligence Minister Elizar Stern and appearing instead over video link. The resumption of the EU-“Israel” Association Council, with the participation of 27 European foreign ministers alongside the occupation officials and EU foreign affairs head Josep Borrell, confirms once again that the European Union serves as a full partner in the Zionist crimes against the Palestinian people.

The resumption of this meeting clearly seems to signify that EU officials aim to bolster Lapid in the upcoming occupation elections. While the EU has paid lip service on various occasions to concern for Palestinian rights, the massive expansion of illegal colonial settlements, the ongoing imprisonment of Palestinians without charge or trial and the extrajudicial assassination and killing of Palestinians, its own memo for the meeting instead prioritizes pressuring Arab regimes to normalize with the occupation, opposes the boycott of Israel and touts “counterterrorism cooperation” — that is, the securitized targeting of Palestinians and Arabs in Europe and in occupied Palestine.

The resumption of the EU-Israel Association Council is particularly egregious, coming as it does while 30 Palestinian prisoners are on hunger strike to end the system of administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial. These 30 prisoners — including French-Palestinian citizen, lawyer Salah Hamouri — are putting their health and lives on the line to demand an end to this injustice. There are currently approximately 743 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention among over 4,600 Palestinian political prisoners in total.

On various occasions, EU representatives have criticized administrative detention. It is clear that Israel’s use of administrative detention is used as a routine practice to repress, silence and isolate Palestinian community leaders and organizers, in violation of international humanitarian and human rights law. Nonetheless, the EU-Israel Association Council proceeded forward, with condemnations of the boycott movement and praise for “counterterror” cooperation, highlighting the EU as a partner in the imprisonment and repression of Palestinians.

Of course, this comes in addition to the Israeli attack on Palestinian human rights and popular organizations, ostensibly condemned by the EU and initiated by Lapid’s government, yet which was not seen as any kind of barrier to resuming the meetings of this Council after 10 years. Not to mention the siege on Gaza for the past 16 years, the August assault on Gaza, the ongoing extrajudicial killings and assassinations, including of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Aqleh, the forced expulsion of thousands of Palestinians in Masafer Yatta, the attacks on holy sites in Jerusalem and throughout Palestine, the settlement construction and forced displacement in the Naqab, and the denial of Palestinian refugees’ right to return for the past 74 years. By launching and reinstituting the Association Council, the EU makes clear that it is fully lined up as a colonial ally of the occupation regime in Palestine.

Of course, this is not a single meeting; the EU-Israel Association Agreement itself provides the occupation with access to free-trade preferences for European markets, access to EU funding and joint research and development programs. Essentially, this agreement ties the European Union to all of Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people, not only as an ongoing legacy of colonialism but through active and ongoing alliance.

Today in Gaza, the National and Islamic Forces convened a press conference and delivered a letter of protest to the EU representative in Gaza. They affirmed: “We consider the statements of war criminal Lapid in his speech at the United Nations and his reference to the ‘two state solution’ came to facilitate precisely this event, because the Zionist entity wants to achieve economic gains and considers the European Union its first economic partner. The so-called ‘two-state solution’ is just a deceitful liquidationist slogan employed to achieve gains for Zionism and to provide excuses and justifications for the ‘friends of Israel’ in Europe to circumvent reality and European and international law.”

This meeting also comes amid plans between the European Union and the Zionist project to extract the wealth and resources of the Palestinian and Lebanese people in gas deals to Europe as the EU faces energy shortages due to the sanctions it imposed on Russia. The occupation regime is already planning to extract gas from the besieged Gaza Sea, while attempting to threaten Lebanon with the extraction of its resources. The Palestinian and Lebanese resistance have been very clear in rejecting the attempts of the occupier to steal their wealth and resources,. Rather than respecting Palestinian and Lebanese sovereignty, just as in Syria and Yemen, the EU is instead interested in extracting these resources in partnership with the colonial occupier and in bolstering a warm relationship facilitated by this trade.

In the leadup to the meeting, 47 Members of European Parliament signed a statement demanding the cancellation of the Council meeting, while a demonstration was organized outside the European Commission in Brussels. It is clear from the massive demonstrations that spread throughout Europe in 2021 during the Unity Intifada/Battle of Seif al-Quds and in 2022 during the attacks on Gaza/Battle of the Unity of the Fields that the popular movements, Arab and Palestinian communities and broad sectors of the population of Europe stand with Palestine and reject Zionism and racism. Meanwhile, European states — including Berlin banning Nakba commemorations in May 2022, German immigration officials targeting Palestinians for repression and deportation and France’s attempt to ban the Collectif Palestine Vaincra and other pro-Palestine associations — continue to engage in repressive actions in an attempt to deter this growing movement for the boycott and isolation of the Israeli regime and the liberation of Palestine, including all Palestinian prisoners. This comes in addition to the imprisonment of Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the Lebanese Arab struggler for Palestine, in France for the past 38 years.

On October 29, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network will join with our comrades in the Masar Badil (Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement), CAPJPO-EuroPalestine, Collectif Palestine Vaincra, Plate-Forme Charleroi-Palestine, Classe Contre Classe, Secours Rouge and many more to march from Lumumba Square to the European Parliament in Brussels, Belgium. The March for Return and Liberation will begin at 2 pm, calling for the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea, and including demands to end the EU-Israel Association Agreement and kick the occupation regime out of EU bodies and agreements. This march is the culmination of the Week for Palestinian Liberation in Brussels, from 24-29 October. Join us! 

What does the hunger strike mean? The Battle of the Thirty Fighters – Munther Khalaf Mufleh

The following article was originally published in Arabic by the Handala Center. Munther Khalaf Mufleh is a Palestinian political prisoner, a member of the Central Committee of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He is director of the Handala Center for the Prisoners’ Movement Affairs and the spokesperson for the PFLP prison branch. He is a Palestinian writer and journalist, and was issued a membership by the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate while imprisoned in recognition of his work.

by Munther Khalaf Mufleh

The administrative detainees continue their hunger strike and their battle against administrative detention with the slogan: “Dare to struggle, dare to win,” carrying the banner of victory as the primary objective of their heroic battle. This is not only a battle against subjugation to the officers of the Zionist intelligence service and the military officers of the Zionist occupation state only. Rather, it bears in its content the same vision and slogan raised by the Vietnamese fighters in their revolution: “Dare to struggle, dare to win.”

It carries implications that mean, first, confronting and resisting the occupation, rejecting its repressive measures, delegitimizing its claims and dismantling its false value system. It is a general confrontation between two frameworks, one that seeks justice, freedom, human equality and true democracy, represented and demanded by the prisoners, and the other a system of racial discrimination between human beings on the basis of ethnic affiliation. In this system, “the Jews” are the category entitled to oppression, killing and domination in the name of their ethnic superiority based on religious affiliation, as represented by “the Jewish State,” according to the laws of this same state. These laws, when it wants to exercise its authority through the oppression of another people, include an entire regime of regressive and corrupt laws including the British colonial emergency laws extending from the Mandate era and the Jordanian emergency law since before 1967, during its control over Palestine, and a pile of military decisions issued by Zionist officers and soldiers, and the legalization of decisions by military courts that do not belong to the law of the state. Amid all this, the prisoners are subject to yet more laws and institutions of detention, with arbitrarily detained prisoners held in camps without charge or trial. The prisoners are exempted from the Zionist civil and criminal law and the mandates of the entity in the sense that their human and fundamental rights are confiscated, they are not recognized as political prisoners and freedom fighters, and they are even subjected to yet another layer of racist repression in these prisons and institutions between them and other prisoners within the legal jurisdiction of this colonial entity-state.

The battle of the administrative detainees’ strike exposes in its nature the falsehood of the Zionist judicial system, which is meant to be a law with a sharp division: that for masters, and those who are subjugated and enslaved. The master is represented by the court judges who wish to punish and detain them, reflecting the goals of the occupation military officers and intelligence agents. Administrative detention is an explicitly violent practice, representing the goal of the occupation officers to erase and remove the detainees physically, materially and morally by preventing them from practicing their lives and normal existence in their communities, in their families and their homes, and excluding and isolating them in prisons and camps for dozens of years with no charge.

Administrative detention is part of the Zionist apartheid system and, even more dangerously, part of the practice of ethnic, cultural and political cleansing by the Zionist movement and state against the Palestinian people. Genocide is a practice that extends to the deliberate destruction of a society, its culture and environment, in whole or in part. In this context, the colonial regime issued tens and even hundreds of thousands of administrative detention orders against Palestinians, including Palestinian children, depriving them of their lives, education and future; and Palestinian women, seeking to dismantle the family; and Palestinian men, seeking to destroy society and its relationships. It has administratively detained elderly people, doctors, engineers, professors, students, professionals, workers, businessmen, etc., and a large number of elected representatives, directors of institutions and community organizations, men and women, simply for exercising their professional or political role. Thus, administrative detention is a war crime, and a crime of systematic and quiet ethnic cleansing, adopted by the colonial regime to dismantle the Palestinian people, eliminate their society, control their environment, and demolish their culture and institutions.

The battle of the administrative detainees’ strike is not only a battle to oppose these measures by the occupation or to achieve specific demands, although it carries those demands. It is, in fact, a more comprehensive and broader battle than the demands. The strike is a message to the world, a reminder that there are crimes committed against the Palestinian people, and that despite the silence, “they are banging on the walls of the tank.” [in reference to Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun] Therefore, this battle bears in its content the spearhead or bridge to a more general, comprehensive confrontation between the occupation and the Palestinian people, between the colonizer and the colonized.

The battle of the hunger strike is an attempt to place the bones of the prisoners in the wheels and stop the occupation’s military jeeps, to gather bodies under the tracks of the occupations armored vehicles to stop the crimes of the occupation against the Palestinian people, against the world and its international institutions, against international law and humanitarian values. Occupation and colonization is itself the main crime, the basis for the practice of all of the other crimes in occupied Palestine, the “great prison.” The most heinous types of crimes are practiced inside the prisons, detention centers and camps, and this is a Palestinian and Arab national battle regardless of who is fighting it.

The battle of the 30 detainees is the battle of Palestine and the Palestinian people, and the people can join that victory by supporting this battle and standing up alongside the prisoners by all available means. The battle of the 30 prisoners is humanity’s battle against injustice, subjugation and oppression. Let all nations, peoples, forces, parties and institutions that love justice and peace join this victory.

The battle here is not resolved only by its demands or the fulfillment of these demands, but by raising the banner of the strikers, daring to struggle for human values and the values of justice, dignity and liberation.

Palestinian and Arab youth organizations unite to support Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike

Dozens of Palestinian and Arab youth organizations issued a collective statement in support of the 30 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike to demand an end to their administrative detention. Released by the Handala Center for Prisoners, the statement calls for urgent action to confront normalization with Zionism throughout the region and to escalate the struggle for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners and support of the Palestinian resistance.

The full statement follows:

Thirty Palestinian administrative detainees are engaged in an open hunger strike to reject the policy of administrative detention. This is a criminal policy in which a struggler is detained without charge or trial, and is subjected to repression and abuse by the Zionist jailers, especially as there are sick, wounded and elderly among the administrative detainees.

This escalation within the occupation prisons comes in light of the escalating pace of events in Palestine and the comprehensive aggression perpetrated by the Zionist enemy against cities, villages and camps, the last of which was in the resisting city of Jenin al-Qassam, which led to the martyrdom of a new group of resistance fighters, wounding many, including school students, and destroying a number of buildings and homes.

We in the progressive youth and student organizations, in light of this Zionist escalation against the prisoners and the Palestinian people, affirm the following:

First, we express our solidarity, our pride, and our confidence in the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, led by the administrative detainees and the hunger strikers who are waging a heroic battle on behalf of the Palestinian people and the Arab nation and humanity as a whole. They bravely stand up to the Zionist prison administration and its racist, fascist practices.

Second, Supporting the Palestinian people and the prisoners’ movement in particular is a duty and a necessity for all of us, as everyone must bear their responsibilities for victory for Palestine, the prisoners, and the values ​​of justice and humanity. This requires a serious undertaking through which all capabilities and methods of pressure are put at the service of this battle.

Third,  The Zionist enemy is delusional if it thinks for a moment that the policy of administrative detention will break the will of the strugglers of the Palestinian people or their resistance, or will succeed in isolating them from their people. The administrative detainees and the hunger strikers have proven that they are more powerful than all the mechanisms of oppression and Zionist repression.

Fourth, The approach of normalization and all methods of containment and subjugation against the peoples of the region will not succeed in isolating their people, youth, students, parties, forces, unions and organizations from the central cause, which will remain their first cause [Palestine]. If there are some Arab regimes and governments that have sunk into the mud of normalization and relations with the Zionist entity, the entire Arab nation is unanimous in its rejection of normalization and its absolute refusal of the Zionist entity, and its support for and cohesion with the Palestinian people in their just struggle for self-determination. In light of this duty, the cause of the prisoners and their suffering remain a priority of the conscience and commitment of the Arab nation and the free people of the world.

Fifth, we call on young people and students to carry out the widest campaign of solidarity and support with the hunger-striking prisoners, through mobilizations of rage, activities and sit-ins, to show and demonstrate their solidarity with the cause of Palestine and the prisoners.

Sixth, The progressive youth and students send a message of anger to the international community and international institutions, demanding that they stop the policy of silence on the crimes that the the Zionist enemy is committing against the Palestinian people and their prisoners in particular.

Finally, in the progressive youth and student organizations, we renew our support for and allegiance to the Palestinian people and their brave prisoners in the occupation prisons. We express our firm confidence that the prisoners will extract their demands from the Zionist jailers, on the path to freedom.

Progressive youth and student organizations
1. Palestinian Progressive Youth Union
2. Progressive Student Action Front – Occupied Palestine
3. The Youth of the Jordanian Democratic People’s Unity Party
4. Al-Wad Youth Union – Tunisia
5. Tunisian Communist Youth Union
6. Progressive Student Union Bloc – Universities and Institutes of Occupied Palestine
7. The Progressive Left Students Faction – Morocco
8. The Revolutionary National Democratic Youth Organization – Kifah
9. General Union of Tunisian Students
10. Palestinian Youth Organization
11. Progressive Youth Union – Egypt
12. The Jordanian Democratic Youth League “Rashad”
13. Youth of the National Movement
14. The Jordanian Democratic Youth Union
15. The Jordanian Communist Party Youth
16. The Lebanese Democratic Youth Union
17. Palestinian Communist Youth Union
18. Bahrain Youth Society
19. Syrian Democratic Youth Union
20. Kuwaiti Democratic Youth Union
21. Palestinian Communist Party Youth
22. The Youth Action of the Democratic Path – Morocco
23. Union of Youth Forces – Tunisia

1 October 2022

Georges Abdallah launches one-day solidarity strike for Palestinian prisoners

On Saturday, 1 October, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, the Lebanese Arab communist struggler for Palestine jailed in France for the past 38 years, announced that he was going on a one-day hunger strike in solidarity with the 30 Palestinian prisoners striing for freedom. Since 25 September, 30 Palestinians jailed without charge or trial under “administrative detention” have been on hunger strike for freedom.

In a letter to the director of Lannemezan Prison, where he is held, he declared: “In solidarity with the Palestinian resistance strugglers imprisoned in Zionist jails who are on hunger strike to denounce their arbitrary detention and demand the repeal of the law allowing administrative detention, I am on hunger strike today, 1 October.”

Georges Abdallah is a committed struggler for Palestine who is recognized as part of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement by the Palestinian prisoners themselves. He has repeatedly participated in hunger strikes and refused meals in solidarity with his comrades imprisoned by the Israeli occupation, such as in 2016, 2017 and 2019.

On 22 October, stand for freedom for Georges Abdallah by joining the demonstration for his release outside Lannemezan prison. This mobilization brings large numbers every year to make it clear that Georges Abdallah’s comrades will never cease to struggle for his liberation! Join the demonstration to call for the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners. The Collectif Palestine Vaincra will be organizing a bus from Toulouse to the march; to reserve a seat, email collectivepalestinevaincra@gmail.com.

As Georges Abdallah carried on his hunger strike in solidarity with the prisoners, the Collectif organized a solidarity stand in central Toulouse, with many passers-by taking solidarity photos for Georges Abdallah and the 30 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike.

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This Toulouse action came alongside mobilizations in Manchester, England; Cologne, Germany; Vancouver, Canada; and elsewhere.

In Paris, Samidoun Paris Banlieue joined with the Collectif to Boycott Israeli Apartheid Paris Banlieue to protest Puma’s support for the Zionist project and to show solidarity with Georges Abdallah and the Palestinian prisoners. Puma is a sponsor of the Israel Football Association as well as Maccabi Tel Aviv, profiting from and linking itself to colonial sports.

This came one day after joining the mobilization organized by the Unitary Campaign to Free Georges Abdallah in Paris to rally for the hunger strikers and for the liberation of Georges Abdallah.

 

Growing solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on sixth day of hunger strike to #EndAdministrativeDetention

30 Palestinian prisoners are on hunger strike for the sixth day to demand an end to their administrative detention without charge or trial. As they have continued their strike, the occupation prison authorities have imposed new sanctions upon them: their rooms have been turned into isolation sections and fines were imposed on the hunger strikers, reported the Handala Center for Prisoners’ Affairs. Salah Hammouri, the Palestinian-French lawyer jailed without charge or trial, has been isolated from his fellow hunger strikers in a solitary confinement cell.

  • Join the social media storm to support the hunger strikers: Friday, 30 September
    10 am Pacific – 1 pm Eastern – 5 pm UTC – 7 pm central Europe – 8 pm Palestine
    Use the hashtag #EndAdministrativeDetention
    Sample tweets and resources: https://bit.ly/ourdecisionisfreedom

The administrative detainees have also announced their boycott of the occupation military courts, continuing a tactic that had been adopted for over 6 months by all administrative detainees collectively, refusing to engage with the illegitimate courts that rubber stamp the orders of the military to detain them with no charge or trial. 28 of the hunger strikers are held in four isolation rooms in Ofer prison, while Salah Hammouri is isolated in solitary confinement in Hadarim prison.

After he launched the collective hunger strike, Basil Mizher, a Palestinian lawyer jailed without charge or trial, had his administrative detention renewed for another 3 months on 28 September 2022 by the occupation military. Mizher wrote a message when launching the strike, which was read out by his mother to a solidarity protest in Dheisheh refugee camp in Bethlehem:

“My profession is that of a lawyer, which I barely remember, since I have been unable to actually practice since my graduation. Since passing the bar examination to practice law, I have been subjected to administrative detention three times. I went to prison instead of to my profession, so I became unemployed and my freedom was taken away due to the policy of administrative detention.

Either we are subjugated to oppression and deprivation and accept the perpetual theft of our freedom and our lives in full view of the world, or we revolt against injustice and knock down the walls of the jailer with all the tools we have. The open hunger strike is a rejection of this policy of subordination and domestication.

We emphasize that the goal of this strike is not to die of starvation, but that fighting with our stomachs is the last means we resort to in order to live.”

As the hunger strike continues and Palestinian prisoners continue to resist by putting their bodies and lives on the line for freedom, Palestinians, Arabs and people of conscience everywhere are standing with the hunger strikers.

In Shenstone, the ongoing Palestine Action camp across the street from the Israeli Elbit drone manufacturing facility, which is maintaining a continuous presence to shut Elbit down, took a stand in support of the hunger strikers:

Palestine Action activists have shut down two Elbit facilities in Britain permanently due to their direct action activities, and on 10 October, eight activists will be fighting back against unjust criminal charges that aim to suppress the movement. Join the campaign to support Palestine Action here.

In Toulouse, France, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra organized a public stand at Jean Jaurès University in support of the hunger strikers and to demand justice for Palestine.

In the Paris region, Samidoun Paris Banlieue postered in support of the hunger strikers, including Palestinian-French lawyer Salah Hammouri, as well as for the freedom of Georges Abdallah, the Lebanese struggler for Palestine imprisoned in France for the past 38 years:

In Spain, Samidoun España joined comrades from the Masar Badil (Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path) at the Fiesta, the annual event organized by the Communist Party of Spain to call for freedom for the hunger strikers and all Palestinian prisoners.

Multiple events are being organized in the upcoming days. On Saturday, 1 October, demonstrators will gather in Manchester, Britain, and Toulouse, France, to support the hunger strikers, organized by Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, while supporters of Palestine will gather in Vancouver, Canada on Sunday, 2 October to show solidarity with the hunger strikers.

These events join actions and mobilizations taking place across Palestine and throughout the Arab region. In Gaza, Al-Bireh, Bethlehem, Dheisheh camp, Haifa and al-Nairab refugee camp in Syria, Palestinians have come out to stand with the hunger strikers and the resistance confronting occupation from Jenin to Nablus to behind the prison bars.

There are currently approximately 743 Palestinian prisoners jailed under administrative detention orders out of a total of approximately 4,650 total Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails. Administrative detention was first introduced to Palestine by the British colonial mandate before being adopted by the Zionist project. Detention orders can be issued for up to six months at a time on the basis of “secret evidence” denied to both the detainee and their lawyer. These orders are indefinitely renewable, with many Palestinians spending years at a time jailed under administrative detention, and neither they nor their families and communities are ever sure when they will be released, an additional form of collective punishment and psychological torture.

The first 30 administrative detainees who began the strike are listed below, with additional prisoners scheduled to join in the battle as it continues. They include community leaders like Nidal Abu Aker and Ghassan Zawahreh, who have spent years in administrative detention; French-Palestinian lawyer and human rights defender Salah Hammouri, student organizers like Zaid Qaddoumi, and a number of others:

1. Nidal Abu Aker, 54, of Dheisheh refugee camp, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 1 August 2022.
2. Ehab Masoud, 50, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 17 October 2021.
3. Asim Al Kaabi, 44, of Balata refugee camp, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 24 August 2022.
4. Ahmed Hajjaj, 44, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 24 August 2022.
5. Thaer Taha, 43, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 1 May 2022.
6. Rami Fadayel, 43, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 5 September 2022.
7. Lotfi Salah, 43, of Bethlehem
8. Salah Hammouri, 37, of Jerusalem, imprisoned without charge or trial since 7 March 2022.
9. Ghassan Zawahreh, 40, of Dheisheh refugee camp, imprisoned without charge or trial since 19 August 2022.
10. Kanaan Kanaan, 30, of Hizma, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 3 August 2022.
11. Ashraf Abu Aram, 36, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 7 June 2021.
12. Ghassan Karajah, 32, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 11 August 2022.
13. Saleh Abu Alia, 32, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 4 March 2022.
14. Awad Kanaan, 32, of Hizma, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 2 February 2022.
15. Leith Kassaberah, 31, of Beit Anan, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 1 February 2022
16. Saleh Al-Jaidi, 30, of Dheisheh refugee camp, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 4 August 2022.
17. Basil Mezher, 29, of Dheisheh refugee camp, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 12 November 2021.
18. Majd Al-Khawaja, 28, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 14 June 2022.
19. Jihad Shreiteh, 28, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 8 May 2022.
20. Haitham Siyaj, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 3 November 2021.
21. Mustafa Al-Hasanat, 29, of Bethlehem, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 3 February 2022.
22. Azmi Shreiteh al Barghouthi, 23, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 8 May 2022.
23. Muhammad Abu Ghazi, 22, of Arroub refugee camp, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 13 March 2022.
24. Ahmed Al-Kharouf, 22 of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 13 June 2022.
25. Nasrallah Barghouti, 22 of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention.
26. Muhammad Fuqaha, 22, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 15 March 2022.
27. Tamer Al-Hajouj, 22, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 15 March 2022.
28. Raghad Shamroukh, of Dheisheh refugee camp, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 12 September 2022.
29. Zaid Qaddoumi, of Beit Jala, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 16 September 2022.
30. Senar Hamad, 20, of Ramallah, imprisoned without charge or trial under administrative detention since 18 April 2022.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges all supporters of Palestine and the prisoners’ struggle to join the campaign to end administrative detention and to support these valiant prisoners putting their bodies and lives on the line to resist and struggle for a liberated Palestine, through their hunger strike for freedom.

Download these distributable flyers and posters to highlight the struggle to free Palestinian prisoners:

1. Mobilize actions, demonstrations and creative interventions – Take to the streets to defend the Palestinian people and their resistance! As was made clear during the Unity Intifada/Seif al-Quds in May 2021, there is a vast depth of support for the Palestinian people everywhere around the world, including inside the imperialist powers. It is our responsibility to act and make it impossible to continue their support for the crimes against the Palestinian people.

2. Build the boycott of Israel – This is a critical moment to escalate the campaign to isolate the Israeli regime at all levels, including through boycott campaigns that target the occupation’s economic exploitation of the Palestinian land, people and resources as well as those international corporations, like HP and G4S, that profit from the ongoing colonization of Palestine.

1 October, Manchester: Freedom for all Palestinian prisoners – Solidarity with the Hunger Strike

Saturday, 1 October
12 pm
Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester
More info: https://www.facebook.com/386682871406134/posts/pfbid02P2LszbkrSejqb9MGtkJzvVvnAfE4sGU7cthQ317dnrPNkJs4wv7yLVfgFbVWaDy4l/

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! and the Revolutionary Communist Group are organizing to support the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike in Manchester.

We’ll be out on the streets this week supporting the hunger strike of Palestinian political prisoners, building for the Walking tour of Engels’ Manchester and Unblock Cuba! Film show and campaign launch events, and fighting for an anti-imperialist, socialist movement. Join us:

Saturday from 12 in Piccadilly Gardens

 

2 October, Vancouver: End Administrative Detention! Outreach and rally for justice in Palestine

Sunday, 2 October
2 pm
Vancouver Art Gallery (Howe Side/Robson Square)
Vancouver
Facebook

Join us on Sunday, October 2 outside the Vancouver Art Gallery (Howe Street Side) to support 30 Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike for freedom. They are putting their bodies and lives on the lines to demand an end to administrative detention, Israeli imprisonment without charge or trial.

The Palestinian prisoners announced their hunger strike under the slogan “Our Decision is Freedom”, noting that they had rejected a request from the Zionist prison administration to postpone their action until Wednesday. They have now been moved into solitary confinement cells as a punishment for their brave stance for freedom. We will make clear: They are not alone!

There are currently approximately 780 Palestinian prisoners jailed under administrative detention orders out of a total of approximately 4,650 total Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails. Administrative detention was first introduced to Palestine by the British colonial mandate before being adopted by the Zionist project. Detention orders can be issued for up to six months at a time on the basis of “secret evidence” denied to both the detainee and their lawyer. These orders are indefinitely renewable, with many Palestinians spending years at a time jailed under administrative detention, and neither they nor their families and communities are ever sure when they will be released, an additional form of collective punishment and psychological torture.

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Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network
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