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Palestinian Prisoners’ Day: The Experience of Struggle Inside the Prisons by Wael Jaghoub

The following article, by Wael Jaghoub, liberated Palestinian prisoner freed in the Toufan al-Ahrar prisoner exchange, was originally published in Arabic in Al-Akhbar on Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, 17 April 2025. 

Born on 23 May 1967, Wael Jaghoub was active in the Palestinian struggle from an early age. Amid the great popular Intifada of the Stones, he was arrested by the occupation in 1992 and sentenced to six years in occupation prisons. With the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, he became one of the active leaders of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in Nablus. He was arrested on 1 May 2001 and sentenced to life imprisonment. During his years in prison, he was subjected to solitary confinement and denied family visits; he became a writer behind bars and published several books as well as many articles and studies, including this 2016 article. When he was released, he said: “I did not lose hope for 24 hours that the resistance would liberate me…and I continue to have hope that the resistance will liberate those left behind.” 

The Palestinian Prisoners’ National Movement, First and Always! 

Palestinian Prisoners’ Day: On the Experience of Struggle Inside the Prisons

Wael Jaghoub

It is inevitable that the experience of struggle of Palestinian prisoners inside the Zionist prisons—a natural extension of the overall Palestinian condition—must take into account the particularity of this arena, and accordingly, the importance of the concepts produced by this specific experience, which carry and represent this dimension.

The experience of struggle inside the prison is a daily and direct engagement with the colonial system in all of its components—political, security, judicial, and medical. At the same time, it is a confrontation and a defense of the moral and intellectual system that the imprisoned human being represents, which the colonial system works to control in a specific and stereotypical manner, stripped of its human and moral dimensions. The act of engagement emerges at this level when the prisoner confronts the jailer and defends these essential human and moral dimensions, making this a fierce confrontation at the level of consciousness.

It is worth noting that the concepts governing the struggle were produced by the specific experience inside the prisons, foremost among them hope—as both a moral value and a principle—relying equally on the dimension of will and the dimension of consciousness.

Collective consciousness is a vital and central link in the struggle; achieving the  goals of the prisoners is impossible outside of its framework or isolated from it. One primary requirement for confrontation is an affiliated, organized and engaged leadership, alongside the practical model of work on the ground and the daily program—all of which are factors working together to translate vision and strategy into practice. The limited and defined reality inside the prison is governed by these concepts and the current reality of struggle requires them to be read and contemplated seriously.

The Experience of Struggle Between the Freedom Tunnel and October 7

Undoubtedly, the “Freedom Tunnel” represents one of the pivotal moments in the history of the prisoners’ movement and its long experience, with what it symbolizes and the repercussions and effects it has had on the broader national level, primarily in breaking down the walls of myth that had taken root in people’s minds—that we cannot overcome this enemy, nor can we defeat it or achieve victory over it. Victories of any size represent an important step in any people’s struggle: they instill hope, strengthen the will, and raise consciousness. This is exactly what this pivotal event represented, influencing also the context of the prisoners’ movement and its experience, becoming a significant and qualitative turning point. It shifted the prisoner once again from a focus on the daily, immediate, and personal to the broader strategic and national struggle, linking the prison with the entire homeland. It also correctly redefined the relationship between prisoner and jailer, removed all ambiguities, reinstated the effective presence of the prisoners’ movement, and restored the value of national unity as the true lever for every confrontation with its value, position, and impact.

It was a material translation of the collective dimension of the struggle. This is part of the Freedom Tunnel’s impact on the struggling reality of the prisoners’ movement. The prison administration considered the moment suitable to launch an assault on the prisoners’ movement, seeking to dismantle it and to thwart the anticipated impacts of the Freedom Tunnel on the prisoners’ movement internally as well as its engagement with the broader national liberation struggle. Therefore, multiple measures were taken: attempts to restrict daily living conditions, tighten oppression against prisoners, withdraw achievements, and apply repressive policies. This stemmed from a conviction that had become entrenched among the jailers—claiming that the prisoners’ movement was fragmented and could not resist or confront these policies, particularly given the Palestinian internal political division’s effects on the reality of the prisoners’ movement.

However, the prisoners’ movement possessed the necessary awareness to realize the importance of reconstituting the struggling dimension of the confrontation, rising above trivial or petty matters, and committing to a central mission: repelling the comprehensive aggression and the general offensive launched by the Zionist colonial security and political apparatus.

This must be considered the central task and the first step of struggle. This means setting aside all disputes and committing entirely to the mission, reflecting an advanced state of awareness that requires practical translation, embodied in the formation of an emergency leadership from across the political spectrum, forming an effective leading and guiding body for the entire prisoners’ movement, drafting a daily action plan for confrontation and resistance, and adopting the choice of resistance to repel the attack. This materialized through the formulation of a daily confrontation program—through daily protest steps—which reflected the unity of will and action and confounded the prison administration’s calculations. The preparation for launching an open hunger strike forced the prison administration to retreat from its measures and repressive steps.

The Stage Before October 7

For nearly two years, a crucial period in history and in the experience of the prisoners’ movement unfolded. Its main achievement was the establishment of a state of national unity and the adoption of the path of resistance. This opened the way for new ideas concerning the questions of imprisonment and its continuation, and the struggle for liberation and its possibilities. This led to the proposal of the “Freedom Strike,” aiming to seize prisoners’ freedom or embrace death, presenting a project and a plan in this regard, from which several important lessons and conclusions were drawn:

First: Confronting aggression can only be achieved through the formulation of a comprehensive united state, based on the foundation of resistance, defiance and confrontation. Unity must be founded on a clear, specific program within a clear framework and vision.

Second: Clarifying the goal of repelling aggression and focusing on what must be defined, without succumbing to the residue of disputes, divisions, and conflicting political stances, and instead formulating common ground.

Third: The condition of the leadership, providing the will to identify and comprehend the national situation and offering a model through its leadership of the confrontation.

Fourth: Collective participation by prisoners lies in formulating the unified path, supporting it, and reflecting the harmony between leadership and the grassroots bases.

Fifth: Repelling aggression is not achieved through absorbing it but through confronting and engaging it using all possible—and legitimate—tools at the moment of confrontation.

Sixth: Formulating consciousness and its changing concepts, including understanding the role and status of consciousness in the struggle.

These are some conclusions from an important phase preceding October 7, during a moment when the prisoners’ movement faced a fierce and widespread attack, during which the prisoners proved their worthiness of the challenge.

The Stage After October 7

This date marks another turning point in the form and level of the fierce assault on the prisoners’ movement. There was a transition from a stage of gradual cumulative targeting to the imposition of the so-called “Gilad Erdan Committee” decisions— named for Gilad Erdan, the Minister of Internal Security in 2017–2018, who formed the committee to study the measures to be taken against Palestinian prisoners in Zionist prisons.

At the time, the committee issued a report that included several measures, foremost among them dismantling the political presence of prisoners inside the prison, meaning ending the existence of organizations and collective representation of prisoners, targeting cultural and academic programs, and withdrawing all the achievements of the prisoners’ movement related to the conditions of daily life. These objectives, along with the plans to implement them, were already prepared by the prison administration. After October 7, they moved to the stage of comprehensive war against the prisoners’ movement, launching a savage assault based on a set of policies and procedures, summarized as follows:

First: The Policy of Deterrence

One of the components of the Israeli security doctrine, practiced against prisoners even before October 7, but its intensity drastically increased afterward. It became part of the framework of comprehensive war against the prisoners, manifested through the use of severe explosive violence against them—daily physical assaults inside the prisons, without distinction between a male or female prisoner, or between child or elder.

These violations led to thousands of injuries among prisoners, and even the loss of life for some, such as prisoner Thaer Abu Assab, who was martyred in the Negev prison as a result of beating. In addition, there were continuous raids day and night on prisoners’ rooms and sections, maintaining a constant state of fear and extreme tension, continuous transfers, and the confiscation of all belongings, including clothes, shoes, watches, electrical appliances, televisions, and radios, turning rooms into barren cells devoid of any minimum components of human life.

Additionally, the prison administration doubled or tripled the number of prisoners per room, as a form of abuse, harassment and intimidation.

This policy aimed to prevent any attempt at resistance by prisoners and to break their collective spirit by ending organizational existence, abolishing collective representation and ending the prisoners’ daily vital cultural and study programs. However, one of the main goals, as openly stated by prison officials, was revenge. This component is central to analyzing the behavior of this apparatus and understanding its effect on the prisoners.

Second: The Policy of Starvation

Starving prisoners by reducing food quantities by approximately 80% from normal levels was the first immediate step of this policy, followed by the confiscation of all foodstuffs from prisoners’ rooms and sections, forcing prisoners to rely solely on the scant daily meals provided. This resulted in severe weight loss among all prisoners, visible through the emaciation and physical weakness observed among released prisoners. A simple comparison between a prisoner’s image before October 7 and after release shows the severity of what prisoners are enduring, the horror of the prisoners’ lives and the cruelty of the prison authority’s starvation policy. The quantities of food provided to a section that housed ninety prisoners were drastically reduced, even though the section now held about 250 prisoners. Moreover, the food served was of poor quality, lacks salt, spices, or oil, and is often undercooked.

The aim of the starvation policy was to destroy the prisoner’s morale and body alike, limiting any capacity for resilience or resistance and trying to reduce prisoners’ thinking to mere survival instincts—what could be termed “hunger consciousness.” In this way, hunger governs the prisoner’s behavior and narrows his consciousness to a survival instinct. This is part of the prison administration’s vengeful assault on the prisoners.

Third: The Policy of Isolation

This policy was implemented through several measures, including the suspension of Red Cross visits to prisons, halting family visits, severely restricting lawyers’ visits, and confiscating televisions, radios, and any means of communication, isolating prisoners entirely from the outside world. The goal was to dismantle prisoners’ morale and push them to abandon options for resistance, making prison officers the sole source of information—most of which consisted of misinformation aimed at misleading and sowing confusion and tension among prisoners. This was one of the most dangerous policies employed.

Fourth: The Policy of Medical Killing

The previous policy of deliberate medical neglect was replaced by a policy of deliberate medical killing, through halting the majority of medicines provided to prisoners and stopping serious medical follow-ups that existed before October 7.
This led to the spread of skin diseases—most notably scabies—as well as respiratory illnesses, causing the martyrdom of a number of prisoners.
Available figures indicate that approximately 69 prisoners have been martyred so far due to these policies.

This policy is the most dangerous, aiming to inflict chronic diseases on prisoners, leading to death. The implementation of these practices constitutes an ongoing war crime inside the prisons, supported and endorsed by the political, judicial, and security levels in Israel, and continues to this day without interruption. Prisoners’ testimonies continue to highlight this terrifying reality within the prisons, threatening the prisoners’ lives.

What Is Urgently Needed Now?

In this context of ongoing aggressive war and genocide against our people everywhere—and foremost among those locations, inside the prisons themselves, where daily, ongoing and escalated torture has not stopped for a single day but has intensified—the urgent question “What is to be done?” reemerges. The answer remains generally confusing, regarding the forms of confrontation of this aggression, equally applied to the prisoners’ situation and to exposing it. There is disorganized, scattered effort without proper accumulation of achievements, in addition to the absence of planning, defining objectives, determining the goals of struggle and how to achieve these goals. Perhaps this stems largely from the absence of a general national strategy of confrontation, especially regarding the prisoners, based on the belief that they will eventually be freed. However, this does not negate the crimes that have occurred, nor the importance of struggle around this cause.

This responsibility places us before the urgent need to organize and plan the struggle around the prisoners’ cause, aiming at:

First: Attempting to repel the declared war and aggression against the prisoners, confronting it, and exerting pressure by all means.

Second: Highlighting the ongoing crimes, widely disseminating them, and presenting the Palestinian narrative in a broad and organized manner.

Third: Documenting the living memory of prisoners regarding this historical phase.

Fourth: Working to broaden the base of global solidarity, amplifying the voice of the prisoners, advocating for the justice of their cause, and building a serious Palestinian movement.

Achieving these goals requires broad, collective effort to achieve them, as well as a general will to strive for liberation, to achieve these and other goals. This requires expanding ties among institutions, movements, activists, and forces to build an effective international coalition as a mechanism and a bloc, based on clear objectives related to the prisoners, their freedom, the suffering they endure, and their struggle for their liberation and to repel the aggression against them.

Such a coalition necessitates a serious initiative to address several tasks within a action plan, the most prominent of which include:

First: Launching an escalating international campaign with the participation of institutions and forces at regional and international levels, organizing periodic public and mass events for the prisoners’ cause.

Second: Working to form a multi-party entity—Palestinian, regional, and international—whose primary task would be to document and register every prisoner’s experience after October 7 as a project of collective, struggle-based, authentic living memory, a real testimony to the crimes of the occupation, to be disseminated as widely as possible.

Third: Working to establish an entity, initiated by institutions, to provide support and care for released prisoners, especially those who suffered psychologically after their detention experiences post-October 7.

Fourth: Focusing on organizing media efforts on social networks, launching a “Before and After” photo campaign for each prisoner, and creating a traveling exhibition of photos both physically and electronically.

Fifth: Working within sectoral campaigns to highlight the cases of women prisoners, child prisoners, administrative detainees, the sick, and the elderly, portraying each prisoner as a story—not just a number.

There are many tasks and ideas that can contribute to repelling the aggression against prisoners, but they require thought, effort, will, and initiative.
It is not enough, on this day, to merely address the prisoners’ issue alone. Rather, we must consider Palestinian Prisoners’ Day a day for evaluating our role—what is required of us, what we can do, and what we need—so that the cause of the prisoners does not remain present only seasonally or incidentally.

Barcelona stands with Palestinian prisoners in a global day of solidarity and resistance

Each year, 17 April marks Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, an international day of solidarity and struggle for the liberation of Palestinian political prisoners. This year, for the second year in a row, the commemoration takes place in the midst of the escalating U.S.-Israeli genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and across occupied Palestine.

In Barcelona, as in many cities around the world, Samidoun Barcelona took to the streets to stand with the prisoners — not only to denounce the brutal violence and abuse they endure under occupation, but also to honor their steadfastness, sacrifice, and vital role at the heart of the Palestinian resistance.

The day’s events included conversations with liberated Palestinian prisoners Fadia Barghouti and Hadeel Shatara, solidarity discussions, letter-writing workshops, banner-making, demonstrations, and more. These events also highlighted Palestinian political prisoners in Europe, including youth detained in Germany as well as Georges Abdallah, the Lebanese struggler for Palestine imprisoned in France for the past 40 years.

Samidoun Barcelona reaffirms our collective determination to continue the struggle until the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Freedom for all Palestinian prisoners!
Glory to the martyrs!
Victory to the Palestinian people!

Toulouse mobilizes to free Palestinian prisoners

On Thursday, 17 April, as part of the international events for Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, the Comité de soutien à la Palestine 31 in Toulouse, France called for a rally to demand the release of all Palestinian prisoners.

The mass imprisonment and incarceration of Palestinians has been central to the Zionist entity’s colonial domination since its inception. Currently, more than 10,000 Palestinians remain detained in Zionist prisons.

But prison is also a central place of organization, mobilization, and collective struggle against the colonial state. Despite the terrible treatment they endure in Zionist prisons, prisoners continue to organize and develop their forms of resistance.

Participants in the demonstration expressed their solidarity with Palestinian prisoners, and emphasized the campaign to free Georges Abdallah, the Lebanese political prisoner and staunch supporter of the Palestinian cause, imprisoned in France for over 40 years.

The demonstration also highlighted various cases in the imperial core where Palestinians and supporters of Palestine are facing repression and imprisonment for their support of the Palestinian people’s struggle, such as Anan Yaeesh in Italy and Mahmoud Khalil in the United States.

Following the rally, a dynamic procession formed, chanting slogans all the way to the Galerie al Karmel, where the opening of the exhibition “Gaza 2001 – Window on Life” by Laurent Loubet took place.

The exhibition is open from April 17 to May 8. The organizers strongly encourage all to visit and spread the word.

During the following weekend, posters in support of the prisoners were seen in public locations around Toulouse.

As part of the international day of mobilization for the release of Palestinian prisoners, banners reading “Free Palestine” and “Free Palestinian prisoners” were seen near the Toulouse ring road.

Let us continue to escalate the mobilization against the repression of support for the Palestinian people’s struggle, for the release of all prisoners, and for a free Palestine from the river to the sea! Long live the struggle of the Palestinian people, freedom for all prisoners!

Palestine in the spotlight at festival to support Revolutionary 1 May in Brussels

As part of the festival in support of Revolutionary May Day in Brussels, held this Saturday, April 26, several dozen people participated in a roundtable discussion on the Palestine solidarity movement in Europe. Several anti-Zionist activists, including a member of AJAB, as well as a member of Samidoun and anti-imperialist activist Tom Martin, spoke at the event.

The Samidoun representative highlighted the current situation of the ongoing genocide in Palestine. In this context, she strongly denounced Mahmoud Abbas’s recent statements against the Palestinian resistance and called for renewed efforts to support the resistance in its fight against more than 76 years of settler colonialism. She then addressed the criminalization of the Samidoun network in Europe, such as in Germany and North America, as well as the repression in Belgium, where Mohammed Khatib, the network’s European coordinator was recently arrested overnight. Finally, she called for continued solidarity with the Palestinian national liberation struggle, particularly by building broad campaigns in support of Palestinian prisoners who represent the vanguard of the Palestinian resistance.

An anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist activist in France, Tom Martin spoke to remind us that the ongoing genocide is being carried out jointly by the Zionist state and Western imperialism, which continues its political, economic, and military support for what must be considered its outpost in the Arab world. He also explained how Macron’s recent statements on the “recognition of the Palestinian state” were just another attempt to guarantee the stability of the Zionist project and imperialist domination in the region by attempting to impose a surrender on the Palestinian people’s resistance movement. In this context, he emphasized that the repression against the solidarity movement also aims to hinder the self-organization of Palestinian and Arab communities in Europe who challenge European colonial and imperialist policies.

The AJAB representative reiterated the importance of combating antisemitism, like all other forms of racism, and firmly denounced its exploitation by the Belgian authorities and their allies. In particular, she revisited the issues surrounding the IHRA definition of antisemitism, of which seven out of eleven examples concern Israel, as a tool aimed at criminalizing anti-Zionism.

Finally, an anti-Zionist activist from Brussels spoke about the authorities’ growing repression of pro-Palestinian protests. She noted that these protests take many forms and highlighted their Islamophobic dimension. She also called for support for upcoming initiatives, particularly the nightly protests at the Bourse, as a space for self-organization and mobilization.

Finally, the meeting ended with a call to commit, act and organize for the liberation of Georges Abdallah, an Arab communist imprisoned in France for more than 40 years for his involvement in the Palestinian resistance, as a symbol of the unity of our struggles here and there against imperialism and Zionism.

 

Hamas challenges its proscription in Britain in legal application; Samidoun submits expert report on Palestinian political prisoners

On 9 April 2025, Riverway Law and the legal team of Fahad Ansari (Riverway Law), Franck Magennis (Garden Court Chambers) and Daniel Grutters (One Pump Chambers) filed an application to the British Home Secretary on behalf of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, calling for its deproscription under British law.

Under the British Terrorism Act of 2000, even purely moral, political and associational support for a proscribed organization can be used to criminalize activists, journalists and community organizers. Indeed, people across Britain and Scotland have had their homes raided, been arrested, been detained and questioned at the airport, had their devices confiscated, and even faced criminal charges based on allegations of “support” for Hamas as a proscribed organization, for example, for giving speeches in which a speaker discusses the legitimacy of the al-Qassam Brigades’ resistance to occupation and calls for their victory, or for something as simple as wearing a small sticker-size image of a Palestinian paratrooper on a back or jacket.

The application highlights several arguments: that the proscription of Hamas violates British obligations under international law and aids and abets genocide; the proscription violates freedom of expression and association and is discriminatory; and the proscription is disproportionate, as no threat is posed to Britain and “Israel” has no right to exist nor to deny Palestinians their right to armed resistance. It further highlights the role of Britain and its responsibility, through the Balfour Declaration and its colonial policies, for the Zionist colonization of Palestine.

The submission is accompanied by witness statements provided by Mousa Abu Marzouk of Hamas, as well as over 20 expert witness reports which focus on various aspects of the Palestinian cause.

Charlotte Kates, co-founder of Samidoun, submitted a report on “The Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement as Central to the Palestinian Liberation Struggle” as part of the expert reports, which also include documentation on the Great March of Return, Zionist ideology, Britain’s relationship with Zionism, the centrality of Jerusalem and Al-Aqsa in the Palestinian cause, socio-economic conditions of Palestinians, the psychological effects of dispossession and Zionism, the siege on Gaza, media coverage of Palestine, settler-colonialism and resistance, dignity in Islam, the history of the martyr Izz el-Din al-Qassam, counter-terror laws and journalism, and comparative examples from South Africa, submitted by a broad array of scholars and experts in their fields.

Read all of the documents in the case at https://hamascase.com, a website for the case set up by Riverway Law:

Charlotte Kates’ report as co-founder of Samidoun is republished below, and can be found on the case website at: https://hamascase.com/volume-ii/17_kates-prisoners/

 

IN THE MATTER OF AN APPLICATION FOR DEPROSCRIPTION
BETWEEN:
حركة المقاومة الاسلامية

HARAKAT AL-MUQAWAMAH AL-ISLAMIYYAH

 Applicant
-and-
SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT Respondent
SUBMISSIONS IN SUPPORT OF DEPROSCRIPTION

 

——————————————————————————————————————————-

REPORT ON

THE PALESTINIAN PRISONERS’ MOVEMENT AS

CENTRAL TO THE PALESTINIAN LIBERATION STRUGGLE

BY

CHARLOTTE KATES

——————————————————————————————————————————-

  1. INSTRUCTIONS

  1. I have been instructed by Riverway Law to provide a report on matters within my expertise in support of the application to the British Home Secretary to deproscribe Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah (‘Hamas’).

  2. This expert report examines the centrality of Palestinian political prisoners to the liberation struggle of the Palestinian people from the settler colonial conditions of their occupation. Palestinian prisoners have been celebrated and supported by resistance movements since the time of British Mandate to the contemporary moment, particularly under Israel’s system of administrative detention – a system of arbitrary detention inherited by the British colonial authorities. All resistance movements, in fighting Israel, make consistent demands for their prisoners to be released, often engaging directly in the taking of Israeli hostages in order to force such releases. Over the years, Palestinian groups may have made a number of concessions to Israel, but they have never abandoned their prisoners.

  1. QUALIFICATIONS

  1. I give this report in my personal capacity.

  2. I am the co-founder of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network. In this context, I have written and produced numerous reports on the current situation of Palestinian prisoners as well as the historical struggle of Palestinian prisoners and the role of Palestinian prisoners of the resistance. Most of my work in this regard is available at samidoun.net.

  3. I have spoken at hundreds of events, forums and activities internationally regarding the current situation and the political role of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, including at universities around the world, study centres, conferences and parliaments, including in Portugal, Brazil and the European Parliament.

  4. I have travelled to Palestine on multiple occasions and met with former political prisoners and the families of current political prisoners, and produced interviews, reports and analyses of the situation facing Palestinian prisoners and their relevance to the current political moment.

  5. I am the recipient of the Debra Evenson Venceremos Award from the National Lawyers Guild in the United States and the Islamic Human Rights and Human Dignity Award in Iran for my work in publicizing, advocating for and addressing the current situation and political history of Palestinian political prisoners.

  6. I am active with the US National Lawyers Guild and the International Association of Democratic Lawyers

  7. I graduated in 2006 from Rutgers University School of Law.

THE PALESTINIAN PRISONERS’ MOVEMENT AS CENTRAL TO THE PALESTINIAN LIBERATION STRUGGLE

  1. INTRODUCTION

  1. The centrality of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement1 to the cause of the Palestinian liberation struggle can scarcely be overestimated. Frequently referred to as “the compass” or the “moral authority” of the Palestinian cause, the prisoners held in Israeli jails, many for lengthy sentences imposed by military courts or under arbitrary administrative detention without charge or trial, are widely regarded as symbols of principled commitment to Palestinian freedom and political symbols – and, indeed, protagonists of Palestinian unity2. Beyond their political importance, the Palestinian prisoners’ issue is one that touches Palestinians intimately. According to many estimates, approximately 40% of Palestinian men in the West Bank and Jerusalem have spent some time in Israeli jails; prior to 2005, equal percentages could be found in Gaza3. Nearly every Palestinian family has some experience with imprisonment by Israeli forces, whether that is a briefer detention and interrogation or long-term incarceration. If an immediate family member has not been imprisoned, it is rare to find Palestinians in the West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza Strip, and to some extent Palestinian citizens of Israel, who have not seen an uncle, aunt or cousin detained behind Israeli bars.

  2. As a result of the political, social and cultural importance of the prisoners – alongside the general social value of honoring those who have sacrificed for the cause of liberation as veterans – every Palestinian political party and resistance organization has developed a program for their liberation. Having served time in Israeli prisons is a distinguished feature of leadership in Palestinian resistance and politics4. The most successful and dramatic releases of Palestinian prisoners, particularly those with a long history in armed struggle or key leadership roles in Palestinian resistance organizations, have come through prisoner exchanges with the Palestinian resistance. Indeed, many of the most well-known and spectacular Palestinian resistance operations historically, including many of the airplane hijackings of the late 1960s and early 1970s, were at least in part explicitly motivated by a demand to release Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails, or in Western countries’ jails allied with Israel and its occupation5.

  3. Since 1967, over 800,000 Palestinians, including children, have been detained on the basis of an array of authoritarian rules enacted, enforced and adjudicated by the Israeli military.6 As we write in December 2024, there are approximately 10,300 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. This number includes approximately 3,400 Palestinians held in administrative detention, imprisonment without charge or trial on the basis of a “secret file” that is indefinitely renewable. It also includes 345 Palestinian child prisoners, around 100 Palestinian women prisoners and 200 Palestinian political prisoners who are from occupied Palestine 1948, ie, who hold Israeli citizenship789. It is clear that this number is incomplete, as at least dozens of Palestinians from Gaza were killed under severe torture in the occupation prisons and detention camps, and the occupation has refused to release information about their names and the dates of their deaths.

  4. In addition, through its practices of collective confinement in the occupied Palestinian territory, Israel reproduces a pattern of carcerality, an essential feature of settler-colonialism. This can be defined as a large-scale system of deprivation of liberty that forces into a condition of captivity entire populations, who are also dispossessed of their lands. “Over time, Israel has expanded its multifaceted hold over the Palestinians as a people, through physical, bureaucratic and digital mechanisms. Behind-bars imprisonment dovetails with confinement techniques that envelop the entire occupied Palestinian territory, accompanying and enabling arbitrary seizure of land and Palestinians’ forcible displacement. This has turned Palestinian life into a “carceral continuum”, where different levels of captivity co-exist: from the micro level of individual deprivation of liberty, through mass incarceration, to population entrapment in strictly controlled enclaves in which the occupied population is confined as a collective security threat, and any form of resistance to the occupation’s territorial expansion and dispossession is repressed.”10

  5. The conditions of Palestinian prisoners are also a major source of concern in Palestinian society. Israeli politicians, especially those assigned the post of “Minister of Public Security” who are, therefore, in charge of the Israel Prison Service, frequently boast about their poor treatment of Palestinian prisoners in the Hebrew-language media and seek to raise their profiles by speaking about how they aim to make life worse for Palestinian prisoners. The past two politicians holding this post, Gilad Erdan and Itamar Ben-Gvir, have been particularly notable for their promotion of poor treatment of Palestinian prisoners as they aimed to raise their profile among the right-wing and far-right-wing sectors of the Zionist movement11.

  6. Beyond the Israeli politicians’ boasts, however, Palestinian prisoners and their lawyers have frequently spoken out about the poor conditions to which Palestinians detained by Israel are subjected. These conditions have routinely included severe torture under interrogation, denial of medical treatment, denial of family visits, inadequate, spoiled or inappropriate food, denial of education to imprisoned children, denial of legal visits, beatings and assaults by guards, violations of the privacy of women prisoners, and other forms of assaults on the human dignity of the Palestinian prisoners. While such treatment may have been intended to undermine or repress Palestinian resistance, it has instead helped to solidify the culture of sumud, or steadfastness, under interrogation and inside the prisons, alongside a firm commitment to achieve freedom and liberation12.

  7. Palestinian prisoners not only constitute a set of individual victims of the brutality of occupation soldiers or of the Israeli regime. Many are members of political parties and resistance organizations, who continue to carry on their work behind bars in clandestine manners that range from tiny, nearly undetectable paper messages called “capsules” to the modern equivalent of smuggled cell phones that are little more than a SIM card and circuit board. Most of the Palestinian resistance organizations, such as Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement; the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine; the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; and even Fateh, the National Liberation Movement, have branches of their organizations in prison that participate in internal deliberations, cast their votes, and carry a strong moral weight behind their interventions in political activity due to their experience and sacrifices.13

  8. All Palestinian political organizations speak frequently and openly about the need to free Palestinian prisoners and honor their role in the liberation movement. Even the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank, despite engaging in “security coordination” with the Israeli occupation authorities under the Oslo Accords, continues to provide support payments to the families of prisoners, despite demands from the Israelis and various Western governments to cease such payments, because that support for the prisoners is a key source of popular legitimacy for the Authority, and abandoning the prisoners would be widely understood as an act of national treason.14

  1. THE PALESTINIAN PRISONERS’ NATIONAL MOVEMENT

  1. However, in addition to their role within the various Palestinian resistance organizations and political parties, Palestinian prisoners constitute what is generally referred to as the Palestinian prisoners’ movement. This movement reflects the organization of the prisoners themselves to achieve their freedom from Israeli jails, to play their role in the liberation of Palestine from colonialism, settler colonialism and occupation, and to engage in constant and ongoing confrontations with their jailers over both these larger issues as well as a range of struggles over conditions of confinement through a range of tactics that include hunger strikes and mass civil disobedience. The Palestinian prisoners’ movement also exerts an influential voice in Palestinian politics and society as a whole, with statements issued by the movement – from the 2006 “Prisoners’ Document” on Palestinian national unity to calls to action on urgent issues – bearing a significant weight in setting political and action priorities.

  2. The Palestinian prisoners’ movement is not a new development and indeed, in many ways, predates the Israeli occupation. Under the British Mandate for Palestine, 1929 witnessed a wide-scale Palestinian uprising known as the Buraq Revolution. At least 900 Palestinians were imprisoned by the British and 26 sentenced to death for participating in the revolt.15 There was such an outcry by the Palestinian people that most of these sentences were converted to life imprisonment, with some key exceptions. On 17 June 1930, three of the earliest heroes and symbols of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement, Fouad Hijazi, Atta al-Zeer and Mohammed Khalil Jamjoum, were executed by the British in Akka prison.

  3. On the day of their execution, Palestinians organized a general strike throughout Palestine as large crowds gathered in major cities across the country – in Yafa, Haifa, al-Khalil and Nablus. After the executions, their bodies were handed to the men’s families, who had been denied the right to bury them in their home cities. Thousands of Palestinians streamed through the streets of Akka in honor of Jamjoum, Hijazi and al-Zeer, figures and symbols of Palestinian resistance to colonialism. The song written to commemorate Hijazi, al-Zeer and Jamjoum, “From Akka Prison,” today remains one of the most well-known and powerful poems of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.16

  4. Indeed, the message to the public from Jamjoum, Hijazi and al-Zeer in many ways echoes the messages emerging from Israeli jails nearly a century later: ““Now we are at the doors of eternity, offering our lives to save the sacred homeland , for dear Palestine, we plead to all Palestinians not to forget our spilled blood and our souls that will fly in the sky of this beloved country, and to remember that we have willingly given ourselves and our skulls to be a basis for building our nation’s independence and freedom, and that the nation remain persistent in its union and its struggle for the salvation of Palestine from the enemies, and to keep its lands and not to sell one inch of it to the enemies, and that its determination not be wavered and not be weakened by threat and intimidation, and to strive until it gains victory.”17

  5. While the Nakba of 1947-48 – the mass dispossession of the Palestinian people by Zionist militias establishing the Israeli state on stolen Palestinian land – is best-known for the hundreds of thousands dispossessed from their lands and forced into the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and neighbouring countries, massacres in villages like Dawaymeh and Deir Yassin, and the destruction of hundreds of Palestinian villages, like every other major incident of colonial assault on the Palestinian people, imprisonment and the exploitation of Palestinian labour was also a key characteristic of the aggression. As documented by Salman Abu Sitta and Terry Rempel, thousands of Palestinians were imprisoned in prisoner of war camps and exploited in forced labour in order to bolster the Zionist war effort in conditions described by one International Committee of the Red Cross official as “slavery.”18 At least 5,000 Palestinian prisoners of al-Nakba were later expelled from their lands.

  6. The modern Palestinian prisoners’ movement, like the Palestinian liberation movement, began and escalated in 1967, although it has its roots in these earlier experiences as well as the imprisonment of many Palestinian citizens of Israel prior to 1967 under the martial law directives. Indeed, the first organization designated an “illegal organization” by the Israeli occupation was Al-Ard, an association of Palestinian citizens of Israel dedicated to reclaiming the stolen land of Palestine. 19Today, the charge of “membership in” or “support for” an “illegal organization” – which includes all major Palestinian political parties, resistance organizations, student blocs and even the Palestine Liberation Organization, despite the Oslo Accords – is one of the most common charges under which Palestinian prisoners are held in Israeli jails.

  7. Approximately one million Palestinians have been arrested and detained by the Israeli occupation forces since 1967, with the first administrative detention order issued in the West Bank on 3 September 1967. 20 Alongside the development of the Palestinian factions like Fateh, the PFLP and the DFLP, their prison organizations also grew and developed. One of the first collective hunger strike demands in 1969 of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement inside Israeli jails was for paper and pencils to be able to write, and the prisoners’ movement quickly “turned the prisons of the occupier into revolutionary schools,” developing their organizations, sharing knowledge and building an organized political movement to which young Palestinians contributed even more significantly upon their release from prison.21

  1. BATTLES OF EMPTY STOMACHS

  1. The history of hunger strikes or the “battles of empty stomachs” that have characterized the Palestinian prisoners’ movement have not only mobilized the prisoners themselves but also Palestinian society more broadly as well as wide-ranging global attention. Hunger strikes by Palestinian prisoners date back to 1968, with the 1969 strike for stationery being one of the first to receive widespread attention outside the prison walls.22 This strike also demanded an end to forced labour and the requirement to address guards as “yes, sir,” and ended with a crackdown on the prisoners and many held in solitary confinement.

  2. Hunger strikes continued to develop as a means of prisoners’ struggle behind bars, including the first hunger strike conducted by imprisoned Palestinian women at Neve Tirza in 1970 to demand access to sanitary products as well as to outdoor time. In July 1970, the first recorded martyr of the modern Palestinian prisoners’ movement, Abdul-Qader Abu al-Fahm, was killed through force-feeding during a hunger strike at Asqalan prison, when the feeding tube was inserted into his lungs instead of his stomach. Hunger strikes continued through the 1970s and 1980s, including a 32-day strike at Nafha prison in 1980 in which Rasem Halawa and Ali al-Jaafari were killed through force-feeding, while prisoners won improved conditions.23

  3. Improved conditions of Palestinian prisoners have typically been won through hunger strikes and mass action, even as Israeli political figures typically seek to appeal to their domestic audience by promising even worse conditions for jailed Palestinians. One of the most historically significant strikes took place in 1984 for 13 days at Junaid prison, when a strike by 800 prisoners gained access to a communal radio and TV, changes of clothes and better-quality food prepared by the prisoners themselves. In early 1987, a hunger strike by over 3,000 Palestinian prisoners in multiple prisons following an attempt by a new prison authority to roll back the prisoners’ achievements, played a role in leading up to the Intifada of the Stones, which burst into full prominence on 9 December 1987. 24

  4. In 1992, 7000 Palestinian prisoners launched a hunger strike, amid the ongoing Intifada, at multiple prisons, which led to closing the isolation section in Ramle prison, putting an end to strip searches, allowing more cooking equipment and increasing family visits. As the early Oslo period came to an end and amid the growing awareness that the Oslo Accords had brought no freedom to the Palestinian people but only renewed colonization, at least 650 Palestinian prisoners launched a collective hunger strike in January 2000 to demand an end to strip searches and allowance of family visits. Much like the 1987 strike, this was part of the growing unrest among the Palestinian population after years of settlement construction and broken promises that led to the Al-Aqsa Intifada.25

  5. Throughout the past 25 years, individual and collective hunger strikes have remained a mainstay of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and have garnered a significant amount of external attention, within Palestinian society, across the Arab region and internationally. Collective hunger strikes in 2004, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2017 and 2023 involved hundreds to thousands of Palestinian prisoners, with an array of demands including an end to isolation and solitary confinement, ending administrative detention, and improving conditions, particularly as a form of resistance to repeated attempts by the Israeli prison administration to roll back all the achievements of the prisoners’ movement over the prior decades.

  6. The decade of the 2010s was also marked by a substantial rise in the number of individual hunger strikes, most frequently around the issue of administrative detention. First introduced to Palestine as part of the British Mandate’s emergency laws, administrative detention has been one of the most widely practiced methods of the Israeli regime to target Palestinians for arbitrary detention, particularly when they have been unable to obtain a confession. Administrative detention is frequently used against influential Palestinians, community leaders, student activists and others who are prominent in their communities in an attempt to remove them from the scene.

  7. Administrative detention orders are issued for up to six months at a time. They are issued by a military commander and then approved by a military court, although this is more of a rubber-stamp procedure than any kind of meaningful due process. These orders are indefinitely renewable, and many Palestinians have spent years at a time jailed under such repeatedly renewed administrative detention orders. The use of administrative detention has been on a sustained increase for years.

  8. Administrative detention also serves as a form of psychological torture for the detainee as well as collective punishment for their family members. Because they never know if or when they will be released or continually held in prison, they cannot plan for the future or determine their next steps. In addition, they do not have access to any meaningful form of appeal, as they are denied access to the “secret file” used to justify their imprisonment, as are their lawyers; therefore, they are unable to meaningfully object to any of the content contained therein. The widespread use of administrative detention therefore sparked the individual hunger strike movement of the 2010s.

  9. The most prominent figure of this movement was Sheikh Khader Adnan. A baker from Jenin and a member of the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, Khader Adnan conducted four successful hunger strikes in which he won his freedom from administrative detention. Of course, he was not alone; many other prominent hunger strikers included Bilal Diab, Thaer Halahleh, Hana Shalabi, Hisham Abu Hawash, Nidal Abu Aker, Bilal Kayed, Mohammed al-Qeeq, Kayed Fasfous, and many others, all of whom were held in administrative detention and many of whom gained their freedom through these strikes. 26

  10. However, the Israeli regime responded to this increase in hunger strikes with even more repression. In 2015, the Knesset officially adopted the “Law to Prevent Harm Caused by Hunger Strikers” to officially approve force-feeding of hunger-striking prisoners. The prison administration also clearly adopted a policy of refusing to respond to hunger strikers, particularly in the post-2020 era. Fewer hunger strikers were able to win their release, and on multiple occasions, Israeli officials reneged upon or denied agreements that they had made with Palestinian prisoners and their lawyers. 27

  11. In July 2022, the case of Khalil Awawdeh, on hunger strike for over 150 days, was one of the major issues in the Israeli aggression on Gaza and the response of the Palestinian resistance, as the Islamic Jihad Movement and its armed wing Saraya al-Quds demanded the release of Palestinian prisoners. Despite Egyptian guarantees of the release of Awawdeh and Bassam al-Saadi, a prominent leader of the movement, the Israelis reneged on the agreement and claimed to find a smuggled phone with Awawdeh upon his transfer to hospital, keeping him in administrative detention. 28

  12. In May 2023, Sheikh Khader Adnan died after 82 days on hunger strike in his most recent imprisonment, inside Israeli jails, after he was denied medical care and treatment. His wife and multiple advocacy organizations had warned on multiple occasions that the situation for Adnan was dire and that he was facing, in effect, a “slow assassination” inside Israeli jails. These incidents highlighted the limitations of the tactic of hunger strikes inside the prison to win the release of Palestinians, especially as the number of administrative detainees – and prisoners in total – continued to increase through ongoing mass arrests on a daily basis throughout the West Bank and Jerusalem.29

  1. SELF-LIBERATION AND PRISONER ESCAPES

  1. Hunger strikes were not the only mechanisms that Palestinian prisoners used in order to liberate themselves from Israeli prisons, as the Palestinian prisoners’ movement consistently developed plans for prisoner escapes. Much like the prisoners’ movement as a whole, these escapes have roots in the Palestinian resistance to British colonialism as well as the post-Nakba imprisonment of Palestinians prior to the emergence of the modern Palestinian national movement.

  2. In 1938, one of the leaders of the 1936-1939 revolt in Palestine against British colonialism, who fought alongside Sheikh Izzedine al-Qassam, Issa Hajj Suleiman al-Battat, escaped with several other Palestinian prisoners jailed by the British in 1938 from Atlit prison. Two decades later, Shatta prison – still a prison holding Palestinian political prisoners today – was the site of the largest prison uprising and escape since the Nakba. Approximately 190 Palestinian and Arab prisoners revolted inside the Shata prison in the Jordan Valley on 31 July 1958. 77 prisoners escaped after fierce fighting in which 11 prisoners and two jailers were killed. Mohammed Jahjah, the grandfather of Zakaria Zubaidi, who would later participate in a 2021 escape, was one of the prisoners who liberated himself in this rebellion, who then participated in leading the fedayeen in armed struggle in Irbid, Jordan, before moving with the fighters to Syria.30

  3. Palestinian prisoner Hamza Younes, from Ara, south of Haifa, escaped from occupation prisons on three occasions, in 1964, 1967 and 1971: from Asqelan prison, from a hospital and a third time from Ramle prison, respectively, before he escaped to Lebanon where he joined the Palestinian resistance. In 1969, Mahmoud Abdullah Hammad from Silwad, near Ramallah, escaped during a prisoner transfer. He evaded occupation forces for nine months and successfully made it to Jordan.

  4. In 1983, Nasser Issa Hamed was 15 years old, taken to the occupation court on 27 January. His fellow prisoners launched a confrontation inside the court and Nasser escaped into Ramallah, where he took shelter in an unfinished construction project. He hid in a well as he attempted to make his way home to Silwad, but eventually turned himself in after his mother was arrested by the occupation forces. One month later, learning of the story, Majdi Suleiman Abu al-Safa escaped in the same way from the occupation courts, making his way to Jordan and then to Colombia and Brazil, where he has remained until the present day.

  5. One extremely significant prisoner escape took place on 17 May 1987, when Misbah al-Suri and his comrades Sami al-Sheikh Khalil, Mohammed al-Jamal, Imad Saftawi, Khaled Saleh and Saleh Ishteiwi escaped from Gaza Central Prison. The incident – and the “Battle of Shujaiyya” that ensued in October as the released prisoners carried out resistance operations and fought with Israeli soldiers – has been long considered one of the sparks of the great Intifada of 1987, along with the mass hunger strike earlier that year. The prisoners refashioned kitchen tools into screwdrivers and were able to smuggle in a tiny saw inside a loaf of bread. The prisoners tied bedsheets together to make a rope ladder to scale down the wall of the prison and secure their liberation. The date of the Battle of Shujaiyya – 6 October 1987 – is now marked as the anniversary of the founding of the Islamic Jihad Movement, underlining once again the importance of the prisoners to all sectors of the Palestinian liberation movement.

  6. On 21 May 1990, Omar Nayef Zayed escaped from occupation prisons four years after his arrest as he was transferred to a hospital in Bethlehem. He made his way to Jordan and then to Bulgaria in 1994. In 2016, occupation forces attempted to have him extradited from Bulgaria to occupied Palestine, and he took refuge inside the Palestinian Authority embassy where he was later killed on 26 February 2016. His fight against extradition sparked an international campaign to support him and demand his freedom.

  7. Saleh Tahaineh escaped from Ofer prison in a complicated plan involving his fellow struggler Nu’man Tahaineh — later also assassinated by the occupation — and another Palestinian prisoner scheduled to be released. He took the place of the prisoner whose release was scheduled, who then noted that he had not been released. He had earlier switched places with Nu’man, who had a much lower sentence. He was pursued and eventually killed by occupation forces after being captured. Both Saleh and Nu’man Tahaineh were mentors of Mahmoud and Mohammed al-Ardah, who led the 2021 Freedom Tunnel escape.

  8. On 6 September 2021, six Palestinian prisoners, Mahmoud al-Ardah, Mohammed al-Ardah, Yousef Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, Munadil Nafa’at and Zakaria Zubeidi, escaped the Israeli regime’s “high security” Gilboa prison. Pictures of puzzled soldiers and guards examining a tunnel crafted outside the prison by the six men circulated widely on social media and the image of the spoon – used as one of the tools to dig the tunnel out of the prison – became a national symbol of the Palestinian cause. While the men were recaptured, their escape was a beacon of hope and of Palestinians’ creativity and commitment to freedom. Palestinian resistance leaders and spokespeople, including Abu Obeida, the spokesperson of the Ezz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, pledged that the six men – and other prisoners who had participated in supporting their escape – would be highly prioritized in a prisoner exchange. 31

  1. PALESTINIAN RESISTANCE AND PRISONER EXCHANGES

  1. Prisoner exchanges have been the most significant mechanism of the Palestinian national movement to free large numbers of Palestinian prisoners, particularly prominent national leaders that the Israeli regime is typically unwilling to free or have been given high sentences, including life and multiple life sentences. Because of the achievements of prisoner exchanges in releasing thousands of prisoners, particularly leaders and those with high sentences, securing the prisoners of war necessary to complete an exchange has been a high priority for Palestinian resistance organizations for decades. In total, over 8,000 Palestinian prisoners have been released through exchanges, and the capture of Israelis and especially Israeli soldiers or settlers has been a high priority for the Palestinian resistance in the past and at present in order to achieve the liberation of additional prisoners.

  2. On 23 July 1968, the first exchange was successfully completed between the Palestinian revolution and the Israeli occupation. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked a plane from Rome to Tel Aviv, releasing the passengers in exchange for 37 Palestinian prisoners, some with high sentences imprisoned before 1967. On 28 February 1971, Palestinian prisoner Mahmoud Bakr Hijazi was exchanged for an Israeli soldier in an exchange agreement between Fateh and the Israeli occupation.32

  3. On 14 March 1979, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command conducted an exchange agreement with the Israeli occupation for the release of 76 Palestinian prisoners, including 12 women prisoners. In 1980, Palestinian prisoner Mehdi Bseiso was released in exchange for a collaborator captured by the Fateh movement.

  4. On 23 November 1983, 4560 Palestinian detained Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners in southern Lebanon, including 65 Palestinian women prisoners were exchanged for six Israeli occupation soldiers arrested in southern Lebanon, in an exchange with the Palestine Liberation Organization.

  5. On 20 May 1985, 1155 Palestinian prisoners were released in an exchange for three Israeli soldiers captured by the PFLP-GC, including 380 serving life sentences. Many of the Palestinian prisoners released later became leaders in the intifada that arose in 1987. Often called the “Jibril Agreement,” after PFLP-GC leader Ahmad Jibril, those released in this exchange included Misbah al-Suri, later re-arrested, who planned the escape from Gaza Central Prison in 1987; Kozo Okamoto of the Japanese Red Army; Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, later the spiritual leader of Hamas; and Ziyad Nakhaleh, the current general secretary of the Islamic Jihad Movement.

  6. In September 1997, the Mossad attempted to assassinate Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal in Jordan with a poisonous injection. Two Mossad agents were arrested in Jordan and in exchange for those agents, the Israeli state released Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and leader of the Hamas movement, then serving a life sentence in Israeli prisons. (Yassin had been re-arrested after the 1985 prisoner exchange.)

  7. In January 2004, the Israeli occupation released 436 prisoners and returned the remains of 59 soldiers in exchange for the remains of three Israeli occupation soldiers and the release of drug dealer, businessman and potential intelligence agent Elhanan Tannenbaum, in an exchange with Hezbollah in Lebanon. In 2008, Samir Kuntar of the Palestine Liberation Front and four Hezbollah fighters were released in exchange for the remains of two Israeli occupation soldiers in southern Lebanon, in an exchange with Hezbollah.

  8. In 2011, the Palestinian resistance conducted its most significant prisoner exchange since 1985, the Wafaa al-Ahrar (Faithful to the Free) prisoner exchange, in which 1027 Palestinian prisoners were released in exchange for captured occupation soldier Gilad Shalit. This exchange agreement, led by Hamas and the al-Qassam Brigades, led to the release of a number of prominent Palestinian prisoners with lengthy sentences, including Yahya Sinwar, the chairman of the Hamas movement and one of the architects of the Al-Aqsa Flood, killed in battle in Gaza on 17 October 2024; Hussam Badran; Ahlam Tamimi; Zaher Jabarin; Hussam Badran; Nael Barghouti; Samer Issawi; and many others. The Wafaa al-Ahrar agreement is credited with playing a major role in helping to develop the resistance in Gaza, particularly as many Palestinian prisoners were exiled to Gaza as part of their release, into readiness for advanced military action and armed struggle.

  9. The Wafaa al-Ahrar prisoners have been repeatedly targeted for re-arrest by Israeli forces, including longest-held Palestinian prisoner Nael Barghouti, whose previous life sentence was re-imposed upon him. Like the prisoners of the Freedom Tunnel, the re-arrestees of the Wafaa al-Ahrar exchange are a high priority for the Palestinian resistance in a prisoner exchange. 33

  10. In addition, the Israeli regime refused to release multiple prominent prisoners with lengthy sentences in the Wafa al-Ahrar exchange, leading Palestinian resistance organizations to seek a stronger hand in order to obtain the freedom of prominent leaders such as Marwan Barghouti, the prominent Fateh leader; Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine; Abdullah Barghouti, the longest-sentenced Palestinian prisoner with 67 life sentences; and Ibrahim Hamed, Abbas Sayyed and Hassan Salameh, military leaders of the Hamas movement.

  1. CONCLUSION

  1. So long as the Israeli regime and its illegal occupation continue to imprison thousands of Palestinians, many of them jailed without charge or trial, in extreme and inhumane conditions, Palestinian prisoners and their political parties and resistance movements will seek their freedom by all means. The release of the Palestinian prisoners is a consensus position among Palestinians with strong support from all sectors of society, and the Israeli occupation has made clear that a prisoner exchange has been, for many years, the only effective way to ensure the release of significant numbers of imprisoned Palestinians, especially of imprisoned Palestinian national leaders.

  2. Palestinian prisoners are not separate to the resistance movements operating within the Occupied Territory, they are an integral part of how resistance operates for all factions. In many ways, it cannot be overstated that the moral conscience of the historic and contemporary movement for a Palestine free of settler colonisation can be found explicitly in the centrality of political prisoners to every part of Palestinian society.

  1. EXPERT OBLIGATIONS

    I confirm that I have made clear which facts and matters referred to in this report are within my own knowledge and which are not. Those that are within my own knowledge I confirm to be true. The opinions I have expressed represent my true and complete professional opinions on the matters to which they refer.

    I understand that proceedings for contempt of court may be brought by anyone who makes, or causes to be made, a false statement in a document verified by a statement of truth without an honest belief in its truth.

    I confirm that I have not received any remuneration for preparing this report.

Charlotte Kates

Co-founder, Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Tunis

Tunisia

17 December 2024

Footnotes:

  1. The term “asra”, used to describe Palestinian prisoners, can also be translated as “captives.” It conveys a different meaning to those who are imprisoned in a criminal or social context. However, we are using the English term “prisoners” here for clarity, with the understanding that the term “prisoner” does not mean that it is just that they are imprisoned – on the contrary, that this term in English helps to evoke the carceral reality of the Israeli occupation for Palestinians.↩︎

  2. Norma Hashim, “Palestinian Political Prisoners in Israeli Jails: Stories of Resistance,” Insight Turkey, Vo. 26, No. 1, pp. 31-40; Palestinian Youth Movement, ““Prisoners are the Compass of Our Struggle”: why the release of Palestinian prisoners is central to our liberation”, Shado Magazine, 6 December 2023: https://shado-mag.com/opinion/prisoners-release-palestine-israel-war/↩︎

  3. Al-Haq, “17 April: Palestinian Prisoners Day, Marks Increase in Torture, Ill treatment and Administrative Detention”, 22 April 2015. https://www.alhaq.org/advocacy/6538.html↩︎

  4. Samidoun Seattle, “Palestinian prisoners are the leaders of our liberation struggle,” 17 April 2024, Real Change News: https://www.realchangenews.org/news/2024/04/17/palestinian-prisoners-are-leaders-our-liberation-struggle↩︎

  5. Leila Khaled, My People Shall Live: Autobiography of a Revolutionary, 1973.↩︎

  6. ’Arbitrary deprivation of liberty in the occupied Palestinian territory: the Palestinian experience behind and beyond bars‘ Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, 19 June-14 July 2023, A/HRC/53/59 https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g23/116/61/pdf/g2311661.pdf↩︎

  7. Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, “Statistics.” 17 December 2024: https://www.addameer.org/statistics↩︎

  8. UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, “UN Commission finds war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israeli attacks on Gaza health facilities and treatment of detainees, hostages,” https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/10/un-commission-finds-war-crimes-and-crimes-against-humanity-israeli-attacks↩︎

  9. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, “Mohammed Walid Ali al-Aref martyred in Zionist prisons one week after his re-arrest,” 5 December 2024: https://samidoun.net/2024/12/mohammed-walid-ali-al-aref-martyred-in-zionist-prisons-one-week-after-his-re-arrest/↩︎

  10. ’Arbitrary deprivation of liberty in the occupied Palestinian territory: the Palestinian experience behind and beyond bars‘ Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, 19 June-14 July 2023, A/HRC/53/59 https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g23/116/61/pdf/g2311661.pdf↩︎

  11. Dr. Ramzy Baroud, “‘Prisoners are heroes’: Being a Palestinian prisoner in Israel,” Middle East Monitor, 8 April 2019: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20190408-prisoners-are-heroes-being-a-palestinian-prisoner-in-israel/; Middle East Eye Staff, “Israeli minister Ben Gvir calls for execution of Palestinian prisoners to ease overcrowding,” 18 April 2024: https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-itamar-ben-gvir-calls-execution-palestinans-ease-overcrowding-prisons; Adalah, “Human rights organizations in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory warn of a dangerous escalation in violations of Palestinian prisoners’ rights due to the radical policies of the new Israeli government,” 3 March 2023: https://www.adalah.org/en/content/view/10795↩︎

  12. Lena Meari, “Sumud: A Palestinian Philosophy of Confrontation in Colonial Prisons,” South Atlantic Quarterly (2014), 113 (3): 547-578. https://doi.org/10.1215/00382876-2692182↩︎

  13. Tadamon: International Organization of Solidarity with Palestinian Prisoners, “The Palestinian Prisoners Movement: History and Experiences.” 9 September 2023: https://www.solidarity-ps.org/en/The_Palestinian_Prisoners_Movement↩︎

  14. Ramzy Baroud, “Instead of Freeing Palestinian Prisoners, New Scheme Aims at Punishing Their Families,” Palestine Chronicle, 3 February 2022: https://www.palestinechronicle.com/instead-of-freeing-palestinian-prisoners-new-scheme-aims-at-punishing-their-families/↩︎

  15. Samidoun, “93 years on the execution of the heroes of al-Buraq revolution: The prisoners’ struggle against imperialism and Zionism continues!”, 17 June 2023: https://samidoun.net/2023/06/93-years-on-the-execution-of-the-heroes-of-al-buraq-revolution-the-prisoners-struggle-against-imperialism-and-zionism-continues/↩︎

  16. Ibid.↩︎

  17. Ibid.↩︎

  18. Salman Abu Sitta and Terry Rempel, “The ICRC and the Detention of Palestinian Civilians in Israel’s 1948 POW/Labor Camps,” Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 43 No. 4 (Summer 2014) pp. 11-38. https://doi.org/10.1525/jps.2014.43.4.11↩︎

  19. Leena Dallasheh, “Political mobilization of Palestinians in Israel: The al-‘Ard movement,” January 2010: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/293241109_Political_mobilization_of_palestinians_in_Israel_The_al-‘Ard_movement↩︎

  20. Mandy Turner, “Locked-in conflict: Israel’s repressive carceral system and the criminalisation of Palestinians was one of the catalysts for October 7,” Security in Context, 26 March 2024: https://www.securityincontext.org/posts/locked-in-conflict-israels-repressive-carceral-system↩︎

  21. Khaled al-Azraq, “Israeli prisons as revolutionary universities,” Electronic Intifada, 9 December 2009: https://electronicintifada.net/content/israeli-prisons-revolutionary-universities/8572↩︎

  22. Basil Farraj, “How Palestinian Hunger Strikes Counter Israel’s Monopoly on Violence,” 12 May 2016, Al-Shabaka: https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/how-palestinian-hunger-strikes-counter-israels-monopoly-on-violence/↩︎

  23. Zena Al Tahhan, “A timeline of Palestinian mass hunger strikes in Israel,” 28 May 2017, Al Jazeera English. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/5/28/a-timeline-of-palestinian-mass-hunger-strikes-in-israel↩︎

  24. Ibid.↩︎

  25. Ibid.↩︎

  26. Amnesty International, “Israel/OPT: Death of Khader Adnan highlights Israel’s cruel treatment of Palestinian prisoners,” 3 May 2023: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/05/israel-opt-death-of-khader-adnan-highlights-israels-cruel-treatment-of-palestinian-prisoners/↩︎

  27. Addameer, “Force Feeding Under International Law,” 16 November 2015. http://www.addameer.org/publications/factsheet-force-feeding-under-international-law-and-medical-standards↩︎

  28. Samidoun, “Gaza ceasefire: Palestinian prisoners at the heart of the battle and the Resistance,” 7 August 2022: https://samidoun.net/2022/08/gaza-ceasefire-palestinian-prisoners-at-the-heart-of-the-battle-and-the-resistance/↩︎

  29. Amnesty International. Id.↩︎

  30. Samidoun, “Freedom Tunnel to Al-Aqsa Flood: Prisoners, Resistance and Liberation,” 6 September 2024: https://samidoun.net/2024/09/freedom-tunnel-to-al-aqsa-flood-prisoners-resistance-and-liberation/↩︎

  31. Al Mayadeen, “Hamas Military Spokesperson: No Prisoner Exchange without the 6 Gilboa Prisoners,” 11 September 2021. https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/hamas-military-spokesperson:-no-prisoner-exchange-without-th↩︎

  32. Samidoun, “Five years on: The Wafa al-Ahrar agreement and prisoner exchange,” 19 October 2016: https://samidoun.net/2016/10/five-years-on-the-wafa-al-ahrar-agreement-and-prisoner-exchange/↩︎

  33. Addameer, “Targeting Released Prisoners in Exchange Deals,” 26 February 2024. https://www.addameer.org/news/5281↩︎

Two mobilizations for Palestinian prisoners in Brussels and Charleroi

April 17 marks Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, the annual international day dedicated to the struggle for and liberation of Palestinian prisoners. To mark this occasion, among others, an impressive evening event took place in Brussels and an action was organized in the center of Charleroi.

A delegation from the Plate-Forme Charleroi-Palestine attended the excellent public meeting,  “Palestinian Prisoners – Current Issues and Prospects for Release” on Friday, April 18.

We are publishing here the testimony that a friend from Brussels sent us, which perfectly reflects our feelings. Thanks to him:

“On April 18, I participated in the conference organized by Samidoun  and other collectives in Brussels (Pianofabriek – Saint-Gilles) on the occasion of Palestinian Political Prisoners’ Day. 

It was a very high-level evening, both in substance and in form. There were over 100 participants, 95% of whom were young people and 80% of whom were motivated young women. It was a remarkable and hopeful turnout.

The two comrades who hosted the evening are young Palestinian women studying at the VUB, one from Gaza and the other from the Ain al-Helweh refugee camp  (Saida, Lebanon). They were fluent in French and English (as well as Arabic and Dutch) and led the discussion excellently, focusing on the central themes of resistance and the struggle for the liberation of Palestine.

Five people were invited to speak:  Hadeel Shatara and Fadia Barghouti, two Palestinians freed by the resistance in the Toufan al Ahrar exchange; Adel, a comrade from Samidoun Paris Banlieue;  Nathan, a comrade active within the Université Populaire de Bruxelles (the student occupation of the ULB in spring 2024); as well as a comrade from the  Getting the Voice Out collective, which fights against the imprisonment of undocumented migrants, to highlight the convergence of struggles.

The former prisoners, who joined us on Zoom, denounced the repression and described the misery in prison. But their words were neither complaints nor lamentations; their testimonies were full of dignity and illustrated the will and strength of an entire people, which can be characterized by the term ‘sumud’.

The speech by the comrade from Samidoun Paris was very interesting. He explained the immense political importance of the prisoners’ struggle, their central role in the liberation struggle (“prisoners are our compass”), and how their existence and actions accompany us in our struggles beyond the prison walls. In particular, he mentioned Georges Ibrahim Abdallah and Walid Daqqah (and the latter’s work, an example of the importance of literature produced by prisoners in understanding the colonial prison system). He also recalled the place of  Toufan al Aqsa  (October 7) in a context where the liberation of prisoners is at the heart of the Palestinian struggle. Finally, he spoke of all these other struggles, to remind us of the strength of peoples when they rise up against the oppressor, from Haiti (a people of enslaved prisoners who wrested their freedom from the French colonial power 200 years ago) to Algeria.  This slogan illustrates it: Haiti has won, Vietnam has won, Algeria has won, Palestine will win too.

The comrade who participated in the ULB encampment/occupation for Palestine explained how he and his comrades held in-depth discussions and developed an anti-colonial political position, which was not limited to  “liberating Palestine”,“stopping the genocide” and achieving a “ceasefire”, but supported the struggle, including armed struggle, of the Palestinians to regain the integrity of their homeland. Therefore, this occupation went much further than the courageous occupation of Ghent.

The comrade from the Getting the Voice Out collective , which defends detained undocumented immigrants, testified to how these defenseless people are humiliated and isolated without any prospect of finding the freedom and protection they sought in our country.

The evening ended with the call from liberated prisoner Hadeel Shatara :

“Let us continue to weaken the Zionist entity and its imperialist backers, wherever and however we can.”

Action in Charleroi city center

The following day, Saturday, April 19, a team from the Platform set up camp at Place Verte in Charleroi. An arbor was erected, decorated with photos of Palestinian prisoners and martyred prisoners, as well as banners for the release of Georges Abdallah, Ahmad Sa’adat, and all Palestinian prisoners. Palestinian flags flew in the square, and passersby also discovered messages against the ongoing genocide, for the boycott of Israel, and in support of Palestinian resistance.

At the stand, passersby found scarves and bracelets in support of Palestine, T-shirts and books, and could also send cards to Palestinian prisoners.

Two participants read a text written by several Palestinian resistance fighters who had experienced Zionist jails.

They wrote this text on November 25th in support of their imprisoned sisters. Since then, some of them have been released thanks to the exchange agreement reached by the Resistance and the people of Gaza at the beginning of this year .

Currently, 29 Palestinian women prisoners remain incarcerated. This text was sent to us by the  Dismantle Damon campaign.

Here is the text:

Dear comrades,

From Palestine, I write to you with my voice, with the voice of all the oppressed prisoners in Damon Prison, with the voice of Khalida Jarrar from her solitary confinement cell, and with the voice of all the women of Palestine, who constantly suffer various forms of oppression and violence – whether at the hands of the so-called  local “Palestinian Authority”  or the Zionist colonial army.

They are targeted on several levels: first because they are Palestinian, second because they are women. Their bodies then become instruments of pressure and violence—a constant reality that will only end with
total and complete liberation.

In a sealed, freezing iron box, without food, without treatment for illnesses, without clothing or blankets, Damon’s daughters are suffering today. There are now nearly a hundred of them. In these harsh and inhumane conditions, each one is deprived of her children, her mother, or her loved one: these are all stories the world must hear.

One of the most difficult aspects of their detention is the separation from their families, the complete lack of contact with the outside world, and the neglect of institutions and lawyers, who act like merchants in this war. Another crucial point is the lack of any privacy, with the jailers monitoring the prisoners 24 hours a day.

Although the women prisoners describe Damon as a graveyard for the living, they resist with patience and resilience, knowing with certainty that one day they will be free. They do not let the occupation, with all its tools (explicit or implicit), break their souls. Political prisons were designed to break us, but we transform them into
learning spaces where we become stronger.

Today, the masks are falling: all colonizers and oppressors identify with Israel, and all the colonized and oppressed identify with Palestine. The oppressors believe their voice is the loudest, but ours, that of the people, is more powerful.

Many countries are complicit in the genocide: they continue to support Israel not only financially, but also militarily. These same countries that claim to be defenders of human rights and international law revealed their double standards and double standards by reacting to the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court against two brutal Zionist criminals, even though the matter was to enforce equal rights and international law.

The world continues to ignore the lives of two million people in Gaza. We witness the violence of colonialism in the West Bank every day, with no accountability or accountability. The number of Palestinian captives in Israeli prisons is growing rapidly, particularly those under administrative detention.

Palestinians in Zionist prisons face deliberate starvation, disease and epidemics.

We promise not to leave our women alone with Damon! We will never bow
to oppression, ethnic cleansing, or genocide!

To abusive governments and regimes, we say: Your violence will not silence our voices. We
will not be on the wrong side of history!

As Khalida Jarrar said,
“They are trying to silence our voices, but they will not succeed, and we will continue to
raise their voices loud and clear.”

Free our women from Damon Prison and all women victims of enforced disappearance by the Zionist state.
Free our beloved fathers, brothers, and husbands from all Israeli colonial prisons.
And remember: where there is oppression, resistance is a duty.
Generation after generation, until total liberation!

Join us at our next Place Verte event: Saturday, May 17, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.

Source: Charleroi for Palestine

Torture of Palestinian leaders: Abdullah Barghouti repeatedly beaten and starved in Zionist prisons

Tala Barghouti, the daughter of imprisoned Palestinian leader Abdullah Barghouti, serving the longest sentence in Zionist jails, 67 life sentences, reported revelations from his most recent lawyer visit: held in Gilboa prison, he has undergone ongoing, severe torture including multiple beatings with belts and iron batons.

The lawyer reported that Barghouti has bruises and open wounds all over his body; his fellow prisoners in the occupation jails help him to disinfect his wounds with dishwashing liquid, as they are denied sanitary products and he is actively being denied access to healthcare. He has lost dozens of kilograms of weight in the past 18 months, highlighting the severe medical neglect as well as the policy of starvation and malnutrition used as a weapon against the Palestinian prisoners.

“The lawyer left the visit with tears in her eyes, unable to convey the shock and anguish she witnessed. It encapsulated the daily torment of a prisoner whose dignity is being crushed without mercy,” Tala reported. He struggles to stand or to sleep due to his multiple injuries, including boils and bone fractures. He reported that occupation soldiers threatened Barghouti: “We will kill you as we killed Sinwar, all of you, one by one!” Multiple liberated prisoners have reported specific demands to curse the martyred Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and other major national figures under torture inside the Zionist jails.

This mirrors the overall and ongoing physical and psychological torture imposed upon the Palestinian prisoners. At least 65 Palestinian prisoners — including 40 from Gaza — have been martyred in the past 18 months, amid the imperialist-Zionist genocide in Gaza and the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, of over 302 martyrs of the prisoners’ movement since 1967. This number is incomplete because the occupation has continued to refuse to release information about Palestinians abducted from Gaza and subjected to the most severe forms of torture, including beating, sexual assault and rape, sleep deprivation and starvation, inside the Sde Teiman and other prison camps of the occupation.

When Palestinian prisoners were liberated by the Palestinian resistance in the Toufan al-Ahrar exchange, the prisoners reported that not only were they beaten before their release, they were forced to wear sweatshirts, T-shirts and bracelets with racist and threatening messages (that they later publicly burned). They were shown videos and images of the devastation caused by the genocidal occupation forces in Gaza and told that everyone had been killed and no one remained; now, the occupation prison authority is reportedly hanging large pictures of their carnage and devastation in Gaza in the prisons in order to further torment the imprisoned Palestinians.

Abdullah Barghouti is a Jordanian-Palestinian citizen who was the leading engineer of the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, following the assassination of Yahya Ayyash.

His release, along with that of other imprisoned resistance leaders, like Ibrahim Hamed, Hassan Salameh, Abbas al-Sayyed, Ahmad Sa’adat and Marwan Barghouti, is one of the top priorities of the Palestinian resistance in a prisoner exchange. Inside the prisons, he wrote the novel/memoir, “Prince of the Shadow: Engineer on the Road” in 2012, presenting a fictionalized work based on his life story in prison, his resistance to the occupation, and his emergence within the resistance. He spent 10 continuous years in solitary confinement in the occupation prisons and has been repeatedly held in isolation; he has had less than 10 family visits during his 23 years of imprisonment.

On 20 July 2024, Barghouti was severely beaten in isolation in Shatta prison. He was then transferred from Shatta prison to an unknown and undisclosed location — later revealed as Gilboa prison — rather than receiving treatment for the severe assault.

**

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

Indeed, repressive acts by imperialist powers — such as the US’ and Canada’s sanctions on Samidoun on 15 October — are meant to deprive the Palestinian prisoners’ movement of external support and solidarity, to hide the crimes being committed against them and prevent the perpetrators from being held accountable, and to limit, chill and suppress the growing movement for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners as part and parcel of the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea. They especially seek to repress this movement as the Palestinian resistance has made clear that it insists upon and is committed to a proper prisoner exchange with dignity to release Palestinian leaders and all Palestinian prisoners in the Zionist jails. The repression in the imperial core is also meant as a mechanism of pressure against the Palestinian people, their prisoners and their Resistance.

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

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

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

Honoring the martyrs, advocating for the resistance: Charlotte Kates at the Athens conference on Imperialism and Law

Charlotte Kates, co-founder of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, spoke in Athens, Greece, on 6 April as part of the 2nd International Conference on Imperialism and Law, convened by the People’s Law Office: International. The two-day program, which honored martyred lawyer Ebru Timtik,  included lawyers and advocates from around the world, including Turkey, Greece, Mexico, Peru, India, the Philippines, Palestine, Germany, the United States, and elsewhere. The conference, which focused on “Increasing imperialist and fascist aggression in the Middle East and the world, and the role of law,” included a session on Palestinian resistance, occupation and the genocidal attacks of imperialism and Zionism. The conference was convened at the Athens Bar Association between 5 and 6 April 2025.

Charlotte Kates’ speech text is below:

Imperialism, Resistance, and the Role of Revolutionary and Peoples’ Lawyers

Thank you to all of the organizers and to the People’s Law Office for holding this important convening, specifically, to focus on imperialism and the need for an anti-imperialist alliance of lawyers and legal workers, in an explicit sense. 

How fitting that this event takes place under the name and the call of Ebru Timtik, a dedicated fighter for the people, a lawyer who loved and upheld the popular movements, the resistance and the revolution, a martyr who lives on in the work that all of you continue to do today in the face of fascism, repression, and imperialism. I had the honour of meeting her in Istanbul, and many of our comrades had the same in a variety of movement events and struggles, always with her eyes fixed on the goal and her anti-imperialist compass clear.

I want to begin by saluting all of the martyrs, from the great leaders of our global anti-imperialist movement and movement for justice, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Sayyed Hashem Safieddine, Ismail Haniyeh, Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and every doctor, health worker and nurse, every laborer, engineer, electrician and aid worker, every baker, teacher, and student, every beloved child and youth, every mother, father, sister, brother, aunt, uncle, cousin and grandparent slaughtered by the US-Zionist genocide, and every heroic resistance fighter, every martyr on the road to al-Quds, whose lives have been taken by the malign forces of imperialism and Zionism,

And the wounded, the hundreds of thousands whose limbs have been taken, whose health has been destroyed, whose environment has been poisoned, whose homes have been demolished, by the invader and the occupier seeking to uproot them from their land,

The prisoners, the 10,000 resistance fighters and leaders behind bars, undergoing the most severe and unimaginable forms of torture and abuse from the notorious dungeons of Sde Teiman to the starving of children in Megiddo prison, whose freedom is so precious to the Palestinian people that they undertook the largest military operation in their history in large part to win their liberation, and who continue to win that liberation with every battle, and

The armed resistance, the fighters of Hamas and the Al-Qassam Brigades, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Movement and Saraya al-Quds, the PFLP and the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades and all the factions of the Resistance, the warriors of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the armed forces, the people, and the AnsarAllah movement of Yemen, the resistance fighters of Iraq and the revolutionary forces of Iran who continue to resist imperialism in the region…at the center of our global movement.

The vast destruction imposed upon humanity, upon the global majority, by imperialism, led by the United States but accompanied by the imperialist powers from Britain to the European Union countries to Canada to Australia and New Zealand — NATO, the Five Eyes and similar aggressive alliances –  is immense and terrible, and cannot be confronted except by confronting those directly responsible and the systems that they profit from. At the same time that we are living in a time of genocide, of destruction, warmongering, the extraction of the resources and wealth of the people of the world for the benefit of imperialist powers and their ruling classes, we are also living in a time of great and heroic resistance that is, indeed, changing the world and pointing toward not only a multipolar but a revolutionary order. 

So, for us as people’s lawyers, as revolutionary lawyers, as anti-imperialists, there is always the question to ask, and, indeed, to answer: why are we here? What is our role? There are many roles that people can play and many kinds of harm reduction, defending those most vulnerable and most attacked by the state. At the same time, we must address this by being clear about the purpose of “law” particularly bourgeois law, which is not to protect us nor to defend us but to repress us. If we have revolutionary movements, they will not be protected by the systems of bourgeois law, because that is not the purpose of this legal system. And so the question is, will we use what we have of a law as a weapon in this struggle and be part of and serve the resistance, or will we instead seek to take the guidelines of bourgeois law and impose them on the people’s movements, demanding their compliance rather than defending their noncompliance? What we see today is the facade of freedoms of expression and association falling before the crisis of imperialism and a revolutionary upsurge which bears the name Al-Aqsa Flood. 

As we speak about Palestine, of course, we must be clear – the genocide in Palestine did not begin on 7 October 2023. It did not even begin in 1947-1948 and the illegitimate establishment of the so-called “state of Israel,” the Zionist regime, on Palestinian land; the genocide was inherent in the Balfour declaration and the imperial gift of Palestinian land to the Zionist movement in an explicit alliance with British imperialism, then the leading imperialist force in the world. As Theodor Herzl, the founder of Zionism, said in seeking a meeting with Cecil Rhodes, “This is something colonial.” And of course, as Indian lawyer Niloufer Bhagwat noted yesterday, the colonization and genocide of Palestine has worked hand in hand with the division and colonization of the Arab people and of all the peoples of the region, setting up this Zionist colonial project, a tool and mechanism of imperialism, in the heart of the Arab world, to prevent Arab national unity and true liberation and self-determination. So from al-Nakba to the ongoing ethnic cleansing and destruction of the Palestinian people, this has been an ongoing process of genocide. 

The great, heroic operation on October 7, 2023 was an organized, strategic operation by the Palestinian resistance, which holds a deep relationship and alliance with the other forces of the Axis of Resistance, or, more broadly, what we might call the global camp of resistance, centered in Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq, Iran, and, of course, Syria, where we are today witnessing a great tragedy and crime created by the machinations and the killing sanctions of US Imperialism. It was a brilliantly planned military action that surprised even the fighters and leaders when they encountered the inability and unpreparedness of the zionist soldiers in their military bases to actually fight against an attack, a tactical offensive. To use the terminology of the Philippines revolution, the Palestinian liberation movement has been on the strategic defensive for some time, and the Al-Aqsa Flood was a way of shifting this moment. The leadership of the Al-Qassam Brigades, including the martyrs Mohammed Deif, Marwan Issa, and of course Yahya Sinwar, clearly viewed this action as, as Deif said in video footage released after his martyrdom was announced on 30 January 2025, one that would change the world, and they were correct to do so. 

When we speak now, after 18 months of genocide, and after 18 months of resistance, we must be clear: October 7, the great Al-Aqsa Flood, changed the world, irreversibly. This day made clear before the world that it is quite possible to envision a Palestine free of Zionism and a region free of imperialism, and that this resistance camp is capable of achieving that goal with its own hands. 

And this was utterly unacceptable to the Zionist project and to the imperialist powers themselves, already beset by the crisis of capitalism, the conflict in Ukraine, the growth in de-dollarization and de-linking, and so their response, their only response to the shifting of the field: genocide, mass murder and massive bombing and destruction, the unleashing of all the most brutal and reactionary forces and elements, in order to make such action, such revolution – indeed, the date of the beginning of the new Palestinian, Arab and international revolution – unimaginable due to the river and ocean of blood and rubble they intend to create over that heroic memory. 

And every day since then, the unified Resistance has continued to defend and uphold humanity against genocide. The unified resistance front, stretching from Palestine to Lebanon, where the Lebanese Resistance cleared northern occupied Palestine of occupation soldiers and settlers and sacrificed its beloved leaders in order to uphold Palestine; to Yemen, where the Yemeni people, government, armed forces and AnsarAllah movement have shut down the supply lines of genocide in the Red Sea, causing the port of Eilat to declare bankruptcy; to Iraq, to Iran, and stretching around the world to all who confront imperialism, Zionism and reaction. 

When we speak about the movement for Palestinian liberation, it is important for us to have a clear and solid understanding: this movement does indeed have a leadership. Many of the crises and contradictions of the movement in solidarity with Palestine in the West and in the imperial core come from the refusal – often-times, imposed by so-called “anti-terror laws” and the mass terror and fear they create among the people – to recognize and acknowledge this leadership, which is those who are leading the armed struggle and those imprisoned for fighting for the liberation of Palestine. We know that armed struggle is a legal right under international law and upheld by UN resolutions, but it would be a legitimate right even without that as a basic framework for humanity defending itself against occupiers and destructive forces that come to exploit and plunder by force of arms. We certainly know that the imperialist powers do not value peace or nonviolence; indeed, their massive military budget and industry does everything possible to ensure that the majority of people in the world can never live in peace. Our societies in the imperial core venerate violence, but excoriate revolutionary violence. And one of the things that has happened since 7 October at a popular level is a wide-scale, popular support and recognition, even in the heart of the imperial core, after a campaign of lies and propaganda aimed to smear the Palestinian resistance and its fighters, is that of the justice of the Palestinian cause and the heroism of its fighters. 

In 1968, the Palestinian National Charter affirmed: “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase. The Palestinian Arab people assert their absolute determination and firm resolution to continue their armed struggle and to work for an armed popular revolution for the liberation of their country and their return to it . They also assert their right to normal life in Palestine and to exercise their right to self-determination and sovereignty over it.” At that time, the Palestinian revolution was led by the armed factions of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and today, it is led by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, with a broad alliance of forces. But the compass to liberation remains the same, without substitution, as popular action is a stream that flows alongside and together with the resistance, not an alternative or a replacement.

It is within this context that it is important to discuss multiple mechanisms by which genocide is carried out. Certainly, it is carried out by F-16s, by two-ton bombs dropped on residential buildings, hospitals, mosques, and churches, and refugee camps and schools, by missiles signed by “Israeli” schoolchildren and politicians and visiting imperialist officials, by intelligence operations and boobytrapped pagers, by aircraft carriers, by weaponry shipped through Irish, and Greek, and Spanish ports, by AI software provided by Microsoft, Google and Amazon. But it is also carried out through multiple strategies that aim to empower and assist these weaponry in achieving their goals, because they target not only the physical characteristics of life, but also the popular cradle of the resistance and the strength of the internal front of the people under attack. These include but are not limited to: 

  • The assassination policy
  • Anti-terror laws and designations
  • Sanctions and unilateral coercive measures

The assassination policy has been a core tactic of Zionist strategy for decades and is a policy pursued around the world, including here in Greece, where in the 1970s and 1980s, Khaled Nazzal, Ziad Nukhasi, Munther Abu Ghazaleh and Mamoun Muraish were assassinated by Zionist forces, with shootings and car bombs. The assassination policy has always targeted not only military leaders, but writers, poets and intellectuals such as Ghassan Kanafani, Wael Zuaiter, Mahmoud Hamshari, Kamal Nasser, strategists, political leaders; those who make the liberation movement and Palestinian society function under the unbearable pressure of genocide. 

From Sayyed Nasrallah to Sayyed Safieddine, from Ibrahim Aqil to Fouad Shukr to Abbas al-Mussawi, from Ismail Haniyeh to Saleh al-Arouri to Fathi Shiqaqi, Abu Ali Mustafa, Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Imad Mughniyyeh, Yahya Ayyash, Abu Jihad, Kamal ‘Udwan, Mohammed al-Najjar, Basil al-Kubaisi, Wadie Haddad, Mohammed Boudia, Basil al-Araj, Tariq Izzedine to Samir Kuntar; the Zionist regime relies on the assassination weapon against the liberation movement. We see this also with the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, part of the same strategy.

Tareq Izzedine said, “Whenever a leader ascends, ten will emerge to replace them. When a martyr ascends, 100 martyrs will emerge to replace them. The march continues, and it does not stop until the defeat of the occupation.” And as Saleh al-Arouri said, “We are martyred like our people, we are arrested as they are arrested, our homes are demolished and we are being chased and pursued. We fight because we must.”

For the past weeks, since the overt resumption of genocidal bombing on 18 March, we have witnessed the assassination policy in extreme escalation in Gaza, clearly relying on intelligence obtained during the ceasefire period, because these are by and large political and social leaders being targeted for assassination, with the exception of Naji Abu Saif, known as Abu Hamza, the spokesperson of Saraya al-Quds: 

  • Issam Al-Da’alis, Chairman of the Government Work Follow-Up Committee.
  • Yasser Harb, member of the Political Bureau of Hamas.
  • Ahmad Al-Hatta, Deputy Minister of Justice.
  • Mahmoud Abu Watfa, Deputy Minister of Interior.
  • Bahjat Abu Sultan, Director General of the Internal Security Service.
  • Mohammed Al-Jamasi, Chairman of the Emergency Committee
  • Salah al-Bardawil, member of the Political Bureau of Hamas
  • Ismail Barhoum, member of the Political Bureau of Hamas and responsible for social and charity affairs
  • Abdel-Latif al-Qanou, spokesperson of Hamas

There is so much to say about each one of these people, and it must be noted here, their wives and children assassinated alongside them – indeed, the Zionist regime has recently claimed victory in assassinating the 6- and 8-year-old grandchildren of head Palestinian negotiator Khalil al-Hayya – not to mention the 15 paramedics and civil defense workers, the journalists like Hossam Shabat and Wafa al-Udaini, the writers like Refaat Al-Areer, all deliberately targeted. These assassinations were followed just hours and days later by attempts to undermine the social fabric in Gaza, with the Zionist war minister openly calling on people to protest against the resistance in Gaza, with the collaboration of the so-called Palestinian Authority in Ramallah.

In a Zionist media article boasting about the “success” of these assassinations, the author notes about the assassination of Mahmoud Abu Watfa, “His death is considered a significant loss …due to his prominent role in enhancing security and stability in the Strip,” noting that he was recorded telling a Palestinian woman in Gaza, “We will rebuild it stronger than ever” after the January ceasefire. Mahmoud Abu Watfa was martyred alongside his wife Manal Abu Hussein, his sons Muhammad, Ahmed, and Zein, his daughters Shahd, Hala, Elin, and Aya, and her child Muhammad and her unborn child. His son Salah el-Din was martyred on 7 October 2023.

Assassinating those responsible for justice, security, charity and aid distribution, and those who document Zionist crimes, is a central tactic meant to allow the genocide to continue. On too many occasions, we discuss the crimes of the zionist regime and assure listeners that the victims were “not Hamas.” Or we say that the presence of one of the men above “does not justify” the killing of children, families and entire residential buildings or refugee camp blocks. All of these things are true, but the killing of these men is itself a crime – it is quite clearly the international crime of extrajudicial killing and execution, and it is also a key mechanism to disrupt society and enable genocide. The assassination policy is one of the key strategies of the Zionist regime and we must confront it head-on; rather than minimizing the effects of the assassinations or refusing to speak about these great leaders sacrificing for Palestine because we fear it “justifies” the Zionist attack, the Zionist regime and the US – whose intelligence is almost certainly responsible, along with the British whose reconnaissance planes routinely fly over Gaza – must be held accountable under the law and through popular action for each one of these assassinations.

Yes, the popular cradle of the resistance is strong and the resistance movements are resilient and powerful and have the ability to recover from assassinations and martyrdom, even of beloved leaders of almost legendary character. However, every one of these assassinations is also a serious blow, a serious injury to the body and the mind of the movement and the people. 

It should be noted here that they also seek to make it impossible even to memorialize the martyrs. The turnout of over 1.5 million people in the streets of Beirut to honour and remember the martyrs Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and Sayyed Hashem Safieddine sparked the Zionists to fly warplanes over the crowd and bomb several locations in Lebanon, while multiple people have been targeted for questioning, arrest, deportation and firings from their jobs in the imperial core for attending the funeral or expressing mourning for Sayyed Nasrallah, the great anti-imperialist leader of our era. 

They aim not only to assassinate the leaders of the Resistance movement but to assassinate their legacy and memory. Unable to defeat the Resistance through assassination, they bomb the hospital named after the assassinated Kamal ‘Udwan, they bomb the school founded by the assassinated Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, they cut the funding and support of a women’s institution named after the martyr and fighter Dalal al-Mughrabi, they intimidate, threaten  activists and students over holding a poster of Yahya Sinwar or Ismail Haniyeh. 

This of course, goes hand in hand with the use of anti-terror laws and “terrorist” designations, organization bans and the like, to suppress support for the resistance. It is meant as a form of moral, political and social assassination, especially in areas where it is difficult for the Zionist regime to carry out a physical assassination. In short: anti-terror laws and terrorist designations exist not only to persecute and imprison people for supporting the resistance. They also aim to entirely reshape the way that the movement and the people themselves think about, speak about and perceive Palestine, while denying those at the heart of the movement itself – the armed resistance – solidarity and support on a global level. This is somewhere that it is necessary for people’s lawyers to critically examine our engagement with fighting such designations. We must clearly call for an end to the terrorist designation of Palestinian Lebanese Yemeni, Iraqi, Iranian forces, and for that matter, organizations in solidarity like Samidoun, which was itself designated a “terrorist entity” by Canada, a “specially designated global terrorist” by the US, banned by Germany and designated a “terrorist” group by the Zionist entity. It is clear that this definition is ever-shifting: as we discussed yesterday, Germany banned the phrase, “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” both as a “slogan of Hamas” and a “slogan of Samidoun.” 

We must very clearly call to abolish these lists in imperialist countries, which are designed to create arbitrary mechanisms of repression – even if they sometimes list reactionary or criminal organizations – and to de-list Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the PFLP, Al-Aqsa Brigades, Hezbollah, AnsarAllah and indeed Samidoun. 

I urge people’s lawyers to avoid using their influence to tell activists for Palestine, for example, that they must not say the name Yahya Sinwar, the great leader and symbol of Palestinian resistance, the martyr and commander, the liberated prisoner, who died fighting until his last breath on the front lines of battle, and instead to consider how they might help to protect those who uphold Sinwar’s path and work to achieve his goals. Anti-terror laws serve as a form of psychological warfare that aims to unroot the “solidarity” framework from the leadership of the revolutionary movement. Certainly we must defend those unjustly targeted and accused, yet we must also be clear that the “accusation” of “supporting Hamas, supporting the PFLP, supporting Hezbollah” is no accusation at all except under an entirely unjust framework of bourgeois imperialist law. 

In a sense, anti-terror laws are a form of sanctions and unilateral coercive measures applied to organizations as well as states, where we see forms of confluence between the two particularly in the cases of Gaza and the siege on Gaza, the siege upon Yemen, and the sanctions and war threats on Iran alongside the “terror” listing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps – literally a state military! Sanctions are worthy of their own discussion, but these mechanisms of imperialist war on the people must be central to our struggle, particularly in the imperial core. It is, fundamentally, the siege that is killing Palestinians in Gaza through starvation, not only through bombs. We need only look north to Syria for a clear example of the destruction wrought by imperialist sanctions. From Cuba to Venezuela, to Iran, to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, we need a strong movement to confront sanctions legally, politically and by all means necessary, which includes a fundamental de-linking from US domination of the global economy. 

There is much more to be said about this, but we will certainly be over time. However, I want to close with a call to action and a call, at least, to legal arms. We must have no illusions about the institutions of the imperialist system, although we should and must use all mechanisms available to defend our peoples and liberation movements. We must fight sanctions and unilateral coercive measures and defend peoples and nations under attack by imperialism. We must refuse to leave our liberation movements alone and further encourage the use of anti-terror listings by abandoning those who are designated. We must fight the assassination policy. When we file lawsuits to hold the Zionist regime accountable, extrajudicial killings is one of those crimes and it is also fully a mechanism to impose genocide by weakening the ability of the people to resist and to protect their internal front. We have a role to play in the global popular cradle of the resistance, that extends beyond the heart of the struggle to our communities, to advance the resistance and the revolution, and we have a choice to make: is it our role to advance bourgeois law and restrictions and ensure compliance, or is it our role to do everything possible to break down that system and advance the liberation movement?

Al-Aqsa Flood is a flood of the people, for liberation, an end to colonialism and Zionism, and a head-on confrontation with imperialism. Let us play our role and join the flood, in the name of the martyrs and the prisoners, in support of those fighters, for a free Palestine from the river to the sea. For a liberated Arab nation free of imperialism. For a self-determined, revolutionary Iran continuing its revolution after 40 years free of war threats, and for a world liberated from US imperialism and Zionism. 

As the martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said in his last speech, “The end of this battle will be a historic victory.” Let us do everything in our power to bring about that victory and play our unique role as anti-imperialist lawyers, with and as part of the global camp of Resistance and revolution.

**

The following images, shown as a slideshow during Charlotte Kates’ presentation, highlight just a few of the most recent martyrs at the time of the presentation (early April 2025) targeted for assassination and some of the highest profile leaders targeted throughout the ongoing genocide and the battle of Al-Aqsa Flood:

Prisoners’ movement under attack: Assault and transfer of Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh

Occupation forces inside the Zionist prisons have been continuing to attack Palestinian prisoners, including a number of leaders of the prisoners’ movement. The “Israeli” abuse, torture and mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners, including the ongoing denial of medical care, has already caused the martyrdom of over 65 Palestinian prisoners, only since 7 October 2023, amid the ongoing genocide in occupied Palestine.

Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, a member of the political bureau of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and head of its prison branch, was transferred from Ofer to Gilboa prison and beaten by Zionist prison guards, a situation revealed by Palestinians freed from Gilboa prison in recent days.

Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh and his wife Wafa’ have two children, Qais and Rita. He was born in 1968 in Beit Furik, near Nablus, and was elected as the head of the prison branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in June of 2022. He is serving a life sentence plus 5 years after being jailed by an occupation military court, for directing the assassination of the notoriously racist tourism minister of the occupation, Rehavam Ze’evi, in October 2001, in retaliation for the Israeli assassination of PFLP General Secretary Abu Ali Mustafa in August 2001. Abu Ghoulmeh was the leader of the PFLP’s military wing in the West Bank at the time.

As a high school student, he founded the Union of Secondary Student Committees in his village in 1982 and was first arrested in 1984 for organizing demonstrations to commemorate the anniversary of the PFLP’s launch. In 1986, he began to attend Bir Zeit University, but his education was repeatedly disrupted due to repeated arrests and detention. He was heavily involved in the great popular intifada, organizing popular committees and action groups in the Nablus area. After being arrested in 1990, he was transferred to administrative detention for a year. When he returned to university, he became a leader of the Progressive Student Action Front.

As a leader of the Popular Front throughout the 1990s, he was repeatedly pursued by the Israeli occupation, even as he completed his university degree, married and had two children. He was particularly active in defense of the Palestinian prisoners, representing the PFLP in the committee of National and Islamic Forces on prisoners and detainees.

He was repeatedly imprisoned and arrested by the Palestinian Authority under “security coordination” with Israeli occupation, in both January and December 1996, when he was jailed for five months, and again in May 2000. With the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, Abu Ghoulmeh played a leading role and he was publicly announced as a target for Israeli assassination in April 2001. After the assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa and the response of the PFLP in assassinating Ze’evi, he, along with Majdi Rimawi, Hamdi Qur’an and Basil al-Asmar — and then, PFLP General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat — was imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority in Jericho prison in a security coordination agreement, where he was held under U.S., British, Canadian and Turkish guards.

During this time, Wafa’, his wife, was subjected to house arrest four times in a row for six month periods in an effort to prevent her and their children from visiting Abu Ghoulmeh in Jericho prison. On 13 March 2006, the occupation forces attacked Jericho prison after the withdrawal of the US and British guards, kidnapping Sa’adat, Abu Ghoulmeh, Qur’an, al-Asmar, Rimawi and fellow political prisoner Fouad al-Shoubaki. This attack was timed just weeks before Ismail Haniyeh and was to be sworn in as PA Prime Minister following the PLC elections, during which the victorious Change and Reform Party team (associated with Hamas) had pledged to release Sa’adat, Abu Ghoulmeh and all other PA political prisoners and end “security coordination” with the Zionist regime.

He was subjected to military interrogation for over two months, during which he was subjected to extensive physical and psychological torture as he refused to confess, and on 1 January 2008, he was sentenced by the occupation military court to a life sentence plus 5 years. He has remained a major leader of the prisoners’ movement and has been repeatedly subjected to isolation and solitary confinement, and his family have been banned on numerous occasions from visiting him. He was held in solitary confinement until 2012, when he and 19 fellow leaders of the prisoners’ movement, including Ahmad Sa’adat and Marwan Barghouti, were returned to the general population after the mass Karameh hunger strike.

His wife Wafa’ continued to be denied visits, and she saw him for the first time in 10 years in 2018. In June 2022, the PFLP announced that he had been elected the leader of its prison branch, following decades of his leadership. In May 2023, he was ordered to solitary confinement, and in February 2024, his mother, Sebtia, passed away, and he was denied the ability to bid farewell to her.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network expresses our firm solidarity with Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, a leader of the prisoners’ movement and a renowned example of resistance and steadfastness behind the bars of the occupation. We urge all supporters of Palestine to highlight Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh — and his fellow political prisoners — as we struggle to bring the Zionist-imperialist genocide in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine to an end.

Video: “Twisted Laws: Mumia, Universities and Palestine”

On Thursday, 24 April, organizers hosted a panel, “Twisted Laws: Mumia, Universities and Palestine,” part of the commemorations of the 71st birthday of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the former Black Panther, journalist and current political prisoner in U.S. prisons. The event, featuring activists, law students and community organizers — including Mohammed Khatib, the Europe coordinator of Samidoun — highlighted the situation of political prisoners in U.S. jails, repression of the Black liberation movement, and its connection to U.S. imperialism and genocide in Palestine and internationally.

The event began with a phone call from prison from Mumia Abu-Jamal himself, who focused in his talk on the Palestinian struggle and the student movement in the United States, particularly amid the ongoing state and administrative repression (including the arrest and attempts to deport Mahmoud Khalil, Mohsen Mahdawi, Leqaa Kordia, Yunseo Chung, Rumeysa Ozturk, Badar Khan Suri, Momodou Taal and other students advocating for their universities to cease complicity in genocide).

His participation from behind prison bars further reinforced imprisoned Palestinian leader Ahmad Sa’adat’s comments: “The political prisoner is not weak and is not broken, despite all of their best efforts. The responsibility of the political prisoner is to safeguard the flame. This is not a role that we have sought out or worked for. But now that we are in this position we must hold our position to set an example, not to our people, who are rooted and steadfast, but to the enemy, to show that imprisonment will not work to defeat us or our people. We carry a cause, not simply an individual search for freedom. Israel or France or the U.S. would free us, or Georges Abdallah, or Mumia Abu-Jamal, if we were willing to become tools of the system or betray our people….It is not an individual experience but a collective one; the heroism of a prisoner is not simply to be in prison but to understand that they carry with them the leadership of a movement and a continuing struggle in a new location that continues to have international reverberations. Georges Ibrahim Abdallah today is struggling in Lannemezan prison just as Mumia Abu-Jamal is struggling in Mahanoy. The heroism also does not come simply in that one has spent years in prison and now has been released; but in being a veteran of struggle who continues to carry the message of liberation for those who remain.”

Watch the full video: https://www.youtube.com/live/LD7OL8X9PMM

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