Palestinian Revolutionaries and Political Prisoners
Basel al ‘Araj
“Never spread the occupation’s propaganda, and do not contribute to instilling a sense of defeat…Never spread panic; be supportive of the resistance and do not spread any news broadcast by the occupation. (Forget about the ethics and impartiality of journalism; just as the Zionist journalist is a fighter, so are you.)”
The “intellectual revolutionary” Basel al Araj’s life was defined by his commitment to liberation. A writer, thinker and youth activists in protest campaigns and boycott movements throughout occupied Palestine, he was a regular at martyr’s funeral processions and political lectures and organized famous tours in occupied Palestine known as “Tours in the History of the Resistance” which accompanied the “History of Resistance in Palestine” course he taught at the People’s University. Basel helped found Bab el Wad magazine to better solidify the relation of knowledge production to the liberation struggle. He was seized by the PA under its security coordination with Israel. The abduction of Basel and five of his comrades was touted by Mahmoud Abbas as an important achievement for PA/Israel security coordination. The group was imprisoned, tortured and interrogated for five months without charge before being released after their hunger strike in September 2016. Just a few months later, in March 2017, Basel was assassinated by Israeli forces at the home he was staying in El-Bireh, occupied Palestine. Basel resisted until the end, always refusing to surrender, rejecting the path of Oslo and the dismantlement of the Palestinian cause physically and intellectually. Bissan Bookshop has published a collection of Basel’s unpublished writings under the title I Have Found My Answers.
https://charleroi-pourlapalestine.be/index.php/2021/11/25/i-have-found-my-answers-jai-trouve-mes-reponses-les-ecrits-de-basel-al-araj/
Basel Essay “Exiting Law and Entering Revolution”: https://www.thebadside.net/tbs-2-exiting-law#:~:text=The%20beginning%20of%20every%20revolution,an%20extension%20of%20political%20authority.
Walid Daqqah
“What is madness: a nuclear state fighting an unborn child and already considering him/her a security threat, or is it to dream of having a child? What is madness: to write a letter to a dream, or that the dream becomes a file to be dealt with by the intelligence agencies?”
Walid Daqqah (1962-2024), a prolific documentor, analyst and philosopher of the reality of captivity, born in Baqqa al-Gharbiya, a Palestinian town currently in 1948 territories, was one of the 25 Palestinians arrested prior to the failed Oslo Accords in 1993 who Israel refused to release in 2014. He was first imprisoned and sentenced to life in 1985 having been accused of kidnapping an Israeli soldier for the purpose of exchanging him with Palestinian prisoners - a charge he rejected. The sentence was later reduced and he was to be released in 2023. In the meantime, an Israeli court extended his sentence after accusing him of participating in cellphone smuggling. In 2022 Daqqah was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer, in June 2023 the Israeli government rejected a petition for his early release claiming that his condition was “not serious enough” and that he does not qualify because he was convicted of an “act of terrorism” (despite several international humanitarian calls including from Amnesty International). With the intensification of Israeli carceral violence since October 7th and withdrawal of limited rights afforded Palestinian prisoners, Israeli authorities denied Daqqah adequate medical treatment and suitable food and prevented him from contacting his wife Sana Salameh (who he married inside Asqalan prison) and their daughter Milad (conceived via sperm smuggling). On April 7, 2024, following 13,893 days (38 years) in captivity, Daqqah passed away. In accordance with the long-practiced policy of holding captive the dead bodies of Palestinian martyrs and denying them proper burial, Israeli authorities decreed that they will hold Daqqah’s body in custody until his sentence is up. Daqqah wrote extensively and incisively. His Control Through Time (2021) looks at the control of prisoners’ time as a core carceral tactic and his Consciousness Moulded considers the prison experience in relation to broader geographic and political configurations. His 2018 children’s book was written as a practice of “sumud (steadfastness) in captivity.” Daqqah often emphasized “ignorance” as an enemy of the Palestinian struggle and the failure of will, ploy and “potential for imagination” amongst the Palestinian political establishment. He wrote and dreamed of a reality in which the inheritance of captivity amongst Palestinians generation after generation would cease.
Ahmad Sa’adat
From Ahmed Sa’adat’s preface to the French-language edition of Black Panther Party co-founder Huey Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide: “From the Fugitive Slave Acts of the 1800s to the “terrorist lists” that seek to criminalize and isolate the resistance movements of the peoples of the world, these are reflections of a war on the people.
The bullets that assassinated Malcolm X or Fred Hampton could have been used to kill Ghassan Kanafani or Khaled Nazzal or Mahmoud Hamshari, and today we see the same tear gas and bullets shipped around the world for use against the people.”
Born in 1953 in al-Bireh (Ramallah), Ahmed Sa’adat was involved in student politics and joined the PFLP 1969. He took over as Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) a year after Israel’s assassination of Abu Ali Mustafa. A year later he was imprisoned by Israel and the PA. In 2006, from within the PA’s prison, Sa’adat was elected a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). That year, Hamas declared their intent to release Sa’adat and Israeli forces swept in, mobilizing the “revolving door” between Israeli and PA prisons, to transfer Sa’adat to the Israeli military prison system where they declared that he would be kept for 30 years. Sa’adat has been repeatedly tossed in and out of solitary confinement and in 2011 he led a mass hunger strike against deteriorating prison conditions, following which he was placed back in solitary confinement. Sa’adat has repeatedly been subject to isolation, interrogation and sudden transfer. The prison administration uses transfers to disrupt prisoners’ lives, fracture Palestinian solidarity and undermine their sense of stability. As in the case of Sa’adat, solitary confinement tends to indicate how popular a prisoner is amongst their comrades. Since Oct 7th, Hamas has asked for his release. In 2018, Sa’adat was asked to write a preface to a French-language edition of Huey Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide.
Ahmed Saadat’s forward to new French edition of Huey Newton’s Revolutionary Suicide: https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/38320
Georges Ibrahim Abdullah
“If the people have not entrusted me with the honour of participating in these anti-imperialist actions that you attribute to me,” he told the court, “at least I have the honour of being accused of them by your court and of defending their legitimacy in the face of the criminal legitimacy of their executioner.”
Georges Ibrahim Abdullah, the longest-serving political prisoner in Europe, has entered his 41st year in the French Lannemazan prison. Raised in a Christian family in northern Lebanon, the 70 year old Lebanese activist was the co-founder of the Lebanese Revolutionary Armed Factions, a small anti-imperialist group which claimed responsibility for assassination of an American military attaché and Israeli diplomat in 1982 during the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and Sabra and Shatila massacres. Neither murder was attributed to Abdullah who was arrested in 1984 on account of possessing false identity documents for which he was convicted. The trial was entirely marked by regularities including retroactively fabricated evidence and providing him with a French intelligence agent as a lawyer. The Collectif for his liberation noted the US deemed France’s initial handling of the case “too lenient” and following a chat between Presidents Reagan and François Mitterrand, French intelligence conveniently discovered new weapons that allowed them to open a new trial. Abdullah is serving life despite none of the charges against him were confirmed other than the 4-year sentence for carrying false documents.
Letter from Ahmed Saadat to Abdullah: https://freeahmadsaadat.org/2017/09/06/letter-from-ahmad-saadat-to-georges-abdallah-you-remain-a-symbol-and-a-model-for-us/
Nizar Banat
"The existence of the occupation in the most holy of land, belonging to all religions, needs to shake the core of the Arab nations. The Arab citizens need to get into an existential challenge, either us or this occupation".
Pro-resistance Palestinian activist, scholar and organizer, Nazir Banat, born in 1978 in Abu Kifah in the West Bank and was a prominent critic of the Israeli settler state, the collaborationist PA and the normalizing Gulf States. He is primarily known for his calls to dissolve the PA’s security forces and his public critiques of the PA which included distributing videos on social media providing thorough analyses of the PA’s corruption and security coordination with the Occupation. The PA was formed in 1994 as part of the Oslo peace accords with Israel as a five-year interim body designed to administer parts of the Palestinian territories and coordinate with Israel on security matters. The Oslo Accords cemented Israel’s not-so-proxy control over Palestine. Prior to his martyrdom, Banat was imprisoned by the PA eight times, each time for several months. He also received several death threats and his home was shot at by unknown individuals in the months before his martyrdom. On June 24, 2021, the PA security forces attacked Nizar’s cousin’s house in al-Khalil where he was sleeping, severely beat him with metal bars, and then arrested him. Early the next morning the PA officially announced his death. His martyrdom sparked massive protests in Palestine and all over the world, with crowds demanding justice for Nizar, and an end to the Palestinian Authority’s collaboration with the Israeli occupation. The PA security forces suppressed the protesters in the West Bank and arrested several of them.
https://www.newarab.com/news/palestinian-forces-raid-home-deceased-activist-banat
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian
“Violent acts committed against Palestinians in the name of ‘security necessities’ … demand further surveillance over certain racialized bodies in order to maintain and sometimes reproduce the Israeli political economy of fear.” (Security Theology, Surveillance and the Politics of Fear (2015)
Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, was suspended on March 12, 2024, after stating on Israel's Channel 14 news that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, though the university later reinstated her. Her statements not only challenges Israel's genocidal actions in Gaza but also reflects her consistent critique of Israel's use of racial dehumanization to justify displacing Palestinians. Her scholarship, evident in works like Among Militarization and Violence Against Women in Conflict Zones in the Middle East (2009), Security Theology, Surveillance and the Politics of Fear (2015), and Incarcerated Childhood and the Politics of Unchilding (2019), situates the Palestinian struggle within the context of settler colonialism, supported by decades of empirical research. Following her suspension, Shalhoub-Kevorkian, a Palestinian raised in Haifa and residing in Jerusalem, was arrested on April 18, 2024, for "serious incitement against the State of Israel." The police seized books and interrogated her extensively about her academic work, but an Israeli court later deemed her arrest unlawful due to lack of substantial evidence. This arrest was seen as an attempt to intimidate her and silence criticism of the “war,” echoing the fate of many Palestinian scholars who have faced dismissal, silencing, detention, or even assassination for their work. Shalhoub-Kevorkian's suspension and subsequent arrest highlight the ongoing challenges faced by Palestinian scholars in expressing their views and critiquing Israeli policies.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/hebrew-uni--suspends-professor--expressed--disgust--at-genoc
Yasser Murtaja
“Yasser Murtaja, journalist or terrorist?” asked an American newspaper following his murder repeating a common media phrase to describing Palestinians: “[insert profession] or terrorist”? 30 year old Murtaja was the co-founder of Ain Media Production Company and one of the first individuals to bring a drone camera into Gaza. His journalism focused on exploring life in Gaza, with special emphasis on the blockade. He is known for his work on Al Jazeera’s documentary Gaza: Surviving Shujayea, which covers the life of Bisan Daher after she survived an attack on Gaza’s Shujayea neighborhood that killed six members of her family. He also worked as an assistant cameraman on the documentary film “Human Flow” and filmmaker Alsharif’s “Ouroboros,” a film about life in Gaza which premiered at the Locarno Festival in 2017. In 2015, Murtaja documented a house demolition near the border of Gaza and was detained by Hamas according to the International Federation of Journalists. In 2018, Palestinians in Gaza, protesting Israel’s illegal blockade, took part in the Great March of Return gathering along Gaza’s border with Israel every Friday. The protests began on March 30th. On April 6th, Yasser Murtaja, who was covering the protests and wearing a PRESS vest, was shot by an Israeli sniper. The Israeli army claimed that it was “operating in accordance with rules of engagement” and that it did “not intentionally target journalists.” Murtaja’s body, draped in a Palestinian flag, was carried from the principal al-Omari mosque in Gaza City to the cemetery. He had no affiliation with Hamas, having been once detained by them, but international coverage asks: “journalist or terrorist” because, in fact, Hamas’s terrorist designation is irrelevant to being a terrorist; being Palestinian is the necessary and sufficient condition. In an interview about Murtaja’s death Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said “You have to understand, there are no innocent people in the Gaza Strip. Everyone has a connection to Hamas. Everyone receives a salary from Hamas.”
https://mondoweiss.net/2018/04/government-journalist-terrorist/
Ahed Tamimi
“Even though most of us didn’t know one another, we felt a sense of urgency and unity in partaking in this rebellion. We kept our faces wrapped in kuffiyehs as a safety precaution, to avoid being identifiable to the Israeli army and, in many cases, to our parents.”
22 year old Ahed Tamimi became an icon of Palestinian resistance when a video of her 2012 confrontation with an Israeli soldier who had arrived at the family house to arrest her brother went viral. She was first arrested in Dec 2017, spent 8 months in prison following a plea deal and was re-arrested in Nov 6th 2023, following Oct 7th, “on suspicion of inciting violence and terrorist activities” due to an Instagram post attributed to her. Hailing from the town of Nabi Saleh, she is the daughter of Bassem Tamimi, a prominent organizer of protests against Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank. Amnesty International has designated him a “prisoner of conscience. In Mondoweiss, Jewish American Israeli activist Ailson Avigayil Ramer described meeting Ahed when she was 8 years old attending a photography class at World Vision International. Ramer notes that over the course of the six-week class, every single one of the students was abducted by the Israeli military at least once. She ends her piece: “if anyone is wondering where the Palestinian Gandhis are, the answer is that they are kidnapped and taken to unknown locations where they are being tortured, sitting in military and administrative detention in Israeli prisons, killed in cold blood on the way home from school, dying of treatable wounds in destroyed hospitals, buried under the rubble of vengeance in Gaza.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/palestinian-protester-ahed-tamimi-arrested-israel-suspicion-inciting-violence/
Marwan Barghouti
“I am not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist. I am simply a regular guy from the Palestinian street advocating only what every other oppressed person has advocated-the right to help myself in the absence of help from anywhere else.”
Headlines about Marwan Barghouti range from “US raises treatment of imprisoned leader with Israel” to the popular Israeli leftist rhetorical question: “Jailed terrorist or imprisoned Palestinian Mandela?” Born to a farming family in the West Bank village of Kobar, Barghouti, the Fatah politician, imprisoned for over two decades, is a highly respected Palestinian figure feared by Israel for his ability to unify the Palestinian people. Support for him outstrips both Hamas’s Ismail Haniyeh and the Western-backed Mahmoud Abbas. Since Oct 7th in light of growing international calls for Barghouti’s release, the Israeli regime has put him in solitary confinement and banned all visits. During the First Intifada Barghouti was deported to Jordan to prevent him from engaging in the uprising. He was allowed back during the 1990s peace talks. When they failed, Barghouti, an eloquent orator who insisted on staying close to the ground, played a crucial role in the Second Intifada. Israel then accused Barghouti of founding the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades and indicted him on 26 charges of murder. He was sentenced by an Israeli court to five cumulative life sentences. Barghouti offered no defense, refusing to recognize the authority of the Israeli court and saying that he supported the armed resistance but opposed the targeting of civilians. Barghouti has been active in the prisoner’s movement leading a 2017 hunger strike to demand improved conditions. In 2006 he helped draft the Palestinian Prisoners Document which in fact recognized the Israeli state, called for a two-state solution and included a broad range of signatories from parties including Hamas and PFLP. Barghouti’s release is considered key to any future political solution yet is precisely because of his commitment to a two-state solution and ability to unite Palestinian factions that the Israeli government refuses to release him. Barghouti is one of the 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli prisons who have been subjected to intensified abuse since Oct 7th prompting the US State Department to urge that Israel “ensure accountability for any abuses or violations.” Hamas has demanded his release since Oct 7th.
Nael Barghouthi
“When a nation seeks its freedom, it will always prevail. The occupation will never succeed in planting defeat in our hearts, because we summon our courage from our faith in God and the legacies of all the nations that sought and achieved their freedom and dignity.”
66 year old Nael Barghouti, jailed without charge in 1978, is currently the longest serving Palestinian prisoner (he made the Guinness World Record in 2009). Nael hails from a farming family in the village of Kobar. He was released in a prisoner exchange deal between the Palestinian resistance and the Israeli regime in 2011 after which he married his wife Iman Nafi’ and returned to his orchard. In 2014, the regime reneged on the terms of the exchange deal and re-arrested Barghouthi who was sentenced to 30 months. After completing his term, Israeli authorities reinstated his original life plus 18 year sentence. Prior to Oct. 7th there were around 5,200 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Now there are over 10,000. Barghouthi is one of the many who have experienced what Adameer rights group describes as the torture and revenge occupations authorities have inflicted on Palestinian prisoners since Oct. 7th cutting electricity, restricting yard and shower time, shutting down canteens and subjecting them to brutal beatings with batons and rifle butts. On Jan 15, Israeli forces raided Nafi’s home in Kobar destroying their furniture and belongings. Nafi laments that Nael “never got to taste the fruits of his labor” as the trees he planted on his orchard grow in his absence.
Karim Younes
“I will leave my cell, raising my hat to a generation that is certainly unlike mine, a generation of young activists who have taken the lead on the scene in recent years, a generation that is clear that they are stronger, bolder, braver and more deserving of receiving the banner.”
64 year old Karim Younes, who hails from Ara a village near Haifa in 1948 territory, was released in January 2023 after serving 40 years behind bars. He was sentenced to life in 1983 for a 1980 killing of an Israeli soldier and convicted of membership in Fatah, which was banned at the time. Israeli security minister Itamar Ben Gvir has banned Palestinians from celebrating the release of Younes and Aryeh Deri, Israel’s interior minister, declared intent to revoke Younes’s Israeli citizenship which was made possible under the 2008 Knesset citizenship law amendment allowing the revocation of individuals convicted of “terror” acts. Difficulties include the fact that Younes has no other citizenship. Abdel Fattah Doulah, a former prisoner, said of Younes “he’s one of the unique comrades. We viewed him as a beacon of hope and steadfastness… True he paid a dear price, but it didn’t break him. He showed that liberty attainable, even if it takes long to arrive.” Days before his discharge, Younes wrote a letter expressing mixed emotions about leaving comrades and yearning for liberation.
Letter in advance of release: https://samidoun.net/2023/01/the-anthem-of-return-and-liberation-karim-youness-letter-in-advance-of-his-release/
Khalida Jarrar
“Prison is a moral position that must be made daily, and can never be put behind you”
On December 26, 2024, Israeli forces detained iconic Palestinian leader Khalida Jarrar who was to appear at a Jadaliyya livestream the very next day. Due to her high-profile status, Jarrar, a prominent leader in the PFLP, has been arrested numerous times and has spent several years in prison, most of them in solitary confinement. Jarrar, born in 1963, served as Director of Addameer Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Association from 1994 to 2006 when she was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). In 2015, Israeli forces kidnapped her from her house in Ramallah. After international outcry, Israeli authorities tried Jarrar in military court where she faced 12 charges based entirely on her political activities (giving speeches, holding vigils, participating in a book fair, visiting a released prisoner, etc). She was released in June 2016, re-arrested in July 2017, released in February 2019 and re-arrested in October 2019. During this latest imprisonment her daughter Suha passed away at the age of 31. Despite an international campaign pleading that Jarrar be given permission to attend her daughter’s funeral, the Israeli government rejected all appeals. Jarrar spent her time in prison educating and empowering her fellow female prisoners. Her efforts changed the face of the Palestinian female prisoners’ movement. Ramzy Baroud has noted that Jarrar’s eloquence, courage, and profound understanding of her rights and the rights of her people throws a wrench in the façade of a democratic Israeli state. Jarrar has published several essays and research projects detailing Israeli carceral practices that can be accessed online.
Mohammed al Halabi
“In stage three, when they realized that the stick was not effective, they tried offering a carrot. They presented a deal in which I would accuse World Vision of inciting employees against Judaism, and supporting terrorism in Jenin. They also wanted me to accuse organizations like Oxfam, Save the Children, Catholic Relief Services, and CHF International of supporting terrorism in Gaza and promoting antisemitism.”
In 2016, Mohammed al Halabi, former World Vision International aid worker, was arbitrarily imprisoned, subjected to subsequent Israeli torture and intimidation and falsely accused of diverting aid funding to Palestinian factions. Al Halabi denied all charges and refused plea deals for several years. In 2022 he was given a 12 year prison sentence without being able to see the ‘evidence’ against him to which only Israeli judges were privy. In an interview, al Halabi noted that an Israeli chief investigator admitted that he was “arrested to discipline international institutions” whose humanitarian interventions were deemed to “hamper the effectiveness of the Israeli blockade on Gaza.” He noted that Israel sought to punish him for his international visits and meetings with prominent officials. WVI itself conducted an external investigation and found no evidence of al Halabi’s diverting funding expressing disappointment with the Israeli court decision. His case was described in a 2023 UNHCR press release as “based on deeply flawed proceedings and egregious violations of the right to fair trial.” UNHCR stresses that this is yet another case where Israel uses “counter-terrorism legislation to silence, penalize and punish Palestinians who engage in legitimate human rights and humanitarian work.”
Layan Kayed
“Our relationship with prison is that of a constant attempt to tame us and alienate us. Perhaps our alienation only intensifies our affection, or otherwise impossible things.”
26 year old Layan Kayed is a graduate student at Birzeit University and former political prisoner who spent 16 months incarcerated in various Israeli prisons having been charged by the Occupation’s military prosecutor for her student and union activities within the university campus. She was snatched by the Occupation on the way to the university to accept her BA certificate. She spent her graduate ceremony in prison. In 2023 Layan was seized again along with her computer and mobile phone, her brutal custodial interrogation was extended until June 23, and she was prevented from meeting her lawyer. Layan has mentioned that the Occupation clampdown on student organizing has to do with the fact that they know students to be the most active and dynamic sector of society – “especially at a time when political parties are less and less effective.”
Samer Issawi
“I’m not an icon but simply a soldier in the fight for freedom and dignity in Palestine.”
The 266-day hunger-strike of Samer Issawi, hailing from the Issawiyeh village of Jerusalem, captured the attention of people around the world in 2013. Samer was first detained by the Israeli army in Ramallah during the Second Intifada. In 2011 he was released as part of a prisoner exchange but in 2012 he was re-detained for allegedly violating the terms of his release which required him to stay within Jerusalem by visiting Kafr Aqb, a village Israel considers part of Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries. He was convicted of an 8-month sentence and threatened with the reimposition of his original sentence. He began his hunger strike in August 2012, striking until he achieved his release after 17 months of detention. In May of this year his original 30-year sentence was reimposed on the basis of secret evidence by a secret military tribunal. Under Military Order 1651, released Palestinian prisoners’ sentences can be reimposed on the basis of mere contact with Palestinians in political parties. Samer follows a long line of Palestinian hunger-strikers who’ve spent their lives and deaths in and out of prison: Ayman Sharawna, Samer al Barq, Khader Adnan, Muhammad Allan amongst others. Samer’s sister and mother played a crucial role in leading the media campaign around his case and garnering public support.
Ameer Makhoul
After three weeks of solitary confinement during which Ameer Makhoul was tortured, he wrote: “I was forced to explain in minute detail something I never did. When [Shin Bet] face a logical problem, they have sufficient legal tools to fill in the holes with what they call “secret evidence” which neither I or my lawyers have a right to know them. According to media in Israel, I am now a terrorist and a supporter of terrorism. The rules of the game state that I am guilty whether it was proven I am guilty or not…”.
Amir Makhoul is a writer and political activist from Haifa. He is a frequent contributor to the Electronic Intifada, has worked at the Institute of Palestine Studies, directed the Ittijah, a coalition of Palestinian NGOs in 1948 territory, chaired the National Committee for the Protection of Political Freedoms, served as coordinator of the Coordinating Committee of Palestinian Civil Society in the Homeland and Diaspora, and headed the Israel-based High Follow-Up Committee’s Popular Committee for Defending Freedoms, which acts as a national coordinating body for Palestinian citizens of Israel despite Israel’s refusal to recognize its representative status. In 2010 he was detained for “meeting a foreign agent” and imprisoned for 9 years. Adalah, the legal center for Arab rights in Israel, noted that such charges allow Israeli internal security to “criminalize almost any Arab who establishes legitimate relations with political and social activists in the Arab world” and impede all contact between Palestinians living within the Green Line and those in diaspora. Makhoul’s imprisonment was condemned by civil organizations around the world including Amnesty International who advocated and called for his release.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/political-prisoner-ameer-makhoul-international-solidarity-lighthouse
Basel al Adra
“The occupation court just decided: My community will be destroyed. I live in Massafer Yatta, Palestine. An unjust 23 year long trial ended today with a verdict of mass eviction. The army can now place us on trucks, 2,400 people, and expel us from our ancient villages, one by one.”
Basel is an activist and journalist documenting settler and military violence in the West Bank, particularly with regards to the existential threat his hometown Msafer Yatta has been facing. Al-Adra and Jewish Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham were the protagonists and among the directors of the documentary film about Msafer Yatta No Other Land. He is continually harassed by the Israeli military for his activism and documentation of abuses. He operates the #savemsaferyatta account on Twitter.
The Holy Land Foundation Five
The case of the Holy Land Five Shukri Abu-Baker, Ghassan Elashi (founding member of the Texas branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations), Mufid Abdulqader, Abdulrahman Odeh, and Mohammad Elmezain are prominent Palestinian-American philanthropists who once ran the largest Muslim charity in the United States. The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development (HLF) was shut down and designated as a terrorist organization in the wake of 9/11, even though it donated money to Palestinian charities that the U.S. government itself supported. In 2004, the aforementioned five figures were sentenced up to 65 years in federal prison. Human Rights Watch notes that, “the defendants were never accused of directly funding terrorist organizations… nor were the Palestinian charities they funded accused of doing so.” The US government’s case was based on the testimonies of anonymous Israeli military intelligence agents, faulty translations and jury rejection of reliable government witnesses. In brief, the prosecution’s hypothesis was that the HLF distributed charity administered by Hamas (a political party) to families in the West Bank and amongst those families were those of suicide bombers. HRW has pointed out that “these dubious claims echo those that the Israeli government has made against Palestinian human rights groups for decades” in order to deny Palestinians all forms of external assistance. Al Jazeera released a documentary called the “Holy Land Five” and Chris Hedges has described it as “one of the most egregious cases of injustice committed to date against Muslim leaders in the US.” The case of the Holy Land Five shows the transnational utility of “counterterrorism,” a flexibly applicable charge that rarely requires substantiation, as a way to eliminate all threats to American-Israeli national security interests.
https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/send-the-hlf5-to-turkey
Sami al Arian
http://web.usf.edu/uff/AlArian/ – if someone would be willing to do this one i’d be grateful
Ibrahim Nabulsi
“I just want our people to take a firm stand against the occupation. For there to not be any spies or traitors. That is my only request, I don’t want anything except this.”
“Ibrahim Nabulsi represented the possibility of reigniting the spirit of resistance in a new generation. That’s why Israel killed him,” Mariam Barghouti once said. The 19 year old “Lion of Nablus,” Ibrahim struck fear in the hearts of a violent colonial machine as the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades commander in the West Bank. He survived several assassination attempts and made frequent unmasked appearances at the funerals of fellow Fatah fighters. Nabulsi was subject to several conspiracies, harassment and persecution but endured them through steadfastness and patience. His father said of him that “Ibrahim was hunting them, not the other way around. Whenever he heard about an Israeli army raid, he was the first to go out and confront them.” Ibrahim does not fit the model of the “victim intellectual” propagated in order to plead for Palestinian acceptance in liberal spaces. A video of Nabulsi’s mother mourning his death went viral where she tearfully proclaimed, “They are mistaken if they think they killed Ibrahim. Everyone is Ibrahim”
Mahmoud Ardah
“He had been in prison for 28 years,” Mahmoud’s brother told Mondoweiss. “In September of 2021, when he escaped from the tunnel and saw freedom, when he saw the sun, saw the world, the earth and the hills, he told me ‘I forgot the 29 years inside those prisons the moment I exited the tunnel’.”
48 year old Mahmoud al-Ardah, hailing from Jenin and Arrabe, was the leader of “Freedom Tunnel” - the most high-profile prison break in modern Palestinian history, escaping the notorious Gilboa Prison and evading Israeli authorities for two weeks before they were recaptured. The 6 were eventually recaptured and several, including Qadri, were placed in solitary confinement (where Ardah has been lingering for 32 months). He first became active as a boy during the great popular intifada of 1987 and was seized and imprisoned for the first time in 1992 on allegations of targeting occupation jeeps and military patrols with Molotov cocktails. He became a part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in prison before his release in 1996. Eight months later he was arrested again by the occupation forces for shooting a military officer invading Salfit and harbouring the martyr leader Saleh Tahaineh, who had himself escaped from occupation prisons. He was already sentenced to 99 years in occupation prisons before the Freedom Tunnel operation. After his imprisonment, he attempted to escape on multiple occasions, in 2001, 2011 and 2014. In the latter instance, he was accused of digging a tunnel to escape from Shata prison and on each occasion he was placed in isolation. He obtained both his high school diploma and bachelor’s degree in prison and became a leader of the prisoners’ movement before designing and planning the Freedom Tunnel self-liberation.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/-israel--renews-mahmoud-al-ardah-s-solitary-confinement
Yacoub Qadri
“All of Palestine is ours! All of Palestine! Sakhnin! Umm Al Fahm! Jenin! Gaza! Al Quds!”
51 year old Yaqoub Mahmoud Qadri (Ghawadra), hailing from the towns of Jenin and Arraba, was one of the 6 Palestinian political prisoners who orchestrated “Freedom Tunnel” - the most high-profile prison break in modern Palestinian history, escaping the notorious Gilboa Prison and evading Israeli authorities for two weeks before they were recaptured. The 6 were eventually recaptured and several, including Qadri, were placed in solitary confinement (where Qadri has been lingering for 32 months).He joined Mahmoud al Ardah, Mohammed al Ardah, Zakaria Zubeidi, Ayham Nayef Kamamji and Monadel in the attempt to escape Shata prison in 2014 before once again joining in the Freedom Tunnel escape. He was detained again in 2023 and placed in solitary confinement where he has been lingering for 32 months. Revenge against Qadri began the moment he was re-arrested but escalated, as it did in the case of most prisons, following October 7th. In the past few months he has been transferred several times, threatened with murder and prevented from seeking treatment for his various ailments including thyroid issues and high blood pressure. He and other prisons have been deprived of constant cell searches, limited water and clothing and blankets.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CfPOLniJ2BT