International Workers’ Day 2025: The Workers’ Flood for Palestine, Against Genocide and Imperialism

“The sons and daughters of the popular classes of Palestine, the workers, the farmers in the villages, the refugees of the camps, have always been the leaders and the driving force of our Palestinian national liberation movement. The Palestinian popular classes have been the freedom fighters, the strugglers and the resisters on the front lines, confronting the occupation and Zionist colonization in Palestine. And so it is the case that the popular classes of Palestine fill the ranks of the Israeli prisons, the builders of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement continuing on the front lines of resistance, building the ongoing Palestinian revolution.” – Kamil Abu Hanish, imprisoned Palestinian struggler, 2017

This International Workers’ Day, 1 May 2025, is a day of workers’ struggle that comes amid the ongoing imperialist-Zionist genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and throughout occupied Palestine, as the war machine of capitalism and imperialism aims to grind the flesh and blood of the Palestinian people to fuel its plunder and profits around the world. International Workers’ Day also comes this year amid Al-Aqsa Flood and the ongoing resistance to Zionist-imperialist colonialism and genocide; let this day be a day for the workers of the world to join the people’s great flood against the common enemies of humanity.

On this International Workers’ Day, we salute the Palestinian workers, and the working people and popular masses of the region, who are those who create the ranks of the resistance, who form its popular cradle, who are imprisoned in the dungeons and torture camps of the occupier, and who are targeted for assassination, imprisonment and massacre for carrying out their work: civil defense workers, doctors, nurses and health workers, farmers, fishers, construction workers, aid workers, journalists and media workers, electricians, technicians, security workers, the teachers and domestic workers — all of those whose labor creates the structure of Palestinian society. We salute the workers of the resistance who toil with love and faith below the ground to manufacture the weapons that allow Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen and all of the forces of the resistance to defend themselves against the occupier, the imperialist and the genocidaire.

We salute the workers of Yemen, who set an example for the workers in the world in their popular, national and military mobilization that is shutting down the supply lines of genocide in the Red Sea. Today, Yemen, whose workers live under the bombs of the U.S. war machine, presents the greatest example to the world of the implementation of the boycott of the Zionist project and of upholding international law and its absolute prohibition against genocide.

We salute the dockworkers of Morocco, who despite the normalization regime, refused to load and unload the Maersk ships carrying the products of the U.S. war machine to arm the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people. We salute the strugglers of Palestine Action, who put their bodies and freedom on the line to shut down, damage and impose a cost upon the factories that manufacture the weapons of the imperialist-Zionist war machine, particularly Elbit Systems. We salute the tech workers who raise their voices and refuse to participate in the AI and surveillance products being used to target and massacre the Palestinian people and direct the bombs of death and destruction. We salute the Palestinian workers of UNRWA, who are fighting internal repression, criminalization, assassination and destruction to aid their people and defend their right to return. We salute all of those workers of the world who continue to strike and boycott, to confront normalization, to ensure their labour unions and international federations exclude the genocidal “Histadrut,” boycott Zionist bonds, and stand with the Palestinian people and their just cause. We salute the workers who face firing, repression and imprisonment around the world for standing up for Palestine and confronting the genocide.

We echo the call of the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, to the Palestinian workers of the world: “We, the Palestinian workers in exile and diaspora, are part and parcel of the workers of the world. It is long past time to escalate our participation in this struggle to a material level that can shut down the trade routes of genocide, occupation and colonialism, cutting off the flow of weaponry, bombs and artillery that allows the Israeli regime to slaughter Palestinian men, women and children,” and that of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions in Gaza to workers in the United States: “Your struggle for workers’ rights in the United States is inseparable from our struggle against occupation and colonialism. True labor solidarity is demonstrated through actions, not just words, and we count on your awareness and determination to take concrete steps to end this tragedy.”

This International Workers’ Day, we call upon the workers of the world to manifest their material solidarity with the imprisoned, massacred, targeted Palestinian workers under genocide, occupation and colonization, to confront the war machine of imperialism and capitalism, and to constitute an international popular cradle of the Resistance defending humanity by taking real, serious and meaningful collective action to shut down the workplaces, ports and factories that continue to fuel genocide. Examples already exist of the dockworkers in Morocco, South Africa, India, Sweden, Norway, Turkey, Italy, Belgium and even the ILWU on the United States West Coast refusing to handle the occupier’s cargo, shipped by ZIM, Maersk and other complicit profiteers of genocide.

The Zionist entity is an advanced base of U.S. and Western imperialism in the region, and it targets not only Palestinian workers, but the workers of the world. The road to the liberation of the international working class, the defeat of imperialism and capitalism, runs now, centrally and clearly, through ending the genocide, the victory of the Resistance, and the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. 

We know that the Palestinian workers in Gaza, with their minds and hands, will rebuild all that has been destroyed by the occupation, as they have many times over the years and indeed, the centuries. It is our responsibility to act now to bring about that new day.

On 1 May 2025, we call upon workers and labour organizations around the world to affirm clearly their position against genocide and with the Palestinian people through:

• General strikes, wildcat strikes and widespread workplace and civil disobedience against genocide and imperialist war crimes. Demand a complete end to the genocide in Gaza, the liberation of all Palestinian prisoners, and full boycott and divestment from all Zionist corporations and imperialist war profiteers complicit in genocide.
• Enforce and impose grassroots and popular sanctions — in the example of Yemeni workers — by refusing to handle the weapons shipments and cargo of ZIM, Maersk and their fellow war profiteers
• Boycotting the Zionist “labour” federation, the Histadrut, “Israel Bonds,” and complicit corporations and organizations
• Acting collectively to defend workers and students targeted for repression, firing, silencing and imprisonment for their action, organizing and speech for Palestine

(We have revised and updated the following text for International Workers’ Day 2025. All images are classic posters of the Palestinian revolution via the Palestine Poster Project.)

Palestinian workers and the popular classes have always played the key, leading role as the force of the Palestinian liberation movement, inside and outside Palestine. The prisoners’ movement is no exception; indeed, the vast majority of Palestinian prisoners come from the working and popular classes, the refugee camps and the villages, and it is these workers who put their bodies and lives on the line for freedom. Today, it is Palestinian workers and popular classes on the front lines confronting a genocidal assault for over 18 months, after 77 years of ongoing genocide.

Palestinian workers: A history of leadership in struggle

Palestinians have engaged in labor organizing from the early days of the 20th century, organizing unions, defending their work against Zionist attempts to exclude Palestinian labor from Palestinian land, and taking action to defend their rights as workers and as indigenous Palestinians.

General strikes have always been a key mechanism of Palestinian resistance, from the earliest revolts of the Palestinian people against British and then Zionist colonialism. In the 1936 revolution, Palestinian workers’ six-month general strike was at that time the longest in the world. This continued over the years, as Palestinian workers in exile built the Palestinian liberation movement and its organizations, and as Palestinian workers and labor unions led in the organizing of the first intifada. UNRWA workers and others in the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon paved the way for the modern revolution, as revolutionary leaders like Abu Maher al-Yamani organized refugees for liberation and return on the basis of their trade union work before the Nakba in Palestine.

In the 1950s, Palestinian labor organizers in occupied Palestine ’48 were jailed as they attempted to keep their organizations intact under martial law. At least seven Palestinian trade union leaders were deported from the West Bank between 1969 and 1979. These attacks happened as Palestinians inside Israeli jails fought to end forced labor, a victory that was achieved only through great sacrifice. Omar Shalabi, a Syrian prisoner, was killed under torture in October 1973 during the protests against Israeli forced labor.

Targeting and imprisonment of Palestinian workers

Palestinian workers are regularly subject to colonial forms of imprisonment, from the political targeting of workers’ organizations to the mass criminalization of Palestinians seeking employment inside occupied Palestine ’48. Palestinian workers are frequently arrested for “entering Israel without a permit,” despite the fact that many of these same workers are Palestinian refugees denied their right to return to their original homes and lands for the past 74 years. The systematic siege and subjugation of the Palestinian economy, from the texts of the Paris Protocols to the so-called “Abraham Accords” promoted by U.S. imperialism through their sponsorship of reactionary Arab regimes, has forced thousands of Palestinians to seek work with or without permits as day laborers, often in construction.

At any given time, there are approximately 1000 Palestinians arrested, detained or fined for seeking to work in their own homeland; they are not classified in the Israeli colonial system as “security” prisoners and are thus missing from the statistics related to Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails. However, it is clear that everything about these workers’ situation is deeply political – they are imprisoned for their Palestinian existence on Palestinian land, specifically as Palestinian workers. Palestinian workers from Gaza working in the West Bank — as well as those abducted from Gaza — have been subjected to the most extreme and severe forms of torture and abuse, from beating to rape and sexual assault to starvation and sleep deprivation — in the notorious prison and torture camps like Sde Teiman and Anatot.

Palestinian workers are subjected to ongoing abuse at checkpoints, systemic discrimination on the job from the river to the sea, and economic isolation, starvation and siege meant to compel workers into becoming construction workers and servants in illegal settlements. For over 18 years, the siege on Gaza has served as yet another attack on Palestinian workers. Even before the escalated genocide, the Gaza Strip had the highest levels of unemployment in Palestine due to the deliberate targeting of the Palestinian economy and its productive basis, including workers, fishers and farmers. Today, hundreds of thousands more have been forced into unemployment and are targeted daily for death and destruction.

There are currently over 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners jailed by the Zionist regime, including over 3,600 jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention. Confronting torture, abuse and starvation inside the Zionist jails, which has led to the martyrdom of over 65 prisoners over the past 18 months, the Palestinian prisoners are on the front lines of Palestinian resistance on a daily basis. They are leaders in the Palestinian, Arab and international camp of resistance — and like the freedom fighters and martyrs of Palestine, they represent the workers and popular classes of Palestine, those who face multiple forms of exploitation and oppression at the hands of the Zionist regime. The liberation of the prisoners is so precious to the Palestinian people and their resistance that it was a central goal of Al-Aqsa Flood and the great crossing of struggle. Freedom for Palestinian prisoners is essential to the liberation of the Palestinian working class and popular masses — the central feature of the liberation of Palestine from imperialism and Zionism, from the river to the sea.

The Histadrut: A colonialist entity that must be boycotted

The drive to exclude Palestinian workers has always been part of the Zionist colonial project. This has been reflected in the founding principles and continued operation of the Israeli Histadrut, a trade union federation founded with the explicit purpose of promoting Zionist colonization of Palestinian land and excluding Palestinian labor. Despite having a fraternal relationship with the AFL-CIO and other major labor unions worldwide, it actually exploits Palestinian workers inside “Israel” by deducting fees from their salaries while denying them benefits, let alone its ongoing and systematic role as part of the Zionist-imperialist machine of genocide. Its role predates the Nakba and continues to reflect this colonial relationship. Today, it must be more clear than ever: any relationship with the Histadrut is complicity in genocide, and those responsible for complicity in genocide must be held accountable — first and foremost, by the workers.

Palestinian workers in exile and diaspora fight back

Palestinian workers in exile also continue to struggle against exploitation and oppression. In Lebanon, amid the targeting of Lebanon, its people and its Resistance by the Zionist attacks that daily violate the ceasefire, the imperialist powers and financial exploiters, Palestinian refugees continue to be denied access to numerous professions, leading to massive unemployment and frequent despair among the working class. Palestinian refugees forced to flee to Europe, North America and elsewhere from Lebanon, Syria and occupied Palestine confront racist, repressive policies that inhibit their right to work and threaten them with deportation, detention and exclusion.

They confront the racism of “Fortress Europe” and criminalization of refugee workers alongside fellow migrants and workers seeking safety and refuge from the military, social, environmental and economic disasters forced upon their home countries by the very imperialist states that then deny their rights. They face severe exploitation in black market labor. Still, these workers continue to struggle despite all odds not only to confront racism and exclusion in the imperialist countries but also to organize to confront imperialism and win their liberation. Palestinian workers are marching in, leading and organizing the demonstrations that took massively to the streets of the world to confront the genocide and stand with the Palestinian people, and are the first to be targeted for these actions by police and state repression. Workers around the world, and particularly in the imperial core, have been fired, dismissed and imprisoned because they speak out for Palestine, and Palestinian workers in exile and diaspora have been among the foremost examples. Inside and outside Palestine, the workers and popular masses are protecting Palestine and pushing the struggle forward, without compromise.

Confronting imperialism, Arab reactionary regimes and the Oslo Palestinian Authority 

Zionist genocidal colonialism reflects the sharpest edge of capitalist exploitation for the Palestinian working class, backed up fully by the most powerful and dangerous imperialist powers, especially the United States. However, they also face Arab reactionary regimes, such as Jordan, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, that are complicit with the exploitation and marginalization of Palestinian workers even as they are complicit with the genocide of the Zionist regime through normalization and direct participation. Palestinian workers are exploited by the ruling class of these states directly in exile and diaspora as well as through their direct engagement with and promotion of the colonial economy of Zionism, and Arab workers are themselves threatened with imprisonment and harsh repression when they take action to defend the Palestinian people.

Palestinian workers also confront Palestinian capitalists and the Palestinian Authority, formed as a security subcontractor to the Israeli occupation. The Jordanian monarchy acted in the 1970s and 1980s to repress union organizing in the interests of Palestinian capitalists, while ultra-wealthy Palestinian capitalists like Bashar al-Masri are on the first lines promoting normalization and undermining the boycott of Israel.

Imperialism is on the attack around the world, using its military might and its weapons of siege and sanctions against peoples around the world. As always, it is workers and the impoverished classes who bear the heaviest brunt of these assaults. Fighting back against imperialism, including U.S., Canadian and EU sanctions on Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, and indeed, nearly one-third of the world, in addition to its direct involvement and armament of genocide, its bombing of Yemen, its military interventions, warmongering and ongoing violent attacks on all forms of resistance to imperial domination, is essential to building the movement for Palestine.

A call to the workers’ movements of the world

On International Workers’ Day, we once again amplify the words of Kamil Abu Hanish, speaking from Israeli prison, urging the escalation of the boycott movement: “Today, we call upon you, the fighters for freedom and justice in the world, the workers’ movements, the strugglers for socialism, the movements of revolution, to escalate your support for our struggle, for the Palestinian people and for the Palestinian prisoners. We urge you to act to isolate the occupation state, to hold it accountable for 70 years of crimes against the Palestinian people…The workers’ movements, the movements of the popular classes, the movements of the oppressed, can and must take part in this battle around the world, as part and parcel of the struggle against racism, imperialism and capitalism.”

International workers’ solidarity with Palestine has a long and proud history, including in the heart of the imperial core. See, for example, in the United States — the leading sponsor of the Zionist regime, together with its imperialist partners in Britain, France, Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and elsewhere — the important role of Black and Arab autoworkers who struck in 1973 in Detroit against their union’s purchase of “Israel Bonds.” Today, amid the ongoing genocide in Palestine, as the bombs create belts of fire, as dozens of Palestinian workers are martyred daily, this moment is perhaps more urgent than ever.

We also express our solidarity with the struggling workers of the world, including the imprisoned labor union and workers’ movement leaders who are held behind bars or face death threats and repression for their role in defending oppressed workers. From India to the Philippines to France, from Colombia to Egypt and Morocco, we stand with these labor movements targeted for repression. The liberation of Palestine is fundamentally linked to the liberation of all from imperialism, exploitation and capitalism.

On International Workers’ Day, these struggles must become an occasion to escalate our work to support Palestinian workers, end the genocide, uphold the resistance, free the prisoners, and liberate Palestine, from the river to the sea.

Source: https://samidoun.net/2025/05/international-workers-day-2025-the-workers-flood-for-palestine-against-genocide-and-imperialism/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18848

#colonialism #imperialism #mayDay #palestine #palestinianAuthority #prisonStruggle #samidoun #westAsia #workers

Al-Qassam Brigades Launches Top-Tier Op., Ambushes Zionists in Rafah

The al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, announced the execution of a top-tier operation in the Tal al-Sultan neighborhood, west of Rafah city in southern Gaza.

In a statement, the Brigades said its Resistance fighters lured a Zionist armored force, comprising four Hummer military vehicles and an Amulisa military truck, into a well-prepared ambush on Al-Tayaran Street.

The group added that the force was targeted with multiple Shawaz and other explosive devices, resulting in the destruction of the vehicles and the killing and wounding of several Israeli soldiers.

Al-Qassam engage Zionist military from point-blank range

The statement further noted that after striking the convoy, the al-Qassam fighters advanced toward the remaining Zionist troops and engaged them from point-blank range, killing and injuring additional soldiers.

This operation is part of a series of ambushes carried out by the Palestinian Resistance against occupation forces in Gaza, which have led to the killing and injuries of numerous soldiers and the destruction of military vehicles.

The Palestinian Resistance continues to confront the ongoing aggression on the Gaza Strip and has affirmed its readiness to respond to any further escalation by the occupation.

Al-Quds Brigades target Zionists with rocket in Gaza City

On Tuesday, the al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) movement, released footage showing its fighters targeting a house where occupation soldiers were entrenched, using a guided rocket in the al-Tuffah neighborhood, east of Gaza City.

The approximately one-minute video displays the preparation phase of the rocket, followed by surveillance of the occupation forces positioned inside the house.

The footage then captures the moment a 107mm rocket was launched toward the soldiers, accurately hitting the designated target.

According to al-Quds Brigades’ Military Media, the operation was carried out on Sunday.

Ongoing resistance

Meanwhile, the al-Qassam Brigades announced on Sunday that its fighters targeted a Merkava 4 tank with an al-Yassin-105 anti-tank rocket in the eastern al-Tuffah neighborhood of Gaza City.

In a separate operation in the same area, al-Qassam fighters detonated an anti-personnel explosive device, resulting in multiple occupation soldiers being killed or wounded.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18792

#alAqsaFlood #alQassam #gaza #hamas #palestine #westAsia

PFLP Statement On May 1st – International Workers’ Day

To the free people of the world… Unite against barbarism
Palestinian workers in the heart of fire. The fuel of national and liberation struggle

To the masses of our great people,
To the brave workers of Palestine,
To the free people of the world everywhere,

On International Workers’ Day—a day on which the world stands in tribute to the heroes of the working class, the makers of life, those who sow hope with their sweat and write with their effort and patience the epic of struggle for dignity, justice, and freedom—this occasion in Palestine becomes a moment of loyalty to the toiling martyrs, whose blood was shed in workshops, factories, farms, in queues at checkpoints, and beneath the rubble of demolished homes. It is a day to renew the covenant with the Palestinian working class, which has always stood at the forefront, leading in the arenas of production and resistance.

The Palestinian working class has long formed the vanguard of national and social struggle, standing firm in the face of occupation and genocide despite official neglect. On this occasion, we salute the workers of Palestine and the martyrs of the labor movement, especially working women who bear the burden of struggle and discrimination. We also value the positions of free trade unionists around the world who oppose normalization and occupation. We affirm our alignment with the global working class in the confrontation against capitalism and colonialism.

To the working class across the world… To our struggling workers… To our great people:

This year’s Workers’ Day comes amidst the height of zionist targeting of all segments of our people—foremost among them the working class—who have been struck hardest by the systematic destruction of the national economy and forced dependency on the zionist economy, amid rampant poverty, unemployment, and the collapse of the labor system. Since October 7, 2023, the Gaza Strip has faced a barbaric assault that destroyed economic infrastructure, martyred thousands of workers, demolished hundreds of facilities, and raised unemployment to over 80%. In the West Bank, workers have become constant targets at checkpoints and are forced to work in settlements. Palestinian workers inside the 1948 lands are denied union rights, while those in the diaspora face marginalization and unemployment. Yet despite these wounds, Palestinian workers continue their struggle and steadfastness in the face of occupation and deprivation.

On this Workers’ Day, and at this historic moment in which our people are facing a genocidal war that targets human beings, land, and national resources—striking at the heart of the productive and working society—against this criminal aggression led by this rogue entity with the support of imperialist powers, the PFLP affirms the following:

1. Victory for the Palestinian worker, and the defense of their life, dignity, and rights, is not only a national and moral duty but also a fundamental gateway to comprehensive national and social liberation.

2. Any discourse on Workers’ Day that does not begin with confronting the genocide against our people and standing with the working class in the fields of daily struggle is an empty discourse that does not represent the interests of the toilers nor align with their struggles.

3. We call on the global trade union movement, in all its spectrums and orientations, to stand firmly with the workers of Palestine. Unions around the world have proven capable of disrupting the machinery of aggression through boycotts, strikes, and political pressure. Today, you bear a heightened responsibility to act to stop the war, enforce international isolation of the zionist entity, which is committing documented war crimes against workers and civilians, and take a clear stance by boycotting the Histadrut, a key arm of the occupation.

4. There is an urgent need to launch a national economic resilience plan to support the working class in overcoming the consequences of the genocidal war and zionist policies. This plan must be based on local production, reduce dependency, and combat poverty and unemployment.

5. The Palestinian labor movement must be rebuilt on democratic and genuinely representative foundations through fair and transparent elections for the General Federation of Trade Unions, based on proportional representation and the inclusion of all unions—leading to a truly representative union body, not a union of one party or one person.

6. It is the responsibility of official bodies to swiftly form emergency labor committees in every location in Gaza and the West Bank to support those affected by the ongoing aggression and its catastrophic consequences.

7. We call for the establishment of a national, Arab, and international fund to support workers in Gaza and the West Bank, in light of the occupation’s destruction of infrastructure and labor sectors, which has pushed the overwhelming majority of workers into unemployment.

8. There is a need to pass laws and collective agreements that safeguard labor rights and establish a fair minimum wage.

9. We must strengthen alliances with global trade unions and build an international front to isolate and boycott the zionist entity at all levels.

Free people of the world, unite… against barbarism!
Salute to the workers of Palestine… the messengers of the earth, the shield of the revolution, the hammer of change, and the builders of tomorrow.

Salute to those martyred while working… and to those who continue working despite hunger.

Glory to the martyrs… glory to the resistance… freedom to the prisoners… a speedy recovery to the wounded… glory to Palestine from the river to the sea.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Central Media Office
May 1, 2025

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18796

#alAqsaFlood #gaza #mayDay #pflp #westAsia

Let’s Go Out On May Day – From Rojava to the Whole World: Build a Socialist Life!

For more than 138 years, people around the world have celebrated the day of struggle of the workers’ movement. For many generations, May 1 has been an expression of the struggle for a better world. On this day, all those who have no illusions about the reality of the capitalist system and who have the courage to change take to the streets. Whether they are workers who still have to toil at their workbenches under degrading conditions and for far too little pay, or young people who do not want to spend their lives in the trenches of the Third World War. Whether they are women who are reduced to commodities under capitalism, or the damned of the earth whose identity is still denied decades after the emergence of national liberation movements, or whose homes may be submerged by the floods of climate change tomorrow.

There were and are plenty of reasons for anger. In 1886, it was the police attacks on the mass strikes at Haymarket in Chicago that led the Socialist International to declare May 1 a day of struggle in memory of those murdered there. With renewed self-confidence and pride, workers began to decorate their neighborhoods with the red flag of socialism. Through newly formed militant organizations, they were now able to stand up to those in power and discuss in circles what life would look like without capitalism. It has also been more than a hundred years since, in the midst of the First World War, women marched through Petrograd with the slogan “Bread and Peace” written on red cloth, signaling the start of the October Revolution and an era of revolutionary change that would shape the history of an entire century.

As internationalists in Rojava, we look back with pride on this rich history and the experiences of the revolutionaries who came before us. We have come from many parts of the world to be part of a revolutionary process that began here over 50 years ago. In Kurdistan, the flag of socialism, which had been thrown to the ground after the collapse of real socialism, was picked up again. This revolution, which is committed to building democratic socialism, sees itself not only in the tradition of numerous resistance movements from Cuba to Angola to Vietnam, but also in the responsibility to learn from the mistakes that have been made.

More and more people today are realizing that the end of history and the final victory of capitalism, which were proclaimed after the collapse of real socialism, can be nothing more and nothing less than a shameless lie. The alternative to socialism, as Rosa Luxemburg already stated, can only be barbarism. The intervention of the Kurdish freedom movement against the plans to reshape the Middle East has, with the Rojava Revolution, created a reality that cannot be denied or destroyed. The alternative to sexism, war, and misery lies in the peaceful coexistence of peoples based on the principles of women’s liberation, ecology, and radical democracy.

In this sense, the call for peace and a democratic society now written by Rêber APO can mark the beginning of a new stage in which even greater efforts will be made to build, through peaceful coexistence, a genuine tenderness between peoples who have been at war with each other for over a hundred years. It is up to us to recognize the necessity and urgency of Rêber APO’s physical freedom, to strengthen his position through our struggle, and to gather around him.

The existing conditions, as is still the case, are man-made. This means that they can also be changed by humans. The flag of humanity and socialism will fly in Kurdistan, and the Rojava Revolution heralds the century of women’s revolution.

With this in mind, we send you our revolutionary greetings from the liberated territories of North-and Eastern Syria. Long live May 1, victory to the revolutionary people’s war in Kurdistan!

source: Internationalist Commune of Rojava

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18776

#iraq #kurdistan #pkk #resistance #rojava #syria #turkey #westAsia

PFLP Salutes Yemeni Operations

The Popular Front hails this honorable heroic act and affirms that the Yemeni people are undefeatable and unbreakable — and like the people of Palestine, they are steadfast on the path to freedom until victory is achieved.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18778

#ansarallah #palestine #pflp #resistance #westAsia #yemen

“Deprivation by Design”: Israel Intensifies Mass Killing Campaign in Gaza With Starvation and Daily Strikes

The scale of killing in Gaza is almost impossible to track as the Israeli military bombs and starves Palestinian civilians with impunity.

from #DropSiteNews
Rasha Abou jalal
and Sharif Abdel Kouddous
Apr 30, 2025

https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-intensifies-mass-killing-gaza-starvation?r=2y9nd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false

#PermanentCeasfireNow
#IsraelWarCrimes
#ArrestNetanyahuAndGallant
#USHandsOffICC
#StopGazaGenocide
#GazaBelongsToPalestine
#NeverStopTalkingAboutPalestine
#StopArmingIsrael
#BDS #DivestFromIsrael
#RestoreFundsToUNRWA
#SolidarityWithPalestine is #NotAntisemitism
#EqualRightsForAllFromTheRiverToTheSea is #NotAntisemitic
#JewHatredHurtsPalestine
#Gaza #Israel #Palestine #MiddleEast #WestAsia #politics
#news #press @palestine @israel

Against War, Exploitation and Fascism: Workers, Rise Up! Peoples, Resist! – TKP-ML May Day Statement

The imperialist-capitalist system is in the midst of one of the deepest crises in its history. The capitalist mode of production’s quest for continuity is leading, on the one hand, to growing social inequalities in imperialist countries and, on the other hand, to the deepening of brutal exploitation policies in colonial and semi-colonial countries. From the US to Germany, from Russia to China, the major imperialist powers are embroiled in a vortex of economic, political, and military hegemonic wars. The stagnation of capital accumulation, the shrinkage of markets and overproduction are sharpening the internal contradictions of the system. These contradictions are weaving the bloody ground for a new world order behind the facade of temporary “stability.”

The trade wars between imperialist powers, which have escalated with Donald Trump’s announcement of new custom tariffs, are heightening tensions between imperialist blocs. The high tariffs imposed by the US on China and the economic strategies developed by China in response are developments that threaten to shake global supply chains and disrupt the world economy. This situation, of course, primarily and especially affects the working class in colonial and semi-colonial countries.

As we have been saying for a long time, the proxy wars taking shape in Ukraine, Palestine, Syria, etc., are only the beginning of the growing threat of war worldwide. NATO’s expansionist moves, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in response, China’s rise in the Pacific and increasingly across the world, the redrawing of the Middle East… All these developments indicate that tensions between imperialist camps are escalating into hot conflicts. This process, reminiscent of certain developments prior to the First and Second Imperialist World Wars, is confronting the peoples of the world with the danger of a new world war. The imperialist blocs, to resolve their own crises, offer the peoples nothing but death and destruction.

The ongoing conflicts in the Middle East continue to have devastating consequences for the peoples of the region. In Yemen, attacks carried out by the US, UK, and Israel are threatening the lives of civilians. While the number of people who have lost their lives as a result of Israel’s attacks on Gaza has exceeded 50,000, increasing tensions with Iran are further deepening instability in the region. These conflicts are shaped by the interests of imperialist powers and are exacerbating the suffering and losses of the peoples of the Middle East.

The global arms race is another dimension of imperialist competition. The US continues to lead the way in arms exports, accounting for 43% of global arms exports, while European countries are also increasing their arms imports and joining the race. All this arms race is being carried out at the expense of the further impoverishment of the oppressed masses of the working class, the restriction of their wages, the closure of factories, the rapid growth of unemployment, and the elimination of social services.

Racism and xenophobia are being systematically promoted in many countries as one of the most dangerous responses to the crisis of the imperialist-capitalist system. In European countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Italy, anti-immigrant parties—such as the AfD, RN, PVV, and Meloni’s party—are achieving electoral successes and gaining enough power to influence government policies. In Germany, racist and Islamophobic attacks increased by 22% throughout 2023, and arson attacks on refugee shelters have returned to the headlines. In France, the “immigration law” that came into force at the beginning of 2024 has severely restricted the residence and social assistance rights of many immigrants.

In the US, not only Donald Trump’s but also Joe Biden’s administration’s immigration policies continue along a line that criminalizes Latin American workers. Anti-immigrant laws implemented in states like Florida and Texas are increasing police violence and deportation threats, making systemic racism even more visible. For all these reasons, May 1, 2025, is a day to raise the banner not only of economic demands but also of the anti-imperialist struggle.

The Working Class in the Shadow of War, Armament, and Racism

The working class stands at a historic crossroads on a global scale. Class inequalities, which have become even more visible with the pandemic, have condemned millions of workers to poverty and insecurity. Technological developments, automation, and digitalization are being used by capital to deepen its mechanisms of exploitation, while union busting, subcontracting, and flexible working models are being employed to dismantle the organized power of the working class. However, the rising wave of strikes around the world shows that workers will not submit to these attacks. From France to South Korea, from Argentina to Kenya, the worker movement is taking to the streets at various levels.

People are also surrounded by a similar chain of exploitation and oppression. The Right of Nations to Self-Determination is systematically violated by imperialists; migrants, women, youth, and oppressed peoples are under multifaceted attacks at both the economic and cultural levels. These conditions highlight the historical necessity of forming a united people’s front and establishing a common ground for the struggle of workers and the oppressed. The unification of fragmented resistance into a united revolutionary line is not only the task of today but also of the future.

In this context, May 1 is not merely a day of remembrance but a call to struggle for the revival of revolutionary organizing, united class struggle, and internationalist solidarity among peoples. This world, caught in the vortex of crisis and war, can only be changed through the joint intervention of the organized peoples under the leadership of the working class. Enlarging the goal of a world without borders, classes, or exploitation in the face of the decaying structure of capitalism is not only a task but a matter of existence on this May 1st.

The bill for all these developments is being footed by the working class and oppressed peoples. Imperialist policies are deepening economic crises, cutting social rights, and making living conditions more difficult. Therefore, May 1, 2025, is not just a day of remembrance, but also a day when the united and organized struggle against the imperialist system must be raised under the leadership of the working class.

The Deepening of the Fascist Regime in Turkey and the Siege of the Working Class

In Turkey, the working class and oppressed peoples are confronted not only with the capitalist system of exploitation but also with an institutionalized fascist dictatorship. This regime of oppression, carried out by the AKP-MHP government, has restructured all state institutions in line with the interests of the capitalist class. While unionization, strikes, press freedom, and the right of the masses to protest are systematically suppressed, the working class is being disorganized, and all forms of opposition to the AKP-MHP regime are being crushed with brutal terror.

The policies of the fascist dictatorship are not limited to repressive mechanisms. At the same time, hostility between peoples is being fueled in order to cover up the real issues. Under the name of “Turkey without terrorism,” the policy of annihilation and denial against the Kurdish people continues; trustees are appointed to municipalities, and elected representatives are sent to prisons. Women, LGBT+ people, migrants, and Alevis face systematic discrimination. Every component of social opposition is either criminalized or threatened by security policies. With the institutionalization of fascist ideology, social polarization has become a state policy, and the people are being governed by hostilities developed among it.

In foreign policy, the Turkish state, a loyal member of NATO, has increasingly lost its ability to maneuver between imperialist powers, but continues to assert both its claim to power and its ambition to be a regional power. The discourse of “multilateral diplomacy,” which is still being voiced, albeit in a low voice, is in fact aimed at both strengthening Turkey’s position within the imperialist camp led by the US and Britain and covering up the crises in internal politics. Military activities carried out in many regions, from Libya to Syria, from the Caucasus to Africa, are being conducted at the expense of the people, who are burdened with economic and political costs. The Turkish state is an accomplice to the wars and occupations in the Middle East.

In this environment of oppression and attack, the working class in Turkey is facing historical levels of impoverishment. Even the manipulative data from the Turkish Statistical Institute (TÜİK) cannot hide this reality: annual increases in food prices are over 80%. The minimum wage has fallen below the poverty line. According to a report published by DİSK at the beginning of 2025, one in four workers lives below the poverty line. Real wages have fallen by 35% compared to 2021. Rents exceed 60% of average wages, while the number of people with credit debt has reached 40 million.

High inflation and rising poverty have severely lowered the living standards of the population. Despite the government’s increase in social assistance spending, the real value of this assistance has been eroded by inflation, leaving approximately 20 million people dependent on social assistance. Additionally, while the official unemployment rate stands at 8.6%, the increase in the number of people who have given up looking for work indicates that the actual unemployment rate is higher.

The arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu on March 19, 2025, amid conflicts between bourgeois cliques, and the subsequent protests, exposed the government’s intolerant stance toward all forms of opposition. This incident also had a negative impact on economic markets, with the Turkish lira losing value and the Istanbul Stock Exchange experiencing a 9% decline.

Women and migrant workers in Turkey bear the heaviest burden of capitalist exploitation. As of 2024, 30.8% of women work in the informal sector, and 3.248 million women struggle to survive without social security. 31.5% of women are at risk of poverty or social exclusion. Migrants and refugees, numbering over 4 million, constitute one of the most vulnerable and heavily exploited segments of the capitalist system. Syrian, Afghan, Turkmen, Uzbek, Pakistani, and African migrants are employed in unregistered, low-wage, and uninsured jobs. According to joint reports by the International Labor Organization (ILO) and local unions, over 90% of migrants are excluded from the social security system. Migrant labor constitutes a significant portion of the workforce in sectors such as construction, textiles, agriculture, and services, where wages for local workers are also suppressed. The bourgeoisie exploits cheap migrant labor to maximize profits while pitting local workers against migrants, thereby deepening class divisions.

The picture we have painted from several angles is not merely an economic crisis but a systematic war waged against the working class. The AKP-MHP regime is dragging millions into poverty, insecurity, and despair in order to protect the interests of a handful of comprador bourgeoisie and their imperialist masters.

Under these conditions, the task of the Turkish working class is not merely to defend its economic rights, but to build a united class struggle that will overthrow this fascist regime. Without a united resistance front with the Kurdish people, women, youth, and all oppressed social sections, neither a humane life nor the overthrow of the exploitative order will be possible.

May 1st must be the day when this struggle is intensified and the walls of fear are shattered. It is time for a united struggle, with the belief that an organized people will defeat fascism in every factory, every neighborhood, and every school.

Long live May 1st!

Long live proletarian internationalism!

TKP-ML Central Committee

April 2025

Source : https://www.tkpml.com/tkp-ml-central-committeeagainst-war-exploitation-and-fascism-workers-rise-up-peoples-resist/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18756

#guerrilla #iraq #kurdistan #rojava #tikko #tkpMl #turkey #westAsia

'I have no plan B': Gaza's families left to starve under #Israeli aid shutdown

Desperate #Palestinians live on unhealthy single meal a day as 'silent malnutrition' spreads among children

from #MiddleEastEye #MEE
By Maha Hussaini in Gaza City, occupied #Palestine
Published date: 29 April 2025 14:07 BST

"On 1 April, all 25 bakeries supported by the #WorldFoodProgramme (WFP) across the #Gaza Strip shut down due to the lack of wheat flour and fuel.

Today, families are using the last remaining bags of wheat flour they received from the #WFP before the aid suspension to bake their bread in primitive, handmade ovens using firewood."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/palestine-gaza-families-starve-under-israel-aid-shutdown

#PermanentCeasfireNow
#IsraelWarCrimes
#ArrestNetanyahuAndGallant
#USHandsOffICC
#StopGazaGenocide
#NeverStopTalkingAboutPalestine
#StopArmingIsrael
#BDS #DivestFromIsrael
#RestoreFundsToUNRWA
#SolidarityWithPalestine is #NotAntisemitism
#Israel #MiddleEast #WestAsia #politics
#news #press @palestine @israel

Dapatkan hingga Rp743.000 dengan menonton video di TikTok. https://vt.tiktok.com/ZShJssWfL/

#SouthAmerica #NorthAmerica
#CentralAsia #SouthAsia #SoutheastAsia #EastWest #AsiaAsia #WestAsia #revisão #view
#followerseveryone #facebookree
#improveyourself #improveyourselfdaily #improveyourselfquotes #quotes #leadershipquotes #quotesoftheday #quotestoliveby #quotesdaily #motivated #motivating #motivatingquotes #motivatingothers #motivational #motivation #motivationalquotesoftheday #leaders #leader #fb

Ansarallah Targets US Warships, US Warplane Lost in Assault

In response to the ongoing American massacres in Yemen, the spokesperson for the Yemeni Armed Forces (YAF), Brigadier General Yahya Saree, announced a military operation targeting the USS Truman and its accompanying support vessels.

According to Saree, the operation involved coordinated strikes by the Yemeni Armed Forces’ naval, drone, and missile units. The operation was executed using a combination of ballistic and cruise missiles, in addition to several UAVs, resulting in the withdrawal of the American aircraft carrier from the area.

YAF strike vital target in Askalan

In parallel, the YAF conducted a separate operation targeting a vital site in Askalan, occupied Palestine, utilizing a Yafa-type drone.

Saree reaffirmed that the Yemeni Armed Forces will persist in their operations against American forces and the Zionist occupation until the aggression on Gaza and Yemen ceases.

An F/A-18 Super Hornet Red Sea incident occurred in the attack and the US Navy lost both a fighter jet and a tow tractor from the USS Harry Truman aircraft carrier, currently stationed in the region for ongoing confrontations with Yemen,  also resulting in a minor injury to one sailor, the US Navy confirmed on Monday.

According to a press release, “USS Harry S. Truman lost an F/A-18E Super Hornet assigned to Strike Fighter Squadron 136 and a tow tractor as the aircraft carrier operated in the Red Sea, April 28. All personnel are accounted for, with one sailor sustaining a minor injury.”

The fighter jet reportedly fell overboard after the move crew lost control while towing the aircraft within the hangar of the carrier. The USS Harry Truman accident has raised concerns about operational safety during intense Red Sea US military operations.

The US Navy added that a formal investigation has been launched to determine the exact circumstances leading to the incident.

Given the current escalation and previous attacks on the USS Harry Truman, the incident raises clear  questions about the official narrative.

Later reports stated that the warship made a hard turn to evade resistance fire which contributed to the war plane falling overboard.

The ongoing intensity of Red Sea battles and Truman’s history of confrontations with Yemen make the timing and circumstances of the event particularly clear.

This incident follows another recent event in February, when the Truman Strike Group was involved in a collision with a merchant vessel near Egypt, causing damage to the carrier above the waterline.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18746

#alAqsaFlood #ansarallah #antiImperialism #palestine #resistance #westAsia #yemen

Historical Tracking: Milestones from the Struggle of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement by Ahlam Tamimi

The following article, by liberated prisoner Ahlam Tamimi (under constant threat from the United States) was published in Arabic on April 23, 2025 in Etar Online, examining the history and development of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement over the decades. We are republishing it in English translation below in order to highlight the intellectual contributions and historical record of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement, as documented by the prisoners themselves. 

Ahlam Tamimi is a Palestinian-Jordanian journalist and writer, originally from the village of Nabi Saleh in occupied Palestine and born in Zarqa, Jordan, in 1980. One of the first women to join the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, she escorted the martyr Izz el-Din al-Masri inside occupied al-Quds ’48 to carry out a resistance operation at a Sbarro restaurant. She was arrested and sentenced to 16 life terms in occupation prisons, and was liberated in the Wafa’ al-Ahrar prisoner exchange achieved by the Palestinian Resistance in 2011. She was deported to Jordan; later, in 2017, the U.S. government announced that it was adding her to its most-wanted list and issued a $5 million reward for her capture. The U.S. has repeatedly demanded she be extradited from Jordan, despite Jordanian courts’ ruling that she must not be turned over.

Historical tracking: Milestones from the struggle of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement

Ahlam Tamimi

Introduction

The Palestinian prisoners’ movement is considered to be one of the most important elements of the Palestinian national struggle, as prisoners have, over the last decades, constituted an important dimension in the resistance against Israeli occupation. Israeli prisons have turned into arenas for struggle and confrontation that have led to the formation of a collective consciousness and a culture of resistance inside the prison cells, and have contributed to the elaboration of the concepts of freedom, resilience and national belonging. This article seeks to examine the historical development of the prisoners’ movement since 1967, and analyze its political, organizational and militant role.

Historical Background

Zionist gangs have adopted the policy of summary execution after arrests and violent interrogations during the 40’s. In 1949, five Israeli soldiers arrested a Palestinian girl in her twenties, they then murdered this girl after raping her and subjecting to her to a violent interrogation, and the soldiers have admitted during their trial that the murder and the rape came as a result of clear and explicit orders. [1] And between the years of 1948 and 1967, the Israeli occupation used many of the camps that they inherited from the British mandate, and in it they imprisoned tens of thousands of Palestinians, leading to the spreading of disease and epidemics due to the poor treatment and the overcrowding.[2]

Phases of the History of the Prisoners Movement: The First Phase: 1967-1970

Since the 1967 occupation of the West-Bank and the Gaza Strip, the Israeli occupation authorities started arresting thousands of Palestinians and Arabs after the launch of armed resistance inside and outside the country, which overshadowed the reality of the prisoners’ movement. Researchers started documenting the history of the prisoners’ movement since the year of the Naksa. In an exclusive interview conducted by the researcher during her preparation of her Master’s thesis on March 15, 2019, with Mahmoud Bakr Hijazi, the first Palestinian prisoner to be liberated after having been incarcerated in the isolation cells of al-Ramla prison[3], he talked to her about the detention conditions he was subjected to during his first incarceration. This incarceration lasted from January 17, 1965 to February 21, 1971, and during it, he was completely isolated from the outside world and put under constant surveillance by the jailer who was replaced once every 8 hours. He added: “After my arrest I was subjected to physical torture and mental pressures to push me to snitch on my colleagues, and I was also aching from the wound I sustained while clashing with the Israeli army. With the start of 1967, the number of imprisoned fedayeen increased. I was never allowed to live with them or to meet them, and I used to loudly call to them to raise their morale. I was under constant surveillance and I was not allowed to be in contact with anyone.”[4] The occupation sentenced Mahmoud Hijazi to death, making him the first Palestinian prisoner to be given the death penalty, after the execution of Ata al-Zeer, Mohammad Jamjoum and Fuad Hijazi in Akka prison in 1933, and Sheikh Farhan al Saadi [1937] and Youssef in 1939[5]. Hijazi’s death sentence was subsequently overturned in the appeal hearing and he was liberated on February 28, 1971.

The treatment of female prisoners at that time was not any better than that of the male prisoners. Liberated female prisoner Fatima Bernawi, who was arrested by the occupation forces in October 1967, says that the Prison Services forced female Palestinian prisoners to work in the laundry rooms and in agriculture in the fields of al-Ramla prison. They were put together with the penal female prisoners arrested for prostitution and drug-related charges. It was not easy for female prisoners to extract their rights during the 1960’s, which forced them to wage multiple hunger strike campaigns to gain some basic rights in detention.[6]

We can say that the first conditions of detention were harsh, that they constituted a form of slavery and a tool to practice violence and terror with the objective of cementing its monstrosity in the mind of the Palestinian, and of dissuading any militant action, paving the way for the elimination of the project of liberation struggle before it even started.[7] Liberated prisoner Aisha Odeh, who was arrested on March 1, 1969, documented her experience in prison in her book Dream of Freedom. She described the heinousness of the first conditions of interrogation, characterized by constant physical beating alongside spitting, insults, threats of sexual assault and the use of electro-shock, as well as hearing other prisoners being tortured in neighboring cells, and her seeing corpses dragged on the floor, as she herself was on the verge of dying.[8] She explained that the reason behind all this cruelty was the shock of the occupation at the qualitative and successful participation of women in the resistance efforts, confirming that the year 1969 had seen multiple successive militant operations led by women such as Aida Saad, Mariam al-Shakhshir, Lutfiya el-Hawari and Rasmea Odeh, among others.

In this time period, the prisoners endured the effects of the harsh treatment by the Israeli Prison Service, and their systemic targeting through the policies of starvation and anonymization, in an attempt to erase the militant self and replace it with an exhausted, compliant and surrendered self. They were deprived of sufficient quantities of food that was prepared by the “criminal” prisoners in the worst ways possible, such as the “Goosefoot soup” which consisted of a few leaves of herbs inside a large quantity of water, alongside half of an old boiled egg that was served for breakfast[9]. As for the dress code, there was a single uniform for all inmates, and it was not allowed to bring in one’s own clothes. They also made sure to grant them the least amounts of rights stipulated by the 4th Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of the Prisoners of Wars, such as granting each prisoner two blankets and a thin leather mattress instead of a bed, and they were restricted in their sleep due to the number of times inspections were carried out on a daily basis, starting at 5:30 a.m., and during which the prisoner is forced to tidy his bed and prevented from going back to sleep. The prisoner is also forced to reply with “Yes Sir”. As for the yard time, it did not exceed 30 minutes or at best, an hour a day.

As for forced labor, it was, according to the writings of liberated prisoner William Nassar in his book Taghribat Bani Fatah, characterized by the following: [10]

1- Forced cleaning works; including the cleaning of the cells, the hallways and the jailers’ offices under the threat of punishment or solitary confinement.

2- Workshops; such as furniture maintenance workshops or the manufacture of tank nets used by the soldiers for the purposes of camouflage.

3- Hard labor in prison yards; such as shoveling dirt, moving rocks and tidying up the yards for free.

4- Mandatory Services; such as ironing the military uniforms of the jailers, offering them coffee, tea and food, or executing humiliating personal orders.

There was no presence of factionalism or organizational distinctions in this period because the prisoners considered themselves the upholders of a common revolution. Quietist and regionalistic policies sprang up with covert support from the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) in order to achieve their objective of getting the prisoners’ minds caught up with anything besides the homeland and its liberation.[11]

This phase, despite its harshness, constituted the main focal point of the upcoming rebellious undertakings and instances of disobedience in Israeli prisons, as well as the use of hunger strikes which we will be discussing later on.

The Second Phase: 1970-1973

After the increase in the incarceration rates in the ranks of the revolutionaries with organizational backgrounds, they refused the policy of forced labor imposed upon them. In retaliation, they were subjected to the penalty of solitary confinement, as well as the banning of family visits and constant beating. With the constitution of an organizational nucleus among the prisoners from Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the rebellion against forced labor erupted and the number of those opposed to it increased, and hunger strikes were used as a tool to extract rights under detention.

It is during this phase that the prisoners launched their first hunger strike on February 18, 1969, in al-Ramla prison. The strike lasted for 11 days before it eventually failed because the prisoners were subjected to repression, isolation and sanctions. [12]During this strike, the strike leaders, including Abdulhamid al-Qudsi, Kamel al-Nemri and William Nassar, among others, were placed in solitary confinement, and were subjected to violent beatings by the Ramla prison director until they were moved to Asqelan prison.[13] The Kfar Yona prison hunger strike was simultaneously launched and it lasted for 8 days, and ended up successfully achieving some of the demands such as the prisoners getting writing implements and stationery, and them not having to respond with “yes sir” anymore, something which was exclusive to Kfar Yona.[14]

Liberated prisoner Shawqi Shahrour says: “I was transferred, alongside the leaders of the strike, to Asqelan prison. It is a prison specially designed to break morale and humiliate the prisoner and discipline him. We were welcomed with a series of beatings that we called “al-tashrifah” (the bestowing of honors); we had to walk through a long hallway, with soldiers on both sides holding batons and electric wires. While naked, we were almost beaten to death under the pretext that we are criminals. I remember that my head was swollen and my body was bleeding. We were then sprayed with DDT and were locked up in rooms with twenty prisoners each, without getting treatment or sufficient quantities of food, as we continued getting beaten while inside the rooms depending on the mood of the jailer, whom we were only able to address by saying “yes sir.”[15]

The detention conditions in Asqelan prison were humiliating. Prisoners were forced to launch a hunger strike on July 5, 1970, which lasted for around a week. Thanks to this hunger strike campaign, the prisoners were able to achieve some meagre demands such as the increase of the duration of yard time and allowing the inmates to receive clothes from their families and allowing them to have writing implements and stationery. Despite the extreme difficulties, the prisoners were able to limit the scope of the aggressions that were committed against them.[16]

The Third Phase: 1973 – 1980

This phase was characterized by the effort to consolidate the factional system inside prisons, and its imposition upon the jailers as an internal system of life, turning the prisoners’ life from chaos into order. The prisoners also emphasized the necessity to extract the rights that were stipulated by international charters which pushed them to launch multiple hunger strikes during this phase, including:

• The strike in Asqelan prison which lasted from April 13, 1973 up until October 7, 1973.
• An open hunger strike that was launched from Asqelan prison on December 11, 1976, and spread to all other prisons. It lasted around 45 days, after they organized themselves so that each room had its own representatives who spoke at its behalf, and a general representative was elected in every prison to speak on behalf of the prisoners of all factions. Moreover, a list of demands was presented to the Asqelan prison service on top of which was the end of the policy of constant beating. Some of these demands were granted, such as the prisoners managing the library and the replacement of the prisoners’ rotten mattresses with new ones, while the prison administration violated the other agreements which led the prisoners to launch another hunger strike on February 24, 1977, to demand the implementation of these promises, and this strike lasted 20 days. [17]

The Fourth Phase: 1980 – 1985

The IPS realized the impactful role played by the Palestinian organizations inside prisons, and it grew aware of the cultural level that the prisoners developed, as they used to hold cultural sessions and issue monthly magazines written on the back of food packages; these included the Thawra (Revolution) magazine and the Hurriyah (Freedom) journal which gave the prisoners the opportunity to write articles about various topics.[18] Therefore, the IPS decided to open Nafha prison in 1980. In it, the IPS incarcerated the leaders of the prisoners’ movement in harsh conditions including bad food both in terms of quantity and quality. In addition, the highest possible number of prisoners were crammed up in rooms with no ventilation, writing implements and stationery were confiscated and the prisoners were totally isolated from the outside world, leading them to coordinate with the prisoners of Asqelan and Bir al Saba’ to wage a hunger strike campaign that started on July 14, 1980 and lasted for 33 days. [19]

Talking about his hunger strike, liberated prisoner Azmi Mansour says: “During this hunger strike, prisoners Rasim Halawa, Ali al Jaafari, Ishaq Maragha and Anis al Dawla were martyred; Ali was my friend and we were in the same room.[20] They killed him by force feeding him with a laryngeal tube and then claimed that he had committed suicide.”[21] Then, the hunger strike spread into all prisons, and it ended up achieving all the prisoners’ demands, especially that of getting beds and increasing the area of the rooms. This strike was also characterized by the popular and media solidarity movement that followed the martyrdom of the four prisoners.

In 1984, prisoners of the Juneid prison extracted a higher number of demands after waging a 13-day hunger strike that was met with widespread solidarity from the Palestinian population which made it successful. Subsequently, televisions, radios, earphones and cassette tapes were introduced into the  prisons, as well as blankets and pajamas that were given by the families of the prisoners, which significantly impacted their general life, and provided them with a degree of stability that enabled them to prioritize their culture and advance their militancy.

The Fifth Phase: 1985 – 1993

After the al-Jalil operation which oversaw the liberation of over 1000 Palestinian prisoners amonَg those sentenced to long sentences or to life in prison in 1985, the prisoners sought to reconstruct Palestinian organizations, especially after the emergence of Islamic organizations. Thus, the IPS decided to overturn the previous achievements of the prisoners and bring them back to square one, forcing them to launch a hunger strike on March 27, 1987 led by inmates from Juneid prison, which were then followed by those of the other prisons, ultimately lasting 20 days but did not achieve their demands.

Thousands were arrested in the early days of the first Intifada in December 1987, and the battle overshadowed the prisons which saw heavy repression and the overturn of previous achievements. This went on until 1992, after the prisoners had launched a hunger strike on June 23, 1991 that was met with failure, mainly because of the Gulf War and the instability of the general regional political situation.

The prisoners decided to launch a crucial hunger strike on September 25, 1992 which included prisoners from all prisoners that had around 7000 participants in total. This strike saw a great deal of success and restored the balance of life in detention after the prisoners extracted a number of gains, including: The end of strip searches, the closure of the solitary confinement section of Ramla prison, the resumption of visits by family members and the extension of the duration of these visits, as well as allowing private visits, the extension of the list of purchases and introducing cooking tiles and equipment into the rooms [22], as well as allowing the pursuit of university education in the Open Hebrew University. [23]

The Sixth Phase: 1994 – 2000

The signing of the Oslo Accords and the creation of the Palestinian Authority (PA) impacted the situation of the prisoners in Israeli prisons. The prisoners were divided into sections: one that is comprised of those in support of the accords, thinking it will lead to their release, and another comprised of Marxists and Islamic thinkers who opposed the accords and did not believe that they were going to lead to the emptying of the prisons. [24]

This phase was characterized by the economic stability of the prisoners, in particular after the creation of the Palestinian Prisoners Club and, later on, the Ministry of Detainees and ex-Detainees Affairs. The prisoners gained rights as the general peaceful situation reflected on them. The regular visits of the lawyer of the Palestinian Prisoners Club and the Ministry of Detainees bridged the relationship with the PA which contributed to achieving some of the prisoners’ demands, on top of which was the resumption of university education and the arrangement of the financial support of the prisoners and their families outside and inside the prisons according to a special salary scale, which provided the prisoners with relative stability. Despite this, the question that reoccurred in the minds of the prisoners revolved around the possibility of their release in the light of the Oslo Accords and the peaceful relationship between the PA and the Israelis, which led to a downfall in the internal organizational presence and a decrease in the levels of organizational culture and the general situation. [25]

Some prisoners were liberated after the Oslo accords, under “good will” initiatives, but these releases did not include many of the veteran prisoners or those with long sentences, leading to a decrease in the morale of the prisoners and their disillusionment in the PA leadership. Liberated prisoner Israr Sumrain says he was heavily disappointed after seeing prisoner Ahmad Abu al-Sukkar who was not liberated by the Oslo Accords, leading him to question: “If Abu al-Sukkar was not liberated, then when are we getting liberated?” This led the prisoners to wage a political strike under the slogan of “The Oslo Accords did not liberate them: releasing the male and female prisoners without exception” on March 18, 1995, lasting 18 days. This strike had the aim of delivering a political message to the PA and the Palestinian people in the light of the current quiet state of affairs. [26]

This phase was characterized by political strikes, which delivered multiple messages to the Palestinian Authority. The 1995 strike was followed by another on February 5, 1998, which lasted just 10 days and was only waged by PLO prisoners without the participation of the prisoners from the Islamic movements. Then, yet another strike followed on May 1, 2000, lasting 30 days. This strike started after the opening of the Hadarim prison and the isolation of a number of prisoners and the attempt to replace the dividing net with glass during the family visits to the prisoners. This strike saw a wide-scale popular solidarity movement that led to the martyrdom of some Palestinians. These strikes spread further as prisoners in Asqelan, Nafha and Shatta joined in, increasing the number of prisoners on hunger strike to around 1500, ultimately leading to the granting of the majority of humanitarian demands, such as; removing the prisoners under solitary confinement from isolation, allowing university education and stopping the policy of naked searches. However, all of these achievements were later completely overturned after the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada in the year 2000. [27]

The Seventh Phase: 2000 – 2006

After the eruption of the al-Aqsa Intifada on September 28, 2000 and the arrest of large numbers of Palestinians, the IPS opened new prisons and prison sections and even reopened old prisons such as al Ramla, Kfar Yona, Hadarim, Gilboa and Ramon. Most of the achievements of the prisoners were overturned and a policy of daily searches of the prisoners’ rooms was enforced. The situation of female prisoners in Ramla prison worsened, leading them to wage a hunger strike for 8 days starting on June 26, 2001, followed by their participation in the general prison strike on August 15, 2004, which led to the achievement of some basic demands after 19 days on hunger strike.

The arrest of large numbers of Palestinians in the wake of this Intifada led to the deterioration of relations between them and older prisoners, as well as the presence of a gap in their communication and harmony. Liberated prisoner Fakhri al-Barghouti says: “It was a difficult phase, one in which the prisoners of the PA security services didn’t wish to take part in the general organization in prison. This period saw the prioritization of personal interests at the expense of the general interest, and it was said that it exhausted the older prisoners because of the age and intellectual and organizational gap between them and the new prisoners.” [28]

The Eighth Phase: 2007 – 2019

Inter-Palestinian division overshadowed the prisoners movement. The prisoners’ lives in Israeli prisons was divided on the basis of the organization they belonged to, and now, every organization had its representatives and sections and private life, which weakened their position in the face of the IPS. The national ranks of the prisoners were divided, which led a number of prisoners from different Palestinian organizations to launch a conciliatory initiative on June 27, 2007, known as the National Reconciliation Document of the Prisoners. However, this initiative did not succeed in settling the internal disputes of the prisoners. And after the arrest of a large number of children after the 2015 al Quds Intifada, the IPS launched an offensive against the prisoners across all prisons, costing the prisoners a great effort to accommodate and support the new prisoners and safeguard their rights. This phase was characterized by the weakening of the internal unity of the prisoners, as well as weak strategic plans and general position. [29]

The year 2011 saw the release of more than 1000 Palestinian male and female prisoners on October 18, after the exchange agreement between the Israelis and Hamas. And after a few months, the Hamas and PFLP prisoners in solitary confinement led a hunger strike on April 17, 2012, with the goal of putting an end to their isolation and to rejoin other prisoners in the collective cells. This strike saw a state of organizational solidarity which, although it did not include all organizations, ultimately culminated in the success of the endeavor. Nevertheless, the exchange deal also led to a feeling of frustration felt by those who remained in prison for not being included among those released. Liberated prisoner Amjad Abu Latifa says: “After the deal and the implementation of the Shalit law, disciplinary measures were restored and most benefits were terminated, especially when it came to prisoners from the Gaza Strip, who were subjected to measures that were twice as harsh, and were completely deprived of family visits, and were isolated in their sections.” [30]

The effects of the intra-Palestinian division on the general state of the prisoners led the prisoners under administrative detention to decide to launch a hunger strike on April 24, 2014, demanding the abolition of administrative detention. This strike saw a wide solidarity movement, and lasted for 63 days, becoming the longest hunger strike led by prisoners under administrative detention in the history of the prisoners’ movement, and it was subsequently ended after a limit of just one year of administrative detention was set. [31]

This phase saw the emergence of individual hunger strikes, which some prisoners were led to undertake due to the division in the ranks of the national prisoners’ movement. Some of these strikes lasted for hundreds of days and more. The year 2012 saw multiple individual hunger strikes such as that which was led by Khader Adnan throughout 66 days, the hunger strike led by Thaer Halahleh for 76 days, Hana Shalabi who went on hunger strike for 44 days, or Samer Issawi who exceeded all expectations by going on a hunger strike for 265 days, which is considered to be the longest individual hunger strike in the history of the prisoners’ movement. [32]

The Ninth Phase: 2020 – the aftermath of Al Aqsa Flood War

The prisoners of this phase suffered from the coronavirus which spread among their ranks, as they lacked any sterilizers or antiseptics as well as precautionary measures. This led to the increase in the numbers of infected prisoners. This period also saw an attempt by six prisoners to escape from Gilboa prison on September 2021, and these prisoners are: Zakaria Zubeidi, Mahmoud al Ardah, Yacoub Qadri, Ayham Kamamji, Mohammad al Ardah and Munadil Nafa’at. This was followed by a series of heightened security measures after their recapture. This forced the prisoners to wage two hunger strikes in 2022 that culminated in the meeting of their demands after the prisoners threatened to dissolve their organizations and structures and enter a complete rebellion. [33]

In the wake of the Al Aqsa Flood War beginning on October 7, 2023, the number of prisoners increased and exceeded the 16,000 mark, while around 59 prisoners were martyred since the eruption of the flood. [34] The IPS used new and unprecedented torture methods against male and female prisoners, which included rape and sexual harassment, using dogs for intimidation purposes, overturning all the achievements of the prisoners’ movement and bringing it back to square one. It also opened the Sde Teiman prison which it specifically designed to incarcerate prisoners from the Gaza Strip against whom it committed war crimes that violate international law and the Geneva conventions, and it did not reveal the names of the detainees to any legal entity. Lawyer Khaled Mahajneh transmitted the testimonies of multiple prisoners that were locked up in Sde Teiman, which included: The 24h chaining and blindfolding of the prisoner, not allowing prisoners to change their clothes, the spread of diseases and epidemics, skin diseases in particular such as scabies, subjecting the prisoners to maximum security and assaults by armed guards, not allowing the prisoners to communicate between each other or to practice their religion, only allowing them to shower once a week or even less, reducing the food quantity and the continuous and sudden beating of prisoners. [35] As for the other Israeli prisons, the IPS has isolated the veteran leaders of the prisoners’ movement and brutally assaulted them, and denied them treatment and medical operations, while also attempting to assassinate many of the prisoners and the leaders of the prisoners’ movement, confiscating their belongings and dispersing them between the prisons. [36]

And despite the release of Palestinian prisoners in seven successive batches as a result of the first phase agreements of the al Aqsa Flood deal between Hamas and the Israelis, the arrests are still ongoing, and the conditions inside the prisons keep deteriorating day after day as the war rages on.

Conclusion…

The history of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement boasts of a long record of sacrifices and developments, which reflects the resilience of the Palestinian people and its determination to achieve liberation, and which constitutes a focal point to understand the development of the Palestinian national struggle, as it reflects the scope of the transformation of the concept of resistance inside the prisons. And despite the attempts for repression and exclusion that were exercised by the jailer, the prisoners were able to cement their presence in the national collective conscience. And from here on, it is indispensable to study this movement in order to grasp one of the most important pillars of the modern Palestinian struggle, and to maintain the prisoners’ cause as a priority on a Palestinian and on an international level.

[1] Al-Tamimi, Ahlam Aref, Communication Activities for Palestinian Prisoners in Israeli Occupation Prisons: Towards a Theoretical Concept of the Prisoners’ Information Concept, Master’s thesis published, 2019, Middle East University, Jordan.

[2] Liddawi, Mustafa Yousef, the Free Prisoners, Hawks in the Nation’s Sky, First Edition, 2013, Dar Al-Farabi, Beirut, Lebanon.

[3] Mahmoud Bakr Hijazi died on March 22, 2022 in Ramallah.

[4] Al-Tamimi, previous source.

[5] The Prisoners and Editors Affairs Authority website, “The prisoners’ movement origin and development,” was published on 3/29/2019, visiting the site on 4/13/2025, https://2u.pw/6ZiuGML.

[6] Memory of Palestine site, Interview of the freed prisoner Fatima Bernawi, the site was visited on 4/13/2025, https://2u.pw/MCmyl.

[7] Qaraqe, Issa, Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons after Oslo 1993-1999, published Master’s thesis, 2001, Birzeit University, Palestine.

[8] Odeh, Aisha, Dreams of Freedom, 2004, Muwattin: Palestinian Foundation for the Study of Democracy, Ramallah, Palestine.

[9] Memory of Palestine site, Interview of the freed prisoner Shawki Shahrour, the date of visiting the site 4/13/2025, https://2u.pw/iBDHh.

[10] Nassar, William, Ghariba Bani Fath: forty years in the Fathawi maze, 2005, Dar Al Shurouk Publishing and Distribution, Jordan.

[11] Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners Affairs, previous source.

[12] Palestinian National Information Center, most famous hunger strike, date of site visit 4/14/2025, https://info.wafa.ps/pages/details/32928.

[13] Memory of Palestine site, Interview of the freed prisoner Abdul Hamid Al-Qudsi, the date of visiting the site 4/14/2025, https://2u.pw/t9lUL.

[14] Palestinian National Information Center, previous source.

[15] Memory of Palestine site, previous source.

[16] Memory of Palestine site, Interview of the freed prisoner Azmi Mansour, the date of visiting the site 4/14/2025, https://2u.pw/UJIBG.

[17] Al-Azza, Muhannad, the date of the hunger strike in the prisons of the Israeli enemy, Al-Adab magazine, the date of visiting the site on 4/14/2025, https://2u.pw/7Eu7o.

[18] Id.

[19] Id.

[20] This tube that enters the prisoner’s stomach through the nose, in a coercive way to force him to break the hunger strike, and pass through it a liquid substance for forced nutrition

[21] Memory of Palestine, previous source.

[22] These cooking implements include the “tile,” a burner used by the prisoners to cook their food.

[23] Hamdouna, Raafat Khalil, Creative aspects of the history of the Palestinian prisoners’ national movement between 1985-2015, a published research study, 2018, Ministry of Information, Palestine.

[24] Ziyad, Ziyad Musa, the impact of the Oslo era on the unity and achievements of the prisoners’ movement in Israeli prisons 1993-2012, published Master’s thesis, 2012, Palestine, https://2u.pw/7ov4x.

[25] Al-Tamimi, Nizar, a phone interview dated 4/15/2025.

[26] Memory of Palestine site, Interview of the freed prisoner, Israr Sumrain, the date of visiting the site 4/15/2025, https://2u.pw/15kTZ.

[27] Al-Tamimi, previous source.

[28] Memory of Palestine site, previous source.

[29] Abu Mohsen, Jamal, History of the Prisoners’ Movement, 2024, published by Arab American University, Palestine.

[30] Memory of Palestine site, Interview of the freed prisoner Amjad Abu Latifa, the date of visiting the site 4/15/2025, https://2u.pw/T3KXI.

[31] Sadiq, Mervat, “Suspension of the prisoners’ strike after an agreement with the Israeli intelligence,” Al-Jazeera website, date of visiting the site 4/15/2025, https://2u.pw/nZr4J.

[32] Rajoub, Awad, “The most prominent individual strikes of Palestinian prisoners,” 2022, Al-Jazeera website, date of visiting the site 4/15/2025, https://2u.pw/ySlcD.

[33] Al-Asa, Fadi, “Palestinian prisoners flee Gilboa Prison,” 2021, Al-Jazeera website, date of visiting the site 4/15/2025, https://2u.pw/sX0JuEh.

[34] Palestinian Prisoner Club Statistics, 2025.

[35] “The first lawyer to visit “Sde Teman”,” a report published on the Arab TV website, 2024, the date of visiting the site 4/15/2025, https://2u.pw/bjJIq.

[36] Abu Mohsen, previous citation.

Source: https://samidoun.net/2025/04/historical-tracking-milestones-from-the-struggle-of-the-palestinian-prisoners-movement-by-ahlam-tamimi/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18740

#AhlamTamimi #alQassam #history #jordan #palestine #prisonStruggle #westAsia

#Palestine presents case at ICJ on Israel's attacks on UN agencies

The #WorldCourt begins five-day proceedings following a request by the #UN General Assembly to rule on Israel's breaches of international law and attacks on UN facilities

from #MiddleEastEye #MEE
By Sondos Asem in The Hague, Netherlands and Katherine Hearst in London
Published date: 28 April 2025 08:00 UTC

"The #ICJ hearings coincide with #Israel’s continuing its ban on humanitarian aid to the #Gaza Strip since 2 March and the intensification of military attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians since the collapse of ceasefire on 18 March."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/watch-live-icj-hears-case-related-israel-ban-unrwa

#PermanentCeasfireNow
#RestoreFundsToUNRWA
#IsraelWarCrimes
#ArrestNetanyahuAndGallant
#USHandsOffICCAndICJ
#StopGazaGenocide
#NeverStopTalkingAboutPalestine
#StopArmingIsrael
#BDS #DivestFromIsrael
#SolidarityWithPalestine is #NotAntisemitism
#JewHatredHurtsPalestine
#MiddleEast #WestAsia #politics
#news #press @palestine @israel

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 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.

Source: https://samidoun.net/2025/04/prisoners-movement-under-attack-assault-and-transfer-of-ahed-abu-ghoulmeh/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18735

#AhedAbuGhoulmeh #palestine #pflp #PoliticalPrisoners #samidoun #westAsia

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.

Source: https://samidoun.net/2025/04/palestinian-prisoners-day-the-experience-of-struggle-inside-the-prisons-by-wael-jaghoub/

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18731

#FreedomTunnel #October7 #palestine #PalestinianPrisonersDay #pflp #prisonStruggle #WaelJaghoub #westAsia #zionistEntity

Gaza on brink of catastrophe as aid runs out and prices soar, groups warn

Palestinians face starvation and severe malnutrition as #Israel’s blockade continues, say aid agencies

from #TheGuardian #Guardian
Jason Burke in Jerusalem and Malak A Tantesh in Gaza
Sun 27 Apr 2025 12.00 EDT

"Humanitarian organisations including the #WorldFoodProgramme and #UNWRA, which supplies food and services to more than 2 million #Palestinians across #Gaza, have now distributed the last of their stocks of flour and other foodstuffs to the dozens of community kitchens in the territory that serve basic meals to those with no other option."

#PermanentCeasfireNow
#IsraelWarCrimes
#ArrestNetanyahuAndGallant
#USHandsOffICC
#StopGazaGenocide
#NeverStopTalkingAboutPalestine
#StopArmingIsrael
#BDS #DivestFromIsrael
#RestoreFundsToUNRWA
#SolidarityWithPalestine is #NotAntisemitism
#Gaza #Israel #Palestine #MiddleEast #WestAsia #politics
#news #press @palestine @israel

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/27/gaza-on-brink-of-catastrophe-as-aid-runs-out-and-prices-soar-groups-warn?CMP=share_btn_url

Hamas and Resistance Factions Propose New Ceasefire Guidelines

Multiple sources in Hamas confirmed to Ultra Palestine that the Hamas delegation arrived in Cairo today carrying a position that was agreed upon by all Palestinian factions.

Accordingly, that position hinges on three “red lines”: the resistance’s weapons, a comprehensive deal, and ending the war.

The sources added that the military wings in Gaza recommended not returning to “tried-and-failed partial deals,” as these do not guarantee an end to the war, withdrawal, opening of crossings, aid entry, or prisoner exchange.

Regarding the resistance’s military capabilities after nearly 2 years of war, a Hamas leader stated: “Anyone who advises against partial deals and refuses disarmament is, without doubt, prepared for the longest possible confrontation and steadfastness.”

Another Hamas leader indicated optimism about the proposal, given that the mediators and Americans already knew Hamas’ position. Hamas conveyed clearly that “weapons are a red line” to the mediators. However, a leadership source added that they are willing to discuss a truce of four years or longer, “as long as the weapons issue is not raised before a political track toward ending the occupation exists, and the truce meets the resistance’s four well-known conditions from the war’s outset.”

He added, “Weapons can be discussed after the occupation ends and handed over within a national army—or whatever framework is agreed—but as long as the occupation remains and Gaza is under attack, we will not accept any formula for negotiating weapons.”

The source added that Hamas does not wish to continue administering the Gaza Strip, preferring a nationally agreed government or the Community Support Committee. Hamas is also prepared for a prisoner exchange deal, provided it is in full, not piecemeal.

The source added that Hamas raised its demands after past rounds in which maximal flexibility from Hamas was interpreted by the “israeli” negotiators as weakness, compelling the movement to put matters “in their proper context” to counter plans where concessions are considered dangerous.

The delegation currently in Cairo is of the highest level of leadership in the Hamas movement (Mohammed Darwish, Khaled Meshal, Khalil Al-Hayya, Zaher Jabareen, and Nizar Awadallah). This delegation, according to the source, holds the status of “decision maker,” not a delegation that seeks to discuss technical or formal details.

source: Resistance News Network

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18681

#alAqsaFlood #alQassam #dflp #gaza #hamas #palestine #pflp #pij #resistance #westAsia

Al Qassam Snipers Strike Zionist Forces, Yemen Persists With Missile Fire

The Military Media of the al-Qassam Brigades published footage documenting its Resistance fighters sniping four Zionist occupation soldiers and officers in the northern Gaza Strip.

The Brigades said the operation was carried out using the locally manufactured “Ghoul” rifle and that it took place on al-Awda Street, east of Beit Hanoun.

The footage also showed al-Qassam fighters targeting Zionist military equipment with anti-armor shells.

Al-Qassam Brigades noted that these operations were part of the “Breaking the Sword” ambush.

On Friday, the group announced that its Resistance fighters had, on Thursday, successfully sniped four soldiers and officers on al-Awda Street, east of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza, leaving them killed or wounded.

On the same day, Abu Obeida, the Brigades’ spokesperson, affirmed that Palestinian Resistance fighters “continue to engage in heroic battles, carry out well-planned ambushes, and lie in wait for enemy forces” to inflict deadly losses on them.

He stressed that these operations are carried out “at the time, place, and method of the Resistance fighters’ choosing,” adding that “their battlefield heroism—from Beit Hanoun to Rafah—is a source of pride, a military miracle, and a call to action for the youth and forces of the entire nation.”

Abu Obeida added that the fighters remain steadfast, fully prepared for confrontation through defensive ambushes and combat tactics, “bound by their oath to fight until victory or martyrdom.”

Details of the ambush

The al-Qassam Brigades carried out the complex “Breaking the Sword” ambush on April 19, 2025.

In detail, al-Qassam stated that its fighters targeted a Zionist military Storm vehicle, used by the Combat Intelligence Battalion of the Gaza Division, with an anti-tank shell, inflicting confirmed casualties.

When Zionist reinforcements arrived for rescue, they were ambushed with an anti-personnel explosive, leaving troops dead and wounded.

Al-Qassam also confirmed targeting a newly established Zionist military position in the ambush area with four RPG shells, followed by mortar fire, and the group’s military media released footage showing the attack on invading occupation vehicles near the al-Tuffah neighborhood east of Gaza City.

It is noteworthy that, as of April 25, 849 occupation soldiers have been killed since the start of the war on October 7, 2023, including 412 during the regime’s ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, according to the Zionist military.

Yemen fires missile at Zionist entity

A missile was fired from Yemen at a target in the Zionist-occupied al-Naqab desert early on Saturday, Israeli media outlets reported.

Sirens sounded in several settlements in the region, which hosts a number of key Zionist military installations.

The Zionist military command said that air defences shot down the incoming missile.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Yemeni Armed Forces announced two military operations against vital Zionist targets in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The YAF’s Missile Force carried out a top-tier military operation targeting a vital Zionist site in the occupied Haifa area using a hypersonic ballistic missile, spokesperson Brigadier General Yahya Saree said.

He confirmed that the missile successfully reached its target and that the Zionist interception systems failed to stop it, adding that the strike caused widespread fear and panic among settlers, with more than two million occupiers eportedly rushing to shelters.

Meanwhile, the YAF’s UAV Unit carried out another military operation, attacking another vital Zionist site in the occupied Palestinian city of Yafa (Tel Aviv) with a drone of the Yafa type, the spokesperson added.

Saree said the operations were in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their Resistance and in rejection of the genocide in Gaza being committed by “Israel” with US support.

The YAF spokesperson reiterated that the Yemeni people will neither retreat nor abandon their religious, moral, and humanitarian duties and will continue their path of Resistance in support of the oppressed Palestinian people until the Zionist war on Gaza ends and the siege imposed on the enclave is lifted.

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18689

#alAqsaFlood #gaza #hamas #palestine #resistance #westAsia #yemen

HPG: One Soldier Killed, Two Others Injured as Turkish Attacks Against Guerrilla Areas Continue

The Press Office of the People’s Defense Forces (HPG) reported that the Turkish army carried out 691 attacks on the guerrilla-held Medya Defense Zones in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) between April 21 and 23. Legitimate self-defense by the guerrillas left one soldier dead and two others injured.

According to the HPG statement on Thursday, details of the latest attacks by the Turkish army and interventions by the guerrillas are as follows:

Attacks by warplanes

On April 22, Turkish warplanes bombed the Girgaşê and Girê Kun areas in Garê region three times, the Girê Bahar Resistance Area in Şehîd Delîl Western Zap region once and the Sipîndarê area in Garê region twice.

On April 23, warplanes bombed the Sipîndarê and Girgaşê areas in Garê region four times, and the Girê Bahar Resistance Area in Şehîd Delîl Western Zap region once.

Attacks with heavy weapons, artillery and howitzers

On April 21, 22, 23 and 24, the Turkish army carried out 680 attacks with heavy weapons, artillery and howitzers, targeting the areas of Şehîd Kawa and Berê Zînê in Xakurkê region three times; the areas of Mijê, Dêreşê, Sipîndarê, Girgaşê and Girê Kun in Garê region 102 times; the areas of Şêlazê and Bêşîlî in Metîna region 160 times; the areas of Girê Amediyê and Girê Bahar in Şehîd Delîl Western Zap region 415 times.

Interventions by our forces

On April 19, guerrillas struck a container belonging to the invaders who were in an attack position in Girê Bahar Resistance Area in Şehîd Delîl Batı Zap region.

On April 22, a surveillance camera system used by the invading Turkish army to spy on our war tunnels in Girê Amediyê Resistance Area in Şehîd Delîl Western Zap region was hit and destroyed by our YJA Star (Free Women’s Troops) forces.

On April 22, the positions of the invaders who were in an attack position in the Girê Çarçel area in Metîna region were struck by our Şehîd Axîn Mûş Unit with a kamikaze drone. One soldier was confirmed killed and two others injured.

On April 22, a position of the invaders in the Girê Bahar Resistance Area in Şehîd Delîl Western Zap region was hit and damaged by our forces.

Warning to the people

HPG said they received information that money was being demanded in the name of their organization in the regions of Botan, Batman, and Çiyayêmazî and Derik in Mardin, particularly from businesspeople and some community circles. HPG made it clear that none of their units was tasked with such a mission, saying: “Collecting money from the people in this way is prohibited by our movement. Those who demand money in these places are likely to be rent-seeking gangs or agents organized by the enemy. Our people and patriotic-democratic organizations should pay attention to this matter and be sensitive to such agents-gangs and should not give money under the name of aid.”

https://abolitionmedia.noblogs.org/?p=18671

#guerrilla #hpg #kurdistan #pkk #resistance #turkey #westAsia

#Israelis protest against Gaza war with rare outcry over Palestinian casualties

Holocaust survivors gathering on Holocaust Memorial Day speak out against #Palestinian starvation and suffering

from #TheGuardian #Guardian
Hannah Ellis-Petersen and Quique Kierszenbaum in Tel Aviv
Fri 25 Apr 2025 09.43 EDT

"Veronika Cohen, 80, a #Holocaust survivor who was born in the ghetto in Budapest, said she had come to protest outside Yad Vashem on the day of remembrance because: “I don’t think we can remember our suffering without acknowledging the suffering of #Gaza, the deaths of tens of thousands of children, the starvation that’s going on this minute, for which we are partially responsible. It occupies the same place in my heart.”"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/25/we-have-lost-our-humanity-holocaust-survivors-call-for-end-to-war-in-gaza?CMP=share_btn_url

#PermanentCeasfireNow
#StopGazaGenocide
#NeverStopTalkingAboutPalestine
#StopArmingIsrael
#EqualRightsForAllFromTheRiverToTheSea
#JewHatredHurtsPalestine
#Israel #Palestine #MiddleEast #WestAsia #politics
#news #press @palestine @israel

Israel will not send a senior representative to Pope Francis' funeral

Israel's response to the death of the pontiff, who was a critic of the war on Gaza, has been muted

from #MiddleEastEye #MEE
By MEE staff
Published date: 25 April 2025 12:59 BST

"Meanwhile, some officials, including the former ambassador to Italy, Dror Idar, said no representatives should attend the pope's funeral on Saturday because he "incited #antisemitism".

#PopeFrancis, who died at the age of 88, was an outspoken supporter of the #Palestinian people during #Israel’s ongoing 18-month assault on the besieged #Gaza Strip.

Thousands of pro-#Palestinian social media users, including many from Gaza, have paid tributes to him."

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/Israel-will-not-send-senior-representative-Pope-Francis-funeral

#PermanentCeasfireNow
#StopGazaGenocide
#GazaBelongsToPalestine
#NeverStopTalkingAboutPalestine
#StopArmingIsrael
#BDS #DivestFromIsrael
#SolidarityWithPalestine is #NotAntisemitism
#Palestine #MiddleEast #WestAsia #politics
#news #press @palestine @israel