Ahmad Sa’adat, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was ordered returned to isolation for an additional week by the Zionist prison administration, in retaliation for writing a political article. This came after Sa’adat, along with fellow leaders Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh and Walid Hanatsheh, were to be released from isolation after escalating protests among the prisoners.
Not only was Sa’adat, a prominent national leader who has been imprisoned by Israel since 2006 — and prior to an Israeli attack on Jericho, by the Palestinian Authority since 2002 — isolated an additional week for expressing himself politically, he was banned from family visits for a month. Denial of family visits is a common tactic used by the Israeli prison administration in a form of collective punishment against the prisoners and their families.
In response not only to this attack but to the de facto assassination of Khader Adnan and the ongoing denial of release and proper medical treatment to Walid Daqqah, prisoners of the PFLP have announced their readiness to proceed to a hunger strike to demand Sa’adat is released from isolation and Daqqah is released to freedom and to receive proper medical care for his rare cancer, myelofibrosis. They issued a statement:
The Martyr Khader Adnan Brigade
The prisoners of the Popular Front are beginning their first steps to confront the targeting of the leader Abu Ghassan (Ahmad Sa’adat) and the leaders of the Popular Front, and to support the leader Walid Daqqah and the sick prisoners.
The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine announces that the ranks of the prisoners of the Front will advance the Brigade of Martyr Khader Adnan. 54 prisoners of the Popular Front will go on strike in the first batch, in response to the Prison Administration’s policy towards the leadership and cadres of the Front, and in rejection of the policy of medical neglect, in solidarity with the imprisoned intellectual Walid Daqqah, and the prisoners and the patients of Ramleh prison clinic…
The Zionist attack on the prisoners is escalating daily, and has reached the level of insolent indifference to our blood, starting with the hundreds of martyrs among the prisoners who were executed by a Zionist decision of the entire colonial structure, the most recent of which is the disregard for the blood of the martyr Khader Adnan. This is what the occupation, the Prison Administration and its officers are aiming for through their intransigence in the decision to reject the release of the sick prisoner, the leader and thinker Walid Daqqah, and the continuous attempts to harm the life of the leader Ahmad Sa’adat, by isolating him or practicing abuse and isolation against the leaders of the Popular Front, against the sick prisoners, and playing for time in the context of the policy of slow execution carried out against the prisoners.
Therefore, we in the PFLP organization in the occupation prisons, announce that the Brigade of the Martyr Khader Adnan is embarking on the battle that bears his name in loyalty and honour to him in order to fight the battle of loyalty and support for the leader Ahmad Sa’adat and the leadership of the prisoners’ movement, and confirms that it has taken a decision to escalate in all prisons within the framework of confronting the jailer’s retaliatory measures against the leader Ahmad Sa’adat and the imprisoned leadership of the Popular Front.
We call on all our people and all living consciences to stand by our side, in this battle of ours, everywhere.
We also call on our strugglers to protect our blood, which will inevitably be precious for the sake of dignity, freedom and the human rights attacked by the Zionist jailer.
Glory to the martyrs, freedom to the prisoners, and victory to our people!
25 May 2023
