Op-Ed: Palestinian prisoners: status and role ..

In the classification of fighters, martyrs come first. And if we strive for those who are in the second rank, as if we say the wounded in a martyrdom battle or in a jihadist battle, the prisoners come in the third rank. Here we put the prisoner in his prominent natural place. If the martyr conveys his message and proceeds keeping the content of the message between us, then the prisoner languishes in the Prisoners’ Academy in the occupation prisons as an active, defiant thinker and patriotic politician.

On the Palestinian Prisoner’s Day, which falls on the seventeenth of this month, the Palestinian prisoner is still suffering from the cruelty of the families in the prisons of the occupation, represented by barbaric dealings under inhumane conditions with his continuous deprivation of normal life and freedom, in addition to the sick among them, especially those who are always exposed to medical negligence and policy Slow execution, not to mention administrative detainees, child prisoners and other hunger strikers. The Palestinian prisoner records a model that only free people in the world can understand, as their record includes life sentences, serious diseases that do not receive treatment, and sometimes exposure to the most severe forms of torture, in addition to holding the bodies of martyrs in the refrigerators of the occupation, that is, they punish the “martyr prisoners.”

In the same way, we see the Palestinian people united behind the prisoners, and annually commemorating their day, emphasizing rallying around their cause. Rather, they celebrate activities on this day in front of the headquarters of international organizations, and raise their voice, calling for concerted efforts to activate the file in front of the whole world. Hence, the Palestinian people believe that the issue of the prisoners' file is one of the national political constants, and a basic pillar in the stage of conflict and the balance of power, that will not stop until their liberation. It is worth noting that, since the beginning of the current year 2023, the captive movement has witnessed the harshest stage it has gone through since the start of the Palestinian-Zionist conflict under an Israeli government that is the most extreme since the establishment of “Israel”, despite the fact that the captive movement managed, with its steadfastness and struggle, to extract many rights and overthrow what it wanted. The Israeli Prison Service consolidated it.

According to the latest document on Palestinian prisoners, the number of detainees who were sentenced to life imprisonment reached (554) prisoners, and the highest prisoner sentence among them was the honor of Abdullah Al-Barghouti, which lasted 67 years. The number of martyrs of the captive movement has reached (236) since 1967, while the occupation continues to detain about (4,900) prisoners, including (31) female prisoners and (160) children under the age of 18. This is in addition to more than (1000) administrative detainees, including (6) children and two female prisoners. According to a report by the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, on the occasion of the Palestinian Prisoner’s Day: “The number of prisoners who have spent more than 20 years has reached nearly (400) prisoners, and they are what are known as the “deans of prisoners,” in addition to dozens of those who released the “Wafaa al-Ahrar” deal, who were re-arrested in 2014. , and spent more than 20 years in two terms. (And we repeat) that the number of prisoners who were sentenced to life imprisonment (554) prisoners, and the number of martyrs of the captive movement reached (236) martyrs, since 1967, in addition to hundreds of prisoners who were martyred after their liberation from diseases they inherited from prisons.

We reiterate and affirm the prominent natural and real position of the captive movement, its role and its ability to continue its challenge to its jailers and to stand up to the practices of the occupation and challenge its continuity. This is the case. It is their right that we must work to internationalize their cause, especially since they have become one of the major titles of the Palestinian national struggle and struggle.