Samidoun

Bayadsi said that that she requested Kayed’s full Shin Bet file, including the records of his interrogation, noting that both Kayed’s administrative detention and solitary confinement are based on the “secret file.”

The Israeli Ofer military court delayed its hearing to confirm the six-month administrative detention order against hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner Bilal Kayed this morning, 22 June. Kayed refused to attend today’s hearing, stating that he did not recognize the legitimacy of the administrative detention order or the military court.

Kayed’s lawyer, Farah Bayadsi of Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, said in Hadaf News that the hearing was delayed until 6 July. Kayed is on hunger strike for the ninth day, held in solitary confinement, in protest of the administrative detention order against him issued upon the completion of his 14 1/2 year sentence in Israeli prison. Read more »

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network

Wael Jaghoub and Kamil Abu Hanish

Two of the leaders of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement – Wael Jaghoub and Kamil Abu Hanish – have been thrown into solitary confinement, while 120 Palestinian prisoners are currently on hunger strike in Megiddo prison in solidarity with Bilal Kayed, the Palestinian prisoner who was ordered to six months administrative detention without charge or trial upon the expiration of his 14.5 year sentence in Israeli prison on Monday, 13 June.

Prisoner leaders Jaghoub and Abu Hanish were ordered to isolation as repressive forces invaded sections 1, 5, and 7 in Ramon prison, confiscating electrical appliances and personal belongings and locking down cells.

There is also high tension in Nafha prison after Jamal al-Hour, a representative of Hamas prisoners, was ordered transferred to Eshel prison. Read more »

Peoples Front for the Liberation of Palestine Prison Branch
Press Statement

The Battle for Freedom will continue until the victory of Bilal Kayed

We greet the Palestinian people with the steadfastness and vigor of the imprisoned leader Bilal Kayed, who is rising up from his isolation cell, where he is beginning the second week of hunger strike, rejecting all pressures, orders and threats. He remains defiant as always in the face of the executioner and refuses to break or relent; he is not intimidated by threats or poor conditions or his deteriorating health, and the Prison Branch stands with him in the battle of freedom without retreat until we achieve freedom. There is no substitute for freedom!

We salute the struggling comrades in Megiddo and Gilboa prison on hunger strike, joining the battle in response to Comrade Kayed’s call. Read more »

Kamil Abu Hanish and Wael Jaghoub

The PFLP prison organization launched a battle in support of Comrade Bilal on June 14, which will escalate until the beginning of July, to take the form of an open hunger strike for most of the imprisoned comrades, and will continue this battle with determination and revolutionary resolve to break the chains of our comrade Bilal and see him returned to his family, loved ones, village, and the arms of the people.

In this context, we emphasize the importance of the media and of mass organizations in supporting this battle, and our comrades trust and appreciate this effort and encourage them to continue activities to achieve the objectives of this battle. Read more »

Handala Center for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners

Bilal Kayed was arrested on 14 December 2001, accused of participating in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and in resistance operations carried out in the second Intifada. He was subjected to harsh and lengthy interrogation for nearly two months. He refused to provide any meaningful information to the occupation interrogators, was charged in military court and sentenced to 14 and one-half years in Israeli prisons. He has now had an additional order of six months’ administrative detention imposed upon him at the moment of his scheduled release.

After his interrogation, he was transferred to Megiddo prison, where he joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine organization inside the prisons, and dealt with the crises experienced by every new prisoner in line with their reality, realizing the new basis of their struggle. Read more »

Dr Fayez Abu Shamaleh
Source Middle East Monitor

Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas

On the anniversary of Palestine’s political division, all fingers are being pointed at Hamas, by those writing for the first time as well as the veterans who know the ins and outs of the issue. The common ground for everyone is spreading lies under the pretext that Hamas is staging a coup against legitimacy. What legitimacy are they talking about?

Is it legitimacy represented by Mahmoud Abbas, who is in love with his “sacred” security coordination with the Israeli intelligence agencies? Or is it the legitimacy of the Palestinian people who live under occupation represented by resistance in all its forms?

Didn’t the late President Yasser Arafat seize legitimacy within the PLO by means of the gun? So who has rebelled against whom? Why are some people twisting the irrefutable historical facts to suit their own agendas? Read more »

Prison Branch, PFLP
Press Statement

At this time, our heroic comrade Bilal Kayed has announced that he is carrying out an open hunger strike, after the unjust decision of the occupation authority ordering him to administrative detention for six months on the day of his scheduled release, June 13, 2016, after the comrade spent 14 and a half years in captivity, the last year in solitary confinement.

We in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – Prison Branch announce that his battle is our battle, and the battle of all of the comrades of the PFLP and all of the Palestinian people. From the first day of the decision of the fascist occupation, we have opened the struggle and protest on June 14 and will continue throughout the month of June and early July, culminating in opening the second phase of the battle: an open hunger strike by all of our comrades in prison after July 7, 2016. We assure that we will not retreat from this battle until we have broken the arrogance of the occupation and its security institutions, and broken this decision, which puts all prisoners at high risk and endangers our people’s rights to freedom, dignity and humanity. Read more »

SAMIDOUN

Palestinian prisoners at Megiddo prison. Photo: Nir Elias, Reuters

30 Palestinian prisoners in Megiddo prison are carrying out a solidarity hunger strike with Palestinian prisoner Bilal Kayed. Kayed, 35, was ordered on Monday to six months in administrative detention by the Israeli occupation military, when he had been scheduled for release after 14 and one-half years in Israeli prison. He launched an open hunger strike demanding his freedom on 15 June.

Palestinian prisoners have launched a campaign of protest in support of Kayed, demanding his immediate release and the cancellation of the administrative detention order against him. All prisoners affiliated with the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Kayed’s political party, carried out the first of several planned two-day hunger strikes on 14 and 15 June; Kayed was the PFLP prisoners’ representative in Megiddo prison before being transferred to solitary confinement for the last year of his imprisonment.

The Handala Center for Prisoners and Ex-Prisoners said that the 30 prisoners in Megiddo view the order against Kayed as an attempt by the occupation to implement a new systematic policy against prisoners at the end of lengthy sentences, and an attempt to impose a policy of fear on prisoners to discourage protest inside the prisons, as Kayed was a known leader in the prisoners’ movement. Read more »

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine declared that the occupation’s ordering the imprisoned leader Bilal Kayed to administrative detention when he was scheduled to be released on June 13 after nearly 15 years in Israeli prisons, is a Zionist crime that comes in the context of a systematic targeting of the leaders and prisoners of the Popular Front.

This is particularly the case as Comrade Kayed has suffered from many violations, including over a year in solitary confinement, and neglect of his deteriorating health caused by the policy of isolation.

The Front demanded international institutions, in particular the International Committee of the Red Cross, uphold their responsibilities and push the occupation to revoke this criminal decision against Kayed. International silence on this action is participation in the crime, which will be used to set a precedent against other prisoners expecting to complete their sentences. Read more »

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
Press Release

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine denounced the election of “Israel” to the presidency of the United Nations Legal Committee, amid globalized imperialist domination and its alliance with the Zionist movement, and amid the Arab conditions of unprecedented sectarian conflicts, disintegration and dependency, and the cooperation, normalization and coordination with the enemy on the part of reactionary Arab states.

The Front notes that this decision is an attack on any concept of international law or justice, encouraging and rewarding a state that openly violates the UN Charter and all forms of international humanitarian and human rights law, and even attacks the UN in order to perpetuate its occupation of Palestine, with a racist and fascist nature and policy, and rejecting outright all international decisions and resolutions on the rights of the Palestinian people to return, self-determination and independence.

The Front concluded that this action is a reward for the Zionist state and its attacks on the Palestinian people, and that its election to the presidency of the UN Legal Committee will be used to commit more crimes against the Palestinian people, more violations of international law, and the continued occupation of Palestine and other Arab lands.

Omar Barghouti
Commentary
Source: Al Shabaka

Introduction

Israel’s attacks on the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and other human rights defenders living under occupation, such as Al Haq staff, have dominated the headlines in recent weeks, including the direct threats made by leading Israeli officials against BDS activists and in particular against the movement’s co-founder Omar Barghouti.

Beyond the headlines, the work goes on, as does continuous debate and discussion to further the movement amongst Palestinians at home and abroad as well as among global solidarity activists. There is much to discuss and some of the issues are difficult ones, including questions of framing. Al-Shabaka Executive Director Nadia Hijab discussed some of these issues in a wide-ranging conversation with Omar Barghouti. Read more »

Vacy Vlazna
Opinion

In April, President Abbas, true to form, buckled under international pressure to sacrifice the integrity of the land of Palestine on the altar of another bogus ‘peace’ initiative by friends of Israel.

The Palestinian Authority (PA) had been circulating to UN Security Council members a draft resolution condemning Israeli settlements when the French government effortlessly convinced Abbas to cease and desist the demand to protect diminishing Palestinian land being razed for settlement expansion until after France held its Paris talkfest.

Well, the Paris shindig, attended by foreign ministers from Europe, Arab States and the US has come and gone with notable diplomatic irrelevance. It ended, heedless of the French request for urgent deadlines, with no set timetable for yet another pointless peace stunt later in the year.

Inevitably, Paris impotently administered CPR to the dead two state solution, tokenly stated that the status quo is not sustainable while maintaining the status quo, purposely minimised criticism of Israel, mouthed empty alarm at the violence on the ground, dodged the Right of Return, fantasised about a mythical peace à la Arab Peace Initiative. A further dead giveaway of the inanity of the Paris pretence was its acknowledgement of the key role of the failed quisling Quartet. Read more »

PRESS STATEMENT
HAMAS

The Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas rejected the nomination of Israel for the presidency of the UN General Assembly Sixth Law Committee.

In a press release on Monday, Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri slammed the nomination as shameful and disrespectful to UN rules and bylaws.

“This nomination encourages the occupation to continue its terrorist policies against the Palestinian people,” he stated, calling on the United Nations to retract the catastrophic nomination.

According to protocol, the UN Committee’s presidency is taken by alternation among groups, and this year is the turn of the group of Western Europe (WEOG) which is nominating Israel.

Press Statement
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

The Prison Branch of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine concluded its conference, which was held under the slogan of “Towards the consolidation and strengthening of our intellectual, political, organizational, and militant identity.” The conference has continued in a series of meetings from the beginning of March 2016 until the end of May 2016.

The conference discussed resolutions and draft documents and approved them after edits, and elected the branch central committee of 15 members, the oversight committee of three members, and the leadership of the branch, of seven members. The new leadership has been actively working since the beginning of June 2016.

The Prison Branch dedicated the conference to the spirit of the martyr leader Comrade Omar Nayef Zayed and the martyrs of the prisoners’ movement. Read more »

Press Statement
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine

Funeral march in Gaza

Upon the occasion of the funeral of Comrade struggler Omar Nayef Zayed in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the masses of the Palestinian people in Palestine and in diaspora salute the martyr and his fellow strugglers, recalling the accomplishments of our people. His story is one among those of extraordinary strugglers, who grasped his freedom from imprisonment and struggled until martyrdom, an inspiration to generations to come. Read more »

Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
Press Briefing

The High Commissioner condemns the gun attack in Tel Aviv on Wednesday in which four Israelis were killed and a number were injured. This is the largest loss of Israeli life in a single attack since the current surge in violence.

We are also deeply concerned at the response of the Israeli authorities, which includes measures that may amount to prohibited collective punishment and will only increase the sense of injustice and frustration felt by Palestinians in this very tense time. The response has included the cancelling of all 83,000 permits granted to West Bank and Gaza residents to travel during Ramadan, the suspension of 204 work permits of individuals in the alleged attackers’ extended families, and the sealing off of their entire home town by the Israeli security forces.

Israel has a human rights obligation to bring those responsible to account for their crimes. And this it is doing. However the measures taken against the broader population punish not the perpetrators of the crime, but tens – maybe hundreds – of thousands of innocent Palestinians.

Free Palestine Movement
Press Release

The following letter was sent to Commissioner Ro-Ann M. Destito, New York State Commissioner of the Office of General Services, following 2016 Executive Order 157 of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. The Association for Investment in Popular Action Committees is the corporation that provides fiscal sponsorship to the Free Palestine Movement and other social justice organizations, and it took this action with our full support and encouragement.

PRESS STATEMENT
Human Rights Watch New York

Human Rights Watch issued its statement on the 49th anniversary of the start of the June 1967 (or Six Day) War that resulted in the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The ICC treaty officially went into effect for Palestine on April 1, 2015, giving the court jurisdiction over serious crimes in violation of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on or from Palestinian territory. On January 1, 2015, the Palestinian government gave the court a mandate back to June 13, 2014, to cover the 2014 conflict in Gaza.

Based on her policy for responding to declarations accepting the court’s jurisdiction, Bensouda opened a preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine on January 16, 2015. During the preliminary examination phase, the prosecutor determines whether the criteria have been met to merit pursuing a formal investigation on the basis of information that is either publicly available or submitted to her office. Human Rights Watch wrote to Bensouda in November 2015, to share materials from its own research that are relevant to her inquiry. Read more »

Julie Webb-Pullman

Abdul Jaber Fuqaha, the latest MP detained

Six members of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) still remain behind Israeli bars, despite the release on Friday of PLC member Khalida Jarrar, prominent leftist and feminist.

Four legislators from the Change and Reform bloc are being held under administrative detention, a version of arbitrary detention Israeli authorities deem legal under antiquated British laws inherited from its colonial era.

Hassan Yousef, 60, is currently being held under a six-month administrative detention order following his arrest on 20 January; his order is, like all administrative detention orders, indefinitely renewable.

Also being held from the Change and Reform bloc associated with Hamas is Hatem Kufaisheh, 56, arrested on 24 January and whose detention was renewed on 24 April for another three months.

Another, Mohammed Abu Teir, 65, has been held in administrative detention since 28 January, and most recently, Abdul Jaber Fuqaha received a three month administrative detention order after his arrest on May 17, 2016.

A further two Members of Parliament are serving sentences handed down by Israeli military courts – Palestinian national leaders Ahmad Sa’adat and Marwan Barghouti, both of whom boycotted the military courts that sentenced them.

Ahmad Sa’adat, 63, the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been imprisoned since 2006, following his seizure in a military raid on the Palestinian Authority’s Jericho prison where he had been held since 2002 under US and British guard. Sa’adat was sentenced by the military court to 30 years imprisonment for incitement and membership and leadership in a prohibited organization, the PFLP political party.

Like Sa’adat, 58 year old Marwan Barghouti, Fateh representative in the Palestinian Legislative Council, was also detained in 2002 during the Second Intifada, and is now serving five life sentences, accused of leading Fateh’s armed resistance wing in the West Bank. Barghouti was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize on May 19, 2016; a week later Israeli authorities moved him from Ramon prison to an unknown location.

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
PRESS RELEASE

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine salutes Comrade Khalida Jarrar on her liberation from the prisons of the occupation. She has achieved a victory over the Zionist jailer with will, steadfastness and defiance of the occupation, said the Front.

Jarrar, a legislator and lifelong struggler for the freedom of her people and the land of Palestine, was imprisoned in occupation prisons for the past 14 months since her arrest on April 1. She has been a leader inside prison and emerged from Jubara checkpoint calling for action to free Palestinian prisoners, saying that her joy at liberation was mixed with pain on leaving behind her fellow imprisoned women, including minor girls and the longest-serving woman prisoner, Lena Jarbouni.

The crowd awaiting her release chanted for Jarrar, for the prisoners, for the PFLP and for the freedom of Palestine. Imprisoned PFLP General Secretary Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat and the PFLP’s prison branch called for broad public participation in the struggle to free Palestinian prisoners and liberate Palestine.

Salutes to freed Comrade Khalida Jarrar! Freedom for all Palestinian Prisoners!