The Missing Page of Prisoners in the Palestinian Lexicon?

At a time when the Palestinian resistance released Israeli prisoners held for nearly two years based on foundations, criteria, principles, and laws that respect the rights of prisoners in a prisoner exchange deal with the Israeli occupation, despite the occupation authorities' persistence in releasing symbols of the national prisoner movement, led by leaders Marwan Barghouti, Ahmad Sa'adat, and Abdullah Barghouti, the occupying State - which considers itself the "only democratic state" in the Middle East, according to its officials - threatened the released Palestinian prisoners included in the exchange process and their families against holding any forms of celebrations or communications with anyone, or conducting any press interviews discussing their suffering during their detention and what they faced during the release process.

The prisoners are subjected to various forms of humiliation, abuse, and torture during their years of detention. Upon the release of those included in the exchange deal, it was evident from their physical condition what they had endured, including deliberate starvation, systematic torture, brutal beatings, and the spread of epidemics, especially skin diseases, among them without any form of medical treatment, in addition to the unleashed trained police dogs that attack their bodies, solitary confinement, preventing visits from family and lawyers, and at times, poisoning the rigorously regulated food provided to them, along with the strip-searching of female prisoners and sexual harassment against them, as well as against child prisoners, and threats of rape, even the elderly were not spared from harassment, manipulating their mental states and those of their families with the aim of breaking them down, leading them into a state of insomnia and anxiety. Some are informed, along with their families, that they are included in the exchange deal, only to find that they are not; or they are told that they will not be deported, only to find themselves among those included for deportation, alongside practices that violate all relevant norms and laws, amid total blackout, official Israeli support, Arab and international neglect, and local popular abandonment, according to testimonies given by some of those released.

Targeting prisoners is an ancient and renewed occupation policy that escalated after the seventh of October 2023. The extremist right-wing occupation government sees it as a form of revenge for what happened to their state during the Palestinian resistance operation on that date, in addition to the brutality and barbarism exercised by the Israeli state in response to the resistance by targeting all Palestinians and its aggression against the Gaza Strip, turning it into an unlivable place.

The Israeli escalation against prisoners is part of a systematic Israeli policy that rises to the level of war crimes and violates all relevant laws, aiming to break the will of the Palestinian Arab people by targeting their national prisoner symbols, and thus targeting the resistant thought and attempting to uproot it from the Palestinian mentality, replacing it with frustration and despair, deterring them from demanding their legitimate rights.

Among the most significant results of this fascist policy has been the martyrdom of dozens of prisoners who are buried in numbered graves and the deprivation of their families from holding burial ceremonies for them, or even from saying a final farewell to them, in addition to the spread of chronic diseases among them amidst deliberate medical neglect.

When a group of Israelis who are usurping Palestinian land is captured by the resistance, the world reacts, and voices rise from all directions demanding their release. However, thousands of Palestinian prisoners are held in the basements of the occupation's prisons under extremely harsh conditions in every aspect and subjected to the most horrific forms of sadistic torture, with complicity from all the security and judicial apparatuses of the Hebrew state, leading them to a slow death, yet no one says a word calling for their release or even improving their conditions according to relevant international laws. The official Palestinian response has not treated the issue of prisoners as a priority, and even popular Palestinian responses have not risen to the level of the event, as seen when tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets demanding their government use all means to recover dozens of their captives.

Questions arise in the minds of every Palestinian: Has the issue of prisoners become a missing page in the Palestinian lexicon? Why is the prisoner issue not dealt with - officially and publicly, in the past and present - in a manner befitting their struggles and history? At a time when there is talk of achieving "bright" peace in the Middle East, and summits are held with leaders smiling for the cameras? Shouldn’t those striving for peace close this painful chapter in Palestinian life, away from all personal and factional calculations? Do Palestinians not deserve to smile as they embrace their children who have long been forcibly separated from them behind the occupation's bars?

Firstly, with regard to the prisoners, they recognize that the collapse of their morale will lead them to lose hope and succumb to slow death, therefore they face the sadism of the occupation with pride and dignity. Some of those released report that they share the meager provisions they receive and have adopted fasting as a means in their struggle for survival. They have not lost hope in God and continuously read His holy book, pray to Him, and sing national chants that inspire optimism in their hearts.

To enhance their morale, all unified Palestinians - both official and public - must leverage what Palestine has achieved at the international level and engage genuinely and seriously with the just cause of prisoners, through a national strategy that includes all Palestinian factions with continuous engagement, aiming to elevate public awareness and activate popular movements in support of prisoners, pressuring Arab and international opinion, and networking with all international frameworks supporting peace and endorsing Palestinian national rights, to shed light on the suffering of prisoners behind the occupation's walls, and insist on the necessity of their release, or at a minimum, improving their detention conditions as stipulated by relevant international laws, especially international humanitarian law, the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Convention against Torture, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, until the time comes to resolve the issue from its roots.