October 7, 2023

The following slightly edited statement was released by the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network on Oct. 7, 2023.

As the morning dawns on 7 October 2023, the resistance is rising throughout occupied Palestine, smashing the siege on Gaza with a comprehensive offensive confronting the occupier by land and air, taking control of Palestinian land, seizing occupation settlers and soldiers and launching thousands of missiles as Palestinian resistance forces fight to advance the return and liberation of Palestine.

The new resistance operation, titled the Al-Aqsa Flood by Mohammed Deif, commander in chief of the Izz el-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas, comes on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war, in which Egypt reclaimed the occupied Sinai from Zionist occupation, and is set to alter the direction of the struggle in occupied Palestine, moving from resistance toward revolution and liberation.

The resistance operation comes in response to the ongoing stream of crimes against the Palestinian people, the daily murder of Palestinians on the streets of the West Bank of occupied Palestine, the siege on Gaza, the theft of land for settlements, the denial of refugees’ right to return, imposing exile for over 75 years, the torture and attacks on Palestinian prisoners, the ongoing invasions of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the 75 years of Zionist occupation and over 100 years of imperialist domination and colonialism throughout occupied Palestine.

It also comes to bring about the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, as part and parcel of the Palestinian people and land. The occupation has repeatedly dragged its feet in conducting a prisoner exchange with the resistance, and now the resistance has announced that it has taken a significant number of prisoners from among the occupation soldiers and settlers in order to liberate the 5,250 Palestinian prisoners in occupation prisons, including the 1,350 jailed without charge or trial under administrative detention, 39 women and 170 children.

The resistance is taking new steps to liberate Palestinian land, to confront the settlement project and to liberate the prisoners from a position of power.

News is developing rapidly. However, it is clear that the Palestinian resistance is determined to reset the status quo in the region and uncover the reality that the Zionist regime can no longer rely on its technological strength and imperialist weaponry to impose its domination on the Palestinian people.

In particular, coming as it does on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 war, it is a decisive rebuke to the entire path of Oslo and normalization imposed upon the Palestinian and Arab people for the past 50 years, indicating a new path forward with a clear goal: liberation and nothing less.

It builds upon the liberation from occupation of south Lebanon by the Lebanese resistance, led by Hezbollah in 2000, and the defeat of the Zionist invasion of Lebanon in 2006, as well as the successive heroic battles waged by the Palestinian resistance throughout occupied Palestine – and especially from its base area of resistance land in Gaza.

In his statement announcing the operation, Deif said: “Starting from today, security coordination ends. Today, the people reclaim their revolution, correct their path, and return to the march of return.”

He called upon all to participate in the resistance, and specifically to all the forces of resistance in the region, in Lebanon, Syria, Iran and Yemen, and all of the Arab peoples from the Gulf to the ocean, to join in this battle, which is their battle for freedom, dignity and liberation, declaring “It is time for the forces of Arab resistance to unite.”

Imperialism is the primary enemy

Samidoun joins the Masar Badil, the Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement, in calling “the masses of our Palestinian people, supporters of the resistance in exile and diaspora, allies from the liberation forces and movements, and solidarity committees with the Palestinian people everywhere, to express their support for the heroic Palestinian resistance, raise the flag of Palestine and the banners of resistance, and organize popular, political and media demonstrations and events to expose the Zionist crimes against our people in occupied Palestine.

“The heroic Palestinian resistance has opened a chapter of battles of dignity and pride at the dawn of October 7, 2023, and it is now responding to decades of continuous and repeated Zionist, American and European aggression against the masses of our Arab and Islamic nation from the ocean to the Gulf, and in the face of the wars of starvation and siege that the United States and its agents have engineered against our peoples in the region, especially in Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and Iran.”

As the Palestinian resistance confronts occupation forces, it is critical that internationalists everywhere speak out, mobilize and act to confront the U.S.-led imperialist system, including the EU states, Britain and all complicit powers, to end their ongoing crimes against the Palestinian people and to defend the resistance.

These crimes are reflected not only in the Balfour Declaration and the $3.8 billion in U.S. military aid to the occupation regime annually, but in the racist assaults on the Palestinian people in exile and diaspora throughout Europe, and especially in Germany for speaking out and organizing to take up their role in the cause for their return to Palestine and the liberation of their land.

Imperialism is the primary enemy of the Palestinian cause – creating the Zionist project and arming it to the teeth as a mechanism of attack against the Arab and Iranian peoples – alongside Zionism, the “Israeli” occupation regime and reactionary, complicit Arab forces.

Today, the resistance is making clear that despite the weaponry and brutality of the occupier, the promise of liberation is closer than ever before.

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!