April 17, 2024

In recognition of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, April 17, 2024, the following statement was issued by Hamas on Resistance News Network.

On Palestinian Prisoners’ Day: Our Free Prisoners at the Heart of Al-Aqsa Flood Battle, Their Liberation from the Enemy’s Prisons is Our Top Priority, in a Deal of Loyalty to Their Sacrifices and Steadfastness, Calling for Global Movement in Support of Their Just Cause.

This year, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day comes amidst the heroic battle of Al-Aqsa Flood, in which our people and their valiant resistance have been engaged for over six months, defending the land, thawabet [principles], and holy sites, and triumphing for Al-Quds, the prisoners, and the path [Al-Aqsa].

On this day, our people recall the suffering and pain of thousands of prisoners and detainees in the Zionist enemy’s prisons, as well as their sacrifices and heroics in overpowering the Zionist jailer, renewing their vow of loyalty and solidarity with them until their liberation from the occupation’s prisons.

The administration of the occupation’s prisons continues to commit the most heinous crimes against prisoners within jails and detention centers, including medical neglect, torture, and direct killing where 16 prisoners have risen as martyrs inside the prisons from October 7 to date.

This is due to the horrific crimes committed by the occupation amid a deliberate blackout, as the occupation also exploited its aggression on Gaza to engage in “enforced disappearance” against citizens of the Strip, blatantly kidnapping, detaining, and torturing them to death, and still detains over 9,500 prisoners, including 3,660 administrative detainees, 56 journalists, at least 80 women, and more than 200 children, and 17 deputies from the Legislative Council.

We, in Hamas, on the anniversary of Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, pray for the souls of the martyred prisoners and ask Allah for a swift recovery for the sick among them, and send a salute of pride and honor to our heroic prisoners and noble female prisoners in the prisons of the Zionist enemy.  We affirm the following:

Firstly: The goal of liberating our heroic prisoners from the Zionist enemy’s prisons has been at the heart of the ongoing Al-Aqsa Flood battle and will remain our top priority. The movement will spare no effort to achieve a deal of loyalty for them, where they will breathe freedom on the homeland’s soil, by Allah’s will and power.

Secondly: The escalation of the occupation’s crimes and violations against our prisoners and female prisoners in its prisons — from solitary confinement, deliberate medical neglect, inspections and humiliation, psychological and physical torture, and deprivation of the most basic human rights — are crimes that will not succeed in breaking their will, and at the same time, the perpetrators will not escape punishment, and these crimes will not be subject to a statute of limitations no matter how much time passes.

Thirdly: The systematic and horrific violations and brutal torture practices committed against prisoners and abductees from the Gaza Strip constitute a war crime added to the series of sadistic crimes perpetrated by the Nazi occupation army against civilians from our people.

Fourthly: We hold the occupation fully responsible for the life and safety of thousands of kidnapped detainees in the West Bank since last October 7, who are subjected to the most atrocious forms of torture and vindictive mistreatment, and we condemn the international silence in the face of ongoing execution and killing under torture they face in detention places, and call for intervention to save them and for their immediate release.

Fifthly: We call on our people’s masses, living forces, and national factions in all areas of the homeland and abroad to unite efforts, mobilize energies, and escalate activities to support the prisoners, and support them by all means, and we call on our Arab and Islamic nation and the free people all over the world to initiate a global movement that triumphs for the cause of Palestinian prisoners in the occupation’s prisons.

Sixthly: We call on the global human rights and humanitarian institutions to expose the crimes of the occupation against the prisoners and detainees from our people in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Al-Quds, and the occupied interior, and to take effective action by all means to press to stop the Zionist enemy’s crimes against them, and to work on prosecuting the perpetrators in international courts and trying them as war criminals.

This statement was lightly edited.