By Martha Grevatt
April 21, 2026

The first prisoner exchange between the Palestinian Resistance and the Zionist state took place on April 17, 1971. In 1974, the Palestinian National Council designated April 17 as Palestinian Prisoners Day.

This year, Israel’s Knesset (parliament) passed a discriminatory law allowing for the execution of only Palestinian prisoners. Demonstrations were held across the U.S. on and around April 17, while numerous actions took place internationally.

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network issued a statement on April 17, which reads in part:

“Each year, on 17 April, we mark Palestinian Prisoners’ Day — the international day of action and struggle for the liberation of Palestinian prisoners, commemorated since 1974 as a day to demand the liberation of imprisoned Palestinians and salute their leading role in the resistance and revolutionary struggle for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea.

“This year, on 17 April 2026, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day is particularly urgent and important for global mobilization, as Palestinian prisoners face the most extreme forms of torture and isolation inside the Zionist jails as well as the new ‘Prisoners’ Execution Law’ promulgated by the openly fascist Netanyahu-Ben Gvir-Smotrich government of the Zionist regime. …

“This is the time to globalize the intifada, to take the streets in mass mobilization and direct action, to rise up for the prisoners, who sacrifice their freedom and their lives for the liberation of Palestine and the defense of humanity. It is our responsibility to organize and act to save the lives of the prisoners and free them from the horrors of captivity with an uprising for the prisoners, not only in Palestine but everywhere around the world.  

“There are currently over 9,600 Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails, including 350 children, 86 women, and over 3,500 held in “administrative detention,” imprisonment without charge or trial, indefinitely renewable. There are at least 1,250 Palestinians abducted from Gaza and imprisoned by the occupation, and over 21 Lebanese abducted from Lebanon and held in the occupation jails.

“There have been at least 89 identified Palestinian prisoners martyred inside the occupation prisons since Oct. 7, 2023, since the Al-Aqsa Flood and the launch of the intensified Zionist genocide in Palestine, among 326 martyrs of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement since 1967. The occupation continues to imprison the bodies of the martyrs in death; they continue to imprison over 766 martyrs’ bodies, including 97 of the martyrs of the Palestinian prisoners’ movement.

“Of course, the imperialist powers, led by the United States, are also fully responsible for the ‘Execution Law’ and the ongoing genocide and assassination campaign, providing the Zionist entity with ongoing military aid, support and trade, intelligence cooperation, and the imprisonment and repression of Palestinian communities and Palestine solidarity actions inside the imperial core.

“The ‘Execution Law’ also aims to strike at the Palestinian prisoners for the role they play at the heart of the Palestinian liberation struggle, as leaders of the Resistance and the Palestinian Revolution.” (samidoun.net, April 17)

The following excerpted press statement was issued April 17 by Zaher Jabareen, the head of Hamas in the West Bank:

“On this day, we extend our highest salute to our heroic prisoners in the occupation’s prisons, who have turned cells into fortresses of steadfastness and chains into badges of honor on the wrists of dignity. Salute to every male and female prisoner, and to every grieving family that has turned pain into a ladder toward victory.

“The reality inside the prisons today is bloody and catastrophic, as the occupation subjects them to the harshest forms of abuse, depriving them of food, water, and medicine, turning cells into graves for the living. Yet despite this grim picture, the determination of our prisoners reaches the skies, and their resolve remains unbroken, no matter how long the night, how tight the chains, or how brutal the occupation becomes. …

“We affirm that the prisoners’ cause will remain at the forefront of our priorities, and that efforts toward their freedom will not cease. The liberation of prisoners is a pledge the resistance has made to itself — one it will not abandon, regardless of time or challenges, until the prisons are emptied. We also stress that the occupation’s measures at Al-Aqsa Mosque — closures, restrictions, and settler incursions — will not succeed in altering its identity or our rightful claim to it. The steadfastness of our people will thwart all plans to Judaize it, and it will remain a beacon for the nation aspiring to its liberation.

“We call on our great people to unite under the choice of resistance in all its forms to confront this occupation and its settler mobs, and its malicious plans to eliminate our cause. We also call on the people of our wider nation to unify their efforts in confronting the occupation’s schemes, which target the region, seek to destroy its capabilities, and threaten its peoples.” (Samidoun Telegram channel, April 17)

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine also issued a statement on April 17, which reads in part:

“The 17 of April — the National Day for the Palestinian Prisoner — comes this year at a pivotal historical moment, in which the will of our people is embodied in the arenas of heroism and engagement with the zionist system of extermination. In light of this scene, the fascist aggression intensifies with the approval of the so-called ‘execution of prisoners law,’ which represents a dangerous shift toward legalizing systematic killing and turning prisons into slaughterhouses for execution under a criminal and racist legal cover.

“On this day, we recall the epic of struggle that our female and male prisoners have written inside the cells, transforming them into spaces of resistance and schools for revolutionary consciousness; to become the experience of imprisonment a living embodiment of the battle of will between freedom and repression. The prisoner movement has proven that it is an unbreakable vanguard of struggle, and that the shackles are a helpless tool that shatters on the rock of the Palestinian human’s steadfastness and their belief in the justice of their cause.” (Resistance News Network Mirror Telegram channel, April 17)

Additional statements were released by other factions of the Palestinian Resistance.