In the aftermath of the Gilboa Prison break, Palestinian prisoners have faced harsh punitive measures by the Israeli Prison Service. They are now fighting back as the Gilboa escapees stand trial.
The Tunnel for Freedom, when six Palestinians escaped from Israel’s notorious Gilboa prison, has become an iconic moment in modern Palestinian history. One year later, the six prisoners have been re-arrested but the unity their daring action inspired lives on.
“Those days of freedom,” Aymen Kamamji’s father tells Mondoweiss, “they were some of the happiest days of our lives.”
The mass outpouring of national unity that followed the killing of Shireen Abu Akleh reflects a historic moment of Palestinian struggle and consciousness. What began last year during the Unity Intifada in reaction to the attacks on Gaza and Sheikh Jarrah has now continued through the Gilboa Prison escape and the martyrdom of Abu Akleh. Palestinian political and civil society leaders must now maintain the momentum of this solidarity that Abu Akleh’s departure has left.
A prominent Palestinian leader in Jenin and the brother of political prisoner Zakaria Zubeidi, succumbed to wounds on Sunday after he was shot by Israeli forces over the weekend.
This is Palestine, the land of martyrs
That embraces the fearless woman, Shireen Abu Akleh
An Israeli court formally indicted this week the six recaptured Palestinian prisoners, who last month achieved a historic escape from a maximum security Israeli prison last month that shocked the world. On Monday, the Palestinian Detainees and Ex-Detainees Affairs Commission said that one of the prisoners, Mohammed Ardah, had began a hunger strike in protest of the “punitive measures against him and the harsh conditions of his solitary confinement.”
Eleven years ago filmmaker Udi Aloni moved to the Jenin refugee camp to work at the Jenin Freedom Theater. During that time he lived in Zakaria Zubeidi’s house. Here, Aloni recalls several stories from him time with Zubeidi on the nature of art and resistance.
The escape of six Palestinian prisoners from Israel’s Gilboa prison opened pathways to new worlds beyond the walls erected by apartheid Israel and its barbaric, inhumane policies.
The final two prisoners who escaped Israel’s maximum security Gilboa prison earlier this month were recaptured over the weekend by Israeli forces, bringing an end to what Palestinians are now remembering as the “great tunnel escape.”
After Israeli soldiers killed more than 40 Palestinians ‘easily’ in 2 months, the army chief of staff said, “This is not right” and ordered snipers to “relax.” But when reporter Ohad Hemo related this incident to the Israel Policy Forum, chair Susie Gelman just raised her concerns about the Palestinian prisoners escaping an Israeli prison.