January 15th marks 24 years since the treacherous, comprador “Palestinian Authority” (PA) arrested and incarcerated leftist Resistance leader and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) General Secretary Ahmad Sa’adat. Sa’adat was later captured by the Zionist entity and has remained incarcerated by the occupation to this day.
Al-Ahrar Palestinian Prisoner Support endorses the international call and week of action to free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners.
As Palestinians, Arabs, and internationalists in the imperial core, it is our duty to build material solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners’ movement that is under attack by Zionist colonialism, Arab reaction, and imperialist forces. We call on all people of conscience to take action in any of the following ways:
- Amplify and endorse the international week of action to free Ahmad Sa’adat and all Palestinian prisoners
- Engage in education on Palestinian Resistance leaders, their movements, and how to heed their calls
- Organize a demonstration at a PA embassy to demand an end to its collaboration with the Zionist entity and their genocide against the Palestinian people
- Join the social media campaign using the hashtag #FreeAhmadSaadat and #FreeAllPalestinianPrisoners
- Organize an event, a teach-in, or a letter writing campaign
Palestinian prisoners like Ahmad Sa’adat are targetted because of their political vision, determination, and steadfastness on the road to liberation and return. They are symbols of the national liberation movement and leaders of the prisoners’ movement.
“Political prisoners are jailed because they fear our actions and they fear our ideas, our power to mobilize our peoples in a revolutionary way against their exploitation and colonization. They fear our communication and they fear the powers of our people. They fear that if we come together that we will build an international front for the liberation of oppressed peoples. They know, and deeply fear, that we can truly build an alternative world. For them, this is the terror of defeat, but for us, and for our peoples, this is the hope of freedom and the promise of victory.” — Ahmad Sa’adat, 2017
The Zionist entity’s targeted incarceration of Resistance leadership like Sa’adat of the PFLP, Abdullah Barghouti of Hamas, previously Khalida Jarrar of the PFLP, Marwan Bargouthi of Fatah, Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh of the Front, and many other imprisoned Palestinian leaders is a systematic attempt at disrupting Resistance organization, operations, and strength. While inside Zionist prisons, leaders of the Resistance and the prisoners’ movement frequently face beatings, starvation, torture, medical neglect, and extended periods in solitary confinement.
The week of action for Sa’adat’s release is not just a call for the release of an individual, but a call for the release of all Resistance leadership, and indeed all Palestinian and Lebanese political prisoners held in Zionist prisons. It is to shed light on the targeted incarceration of Resistance leaders such as Sa’adat, which despite their incarceration, remain national symbols and active members of resistance movements. The Palestinian Resistance remains strong and unified in the face of Zionist attempts to weaken it.
Ahmad Sa’adat’s Incarceration
Sa’adat joined the PFLP in 1969. In the following years, he was imprisoned by the Zionist entity repeatedly. After the martyrdom of Abu Ali Mustafa, the former Secretary General of the PFLP, Sa’adat succeeded him, becoming Secretary General in August 2001.
In January 2002, Sa’adat was invited by PA leadership to a meeting to allegedly discuss the PA’s arresting of PFLP members. Instead, the cowardly PA detained Sa’adat and imprisoned him.
Ahmad Sa’adat’s case is a glaring example of the PA’s role in betraying the Palestinian struggle by collaborating with Zionists in their attempt to weaken the noble armed Resistance through the attacks on their leadership.
Sa’adat’s Continued Resistance Activity While Inside
In January 2006 while still incarcerated, Sa’adat was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council. Hamas, after winning the PLA elections, declared its intent to release Sa’adat, once again demonstrating the unity of fields principle— anti-imperialist resistance efforts coordinated across geographic and ideological fronts— guiding the factions in the Palestinian national liberation struggle. In March 2006, Zionist forces invaded the PA’s Jericho prison where Sa’adat was held and kidnapped Sa’adat along with many other prisoners.
Despite his incarceration, Sa’adat continues to engage in the political struggle as a Resistance and prisoners’ movement leader. He has led hunger strikes to protest the conditions of Palestinian prisoners in Zionist prisons, for example. As a result of his organizing, he has been held in solitary confinement on several occasions.
The Free Ahmad Sa’adat Movement
Despite efforts from the Palestinian Resistance to free Sa’adat in prisoner exchange deals, the Zionist entity refuses to release him. His leadership and influence threaten the Zionist entity even while he remains in their prisons.
In September 2024, Ahmad Sa’adat’s wife Abla Sa’adat was arrested and incarcerated by the Zionist entity. The PFLP notes that “Abla Sa’adat’s detention “comes as part of a systematic policy targeting leaders of the national and women’s movement, as well as their families, in a desperate attempt to deter them from continuing their struggle against the occupation.” In January 2025, she was liberated at the hands of the united Resistance factions in the Toufan Al-Ahrar prisoner exchange.
Sa’adat continues to engage in the political struggle, not allowing Zionist prison walls to confine his and his peoples’ quest for freedom. In an interview with Journal of Palestine Studies, Sa’adat commented on his political activities, stating:
“I spend my time reading and engaging in activities related to our struggle as prisoners, which includes my comrades’ education and teaching a history course from the Al-Aqsa University curriculum. The bulk of my writing pertains to the needs of the PFLP prisoners’ organization and to issues of national interest. I also try to support the members of the PFLP leadership on the outside whenever I can. If I had to describe how my current detention has changed me, I would sum it up by saying that I observe political events with more detachment, as I am afforded the opportunity not to be immersed in the day-to-day details of political and organizing work on the outside. This perspective has only served to strengthen my belief in the soundness of the PFLP’s vision, whether ideologically, politically, or in terms of its praxis, including its positions on pressing/existential issues that are presently surrounded by controversy: the negotiations, [intra-Palestinian] reconciliation, and our prospects for emerging from the current crisis and impasse.”
Free Ahmad Sa’adat!
Free All Palestinian Prisoners!
Free Them All!
Liberated political prisoner of the Palestinian struggle Georges Abdallah commemorates the 24th year of comrade Ahmad Sa’adat’s abduction and incarceration in his homeland of Beirut, Lebanon on January 15, 2026
