Fatah calls “heroic” terrorist prisoners “prisoners of war”
Headline: “The [Fatah] Revolutionary Council welcomes what Zakariya Zubeidi and his comrades did in shattering the chains of the prison and the prison guards”
“The Fatah Movement Revolutionary Council saluted Revolutionary Council member Zakariya Zubeidi (i.e., terrorist, responsible for numerous terror attacks) and his prisoner comrades ‘who cleared their path to freedom’ (refers to 6 terrorists who escaped from prison -Ed.)…
In a statement, the council emphasized yesterday, Tuesday [Sept. 7, 2021]: ‘The council welcomes with honor and pride what brother fighter Zakariya Zubeidi and his comrades did in shattering the chains of the prison and the prison guards.’ …
Fatah emphasized yesterday evening: ‘The prisoners are a red line, and we will not allow them to be harmed in any way.’ …
Through Revolutionary Council member and official Fatah Spokesman Osama Al-Qawasmi, Fatah expressed its pride in our brave prisoners. He emphasized that they have the full right to take their freedom by force, and that their natural place is among their families and their people on the land and under the sun, and not in the Israeli occupation’s cruel prison cells.
Al-Qawasmi said that our heroic prisoners are prisoners of war, and all the sentences that the occupation authorities sentenced them to are invalid sentences that contradict the Geneva Convention (sic., Palestinian terrorists do not fit the definition of prisoners of war). He added that they are fighting for the sake of freedom, human justice, and expelling the Israeli occupation from our homeland and our State of Palestine. He also emphasized that the prison is the natural place of the Israeli war criminals.”
Zakariya Zubeidi - Palestinian terrorist and head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades (Fatah's military wing) in the Jenin area during the PA terror campaign (the second Intifada, 2000-2005), when he oversaw numerous lethal attacks. Zubeidi was taken off Israel's wanted list in 2007 on condition that he refrain from terror as part of a deal with the PA; he was subsequently given a position in the PA Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs and made a Fatah Revolutionary Council member. Zubeidi was arrested by Israel on Feb. 27, 2019, for breaching the deal by committing several shooting attacks with an accomplice - East Jerusalem lawyer Tareq Barghut who worked in the PA Ministry of Prisoners' Affairs - near Beit El north of Ramallah on Nov. 7, 2018 and Jan. 5, 2019, and north of Jerusalem in late 2018; Zubeidi used a car issued to him by the PA in the attacks. Israel has put Zubeidi on trial for all of his past terror activity. Zubeidi escaped from Israel’s Gilboa Prison on Sept. 6, 2021, together with 5 Islamic Jihad terrorist prisoners who shared a cell with him, by digging a tunnel out through the floor with a spoon.