PA preacher calls fugitive terrorists “heroes" with a "lofty status” and says that Palestinian terrorism is “legitimate resistance”
Official PA TV, Friday sermon by Shari’ah Judge Ata Al-Muhtasib at a mosque in Ramallah
Shari’ah Judge Ata Al-Muhtasib: “Six lions of Palestine – Palestine that gives birth to heroes – breathed freedom (refers to 6 terrorist prisoners who escaped from Gilboa Prison; see note below -Ed.). They left the occupation’s cruelest prison… without a light to illuminate the tunnel for them aside from the light of their faith, their determination, and the justice of their cause…
They defeated the most settler, racist, and barbaric occupation in history. O history, record the victory of the Palestinian wit over the illusion. O history, tell the world we are the owners of this land… and that the occupation and the occupier (i.e., Israel) will disappear…
The Palestinian prisoners have a lofty status for us. They are an example that is followed with resolve, heroism, and resistance to the occupier.
On the other hand, the occupation sees our prisoners as lone criminals, and they see their imprisonment as revenge that is fitting for them, and this stems from a racist outlook that views the Palestinians as terrorists who do not deserve to live…
Perhaps more serious than this are the attempts to harm the legal status of our prisoners in Palestine, to present their struggle as a crime, and to present them to the world as if they were terrorists, as part of their attempts to slander this people’s struggle, its legitimate resistance, and its defense of its land and its Jerusalem…
The time has come for our heroic prisoners to leave the occupiers’ prison cells and participate in building the homeland, just as they participated in defending it…
This insanity [of the occupation] that is now coming to our prisoners in the prisons – every hour we receive a new report about their suffering after our heroic prisoners left [in prison]. This insanity that is being expressed [in actions] against the Al-Aqsa Mosque, against the site of our Prophet [Muhammad’s Night] Journey, and against the holy sites heralds that the situation will get out of control, and perhaps the entire region will turn into a fire that will eat up everyone, and there will be no stability – not for the settlers and not for the thieves on our land as long as they are in it. And they will not have security until we have it, us and our prisoners. And all their oppressive decisions will be [just] ink on paper, and they will never initiate a right for foreigners in our land…
[The prisoners’] message to us: We are brothers in religion, and we are connected by blood ties… and our God is one, and our messenger [Muhammad] is one, and our religion is one, our direction of prayer is one, our homeland is one, so why should we disagree with each other? That is the prisoners’ message to you.”
2021 Gilboa Prison escape – 6 Palestinian terrorist prisoners escaped from Israel's Gilboa Prison on Sept. 6, 2021, by widening the hole of the shower drainpipe in the floor of their cell. One terrorist is from Fatah - Zakariya Zubeidi, and the other five are from Islamic Jihad - Ayham Kamamji, Muhammad Ardah, Mahmoud Ardah, Yaqub Qaderi, and Munadil Nafiyat. Four of the terrorists were recaptured after five days: Zubeidi, Ardah, Ardah, and Qaderi. Kamamji and Nafiyat were arrested in Jenin on Sept. 18, 2021 along with two accomplices. Zubeidi was 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, and he also carried out shooting attacks in 2018-2019. Kamamji participated in the murder of 18-year-old Eliyahu Asheri on June 25, 2006, and planned to blow up a bus using an exploding car. Muhammad Ardah participated in initiating and executing a suicide bombing on bus no. 823 on Nov. 29, 2001, in which 3 people were murdered and many others were wounded. Mahmoud Ardah was involved in numerous attacks; the website of Islamic Jihad’s military wing defined him as the "commander" of the prison escape. Qaderi committed a shooting attack on Sept. 18, 2002 with an accomplice in which Israeli Yosef Ajami was murdered and a foreign worker was wounded. Nafiyat was being held in administrative detention.