April 17 – Palestinian Prisoners’ Day: Freedom for Palestinian prisoners!
April 17 has been declared as Palestinian Prisoners’ Day since 1974, and we, too, are taking to the streets under the slogan “Freedom for Palestinian prisoners.”
April 17 is a day on which we strengthen international solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners who have been captured by the Zionist occupying state of Israel as part of its genocide.
Since its founding, the Zionist state has continued its genocidal massacres against the Palestinians, who are the rightful owners of the Palestinian territories it occupies. In the genocidal attack it launched against the Gaza Strip after October 7, 2023, it murdered at least 72,000 Palestinians, injured hundreds of thousands, 2 million Palestinians were displaced; they are being starved; medical personnel and aid workers are being killed; and infrastructure, health centers, cultural, and educational centers are being destroyed—thus committing countless crimes against humanity, which continue to this day.
Likewise, the Zionist state continues to commit these crimes through isolation, torture, starvation of prisoners, denial of medical care to sick prisoners, and a host of other violations of the law.
The attacks and torture against the forces of the Palestinian resistance and its revolutionary leaders continue. One of them is Marwan Barghouti, who has been held captive by Zionism for 24 years and has become a symbolic figure of the Palestinian resistance. Barghouti told his lawyer, who visited him on April 12, that he had been subjected to brutal physical assaults in recent weeks. Israeli forces brutally attacked Barghouti on March 24, 25, and April 8. Barghouti’s body was covered with numerous wounds as a result of these attacks, and although he lost blood, he was denied medical care. According to accounts from prisoners released by Israel as part of a prisoner exchange, Palestinian prisoners are subjected to physical and psychological torture. The practice of slowly starving them to death is an example of utter barbarism.
The genocidal state that enacted the “death law,” which allows for the execution of Palestinian political prisoners, is thereby institutionalizing its policy of extermination against Palestinian prisoners. Assassinations, executions, and extrajudicial killings through slow death in prisons have become a reality of life for Palestinians for decades. The Zionist state, which disregards human rights agreements and laws, is using this law to intensify its measures against the Palestinian people.
Among the practices of the Zionist state, which, according to data from April 2026, is holding 9,600 Palestinians captive, is the arbitrary arrest of Palestinians and their detention for years without trial. The number of these prisoners, referred to as “administrative detainees,” exceeds 3,500. It is also noted that among the prisoners are approximately 350 children being held in the Megiddo and Ofer prisons. Israeli prisons and military detention centers are hubs of organized crime where crimes are committed on a daily basis.
We salute the resistance that Palestinian political prisoners continue to wage with dignity in the face of all these atrocities and stand in unwavering solidarity with them. On April 17, Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, we will take to the streets to strengthen our international solidarity.
Freedom for the Palestinian prisoners!
Freedom for all political prisoners!
Long live international solidarity!
Prisoners Voice Platform (TSP)
15.04.2026
