PAL-Awda statement on the martyrdom of Sinwar
Yahya Sinwar, Abu Ibrahim, Chair of the Political Bureau of the Islamic Resistance Movement, lived a hero and died a legend. PAL-Awda NY/NJ and the Palestinian Assembly for Liberation join with all Palestinians and oppressed people across the region and the world to honor the martyred leader, whose name will go down in history as a symbol of resistance and liberation.
The oppressors of the Palestinian and Arab people call him a “terrorist,” a “fanatic,” an “extremist.” So say the mass murderers in Tel Aviv and their paymasters and armorers in Washington. So say lying US politicians, including both big-party presidential candidates, and the lying corporate media. This is how the oppressors have always described those who resist their tyranny-Nat Turner, John Brown, Sitting Bull, James Connolly, Patrice Lumumba, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, so many more.. This is what the Nazis called the Jewish freedom fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto. So the zionists and their funders have called the many martyred leaders of Palestine.
These are the words of those who wage a war of extermination against the people of Palestine and Lebanon, who burn children to death or shoot them in the head or starve or maim them. Despite the assassinations of Sinwar, Nasrallah, Haniyeh, and Shukr, the zionists have continued their genocidal campaign, proving to the world time and time again that their only goal is the complete occupation of Palestine and the annihilation of the Palestinian people.
They have massacred hundreds in the camps of north Gaza in just the three days since Abu Ibrahim rose to martyrdom. This very day they have wiped out an entire neighborhood in Beit Lahia, murdering over 100 people. These crimes get no word of concern from US politicians and media, for they themselves are the perpetrators.
To Palestinians, Abu Ibrahim was a hero, a freedom fighter. His life was the very embodiment of the Palestinian cause, of the right to exist and to return and live with peace and freedom in their own land. He lived his life in service to that cause, and in that cause he was martyred.
Like so many Palestinians, Yahya Sinwar was born and raised in Khan Younis refugee camp, in the giant open-air prison called the Gaza Strip. His family was forced there when Zionist gangs destroyed their home town of Al Majdal in 1948. The Zionist settler colony of Ashkelon was built on its ruins.
Sinwar was 5 when zionist forces occupied Gaza. He was 19 when they first imprisoned him. In 1988, he was sentenced to four life sentences for organizing armed resistance to the brutal occupation.
During his 22 years in the enemy’s dungeons, Hamas, the movement he helped found, forced the occupiers to withdraw from Gaza and won the Palestinian general elections. This was the Palestinian people’s answer to the betrayal of Oslo. In 2011, the Resistance won his release and that of 1000 others from the cells of the occupier.
Sinwar was named the leader of Hamas on August 6, 2024, following the assassination of the movement’s political bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh.
While this is a moment of mourning for us globally, it is also a moment to recognize the dismantling tentacles of the zionist entity, and the weakening of its colonial project. On October 7, 2023, when the Palestinian Resistance broke through the prison gates surrounding Gaza, they destroyed the world’s perception of the israeli occupation forces as an invincible army. Since then, the Palestinian Resistance has been holding its ground in Gaza, despite the billions of dollars in funds and weapons funneled into the genocide by the U.S.
Yahya Sinwar, leading the resistance, embodied the spirit of our collective struggle until his last breath. In his final moments, despite heavy bleeding, with a hand nearly severed, draped in a kuffiyeh and combat gear, Sinwar stood defiant in the face of sadistic occupation, hurling a piece of wood at the israeli drone. His final moments dispelled zionist propaganda that the leadership of our resistance is hiding in tunnels while their people endure genocide. Instead, the world saw him fighting until the very end, defending his land and his people.
Sinwar’s martyrdom, like that of the leaders who came before him, will inspire countless others, igniting a new generation of fighters who will rise in his name.
PAL-Awda NY/NJ
source: Struggle la Lucha