Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqah dies in Israeli occupation prison

The Palestinian revolutionary spent 38 years in occupation prisons and was suffering from terminal bone marrow cancer and lung disease

April 07, 2024 by Zoe Alexandra
Palestinian prisoners in Israel
Palestinian prisoner Walid Daqqa.

After spending 38 years imprisoned by the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian revolutionary organizer and thinker, Walid Daqqah died at age 62. Daqqah was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer in December 2022 and also suffered from chronic lung disease. Activists and left groups maintain that Daqqah was killed by intentional medical neglect by Israeli prison authorities.

According to a statement released by Amnesty International less than a month ago calling for his release, “Since 7 October 2023, Walid Daqqah has been tortured, humiliated, denied family visits and has faced further medical neglect. During this period, he was transferred to hospital twice due to health deterioration.”

In the last year, Palestinian left groups and human rights organizations had intensified efforts to demand Daqqah’s release due to the systematic denial to adequate medical care by the Israeli occupation prison services. Additionally, Daqqah finished his original 37-year sentence in March 2023, but his release was blocked because in 2018 Israeli authorities charged him with attempting to smuggle mobile phones into prison and sentenced him for two more years in prison, knowing he was terminally ill.

On May 31, 2023, the Israeli prison service parole committee rejected the appeal for Daqqah’s early release, alleging that the matter was not within its powers, and shortly after, an Israeli court also rejected the appeal. At the time, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) said that not releasing Daqqah is “tantamount to a death sentence.” The group said that it holds “the Zionist occupation fully responsible for the repercussions of this decision, especially since the health conditions of the imprisoned leader Walid Daqqah are in a state of continuous deterioration, due to the continued policy of medical neglect, and the lack of appropriate diagnoses and treatments.”

Daqqah was first arrested by Israeli forces on March 25, 1986 and was given a 37-year prison sentence, accused of being involved in the murder of an Israeli soldier. According to a statement from the International Union of Left Publishers (IULP) calling for his release last year, Daqqah was subjected to “extra levels of the routine torture, abuse, and neglect that Palestinian prisoners face in the Occupation’s jails”. The network of left publishers called Daqaah “a voice of the people, a voice that the Occupation fears and hopes to silence.”

Daqqah became a father at age 57 after his sperm was smuggled out of prison.

In June 2023, Peoples Dispatch published an essay written by Palestinian writer Wisam Rafeedie about Daqqah’s historic resistance and struggle. Rafeedie wrote “The resisting prisoner does not need to prove their humanity. That is a moot point— they deserve to live it. It is the Zionist prison guard that lacks humanity in the face of the resisting prisoner. Walid has not only affirmed his humanity but has proven that his consciousness, like thousands of other prisoners, has not been seared. He has exposed Israel’s policy and practice of searing consciousness that targets prisoners.”

Read Wisam Rafeedie’s essay: The prisoner Walid Daqqah: a stubborn conscience that cannot be seared

Rafeedie, reflecting on his continued struggle even in the prisons of the occupation wrote, “Throughout all the stages of his life in prison, Walid has never relinquished his leading role in the prisoners’ movement…He was always committed to his role in the national struggle as an activist of high consciousness, unlike the handful of leaders that chose to play the role of the ‘Kapo’. Walid never stopped his sharp intellectual production, or literary writing for adolescents or building fraternity and camaraderie amongst his fellow prisoners who all bear witness to his character.”

After the news of Daqqah’s martyrdom was announced, a rally was called in the center of Ramallah to mobilize in anger against the medical neglect and treatment faced by Daqqah and the over 8,000 other Palestinian prisoners in occupation jails.

In a statement released on April 7, the PFLP lamented the loss of the revolutionary writer, theoretician, and organizer and wrote, “As the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine bids farewell to its comrade, the leader, thinker, writer, inspiration and great theoretician, it pledges to be loyal to his national, intellectual and front-line legacy, through which he made Palestine and the cause of its liberation his compass. Until his departure, he remained inhabited by Palestine, all of Palestine from its river to its sea. Glory to the great martyr of Palestine and humanity.”