SAMIDOUN Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network issued an urgent call for action today after the family home of jailed Palestinian leader Ahmad Saadat was raided by Israeli forces.

Soldiers stormed his house in Ramallah, firing shots outside in what his wife Abla Saadat described as an attempt to terrorise the family.

The troops went on the rampage through their home, she said, taking photographs and rifling through personal papers.

No reason was given for the raid, which occurred in the pre-dawn hours.

Samidoun condemned the raid as an “act of collective punishment.”

“This incident is not only an attack on the Saadat family — it reflects two clear policies of targeting: the attack on the Palestinian identity and the Palestinian people of Jerusalem, and the unceasing collective punishment directed at the families and loved ones of Palestinian prisoners,” it said.

Israel frequently raids the homes of the families of jailed Palestinians, summonsing them to interrogations, confiscating their identification and even demolishing their houses. 

Mr Saadat is the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and has been in an Israeli prison since 2006.

He was initially held in a Palestinian Authority jail after being lured to a meeting with security chief Tawfiq Tirawi in 2002.

Israeli soldiers stormed the Jericho prison soon after Mr Saadat was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 2006, with Hamas promising to free him, and other prisoners captured in the raid, as soon as it took office.

He is serving a 30-year sentence for a number of political offences including membership of a banned organisation and a speech given following the assassination of his predecessor Ali Abu Mustafa by Israel during the second intifada, the Palestinian uprising of the early 2000s.

Samidoun, which was itself listed as a terrorist organisation by Israeli Defence Minister Benny Gantz in February 2020, called for a week of action to free Mr Saadat and all Palestinian prisoners, from January 15 to 22. 

“Palestinian prisoners are resistance leaders, on the front lines for justice and liberation, enduring hunger strikes and struggling relentlessly with an unbreakable will toward freedom,” it said.