Since 1967, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have been imprisoned by Israel, yet their voices are rarely heard. Western media depicts them as “terrorists,” while human rights narratives often cast them as helpless victims.
These Chains Will Be Broken challenges both views through firsthand testimonies that center Palestinian humanity, resilience, and political agency. Rather than cataloging abuses, the stories reveal imprisonment as a site of collective resistance that transcends factional divides. Palestinian prisoners embody a shared struggle against colonialism, apartheid, and military occupation.
By trying to break the will of the Palestinians through torture, humiliation and rape, Israel wants to restore a different kind of deterrence, which it lost on October 7.
While Israelis see their captives, whether civilians or military, held in Gaza in terms of numbers, Palestinians approach the issue from an entirely different perspective.
For Palestinians, these are acts of resistance that demonstrate the power of the Palestinian people: even in prison, handcuffed to a hospital bed, denied every basic human right, a Palestinian can fight, and win. Awawdeh did.
Maybe the discussion should also be expanded to include the freedom of all Palestinians who are experiencing their own forms of imprisonment by Israel.
It is quite a powerful imagery to think that a dying man, tied to a hospital bed, would force Israel to concede on such a crucial issue as that of the freedom of a Palestinian.
As it stands, the key to the future of Fatah is now held by a Palestinian prisoner, Marwan Barghouti, who has been kept by Israel, largely in solitary confinement, since 2002.
On February 9, 2016, Dima was ‘arrested’ by an armed, illegal Jewish settler who claimed that the 12-year-old girl was trying to stab him. After weeks of interrogation by the Israeli army, a military court sentenced her to four and a half months in prison.
These are stories of people who create nurturing and supportive systems within the prison walls, as well as to their home communities and their nation. May we all achieve such strength of character.
Before I was brought to Nafha, I endured several long bouts of torture, each extending for 55 hours at a time. They had me stand blindfolded in the same position for 12 hours at a time. They placed me in a refrigerator-like room and kept lowering the temperature until I thought I was going to die from cold.
Let me strongly recommend Ramzy Baroud’s book, which really gives an insight into the torment of the prisoners and their struggle for dignity and how important they are as symbols of the most prolonged resistance to an unjust political situation in modern times.
In this wide-ranging interview with Palestine Deep Dive, Palestinian academic, author and journalist Ramzy Baroud speaks about Maher al-Akhras, Palestinian prisoners, the Palestinian narrative and the challenge of overcoming media bias.
Watch this compelling video, share it, and obtain the book. There is a whole new Palestine waiting to be told.
Now that his illegal annexation of West Bank land scheme has been postponed, Netanyahu is in desperate need of another battle that would present him as some kind of hero in the eyes of Israelis, especially his right-wing constituency.
Mohammed’s father, Khalil Al-Halaby, joined Ramzy Baroud on Palestine Chronicle TV, on May 20, to speak about his son’s ordeal.
The ‘prison’ in this book is a metaphor for the collective Palestinian prison experience. All Palestinians are prisoners—those held in besieged Gaza or those trapped behind walls, fences and checkpoints in the West Bank. All experience some manifestation of prison every day of their lives.
Join our editors Ramzy Baroud and Romana Rubeo as they discuss the topics of the week in the latest episode of Palestine Chronicle TV.
In commemoration of 2020 Palestinian Prisoners’ Day, Palestinian journalist and editor of the Palestine Chronicle Ramzy Baroud discusses his new book.
By Ramzy Baroud Khalida Jarrar is a Palestinian feminist, a lawyer, educator and an elected parliamentarian. Over the years, she came to symbolize Palestinian popular resistance in the occupied West Bank, enraging the Israeli occupation authorities that arrested her repeatedly. Despite her failing health, as she is suffering from multiple ischemic infarctions and hypercholesterolemia, the […]
On Monday, January 20, Clarity Press, Inc. of Atlanta announced the launch of These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons, by Palestinian author and journalist, Ramzy Baroud, and The Palestine Chronicle Editorial Team. Bookended by a Foreword by Khalida Jarrar Member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and an Afterword by […]