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Mahmoud Al-Arda, prince of prisoners Islamic Jihad Movement In the occupation prisons, he is the hero of Operation “Freedom Tunnel”. He was born in 1975. He was arrested twice, and the second time he was sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 years. He tried to escape from his prison several times, the last of which was in September 2021.
He was re-arrested 4 days after the escape, and was subjected to a severe interrogation in which he admitted his full responsibility for planning and carrying out the operation without external support. He was tried and another 5 years were added to his detention.
Birth and upbringing
Mahmoud Abdullah Ali Al-Arda was born on November 8, 1975 in the town of Arraba, north of the city. Embryowhich is located in the far north West Bank in PalestineHe had poor parents, and he grew up as a fighter from a young age, as his mother, Fathia Al-Arda, described him.
Mahmoud comes from a militant family. His brother Ahmed was arrested for 21 years, his brother Raddad was arrested for 19 years, and his brother Shaddad spent a few years in prison, as well as his sister Hoda, a freed prisoner who lives in Gaza. His mother, Fathia, says that their house was a shelter and refuge for Palestinian resistance fighters during the time. The first intifada.
Al-Arda was kind, well-mannered, and loved everyone, and was eager to read and research, as his family and peers described him. But his upbringing under the Israeli occupation of his country charted a different path for him that was not similar to the lives of his generation in other stable countries.
Study and scientific training
The period of imprisonment and detention did not discourage the revolutionary young man from continuing his studies and academic achievement. Al-Arda took the high school exams during his imprisonment and passed them successfully. Then he devoted himself to his university studies and obtained a bachelor’s degree in Islamic education. His companions in prison described him as an avid reader and a knowledgeable intellectual. .
During his imprisonment, he also completed memorizing the Holy Qur’an in its entirety. He was regular in daily worship, cooperative with his comrades in prison regardless of their party affiliations, and a man of pride who was eager to meet the needs of his brothers in prison. He was a unionist leader, above narrow partisan and sectarian issues, and he gave young prisoners special care despite their age difference.
In addition to all of this, he was light-hearted, good-natured, cheerful, an experienced athlete, and had a steadfast determination that tirelessly sought freedom. He gave his spirit, longing for freedom, the opportunity to soar in the spaces of freedom.
Arrest
The model was subjected to arrest at a young age, as the events of the first Palestinian Intifada erupted in his youth in 1987, and he was an active participant in all of her daily activities, throwing stones and Molotov cocktails, setting up barricades and lighting tires, until the Israeli occupation authorities arrested him for the first time in 1991, and ruled He was sentenced to 4 years in prison, despite his childhood.
He was released in late 1994, after spending 44 months in occupation prisons. Despite his imprisonment, he did not change his path of resistance. He joined the Islamic Jihad movement, and through it he carried out several attacks against Israeli occupation soldiers and settlers, one of which resulted in the death of a settler.
He was arrested again in 1996 and brought to trial, where he was sentenced to life imprisonment, in addition to another 15 years. During this period, his leadership personality and organizational affiliation crystallized. Mahmoud Al-Arda became one of the most prominent leaders of the prisoners of the Islamic Jihad movement. He was elected a member of the supreme leadership body of the movement’s prisoners, and deputy secretary-general of the body.
The Great Escape
Mahmoud tried to escape twice in 2014 when he was imprisoned in Shatta Prison, which is close to Gilboa Prison, but both attempts were discovered, and Al-Arda was punished with solitary confinement for more than a year after the last one.
As for the “Great Escape” from Gilboa Prison in the northern occupied Palestinian territories, it occurred on September 6, 2021, and was carried out by Mahmoud Al-Arda with 5 of his companions.
Gilboa prison, from which they escaped, is the most secure facility, and the Israeli police call it “the vault” due to its strong fortification and human and electronic guarding.
The six fighters who succeeded in passing the “Freedom Tunnel” are: Mahmoud Al-Arda, his relative Muhammad Qasim Al-Arda, Ayham Nayef Kammji, Yaqoub Qadri, and Munadel Nafiat, and they are from the Islamic Jihad Movement, in addition to Zakaria Al-Zubaidi, a leader in the Al-Aqsa Brigades affiliated with the Palestine Liberation Movement (to open).
In the details of this complex operation, the resistance fighters, using simple metal tools, dug a hole in the floor of their cell, which led to a cavity at the bottom of the prison between the concrete foundation columns. They completed the hole horizontally to go beyond the thick prison wall, to a dirt road outside the prison fence, next to one of the watchtowers.
The sirens did not sound in the prison, and the police did not become aware of the shortage in the number of prisoners until after they received multiple complaints from residents of the areas adjacent to the prison, stating the presence of strange and suspicious people in the adjacent fields, after which the police and Israeli border guard forces launched intensive search campaigns to catch the escaped prisoners.
After passing through the tunnel, the fighters gathered in the mosque of the village of Naoura, before dispersing after that in the neighboring fields. It was stated by Mahmoud Al-Arda, who was re-arrested with his colleague Mahmoud Qadri after 4 days of the arduous freedom journey, that they were unable to enter the territory of the West Bank due to the presence of reinforcements. This is an unusual security measure at all crossings, and their matter was discovered by chance by a police patrol.
Rearrest and trial
Prisoner Mahmoud Al-Arda was subjected to the worst forms of brutality, abuse and torture after his re-arrest on September 10, 2021. Investigators worked to torture him psychologically and physically in order to obtain confessions about the escape operation, and from those who planned it or provided logistical support to the heroes of the Freedom Tunnel.
The model’s confessions came – according to a number of lawyers – that he was the one who came up with the idea of the tunnel, and he did not receive any support from outside the prison, or even from the inmates of other cells. He added that he and his colleagues were freedom seekers from the prisons of an illegal occupation, and that they were proud of what they had done and had no regrets. He denied the charges faced by the court.
The model’s statements in the courtroom in Nazareth in April 2022 were shocking and clear, and despite the police’s attempts to silence him in every way, and distracting the media from listening to what he said, he succeeded in communicating his voice to the world.
Among what Mahmoud Al-Arda said, “We wanted to tell the world that this monster is an illusion made of dust,” and he added, “I am proud of what I did because I am a human being, and a human being without freedom is not a human being. I am under occupation, and I have the right to be liberated in every way, and you are occupiers of our land and our sanctities, and it is our right As a people, we want to be free.”
Mahmoud Al-Arda and Sherine Abu Aqla
The sentencing session took place on May 22, 2022, and Mahmoud Al-Arda was sentenced to 5 new years, in addition to the 99 years he was previously sentenced to. This session came 11 days after the assassination of the Al Jazeera journalist Sherine Abu Aqla Shot by the Israeli army.
In the courtroom, when the model saw the Al Jazeera crew, he asked them to send a eulogy to Sherine’s family, entitled “Sherine is the written text in the face of their falsehood.”
The deceased Sherine Abu Aqla visited the house of the prisoner Al-Aridah after his re-arrest, and presented his mother with a “jar” of honey, which she said was a gift to her from Mahmoud. Mahmoud’s mother still keeps the honey, which reminds her of her son and the deceased Sherine.
Visitors to Mahmoud Al-Arda’s house still make sure to offer only honey, a gift to the prisoner’s mother, who is deprived of seeing him.
Writings and achievements
Despite being moved between several Zionist prisons, being subjected to solitary confinement for long periods during his imprisonment, being deprived of family visits, and being prevented from bringing books, papers, and pens into his cell repeatedly, he was always reading and studying, keen to educate himself and refine his ideas, and his efforts resulted in a number of works. Intellectual and literary, which are:
- The book of jurisprudence of jihad.
- The book The Influence of Sheikh Al-Ghazali on the Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine, Methodology and Thought.
- The novel “The Departed”.
