Phalapoem editor, 15/02/2025
It’s official: the Israeli occupation has hit a new level of absurdity. While Israeli families of released captives are showered with media sympathy and state-sponsored parades, Palestinian families whose loved ones return from Israeli dungeons are treated like criminals. And now, in a move so brazen it could only come from a regime steeped in hypocrisy, Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir has banned any Palestinian celebrations for released prisoners. Yes, you read that right—celebrating the survival of torture is now a crime.
This decree comes as no surprise from Ben Gvir, the terrorist ideological torchbearer of extremism, who has made it his personal mission to turn Israel’s already notorious prison system into a hellscape of starvation, physical torment, and systematic sexual violence. His latest policies have stripped Palestinian detainees—many held without charge—of food rations, water, medical treatment, and even basic hygiene. Reports of beatings, humiliations, and rape at the hands of Israeli prison guards are mounting, painting a chilling picture of a system that thrives on breaking people, not just imprisoning them.
But let’s pause for a moment and marvel at the sheer audacity of the occupation. The same Israel that demands global outrage over its captives in Gaza—whose suffering is indeed tragic—has no problem imprisoning tens of thousands of Palestinians without trial, subjecting them to medieval-style torture, and then banning their families from so much as expressing relief when they come home alive. The logic is stunning: if a Palestinian prisoner emerges from a cell where he was starved, electrocuted, and violated, his mother must mourn as if he had died—because to the Israeli state, his survival is not a cause for joy but an inconvenience.
And where, you might ask, is the chorus of Western democracies—the self-proclaimed beacons of human rights? Silent. Again. The same governments that can draft resolutions overnight to defend Israeli settlers in the West Bank suddenly develop amnesia when it comes to Palestinian suffering. The same leaders who cry “war crimes” when an Israeli soldier is taken captive have no problem arming the very state that has been systemically torturing Palestinian men, women, and children for over seven decades.
But here’s the part that Israel and its Western enablers will never understand: Palestinians don’t need permission to celebrate resilience. They don’t need state-sanctioned approval to honor those who return from the jaws of death. The Israeli occupation can ban music, arrest families, and raid homes, but it will never erase the pride of a people who have endured the unthinkable and still stand tall.
For over 75 years, Palestinians have been stripped of their land, their rights, their freedom—and yet, they remain unbreakable. The world may turn a blind eye to the atrocities committed in Israeli jails, but Palestinians know the truth. They have lived it. And every time a prisoner walks free, no matter how broken his body may be, his spirit carries the weight of a nation that refuses to be silenced.
So, let Israel outlaw joy. Let the terrorist Ben Gvir criminalize resilience. Palestinians will celebrate anyway. Not just for the prisoners who have survived the occupation’s brutality, but for the inevitable day when all Palestinians—whether in prison or under siege—will finally be free.