Walid Nimr As’ad Daqqah: Killed by Israeli prison’s medical neglect

The following is a statement from the Central Information Department of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, issued April 7, 2024:

The Popular Front mourns the death of imprisoned national and Frontsman leader, the great intellectual, thinker and writer, Walid Daqqah “Abu Milad.”

With the greatest sadness, grief and revolutionary anger, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine mourns, in the name of its Secretary-General and his deputy, the Political Bureau, the Central Committee, its fellow prisoners and all the comrades in the homeland and the diaspora, its companion, the great national and Front leader, the prisoner, the intellectual, the revolutionary thinker and the writer Walid Nimr As’ad Daqqah “Abu Milad,” 62 years old, one of the most prominent leaders, theorists and thinkers of the prisoners’ movement, who was martyred this evening as a result of a policy of medical negligence after suffering from a long illness.

The Popular Front extends to the comrade leader, Secretary-General Ahmed Saadat, the comrades in the prison branch and the prisoner movement, his struggling wife Sanaa, his daughter Milad, his entire family and all his comrades its deepest condolences on the martyrdom of this comrade, leader and inspiration, one of the generals of steadfastness and the distinguished national and Front leaders and writers who engraved their name in letters of gold for what he presented in rich and inspiring struggle experience for many generations of prisoners in the occupation prisons. 

He also had a rich and distinguished intellectual and literary experience that was unparalleled in its influence on the lives of the prisoners, its meanings, its revolution and its exploits. He was one of the most prominent symbols of prison literature. 

Rather, he is its dean and first writer, as he contributed important intellectual and literary studies to the Palestinian, Arab and international library. In parallel, the martyr was one of the most prominent national leaders and prisoners of the occupied interior who advanced the ranks in confronting the practices and violations of the occupation and participated in all the struggle battles of the prisoner movement.

His life’s path led him to PFLP in 1983

Comrade Commander Walid Daqqah “Abu Milad” was born on July 18, 1961. He is from the town of Baqa al-Gharbiya, Haifa district, growing up in a Palestinian family consisting of six brothers and three sisters.

The martyr received his basic education in Baqa al-Gharbiya schools and obtained his high school diploma in 1979 from Yimma Agricultural Secondary School. He joined the university and continued his scientific and academic studies.

During his studies, his views and awareness of the issues of his people and his deep affiliation to his Palestinian national identity blossomed. In 2010, he obtained a bachelor’s degree in the interdisciplinary study of democracy, and in 2016 he obtained a master’s degree in regional studies, “Israeli Studies track” from Al-Quds University, but he was unable to complete his preparation for the degree of Ph.D.

He joined the ranks of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in 1983 and joined a military cell affiliated with the Front. In 1984, he received military training at the Front’s military bases in Syria and contributed to the formation of a secret military apparatus for the Front inside the occupied interior whose mission was to collect information about zionist leaders and officials who participated in committing massacres in the invasion of Lebanon.

March 2023 prison release date denied

The martyr Walid and his comrades within the military cell carried out a series of operations, including the kidnapping and killing of the zionist soldier “Moshe Tammam,” as a result of which he and a group of comrades were arrested [in 1986] and sentenced to life imprisonment [37 years]. He completed his sentence in March 2023, but an additional two years were added to his sentence, because he was accused of smuggling mobile phones into prisons.

He was among 23 prisoners whom the occupation refused to release in all exchange deals. The occupation also withdrew from placing him on the list of released long-term prisoners in 2013-2014.

Prominent prisoner theorist and thinker 

Walid is considered one of the most prominent prisoner theorists and thinkers inside the occupation prisons. He has intellectual and literary productions that have reached the international level, the most famous of which are the books “The Melting of Consciousness” and “Parallel Time” and the novel “The Story of the Secret of Oil,” which won international fame and many awards, continued with the novel “The Story of the Secret Sword,” a second part, and it was expected that the third part, “The Tale of the Secret of the Spectrum,” would be published.

His book “Fusion of Consciousness or Redefining Torture” is considered one of the most prominent productions of the prisoner movement and is considered an important reference. Through this study, he laid out the ABCs of steadfastness, discipline, rooting organizational work and the strength of the will inside prisons. 

Walid is also credited with crystallizing concepts that describe the reality inside prisons, such as the concept of “Parallel Time,” i.e., the time of prisoners versus the time of those outside the prisons, and he wrote a large number of political, intellectual and literary articles and studies and is considered a first-class political thinker. 

He produced inside the occupation prisons a huge intellectual project during which he answered all issues, inquiries and existential questions, as well as issues of liberation, strengthening the state of criticism within it, on his way to reaching the truth and the crisis of the national project. He was a painter who provided the prison with many important national paintings, speaking the Hebrew language fluently. 

He was subjected to torture, solitary confinement and being prevented from having visitors during his long detention, and his writings and publications were pursued by the Prison Service. He smuggled sperm out of prison, became a father at the age of 57 and gave birth to a daughter he called “Milad.”

On Dec. 18, 2022, it was announced that he was suffering from a rare bone marrow cancer, as a result of which his health condition deteriorated, and he was transferred to the hospital. In June 2023, his request for release was rejected, and the Central Court also rejected the appeal he submitted against the committee’s decision. He died April 7, 2024, as a result of a policy of medical negligence, after a serious deterioration in his health.

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 him to be loyal to his national, intellectual and Front 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.

We will certainly be victorious.