About two thousand people from the Arab community participated in a demonstration and a national march in the city of Umm al-Fahm, to demand an end to the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip and in support of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

The demonstration started from the city center near the Martyr Musleh Abu Jarad roundabout, passing through the city streets and arriving at the comprehensive secondary school.

The Israeli police sent reinforced forces to raid the demonstration site after it ended to provoke the demonstrators, and arrested the head of the popular committee in Umm al-Fahm, Mourid Farid, the member of the Umm al-Fahm municipality and the secretary of the National Democratic Assembly in the city, Adham Jabareen, and the young man Baraa Taher Jabareen in addition to a fourth person before releasing them later, while seizing Palestinian flags in the place.

The demonstration was called for by the Higher Follow-up Committee and the Popular Committees in Umm al-Fahm and the Triangle area.

The demonstrators carried banners calling for an end to the criminal war, killing and genocide against the people of the Gaza Strip, and an end to the attacks and torture against Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons.

Among the banners carried by the demonstrators were: ‘Stop the bloody war on the Gaza Strip,’ ‘The rabid government is never satisfied with blood,’ ‘Desecration of sanctities is a red line,’ and ‘Stop the abuse of prisoners.’

The mayor of Umm al-Fahm, Dr. Samir Mahameed, said in a speech that “what is happening in Gaza has not happened anywhere else in the world and we have not seen anything like it. This is a destructive war that the world is watching live without moving a finger. It is time for this war to stop and for world leaders to step up and stop it so that we can save what remains.”

He added, “It has never happened before that 40,000 people were killed, most of them children, women and elderly people, as well as 150 medical personnel, more than 150 press personnel and hundreds of
relief personnel, in addition to the demolition of mosques, relief centres and hospitals and the prevention of food and medicine.”

The head of the Higher Follow-up Committee, Muhammad Baraka, said in his speech, ‘Today we organized this march and demonstration, and before that in front of Megiddo Prison, in order to say enough to the abuse of prisoners who are facing forms of abuse and torture that the mind cannot accept. From proud Umm al-Fahm, we send our greetings to the prisoners of the Palestinian people and tell them that the dawn of freedom is coming inevitably.’

He added, “This day was agreed upon by all Palestinians and factions in the world to be a day of Palestinian protests and rallies. Palestinian protests and activities were organized in various parts of the world under the name of the International Day to Support Gaza, the Prisoners, and the Palestinian People.”

Baraka addressed the assassination of Palestinian leaders, saying, ‘Throughout history, Israel has assassinated most Palestinian le
aders from various factions. The head of the political bureau of Hamas, Ismail Haniyeh, is not the first or the last. This is the method of criminal gangs and also the method of bankrupt people who believe that by assassinating leaders they defeat our people. We say that peoples are not defeated and they remain, but rather the occupation is the one that dies and armies are defeated.’

He stressed that “we are required to strengthen the unity of our people here at home. It is true that I am the head of the follow-up committee and there are some issues that I was not satisfied with, but the committee gives us the space to stand on them all and it expresses what unites us and therefore it worries the institution that seeks to take it out of the law, and the last of that was when the institution tried to remove the peace-dissemination committees headed by Sheikh Raed Salah. This institution wants gangs and those who tear us apart, not those who reconcile us.”

Baraka concluded by saying, “We commend the meeting o
f the Palestinian factions in the Chinese capital, Beijing, and the agreement reached by the factions there and in other meetings. In the name of 2 million Palestinians, we call for Palestinian consensus and unity.”

The young man, Baraa Taher Jabareen, said in an interview with Arab48 after his release, ‘The demonstration was legal and peaceful and there was nothing illegal in it. After the demonstration ended, I returned home like the rest of the participants and suddenly the forces came to the house. I was surprised when they told me that I was being arrested on the grounds of incitement.’

He continued, “When they told me the reason was incitement, I told them that this word is vague and that I did not incite and that I participated in a legal demonstration in which members of the Knesset, the Follow-Up Committee and the Popular Committee participated, and the chants were within the context, so I do not think that they are against the law.”

He said, “The police seized my phone and demanded a personal gua
rantee, but I refused and told them that I would come whenever they summoned me. I did not allow them to provoke me and take things out of context.”

The National Democratic Assembly condemned, in a statement, the arrest of the secretary of the Umm al-Fahm branch and member of the municipality, Adham Jabareen, and the head of the city’s popular committee, Mourid Farid, during the unified demonstration against the war of extermination in Gaza in the city of Umm al-Fahm, which was called for by the Higher Follow-up Committee and with the participation of hundreds of members of the Palestinian community inside.

The statement said, “The police in Israel are acting like a militia, attacking the organizers of a peaceful demonstration and representatives of the public without any reason, arresting and attacking according to the vengeful and bloody mentality of its fascist minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and working to persecute any voice that opposes the ongoing bloody war on our people in the Gaza Strip, and aiming to
break the will of our people and suppress any kind of political and national action inside.”

The group concluded its statement by saluting the crowds who participated in the demonstration, and called for the immediate release of detainees and the continuation of activities, demonstrations and sit-ins in various towns and regions in order to end the war and halt the dangerous march towards a comprehensive war led by the Israeli government amidst clear American support and blatant Arab inaction

Source: Maan News Agency