Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Mu’ayyad Abdul Rahim As’ad Abdul Samad, nicknamed “Al-Shays”, was born in the town of Anabta, Tulkarm district, on January 19, 1962. He is married and has four children. He completed his primary education at his hometown school, graduating in 1980. He then studied medicine in Bangladesh before enrolling at An-Najah National University to study English. He earned a bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature from Al-Quds Open University in 2020. He joined the Palestinian National Security Forces in 2012, retiring with the rank of Major General. He currently manages the Anabta Tourist Resort, which belongs to the Anabta Municipality. Al-Shish embraced Marxist ideology and joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1980. He received military training in Syria and Lebanon in 1981, then returned to the occupied territories to join the PFLP's military wing under the leadership of martyrs Husni Shahrour and Bilal Najjar. He rejoined the PFLP after his release from Israeli prisons in 1984, under the command of martyr Ibrahim al-Ra'i.
He was active in student activism while studying at An-Najah National University and established a volunteer committee in Anabta in 1985, which served as a cover for his intellectual activities. In 1987, he carried out an operation against the Israeli occupation in Jenin, accompanied by Ahmed Hanani was active during his detention in the occupation prisons and was one of the leaders of the 1992 general strike in the prisons.He rose through the ranks of the Front's organizational structure and was elected to the Central Committee at the Front's Fifth National Congress in 1993. He is currently imprisoned by the occupation.
He served as the organization's top official (Secretary) for 16 years and represented the Popular Front on national and resistance committees for over 15 years, until 2011, when his connection to the Front became purely ideological, no longer organizational. He was also active in social and public national work. He is a member and treasurer of the Dar Al-Kawthar Association for the Care of the Elderly, a member of the committee monitoring and supporting Anabta schools, and a member of the advisory and oversight committee of the Anabta Municipality (the Accountability Committee). During his imprisonment, he authored the book "Letters from Behind the Net" in 2000, a collection of literary reflections and general letters written in a literary style.
He also completed two studies on prisoners. Al-Shish believes that the Oslo Accords, which followed the First Intifada, were the worst investment in the most beautiful chapter of the Palestinian people's struggle, considering them to have destroyed our cause and our land, a disgrace that may be swept away by the flood. He describes the Palestinian division as having harmed our cause and scattered our people's efforts, giving those conspiring against us and those normalizing relations with Israel a pretext and excuse. However, he believes it was an inevitable fate because our arena is witnessing a clash between two contradictory approaches: one a capitulationist "Oslo" approach, and the other a militant, resistance-based struggle.
He maintains that resistance by all means, especially armed resistance, is the only path to achieving our people's goals. Every stage of our struggle has affirmed this choice, and the current Al-Aqsa crisis further reinforces it. There will be no liberation, no return, and no Palestine without strong resistance. He believes that the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is no longer the unifying framework for the Palestinian people, nor does it represent them, for political, programmatic, organizational, democratic, and other reasons.
He argues for the necessity of a new, unifying Palestinian body that encompasses all segments of the Palestinian people under the banner of resistance and its struggle program, and includes the various factions, so that the Palestinian people can achieve a political victory befitting the Al-Aqsa uprising. He asserts that the more conspirators plot against the Palestinian cause to eliminate it, the more it shines and gains prominence. With each generation, there is progress in means and sacrifice, and a strategic decline for the enemy. The Al-Aqsa uprising revealed this and presented us with the reality that this enemy can be removed, defeated, and dismantled.
He considers the Palestinian cause to be the cause of his people, his nation, and his homeland, and indeed, the cause of the world's peoples, because the struggle is against imperialism and global Jewish capitalism, which enslaves peoples everywhere, with the Zionist entity at its forefront. The justice of the cause and its destiny are linked to this greater struggle, and ultimately, victory is inevitable for the right and for our people. He has suffered under occupation.
He was first arrested in 1978 for a week during which he was tortured. He left his studies in Bangladesh and joined the revolution in Lebanon. He was arrested by the occupation in 1982 while studying at An-Najah University and sentenced to three and a half years in prison. He was arrested for the third time in 1987 and sentenced to life imprisonment.
He was released in the Wafa al-Ahrar deal in 2011. He is still banned from traveling outside the country and is prohibited, according to the terms of his release, from engaging in any activity that may be considered a threat to security or incitement.
Source
Achievements and Awards
- Years in active
: From
To