Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Muhammad Al-Tous was born in the town of Al-Jaba’a in the Bethlehem Governorate in 1956. He is married and has two sons and a daughter. He studied primary school at Halhul Secondary School. He worked in the agriculture and construction sectors.
He joined the Fatah movement in 1970, participated in its national activities, and founded a military group affiliated with it, consisting of Muhammad Hassan Ghneimat, Muhammad Ahmad Adwan, Mahmoud Ahmad Al-Najjar, and Ali Khalayleh. The group was able to carry out several operations against the occupation forces, settlers, and their collaborators in the Hebron Hills area between 1983 and 1985, including a shooting operation on a bus carrying settlers in the area between the Deheishe and Al-Khader camps, carried out by the group on September 17, 1984, a second operation carried out by the group on the Al-Khader-Gush Etzion road on November 24, 1984, and a third operation carried out by the group in the Bethlehem area on January 31, 1985. These operations resulted in casualties among the settlers, and the group burned down occupation factories in the Beit Shemesh area, killing one of the collaborators with the occupation.
Al-Tous was involved in the struggle of the prisoners’ movement against the policies of the prison service, and participated in its activities, including hunger strikes. He became one of the leaders of the prisoners’ movement and one of the deans of the prisoners who spent many years in the occupation’s prisons.
Al-Tous has published two books: Ain Al-Jabal (2021), in which he tells his autobiography, the story of his involvement in resistance work, and his views on developments in the Palestinian cause and the Arab region, and his book Sweetness and Bitterness (2023), in which he narrates his daily life in prison.
Al-Tous suffered in his life; He was forced to immigrate with his family to Jordan following the June 1967 setback and stay there for two months, then return to Palestine. He was arrested by the occupation several times. He was arrested for the first time on October 17, 1970, and a second time in 1975. He escaped from prison on June 24 of the same year, and became wanted. He was then arrested in 1981, then arrested a fourth time in 1982, a fifth time in 1983, a sixth time in 1985, and a seventh time on February 1, 1985.
He was subjected to investigation for ten days, then arrested for the eighth time on October 6, 1985, while he and members of his group were trying to cross the Jordanian-Palestinian border. He was seriously injured by the occupation’s bullets, while the occupation was able to assassinate the four members of his group. Al-Tous was subjected to harsh investigation for three months, and the occupation hid from his family his detention for six months. His family home was destroyed three times, he was sentenced to life imprisonment, the occupation refused to release him in all the exchange deals and releases that took place throughout the years of his detention, his wife died in 2015, his father, two brothers and sister, and he was unable to say goodbye to them, and the occupation attacked his sister’s funeral.
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