Gaza farmers plant 500 olive trees to mark 500 days of Sa'adat's isolation

PFLP website

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees marked Comrade Ahmad Sa'adat's 500 days in isolation in Israeli prisons by planting 500 olive trees in Abed Rabbo, in the northern Gaza Strip. Comrade Sa'adat, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, has been held in Israeli jails since his 2006 kidnapping from the PA's Jericho prison, and has been isolated for over 500 days, since March 16, 2009.

Farmers and citizens of the area participated in the event, stressing that olive trees are, like the prisoners, central to the Palestinian people and a bedrock of the national cause. Mohammed Bakri, director of the Union of Agricultural Work Committees spoke, discussing the steadfastness of Palestinian farmers and prisoners, bulwarks against occupation, holding fast to the land and to freedom despite a brutal occupation.

The 500 trees were planted particularly by women and children from farming families, expressing the unbreakable tie of the prisoners to the Palestinian people just as the olive trees are rooted in the land.