Miscellanous thoughts: YASSER HAMDUNA: THE DEATH AND LEGACY OF A FREEDOM FIGHTER

YASSER HAMDUNA: THE DEATH AND LEGACY OF A FREEDOM FIGHTER

Yasser Thiab Hamduna died, as he had been for 13 years, as a captive of occupier Israel, on Sunday September 25th. He was aged 40 or 41. (His last name is also written as Hamdouni in English.)

The immediate cause of death was claimed to be a stroke or heart attack but an autopsy revealed it to be cardiomegaly, an enlargement of the heart which can be lead to cardiac arrest but can be treated and eased with medication. Medication he did not receive.

After hearing news of his son's death, Hamduna's mother fainted and was eventually taken to a hospital as her condition continued to worsen.

Fellow Palestinian political prisoners have declared a three day hunger-strike after Hamduna's death.

Hamduna was from the village of Yaabad in the Jenin district of occupied West Bank, and he was married and had two children.

MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE IS A CRIME

The real cause of death was deliberate medical negligence on part Israel, which imprisons Palestinians for decades for standing up against the occupation and then refuses the responsibilities this brings to it under international law.

Hamduna was beaten in prison by Israeli occupation guards, allegedly multiple times for asking for medical care, and lost hearing in one ear as a result.

What medical care he received to his respiratory and heart diseases was inadequate and was not followed by needed follow-up; this year he was immediately put in solitary confinement after an operation to insert a heart catherer - which should have been a chance to find out that cause of his heart problems was that his heart was enlargened.

RESISTANCE IS NOT A CRIME

Hamdyna's "crime" was not crime at all; as a member of Fatah affiliated Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade he was claimed to have taken part in the killing of Israel's occupation forces' soldier during the Second Intifada, an act of resistance enshrined in international law.

If Israel can't stand losing it's occupation soldiers, it can end the occupation any day it wants. Yet it, the occupier, reacts hysterically to the death of it's own occupation soldiers on occupied land, and lashes against those like Yasser Hamduna who refuse to live as brutally oppressed on their own land.

HAMDOUNI'S LEGACY

Yasser Hamduna died as political prisoner, but his - like 207 of his fellow captives who have died imprisoned by Israel - legacy is freedom.

As the main presidential candidates in the United States declare their allegiance to occupier Israel and it's Apartheid rule over Palestinians on both sides of the Green Line, we say that the people of the United States have much to learn from Yasser Hamduna.

The United States makes so much about it's claims of 'freedom' and 'liberty' but it has made every effort to deny freedom and liberty for Palestinians ever since it recognized Israel in 1948.

Now the United States will pay 38 billion dollars more to Israel in the next ten years so that Israel can continue to deny liberty to Palestine on a collective level and to Palestinians on an individual level, so that others will suffer Yasser Hamdouni's fate.

But the actions of Palestinians like Yasser Hamdouni will bring freedom and liberty to their people, and the hundreds of billions of dollars United States has poured in to the Apartheid State's project to create a 'Greater Israel' will fail before the determination of men, women and children like Hamduna.

Yasser Hamduna's will was not broken by thirteen years of imprisonment, beatings and medical negligence. To the last, he lived for Palestine and he died for Palestine.