CAIRO, 20 Nov. - (ANA) - Nader Sadaqa, a Samaritan freed after 22 years in Israeli prisons, speaks from exile on resistance, identity, and the struggle of Palestinians still detained.

 

 

The New Arab's Arabic edition spoke to Nader Sadaqa, a Palestinian Samaritan man freed by Israel as part of a deal that saw the release of several long-term and life-sentence Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli captives held by Hamas in Gaza since 2023.

 

The Samaritans, often described as the world’s smallest ethnoreligious community, live mainly on Mount Gerizim in the Palestinian city of Nablus and in Holon, Israel.

 

They follow Samaritanism, a faith closely related to but distinct from mainstream Judaism, and maintain that they are the true descendants of the ancient Israelites — specifically the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh, who remained in the land during the Assyrian conquest of 722 BCE. They regard their own version of the Torah — the Pentateuch — as the original and sole sacred text.

 

Speaking from Cairo, where he was deported after the deal, he proclaimed that a Palestinian who does not openly resist or reject the occupation is incomplete in freedom, humanity, and Palestinian identity.

 

Sadaqa, from Nablus, the historic centre of the Samaritan community, spent 22 years in Israeli prisons after being sentenced to six life sentences.

 

He was arrested at the age of 27 following a two-year manhunt and accused of leading the armed operations of the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades, the military wing of the leftist Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

 

Below is an edited translation of the interview from Arabic.

 

 

 

 

Nader Sadaqa: The [Israeli] occupation pursued me because it pursues every Palestinian.

 

The proof is that there are now around 6,000 administrative detainees in Israeli prisons, held without charges or trials. Many of them have been imprisoned for up to ten years without a single accusation. The occupation doesn’t need a pretext to charge anyone.

 

They hunted me for several reasons. The first is that I am a human being, and being human contradicts the occupation’s very notion of humanity. They believe in the exclusivity of their own humanity and see all non-Jews as inferior or as others. According to their doctrine, I am beneath the so-called chosen people.

 

The second reason is that I am free. My freedom negates their enslavement of others. They need to enslave us to secure their existence. Without subjugating us, their existence cannot be sustained.

 

And the third reason is that I am Palestinian. The essence of being Palestinian cannot truly endure or express itself as long as a Zionist entity and movement wield the tools of killing and destruction.

 

Anyone who ignores this inherent enmity between the Palestinian and the Zionist, anyone who neither resists nor expresses rejection of the occupation, is incomplete in his humanity, freedom, and Palestinian identity.

 

Confrontation with the occupation is not a choice. As Palestinians, we do not have the luxury of choice. Confrontation is inevitable.

 

 

 

 

I carry three passports: Israeli, Jordanian, and Palestinian, and I could have lived a comfortable life. But I am Palestinian, and that identity alone is enough for me.

 

I am an Arab by heritage, influenced by Islamic culture, and Palestinian by nationality. All my social and cultural roots are Arab and Palestinian.

 

That’s why I am certain that the Israeli entity will one day cease to exist. It is an entity hostile to history, geography, demography, and even the spirit.

 

Although the resistance pays an open-ended price in a sea of pain and blood, that does not mean it can achieve everything it strives for. The road is long, and its end is not foreseeable in the near future, but taking that path is a duty incumbent upon every Palestinian.

 

 

 

 

I believe that anyone who wishes to criticise the resistance should first carry a rifle on their shoulder. I cannot blame those who fight under constant fire, while their critics sit comfortably in well-furnished rooms.

 

The resistance, with bare hands and fingernails, performs miracles against an enemy before whom major states and vast arsenals have failed to stand.

 

That said, I do not wish to forbid criticism of the resistance. Everything can be subject to critique, even in times of war. I do not label critics as traitors, but I do ask that they be ashamed at times and express their criticism in the appropriate place and time. 

 

There are two ways to look at [October 7]. Some see it as a reckless venture aimed at capturing Israeli soldiers that spiralled out of control, bringing devastating consequences upon the Palestinian people.

 

Others see it as a step on the path toward liberation, a leap that will inevitably be followed by others, ensuring that the wheel of liberation keeps turning. In that sense, one day you may be at the bottom, and the next, as the wheel turns, you rise to the top.

 

From my perspective, October 7 is one episode in a long chain of events on the road to liberation.

 

It can be seen as having handed the occupation an opening to sweep into Gaza. But that overlooks another reality: a far-right governing coalition in Israel that could not tolerate the equilibrium of terror the resistance in Gaza had established. The drive to destroy Gaza’s resistance was inevitable under this government, whether October 7 took place or not.

 

What October 7 did was only to accelerate that course. What set October 7 apart, however, was that the resistance managed to free more than 400 detainees serving life terms and long sentences whose time had passed and whose history had largely been forgotten.

 

 

 

 

I am Arab in spirit, and Palestine is part of my Arab identity. My presence in any Arab country feels like an extension of who I am.

 

Here in Egypt, I have found warmth and compassion that soothe our hearts in what some might call exile, if it can truly be called that.

 

But let me say this: the occupation is waging an unprecedented campaign of threats and repression against freed prisoners who have returned to Palestine. They live under constant threat of re-arrest, and some have indeed been detained again.

 

Today, for instance, the occupation punishes the families of exiled prisoners by denying them the right to visit us or even reach us.

 

 

 

 

I am already resisting. My role here is to remind the world that thousands of prisoners remain in the occupation’s jails with no horizon for their release in the foreseeable future, a reality far bleaker than before October 7.

 

They are enduring the most brutal forms of torture, and each day, they are set upon by rabid dogs. - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/20 November 2025 - - -