Georges Abdallah, a Lebanese communist imprisoned for over 40 years in France. Photo: Free Georges Abdallah/X.
The Lebanese pro-Palestinian freedom fighter and Europe’s longest-held political prisoner called for rallying around Gaza and the resistance upon his arrival in Beirut.
Georges Abdallah, one of the most prominent Arab pro-Palestinian freedom fighters, has arrived in his homeland Lebanon on Friday, July 25, after being freed from French prisons, where he was held for over 40 years.
Large crowds gathered on the road leading to Beirut’s airport to celebrate the arrival of the anti-imperialist patriot, who sacrificed his youth as part of his nation’s struggle for the liberation of Palestine from Israeli occupation.
Resistance is freedom, says Abdallah from Beirut
Surrounded by thousands of his countrymen, Abdallah delivered powerful statements, reaffirming his unwavering commitment to the principles of resistance.
Abdallah saluted and thanked the crowds, and the martyrs who were killed by Israel in the southern suburb of the Lebanese capital Beirut (Dahiyeh).
He also hailed Hezbollah’s late Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah: “I salute the martyred leader”.
The veteran freedom fighter called for rallying around Gaza and the resistance, asserting that “resistance is freedom”.
His call came at a critical time, during which the US and Israel have been exerting maximum pressure on the Lebanese state to disarm Hezbollah, while Israel continues with its brutal genocide and deliberate starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
“The resistance in Palestine must continue, and we must act in a way that lives up to the misery of children who turned into skeletons,” Abdallah emphasized, referring to the starved children in Gaza.
Georges Abdallah: from pro-Palestinian sympathizer to Europe’s longest-held political prisoner
Georges Abdallah began his activism in the 1970s as a sympathizer within pro-Palestinian and Arab nationalist circles. It is believed that he joined the armed struggle against the Israeli occupation in 1978, the same year he was wounded during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. He also joined the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) that year.
At the end of the 1970s, the Lebanese freedom fighter founded the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), which launched attacks against US and Israeli officials in France in the 1980s.
US Military Attaché Charles Robert Ray and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov were assassinated in the French capital, Paris, in two of these attacks in 1982. Consequently, Abdallah was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
In 1999, Abdallah completed the minimum portions of his life sentence, which made him eligible for parole, but the court rejected the successive requests submitted to it since that year.
In 2013, he was granted a release order on the condition of being deported from France, but French authorities then refused to implement the order on seemingly political grounds, reportedly under pressure by the US.
On July 17, the Paris Appeals Court ordered that Georges Abdallah, 74, be freed from a prison in southern France on July 25, provided that he leaves France and never returns.
