Ahmad Sa'adat Solitary Confinement Prisoner #1

Ahmad Sa'adat is the General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. He was born in the West Bank town of Al Bireh in 1953, the son of a refugee family who were expelled from their home in the village of Deir Tarif, near Ramleh, in 1948.

Mr Sa'adat is a math teacher by training and the father of four children. He has been involved in the Palestinian national movement since 1967, when he became active in the student movement. Prior to his detention in 2006, he was held as political prisoner in Israeli jails on numerous occasions which total a period of ten years in all.

Ahmad Sa'adat Solitary Confinement Prisoner #1

Sa'adat was elected General Secretary of the PFLP in 2001 following the Israeli assassination of then-General Secretary, Abu Ali Mustafa, in his office in Ramallah on August 27, 2001.

Following the start of the hunger strike, the Israel Prison Authorities offered PFLP prisoners to release Mr Sa'adat from solitary confinement if they agreed to end their hunger strike. The strikers rejected the offer on the basis that their demands include an end to the confinement of all prisoners.

In recent days, Mr Sa'adat's health condition has deteriorated considerably. He was moved to the hospital section of Al Ramleh prison on 29 April.