Abdel Nasser Issa is a Palestinian who spent 32 years in prison, 29 of which were continuous. He obtained a doctorate degree and led several cultural activities from his detention and published peer-reviewed scientific books and research.
The year 2011 was excluded from the “Loyalty to the Free” deal, during which 1,027 Palestinian prisoners were exchanged for the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit. Some call him “the prisoner who besieged the prison but was not besieged by the prison.”
Birth and upbringing
Abdel Nasser Atallah Issa was born on October 1, 1968 in the city of Nablus, to a refugee family from Tira Dandan, northeast of the occupied city of Lod.
His father was arrested the year following his birth and sentenced to 7 years in prison. The occupation demolished his family’s home and displaced them to Balata camp.
In Balata camp, Abdel Nasser grew up, his personality was formed, he began his struggle against the occupier, and participated in protests and demonstrations, which made his pursuit by the Israeli occupation forces expected.
He lost his parents during his detention. His father died in 2006, and he was prevented from visiting him before his death. His mother also died in 2012 without him being allowed to say goodbye to her.
Scientific formation
Abdel Nasser obtained a bachelor’s degree from the Hebrew University in political science in 2007. He was fluent in Hebrew, and he completed that stage in constant confrontation with the prison administration, as he was a prisoner during periods of his studies.
What he was punished for in prison was obstructing his studies and preventing him from completing them, which made him finish his bachelor’s degree in 7 years. He then obtained a master’s degree in democracy studies in 2009, and was a university teaching assistant supervising educational programs.
Months later, the Israeli Prison Service canceled his registration to study again at the same university in the biological thought program for “security reasons.”
In 2014, Abdel Nasser was able to continue his career and obtain another master’s degree in “Israeli Studies” from Al-Quds University in Abu Dis.
Resistance and arrest
Abdel Nasser was hit by a bullet from the Israeli occupation forces at the beginning of his youth in 1982, while participating in protests against the Sabra and Shatila massacres in southern Lebanon, and was wounded again in 1988.
In 1983, he joined the Muslim Brotherhood in the mosques of Balata camp, and was arrested for the first time in 1985, and the second in 1986. During that period, he met the thinker Gamal Mansour and benefited greatly from him.
Abdel Nasser’s third arrest was in 1988, on charges of preparing an explosive device, making Molotov cocktails, and throwing them at patrolling occupation soldiers. He spent years in prison, where he was tortured, and his family’s home was demolished, and then he was subjected to a series of arrests.
He was the “prince” of the prisoners of the Islamic Movement, which included members of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) and Islamic Jihad, in the Nablus Central Prison, between 1990 and 1991.
In 1994, after his release, he quickly joined the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of the Hamas movement, and communicated with its chief of staff, Muhammad al-Deif, to reactivate the al-Qassam cells in the West Bank.
He also stayed with the martyr, engineer Yahya Ayyash, and learned from his experiences, which brought his name back to the top of the Israeli persecution records, and to be the second most wanted person after Ayyash.
Israel considered him a highly wanted man for his role in training and leading a number of military cells that carried out martyrdom operations inside the territories occupied in 1948.
On August 19, 1995, he was arrested again on charges of carrying out the Ramat Gan and Ramat Eshkol attacks, in which 12 Israelis were killed and dozens were injured.
Abdel Nasser was sentenced to two life sentences, in addition to 7 years, and the occupation court intensified its harsh procedures against him, isolating him in Ashkelon prison for 24 months, specifically between the years 1997-1999, and preventing him from visiting family and relatives.
In the “Loyalty of the Free” deal to exchange prisoners for Shalit in 2011, Abdel Nasser was excluded from the exchange and remained in prison.
Jobs and responsibilities
In 2005, Abdel Nasser played a leading role in forming the first supreme leadership body of the Hamas movement in prisons, and he was elected to head it. He was also elected as a member of the second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh bodies, alongside the leaders Yahya Al-Sanwar, Rawhi Mushtaha, Saleh Al-Arouri, Abdel Khaleq Al-Natsheh, and others.
In the sixth session (2015-2017), he was elected as General Coordinator of the Supreme Committee of Hamas in Prisons and Vice-President. He worked as an official in charge of the Political Committee between 2019 and 2021, and follows up on the responsibility of the academic education file in prisons.
The prisoner Abdel Nasser established a center for studies that follows an intellectual, renaissance and scientific movement, and contributes effectively to consolidating the thought of resistance to the occupation policies.
He was editor-in-chief of “Our Freedom” magazine, which expresses the spirit and goals of the prisoner movement. He also played a prominent role in establishing organizational work in prisons and activating production lines.
Abdel Nasser was the supervisor of the general cultural program in the prison, in addition to being a researcher and writer.
With Marwan Barghouti and Ahed Gholma, he wrote the book “Resistance to Arrest” and enriched the Palestinian and Arab cultural scene with three volumes that began to be published in 2018.
In 2022, he published his book “According to the Sources,” which is the fifth author in the series that began in 2018. He also published two books, “Free Articles” and “Free Studies,” in addition to a number of peer-reviewed studies.