There is no force on earth that can uproot Palestine

The Israeli occupation forces arrested me in March 2022, and on 4 December that same year my administrative detention came to an end.

On that day, an Israeli intelligence officer summoned my parents to come and sign my release papers – including one which banned them holding a celebration in honour of my freedom, as is customary when Palestinian prisoners from Jerusalem are released. When the phone call ended, my parents were certain I'd soon be returning home.

However, that same day, I received a notice confirming a decision had been made to revoke my citizenship and deport me from my homeland.

The contradictory pieces of information — that my family had been summoned to sign my release papers; and that they intended to deport me — plunged me into uncertainty for the next few days. Would I be returning to my home in Jerusalem or would I be deported to France?

Just before midnight on 17 December, the prison officers told me that my deportation order was due to be carried out that night. Everything happened very quickly, so much so that I'm still in a state of shock to this day.

I readied myself and bid farewell to my prison cellmate, and insisted on saying goodbye to the rest of my prison mates, which the guards let me do - but from behind the doors.

Later, four members of Israeli intelligence and border police personnel arrived in plain clothes. They bound my wrists and ankles together, put me into an army jeep, and we left the prison.

I wouldn't give in to the despair despite my mixed feelings. As we drove from the prison to the airport, I found myself suddenly disorientated. Should I look out the window to capture the scene? But that would limit the images of my beloved homeland to what I see through the car window. So I made the decision to close my eyes.

I refused to leave silently and wanted to make my position clear. The day before I was deported, I smuggled an audio message from the prison, in which I said:

"Greetings to the children of my resilient Palestinian people; greetings to the Palestinian homeland, and preliminary greetings to the first people…

I send this message while being forcibly displaced and uprooted from my homeland, as the enemy believes that by practicing a policy of displacement and ethnic cleansing, it will defeat us.

But at the core of our Palestinian-ness is agency, faith and belonging, land and memory, time and place; so no forcible deportation order, and ethnic cleansing, could intimidate us, nor deter or derail us from our choosing to resist.

In much the same way, there is no force on earth that can physically uproot Palestine, nor is there any force that can remove Palestine from our minds and our hearts.

I leave you today, my beloved homeland, by force. I leave you today - from prison into exile. However, be certain that I will remain true to my pledge, faithful to you, and dedicated to your freedom. I will carry you with me wherever I am and you will remain my sole compass. And until we meet again, and I am able to embrace you in Jerusalem, the Galilee, and Haifa, you can demand anything from me, and I promise you I will remain your loyal soldier forever, forever, forever".

It has now been almost two years since I was exiled.

When I look back at the last 23 years, the incarceration of Palestinians – as a central tenet of Israel's system of control and domination – represents one of the most devastating tools in the enemy's arsenal of oppression. Moreover, just like in the past, prisons today are a mechanism used by the enemy to dictate and demarcate every detail of Palestinian life.

No Palestinian household has been spared these efforts: in countless conversations you will hear Palestinians talking about time they spent in prison, or of a father, mother, brother or other relatives who were detained.

The enemy's goal, in having built its prisons along the length and breadth of occupied Palestine, is an attempt to prevent any resistance, of any kind.

But this is not all. The mass incarceration of Palestinians within Israel's extensive network of prisons also harbours another agenda: to weaken Palestinian national identity.

This has not worked, however.

The prisons and their prisoners are indivisible from Palestinian reality. Their struggle has become a central question in the Palestinian body politic and society. Moreover, Palestinian prisoners have maintained a strong consciousness, despite Israel's best attempts to wear them down. Indeed, they have broken the will of the enemy and thwarted its plans to create "the new Palestinian", who is "tamed" by Israel then released and sent back to his family and friends to also influence them accordingly.

Instead, Palestinian prisoners have been able to re-engage in political life and have worked effectively to become an integral part of the Palestinian national movement. Over time, and through the experience they have amassed, they have been able to build a moral, cultural, organisational, and security-orientated system that has contributed to exporting a large number of  national figures and fighters internationally.

Certainly, steadfastness and defiance have always been the creed of the fighters in prisons. Turkish writer and prisoner Nazim Hikmet explained this beautifully in his poem Some Advice to Those Who Will Serve Time in Prison: 

"it's your solemn duty
    to live one more day
            to spite the enemy.
Part of you may live alone inside,
        like a stone at the bottom of a well.
But the other part
    must be so caught up
    in the flurry of the world
             that you shiver there inside
     when outside, at forty days' distance, a leaf moves".

Salah Hammouri is a French-Palestinian human rights lawyer and a native Jerusalemite. His residency status was officially revoked by Israel's interior minister, Ayelet Shaked, in October 2021 under the pretext of a "breach of allegiance to the State of Israel." Following his arrest in March, he now faces deportation to France.

Follow his campaign on Twitter: @JusticeforSalah

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Translated by Rose Chacko

Opinions expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect those of her employer, or of The New Arab and its editorial board or staff.