Mahmoud Abdullah al-Ardah, the leader of the Freedom Tunnel escape, was born on 8 November 1975 and grew up in Arraba, Jenin. He first became active as a boy during the great popular intifada of 1987 and was seized and imprisoned for the first time in 1992 on allegations of targeting occupation jeeps and military patrols with Molotov cocktails. He became a part of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement in prison before his release in 1996. Eight months later he was arrested again by the occupation forces for shooting a military officer invading Salfit and harbouring the martyr leader Saleh Tahaineh, who had himself escaped from occupation prisons. He was already sentenced to 99 years in occupation prisons before the Freedom Tunnel operation.
After his imprisonment, he attempted to escape on multiple occasions, in 2001, 2011 and 2014. In the latter instance, he was accused of digging a tunnel to escape from Shata prison and on each occasion he was placed in isolation. He obtained both his high school diploma and bachelor’s degree in prison and became a leader of the prisoners’ movement before designing and planning the Freedom Tunnel self-liberation.
Today, Mahmoud will be liberated at the hands of the Resistance and the Palestinian people of Gaza!
Resistance News Network, https://t.me/PalestineResist/82708