Zakaria Zubeidi: From refugee theatre kid to Palestinian resistance fighter

Middle East Eye

31-01-2025

With the Hamas-Israel ceasefire continuing to hold, another tranche of Palestinian detainees have been released in exchange for Israeli captives.
Arguably the most high-profile figure to be included this time is Zakaria Zubeidi.
Zubeidi was the head of the Jenin branch of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group founded by Fatah during the Second Intifada in 2000.
Long a symbolic figure of the occupied West Bank's resistance against Israel, Zubeidi was jailed in 2019, breaking out in a five-day prison escape in 2021 before being recaptured.
Over the years he became iconic for his work not just as a resistance fighter but through his involvement in Jenin's Freedom Theatre, a world-famous cultural centre in the city's refugee camp.
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His release will likely be welcomed by many in Palestine who have become otherwise disillusioned with other political leaders.
Life of resistance
Zubeidi was born in 1976 in Jenin refugee camp to a family who were expelled from Caesarea in what is now northwestern Israel during the Nakba in 1948.
His father became a member of Fatah, the secular Arab nationalist political party founded in 1959 with the aim of liberating historic Palestine from the Israelis.
Like most Palestinians, his experience of the Israeli occupation coloured his earliest memories.
Israel's attack on the Freedom Theatre in Jenin camp is part of a cultural genocide Read More »
In a rare interview he gave to the Sunday Times in 2006 he spoke about taking part in the First Intifada in 1987, the uprising in the West Bank and Gaza that raised the profile of the plight of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
"I had already been injured by soldiers, then I was sent to prison for six months," he said, referring to being shot in the leg for throwing stones the previous year.
"There they made me the representative of the other child prisoners and I started taking their problems to the head of the jail."
As a child, Zubeidi became involved in Jenin refugee camp's community-driven theatre projects, which involved both Palestinian and Israeli children attempting to address a range of issues including the occupation and PTSD.
The initiative was launched by Arna Mer-Khamis, an Israeli communist and rights activist whose half-Palestinian son Juliano Mer Khamis would later form the Freedom Theatre with Zubeidi in 2006.
Although a formative experience, his relationship with the Israeli volunteers involved in the camp theatre projects as a child would leave a bitter taste and colour his view of the Israel "peace camp".
In 2002, his mother was shot dead by an Israeli sniper while taking refuge in a neighbour's house in Jenin camp.
'From midnight until morning I prepare for death. I don't sleep at night. I don't sleep at all. I wait for death'
- Zakaria Zubeidi, speaking during Second Intifada
"Not one of those people who came to the camp and were our guests as part of the theatre group, fed every day by my mother, called to say they were sorry my family had died," he told the Sunday Times.
"Not one of them picked up a phone."
In 1993, Zubeidi joined the security forces of the newly created Palestinian Authority.
The body was established as part of the Oslo Accords, giving nominally devolved power to Palestinians in parts of the occupied territories.
Fatah leader and friend Yasser Arafat was elected president and Zubeidi supported the negotiations that were supposed to eventually lead to an independent Palestinian state.
By the end of the century, however, Zubeidi had become disillusioned both with Israel's willingness to agree to Palestinian demands and the nepotism and corruption that he saw as embedded in the PA.
Intifada
In 2000, the Second Intifada began and Zubeidi joined the armed resistance to Israeli occupation. The violent uprising would see thousands of Palestinians and Israelis killed over the next five years.
The Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades was formed by Fatah members to fight in the Intifada, though it would split from the party officially in 2007.
It carried out numerous operations targeting Israel during the Intifada, including suicide bombings.
As head of the Jenin branch, Zubaidi would become de facto chief of security in the refugee camp and its main power broker. The Battle of Jenin in April 2002, which would come to be regarded as one of the Intifada's central events, saw dozens killed and homes razed to the ground, including Zubaidi's family home.
Israel regularly tried to assassinate Zubaidi. Meanwhile, his relationship with the PA deteriorated over his stubborn refusal to kowtow to the leadership.
"It's the journalists and television that made me a hero," he told Israeli journalists in 2005.
"Anyone who is not afraid is a liar...sometimes at night my head is about to explode with thoughts. From midnight until morning I prepare for death. I don't sleep at night. I don't sleep at all. I wait for death."
Freedom Theatre
In 2007, he was named as part of an amnesty offered by the Israeli prime minister's office, and threw his efforts into non-violent activity.
Most notably he began the Freedom Theatre, resurrecting the community-led theatre tradition he'd grown up with.
"I didn't want to become an armed resistance fighter," he later said.
Zakaria Zubeidi: The Palestinian revolutionary and artistic leader who escaped Israeli prison Read More »
"But this is what life gave me. I wanted to be an actor. I wanted to be Romeo. Now at The Freedom Theatre, others can have that chance."
His childhood friend and co-founder Mer Khamis would later be shot dead outside the theatre by gunmen in 2011. The culprits have never been found.
Despite his enthusiasm for the theatre, the ongoing occupation, disillusionment with the PA and the murder of his friends at times left Zubaidi with a sense of pessimism.
Speaking to Haaretz in 2008, he denounced Palestinian politicians as "whores" and "garbage" and despaired of the collapse of Palestinian unity.
"The Palestinian people is finished. Done for," he said.
"Hamas comes on the air on its television station and says 'Fatah is a traitor'. That is to say, 40 percent of the nation are traitors. And then Fatah does the same thing and you already have 80 percent traitors."
Prison break
In December 2011, Israel announced that his amnesty had been rescinded.
In May 2012, he was arrested by the PA, who reportedly abused him while in detention, leading him to begin a hunger strike. He was released without charge in October of that year.
After that he began working on a master's degree at Birzeit University.
His thesis was titled The Hunter and the Dragon: The Pursuit in the Palestinian Experience from 1968-2018, but his work on it was interrupted in February 2019. Zubeidi was arrested by Israel. The domestic spy agency, Shin Bet, claimed "he had shot at Israeli buses".
Zubeidi remained in jail until this week's prisoner exchange - albeit with one notable break.
Two and half years into his imprisonment - still with no trial date set - Zakaria, alongside five others, dug a tunnel out of their prison using a spoon and escaped.
In response, Palestinian workers went on strike in solidarity, while celebrations took place across occupied Palestine.
Though he was recaptured five days later, the daring escape attempt further cemented Zubeidi's heroic image in the minds of Palestinians.
Although his plans after his release from prison are still unknown, he remains one of the few Fatah-affiliated figures - along with the still-imprisoned Marwan Barghouti - who claim widespread support and respect.