The liberated Jerusalemite prisoner Saeed Ayyash (Abu al-Majd) died today, Sunday, in occupied Jerusalem, at the age of 68 years.

Abu Al-Majd was born and raised in the town of Silwan, south of the blessed Al-Aqsa Mosque, to a toiling family working in agriculture, and at the age of 19 years, specifically in the year 1975, he joined the ranks of the Fatah movement as part of a guerrilla group, which included his companion and his hometown, Tahseen Sobeih, and the Palestinian refugee to the Yarmouk camp. Ahmed Hijazi, and the group headed to northern occupied Palestine to carry out a kidnapping of a bus of Zionist soldiers in the “Ayalon” settlement to exchange them for prisoners in the occupation prisons, and after a clash with the occupation, the 3 were arrested.

Because Abu al-Majd was shot in an area far away from his two companions, “Palestine al-Thawra” magazine announced his martyrdom, and this was announced in Jerusalem. However, when Abu al-Majd was transferred from Akka prison to “Al-Maskobiyya,” his relatives in the Ras al-Amud area saw him, and it was announced that he alive.

In 1985, Abu Al-Majd was released in an exchange deal concluded by the Popular Front - General Command with the Zionist occupation, and he returned to Jerusalem to continue his struggle there with various tools.

Abu Al-Majd got married and during his life was subjected to many arrests by the occupation forces. In 2011, his son Milad died as a martyr from the occupation’s bullets while confronting settlers’ attacks on Silwan.

The deceased Saeed Ayyash worked in the field of journalism, translation and research within the Palestinian Center for Israeli Studies (MADAR). He also worked as a journalist in the Jerusalem newspaper Al-Quds, and founded the Milad Fund, in honor of his martyred son, to support Jerusalemite students.

Regarding Abu al-Majd’s status in the hearts of Jerusalemites from his generation of freedom fighters and liberated prisoners, the writer and political analyst, Nihad Abu Ghosh, says: “Saeed (Abu al-Majd) and the father of the martyr child Milad, our neighbor who is a few years older than us, was one of the heroes of our childhood and early youth when the news of the operation arrived. Which he carried out with his companion, the late Tahseen Sobeih. We first heard that he was martyred and a funeral home was held for him. Then news came that he was in prison, and during prison we exchanged dozens of letters.”

As for the Jerusalemite writer and literary figure Ibrahim Jawhar, he said about the deceased: “The fisherman in the Haifa Sea, and the martyr who carries the heart of a child and the smile of a bereaved... may have mercy and eternal memory.”

Abu Al-Majd left, to join Milad, and after him his companion in the struggle, Tahseen Sobeih, who died in 2016. Jerusalem remains a birth, and the fighters remain salt of the earth.