Pro-Palestinian Resistance Fighter Arrives in Beirut After Over 40 Years in French Jail

Friday, 25 July 2025 7:31 PM

The pro-Palestinian Lebanese activist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah (C) is welcomed by pro-resistance supporters at the Beirut airport, Lebanon, on July 25, 2025. (Photo by AP)

The pro-Palestinian Lebanese activist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah arrived in Beirut after more than 40 years in a French prison, stressing that his return to the homeland was made possible by the resistance.

On Friday, Abdallah was warmly welcomed by a crowd of supporters, including several members of Parliament, outside Beirut airport, where they held a banner reading: “Georges Abdallah is free — a Lebanese, Palestinian, and international freedom fighter on the road to liberating Palestine.”

“As long as there is resistance, there is a return to the homeland,” Abdallah said on his arrival in Lebanon after spending decades in a French jail.

He stressed that "the resistance is rooted in this land and cannot be uprooted."

“Our resistance is not weak but strong,” he said, urging people to support it more than ever before.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine have congratulated the pro-Palestinian Lebanese activist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah on the French court’s decision to release him after over 40 years of imprisonment.

The activist also paid tribute to the martyrs of resistance, describing them as “the fundamental basis for any idea of liberation”.

Abdallah emphasized that, “The resistance in Palestine must escalate,” slamming as “shameful” the inaction of certain Arab regimes against Israel's genocidal war on Gaza.

The former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions (LARF), was first detained in 1984. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1987 for his alleged involvement in the 1982 murders of a US military attaché and an Israeli diplomat in Paris, as well as the attempted murder of a US Consul General in Strasbourg in 1984.

Last week, the Paris Appeals Court ruled that the 74-year-old Abdallah could be freed from a prison in southern France on July 25, provided that he leaves French territory and never returns.

While he was eligible for release since 1999, Abdallah’s release was consistently obstructed by immense Israeli and US pressure which overturned previous court approvals.