Labor for Palestine National Network and Coalition for Action in Higher Education Condemn Israeli Attack on PGFTU Headquarters in Nablus
October 21, 2025
On Wednesday the 15th of October at approximately 9:30 to 10pm local time, the Zionist colonial army raided the headquarters of the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions in Nablus, in the occupied West Bank. The occupation forces stormed the premises, vandalized and destroyed property, and detained and interrogated union employees in the latest of now near-daily invasions of the city. “We consider this assault,” said PGFTU General Secretary Shaher Saad in a statement, “a direct targeting of the Palestinian trade union movement and a deliberate attempt to silence the voice of workers.”
The Labor for Palestine National Network and the Coalition for Action in Higher Education join the International Trade Union Confederation and Public Services International in condemning in the strongest possible terms this unwarranted attack.
This attack is not an isolated incident but part of a broader colonial project to crush all forms of Palestinian self-organization—political, social, and economic. It follows the bombing and destruction of PGFTU offices in Gaza City on the 7th of March, 2024. As PSI General Secretary Daniel Bertossa explains, it represents “a systematic campaign against trade unionists throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories in the West Bank and Gaza.”
This attack occurs in the context of the Israeli state’s illegal military occupation of the West Bank, an occupation that is intended to facilitate the state’s settler-colonial project of annexing the West Bank and removing or destroying the West Bank’s indigenous Palestinian population. While this project has been underway since 1948, the colonial violence has escalated since the 7th of October, 2023 as the Israeli state has murdered 1,001 Palestinians in the West Bank (1 of 5 of whom are children); conducted 108 airstrikes on refugee camps in the West Bank; detained nearly 14,500 people; and supported thousands of settler attacks on towns and villages in the West Bank. These atrocities, crimes against humanity, and violations of international law comprise an acceleration and intensification of what United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on Racism E. Tendayi Achiume reported on the 7th of October, 2022 as the “escalating, daily gross violations of [Palestinians’] human rights.”
The PGFTU supports and sustains Palestinian life in the West Bank and beyond by supporting and sustaining Palestinian labor. Like countless other Palestinian institutions, it has long faced harassment and violence for defending the rights of Palestinian workers under colonial occupation, apartheid, and blockade.
As trade unionists and workers in the United States, we affirm that an injury to one is an injury to all. The repression of the PGFTU is a direct assault on the global labor movement and on the very principles of freedom of association, working class dignity, and collective struggle.
Labor for Palestine and CAHE stand shoulder to shoulder with our sisters and brothers in the PGFTU and across Palestine. We reaffirm our commitment to honoring the Palestinian BDS picket line—refusing to collaborate with, normalize, or provide material support to Israeli settler-colonialism, apartheid, and genocide.
We call on labor unions, union leaders, rank-and-file workers, and workers’ organizations in the United States and internationally to:
- Denounce this attack and demand accountability for those responsible;
- Stand in active solidarity with Palestinian workers resisting settler-colonialism and exploitation;
- Enforce the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in our workplaces and unions;
- Build collective power to enforce the arms embargo and confront the corporations profiting from war, dispossession, and repression.
The struggle of Palestinian workers is the struggle of all workers—for liberation from exploitation, racism, and colonial domination. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.
