Fuad Hijazi
فؤاد حجازي
Rebel of the Buraq uprising, hanged at Acre
The youngest of the three men hanged by the British at Acre prison on 17 June 1930. A day before he died he wrote home asking that the date of his hanging be kept every year as a day of songs and speeches — and it has been.
Fuad Hasan Hijazi was born in Safad, in the north of Palestine, in 1904. He went to primary school in the city, took his secondary education at the Scottish College, and completed his university studies at the American University of Beirut. He was twenty-five when the Buraq uprising broke out in August 1929 over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and he took an active part in it in his own city. The clashes that spread from Hebron and Bir al-Sabi’ in the south to Safad in the north left 116 Palestinians and 133 Jews dead, by the count kept in the Palestinian record. The Mandate arrested some nine hundred Palestinians and passed twenty-seven death sentences. Twenty-four were commuted. Hijazi’s was not.
He was hanged in the citadel prison at Acre on 17 June 1930, alongside Muhammad Jamjoum and Atta al-Zir of Hebron. He was the youngest of the three, and — according to the Palestinian record — the first of the three to be taken. The funeral song that came out of that morning reverses the order and has Jamjoum claiming the first place at the gallows; the song is a lament composed afterwards, not a transcript, and the discrepancy is part of what it is.
The day before he died, the Mandate authorities allowed him to write to his family. He sent his testament instead to the Haifa newspaper al-Yarmuk, which published it on 18 June 1930 in his own handwriting, over his signature. Its closing passage is the reason 17 June is a date in the Palestinian calendar. In the archive’s translation of the Arabic text: the day of my hanging must be a day of joy and gladness, and rejoicing must likewise be held on 17 June of every year; this day must be a historic day on which speeches are delivered and songs are sung, in memory of the blood we shed for Palestine and for the Arab cause. Elsewhere in the letter he wrote that if the execution of the three of them shook loose any part of the English nightmare that lay on the Arab nation, then let tens of thousands like them be executed until the nightmare lifted entirely.
The Palestinian Museum, drawing on Rena Barakat’s study of the Buraq revolt, records another passage from his last words in which he tells his family he is not only their brother and son but the brother and son of the nation, and instructs them not to weep. The instruction was obeyed in an unexpected way. What the funerals produced was not silence but a song, and the song has been sung continuously for close to a century — in the camps, at prisoners’ vigils, and by the ensembles who carried the Mandate-era repertoire into the revolution’s generation.
The Institute for Palestine Studies keeps his photograph in its encyclopedia of the Palestine question, with a caption that records the bare fact of the sentence. He has no grave that Palestinians can visit; the archive’s account of the executions is at Red Tuesday, 1930, and the elegy Ibrahim Tuqan built around his hour is at Red Tuesday.
Sources
Further reading
An external biography or archive holding more on this life than the entry above.
Connected in the archive
20 connected records20 records elsewhere in the archive are linked to this one, each by a piece of evidence you can read below.
born in — 1 record
- Safedصفد
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: birthplace: "Safad, Palestine" → Safed (Upper Galilee)
names this person — 7 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- From Acre Prison
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: On 17 June 1930 the British Mandate hanged three men at Acre prison for the events of August 1929: Fuad Hijazi of Safad, and Muhammad Jamjoum and Atta al-Zir of Hebron.
- Khalil Beidasخليل بيدس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: In Acre prison he wrote a short book describing the imperial prison system and the treatment of nationalist prisoners inside it — one of the earliest works of Palestinian prison literature, written in the same fortress where the Mandate would hang Fuad Hijazi, Muhammad Jamjoum and Atta al-Zir a decade later.
- Nuh Ibrahimنوح إبراهيم
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The work of his that outlived everything else was written years before the revolt, for the three men the British hanged at Acre on 17 June 1930: Fuad Hijazi, Muhammad Jamjoum and Atta al-Zir.
- Red Tuesday
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: On 17 June 1930 the British Mandate hanged three men at the fortress prison of Acre for their part in the Buraq uprising of August 1929: Fuad Hijazi of Safad, and Muhammad Jamjoum and Atta al-Zir of Hebron.
- Red Tuesday and the Songs of the Prison
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The Institute for Palestine Studies keeps the photograph of one of them, Fuad Hijazi of Safad, in its encyclopedia of the Palestine question, under a caption that states the fact without ornament: "The British Mandate sentenced three rebels to death on the 17th of June 1930.
- The Martyr's Testament
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Fuad Hijazi of Safad sent his to the Haifa newspaper al-Yarmuk, which printed it on 18 June — the day after the hanging — in his own handwriting and over his signature.
- and 1 more
named in this record — 6 records
One record names the other. A pointer for reading, not a claim that they belong to each other.
- Atta al-Zirعطا الزير
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: He was hanged in the citadel prison at Acre on 17 June 1930, alongside Muhammad Jamjoum and Atta al-Zir of Hebron.
- Hebronالخليل
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: The clashes that spread from Hebron and Bir al-Sabi' in the south to Safad in the north left 116 Palestinians and 133 Jews dead, by the count kept in the Palestinian record.
- Ibrahim Tuqanإبراهيم طوقان
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: He has no grave that Palestinians can visit; the archive's account of the executions is at Red Tuesday, 1930, and the elegy Ibrahim Tuqan built around his hour is at Red Tuesday.
- Jerusalemالقدس
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: He was twenty-five when the Buraq uprising broke out in August 1929 over access to the Western Wall in Jerusalem, and he took an active part in it in his own city.
- Muhammad Jamjoumمحمد جمجوم
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: He was hanged in the citadel prison at Acre on 17 June 1930, alongside Muhammad Jamjoum and Atta al-Zir of Hebron.
- Red Tuesday — the executions at Acre prison
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: He has no grave that Palestinians can visit; the archive's account of the executions is at Red Tuesday, 1930, and the elegy Ibrahim Tuqan built around his hour is at Red Tuesday.
on a related subject — 6 records
Filed near each other — the same Mandate district, or the same uncommon subject tags.
- Farhan al-Saadiفرحان السعدي
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Shared tags: "Acre prison", "mandate".
- Najati Sidqiنجاتي صدقي
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Shared tags: "Acre prison", "mandate".
- Sadhij Nassarساذج نصّار
Evidence — From a recorded field in this archive: Shared tags: "mandate", "prisoners".
- Marwan Barghoutiمروان البرغوثي
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "prisoners".
- They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "prisoners".
- Wadie Haddadوديع حداد
Evidence — Inferred from the text — read the evidence: Shared tag: "Safad".
Cite this page
Every claim above carries its sources — citation is the point.
- Chicago
“Fuad Hijazi.” Figures, FALASTEEN.AI. Accessed 22 August 2026. https://falasteen.ai/figures/fuad-hijazi.- MLA
“Fuad Hijazi.” Figures, FALASTEEN.AI, 2026, https://falasteen.ai/figures/fuad-hijazi. Accessed 22 August 2026.- BibTeX
@misc{falasteen-fuad-hijazi, title = {Fuad Hijazi}, howpublished = {\url{https://falasteen.ai/figures/fuad-hijazi}}, organization = {FALASTEEN.AI — A Living Archive for Palestine}, year = {2026}, note = {Accessed 2026-08-22} }