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UN Officials Call on Israel to Halt Khan Al-Ahmar Demolition

IMEMC | June 1, 2018

United Nations officials, on Friday, called on Israel to abandon plans to demolish the Palestinian community of Khan al-Ahmar, east of Jerusalem.

Humanitarian Coordinator, Jamie McGoldrick, and United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) Director of Operations in the West Bank, Scott Anderson, joined others in the international community in calling on the government of Israel to cease its plans to carry out the mass demolition and transfer of the Palestinian Bedouin community of Khan al Ahmar – Abu al Helu, located on the outskirts of East Jerusalem in the occupied West Bank.

“Like many Palestinians in Area C, the residents of Khan al Ahmar – Abu al Helu have fought for years to live with dignity, to protect their children, their homes, and their community,” said McGoldrick. “They have struggled in the face of tremendous daily pressure and are asking for the continued support of the international community to prevent the demolition of their homes.”

Following the Israeli Supreme Court’s May 24 rejection of the community’s petition to prevent the demolitions, marking an end to years-long legal efforts and leaving virtually no legal options to protect the community, nearly all of Khan al Ahmar – Abu al Helu’s structures are now at immediate risk of demolition by the Israeli authorities, including the school, initially built with donor support. The school serves some 170 students from the community and four surrounding ones. The proposed transfer seeks to move the rural livestock-dependent community to an urban site unsuitable for Bedouin livelihood, culture and traditions and is likely to increase their level of humanitarian need.

“After nine years of legal battle, this refugee community now faces the demolition of their homes, the loss of traditional livelihoods and the imminent risk of forcible transfer should the demolitions be conducted and the community be compelled to relocate, which would be a grave breach of the Geneva Convention,” said Anderson. “Many already displaced from the [Naqab] as a result of the 1948 conflict; they now face being displaced for a second time. As we have seen in similar circumstances in the past, the transfer of rural Bedouin to the urban setting of Jabal West, proposed by the Israeli state, will likely prove socially and economically devastating,” he concluded, according to WAFA.

Khan al Ahmar – Abu al Helu is one of 18 communities located in or next to an area slated in part for the E1 settlement plan, aimed at creating a continuous built-up area between the Maale Adumim settlement and East Jerusalem. This week, the Israeli authorities approved a planning scheme providing for the construction of 92 new housing units and an educational institution in the Kfar Adumim settlement, immediately adjacent to Khan al Ahmar; this settlement has also petitioned the High Court for the implementation of the outstanding demolition orders against the community.

“Israel’s obligations as an occupying power to protect the residents of Khan al Ahmar are clear,” said McGoldrick. “Should the Israeli authorities choose to implement the outstanding demolition orders in the community and force the people to leave, they would not only generate significant humanitarian hardship but also commit one of the grave breaches of international humanitarian law,” he concluded.

03/06/18 Khan al-Ahmar Village Scheduled for Demolition

June 1, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel bill to limit Palestinians’ access to High Court passes first reading

MEMO | May 29, 2018

Israeli politicians waved through a bill that would limit Palestinians’ access to the High Court last night, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The bill would prevent many cases, including those of housing demolitions and Israeli land grabbing offences, from reaching the High Court, instead redirecting them to district courts in the occupied West Bank.

Right-wing politicians stated that the bill would reduce the number of complaints pertaining to land ownership that are often filed by Palestinians and left-wing organisations in the aftermath of settler occupation.

Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, a supporter of the bill, rejoiced in its passing of the first reading.

“The move will also reduce the heavy burden imposed on the High Court of Justice,” she said adding that the High Court “handles more than 2,000 petitions each year, and should reject many of them outright.”

Critics however argued that the bill was a step towards annexation of the West Bank, by expanding the power of district courts outside of Israeli sovereignty.

Zionist Union MK Tzipi Livni expressed concern that the move would strengthen the argument that Palestinians should have the right to vote in Israel, as has been suggested as part of the one-state solution.

Shaked defended the bill, stating that in the case of land ownership claims, it would place the burden of proof on the Palestinians filing the case, not the Israeli settlers.

The bill will also refer other issues to the lower court, such as restraining orders and Israel entry permits.

Israel has long sought to annex the occupied West Bank to preserve the illegal settlements in the area, but has struggled with what the fate of Palestinians would be.

Earlier this month, Israel’s deputy defence minister, MK Rabbi Eli Ben-Dahan, claimed that Israel could annex the entirety of the occupied West Bank, without giving its Palestinian residents the right to vote.

“The clear and absolute thing is that we are here in the Land of Israel and we are not afraid of any attempts to frighten us,” he said. “They want to scare us that maybe soon we will not be a majority and therefore we have to abandon Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]. This is a grave mistake.”

Read also:

Palestinians call to save their homes from Israeli demolition orders

May 29, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Palestinians call to save their homes from Israeli demolition orders

Palestinians watch the demolition of their home in the West Bank on 7 November 2017 [Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | May 28, 2018

Palestinian families in the village of Aqaba, north of the West Bank, on Sunday called on Palestinian human rights organizations and the government to save their homes from the Israeli demolition orders.

The Israeli authorities have recently issued orders to demolish the homes of 20 families in the village of Aqaba under the pretext of being built in Area C.

The head of Aqaba village council, Sami Sadiq said the decision was issued by the Israeli Defence Ministry and ordered the all houses built during the past six months in Area C to be demolished if they were not inhibited by their owners.

He added that the village council has been trying to contact human rights organizations and the media in an attempt to stop the decision and protect the homes.

In an interview with Turkey’s Anadolu news agency, he pointed out that the houses are built on land owned by their owners who have owner documents.

Ibrahim Yusuf Jaber, the owner of one of the houses threatened with demolition said the decision stipulates to demolish the house within 60 days if I do not move in, but 40 days have already passed while we received the orders only two days ago.

Watch: Video of about Al Aqaba village

May 28, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | , , , , | Leave a comment

Award-winning photographer shot by Israel soldier in the West Bank

Internationally-acclaimed and award-winning photographer, Tanya Habjouqa [Happeningarts/Twitter]
MEMO | May 17, 2018

An internationally-acclaimed, award-winning photographer was shot by an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, reports the Art Newspaper.

Tanya Habjouqa, who won the 2014 World Press photo award, was struck in the leg by a rubber-coated metal bullet fired by Israeli occupation forces during a protest near Bet El checkpoint.

Habjouqa told the paper that she was some 40 metres from Palestinian protesters “when Israeli soldiers in the distance started shooting rubber bullets and tear gas in several directions”.

“She also saw soldiers aim at a Palestinian gas station where there were no protesters, just people filling up their gas tanks,” the report added.

“I was on the side with my camera at the beginning of the protest with cameras around my neck, so I feel I was definitely targeted though thankfully they chose not to aim for my head,” Habjouqa tells us. “It hurts like hell and the bruise is spreading front and back.”

Habjouqa is a founder of Rawiya, the first all-female photo collective in the Middle East, as well as a member of the Noor Photography collective, a Magnum Foundation grantee, and the author of the photo book Occupied Pleasures that the Smithsonian named one of the best photo books of 2015.

Her work is in the permanent collections of the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the Institut du Monde Art in Paris.

Read also:

Media freedom watchdog warns of more Israel attacks on journalists in Gaza

May 17, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Dawabsheh Family Survives Second Arson attack by Jewish Settlers

A Palestinian girl stands in her living room after it was set alight by Jewish settlers in the West Bank on 11 May 2018 [Nedal Eshtayah/Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | May 11, 2018

Jewish settlers set fire to a house belonging to the Dawabsheh family in the village of Duma near the occupied West Bank city of Nablus early this morning, according to eyewitness.

“A group of settlers attacked my home at dawn today, breaking a window and throwing a Molotov cocktail inside before fleeing the scene,” Yasser Dawabsheh said.

“We were lucky that I was able to hear them when they attacked, so I was able to evacuate all my family,” he said.

“Fire crews reacted quickly and put out the fire before the whole house burnt down,” he added.

Police are reportedly investigating the incident.

In July of 2015, Israeli settlers torched the Dawabsheh family home in an attack that claimed the lives of Saad and Riham Dawabsheh and their 18-month-old baby.

Their eldest son, Ahmed, 6, survived the attack, but suffered severe burns that have affected his mobility.

The attack sparked international outrage, with the family accusing Israel of dragging its feet in prosecuting the suspects, despite admissions by Israeli officials that they knew who was responsible.

Read also: Palestinian hospitalised after settler drives in to him

May 11, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Partners in crime’: Israel settlers and soldiers attack Palestinians in West Bank village

MEMO | May 4, 2018

Israeli settlers attacked Palestinians in the West Bank village of ‘Einabus with the assistance of Israeli soldiers, according to a new report by human rights NGO B’Tselem.

On the morning of 6 March, two Palestinians – ‘Ahed Hamad and Yasser Hamad – went to the northern part of the village to pave a road intended to help residents access their farmland.

Shortly after they began work, some 30 Israeli settlers, “some of them masked”, arrived from the direction of the notorious Yitzhar settlement, located some four kilometres away.

“The settlers surrounded the bulldozer and began throwing stones at it, breaking the windshield,” stated B’Tselem. “The two men tried to escape, but some of the settlers pursued them, throwing stones and hitting them, until they managed to escape into the village.”

“The settlers who remained near the bulldozer threw stones and sticks at it and slashed its tyres.”

Some 50 village residents then went to protect their lands, after which “the settlers returned in larger numbers, accompanied by soldiers”.

Settlers and Palestinian residents “threw stones at each other”, while Israeli occupation forces “fired live bullets, rubber-coated metal bullets and teargas” at the Palestinians. Six Palestinians were injured, of whom four were taken to hospital.

According to B’Tselem: “This incident is not unusual: settlers have attacked Palestinians in the presence of soldiers hundreds of times, with the soldiers sometimes – as in the present case – joining in the assault.”

Israel effectively condones this conduct and reaps the benefits: the Palestinian residents, who know they face a possible attack with no protection at any given time, hold back from going to their farmland – to tend the land or graze flocks – and this makes it easier for the state to take over the land.

May 4, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli forces detain Dean of Student Affairs of Bethlehem University

Ma’an – April 24, 2018

BETHLEHEM – Israeli army forces on Tuesday detained the Dean of Student Affairs at Bethlehem University, according to a statement from the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society (PPS).

PPS reported that the dean, Mahmoud Hammad, was detained. The circumstances surrounding his detention remain unknown.

The group added in a statement that Israeli forces also detained Muhammad Samer Sirhan, 14, from occupied East Jerusalem.

Israeli search and arrest operations are a near-nightly occurrence in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

According to UN documentation, between March 27th and April 9th, Israeli forces carried out 159 raids.

Palestinian prisoners rights group Addameer reported that as of March, there were 6,050 Palestinians being held as political prisoners in Israeli jails.

April 24, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli settlers attack Palestinian families, attempt to take over homes in Hebron

Ma’an – April 21, 2018

HEBRON – A group of Israeli settlers attacked a Palestinian family and attempted to take over two homes on Saturday in the southern occupied West Bank city of Hebron.

Local activist Aref Jaber told Ma’an that a group of Israeli settlers “attacked” two homes in the Old City and attempted to take them over, demanding that the families leave their homes.

The homes belonged to the Jaber and Kfeisheh families.

Jaber added that the same group of settlers had previously taken over a home belonging to the al-Zaatari family, near the Ibrahimi mosque in the Old City.

“These continuous threats by Israeli settlers are meant to terrify Palestinian families in order to force them to leave their homes.”

Located in the center of Hebron — one of the largest cities in the occupied West Bank — the Old City was divided into Palestinian and Israeli-controlled areas, known as H1 and H2, following the Ibrahimi Mosque massacre.

Some 6,500 Palestinians and 800 notoriously aggressive Israeli settlers live in the Old City of Hebron, according to a 2016 report by legal rights NGO BADIL.

Palestinian residents of the Old City face a large Israeli military presence on a daily basis, with at least 32 permanent and partial checkpoints set up at the entrances of many streets.

Additionally, Palestinians are not allowed to drive on al-Shuhada street, have had their homes and shops on the street welded shut, and in some areas of the Old City, are not permitted to walk on certain roads.

Meanwhile, Israeli settlers move freely on the street, drive cars, and carry machine guns.

April 22, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

With more Palestinians than Jews, Israel is waging a numerical war of attrition

By Jonathon Cook | The National | April 2, 2018

The Israeli army’s trigger-finger against Palestinian protesters close to the fence surrounding Gaza at the weekend, killing at least 18 and injuring hundreds more, has an explanation rooted in more than normal conceptions of security.

Even before Israel’s creation, its leaders were obsessed with demography and winning a zero-sum numerical war of attrition with the Palestinians. The consequences are still playing out to this day.

Last week, ahead of the Gaza protests, the Israeli army made an unexpected admission. It told parliamentarians that for the first time Jews are outnumbered by Palestinians living under Israeli rule, both inside Israel as citizens and in the territories under occupation.

It was a moment whose significance was not lost on Israeli legislators. Many were appalled, refusing to accept the army’s assessment that there are now half a million more Palestinians than Jews between the Mediterranean Sea and the river Jordan.

Avi Dichter, a right wing legislator and a former head of Israel’s secret police agency the Shin Bet, called the data “disconcerting”.

In 1948, when the Zionist movement saw a chance to seize control of as much of Palestine as possible, it understood that this goal could be achieved only through the ethnic cleansing of most of the native population. It was Zionism’s moment to create the “empty land” mythologised in its early slogans.

Today, the demographic successes of 1948 have been largely reversed. The Six-Day War of 1967 was over too quickly for Israel to expel more than a small proportion of the Palestinians living in the rest of the historic Palestine it had just conquered.

Higher Palestinian birth rates have been eroding the Jewish majority ever since while various schemes to force or pay Palestinians to leave have mostly failed.

Israeli officials’ ultimate fear in this demographic war is that the world will judge a minority of Israelis ruling over a majority of Palestinians as a new form of apartheid.

Seven decades on from its creation, Israel has won every battle, bar this one. The Palestinians are crushed. Washington now does little more than cheerleading for the settlers. Parts of the Middle East are in disarray. The Europeans have lost interest.

But in terms of the most pressing of all Israel’s struggles – for numerical dominance over Palestinians – Israel appears to be losing its seven-decade fight.

In a sign of growing levels of desperation, the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, headed by settler leader Naftali Bennett, announced a plan last week to track down those around the globe with an “affinity” to Israel or Judaism. In the ministry’s view, 90 million people may qualify.

According to an editorial in the Israeli daily Haaretz, officials regard this group as “demographic treasure … potential candidates to join the Jewish people and immigrate to Israel”.

But Israel is not only trying to bolster its Jewish population. It has been devising tangible ways to reduce the Palestinian population too.

Since 2003, Israel has effectively banned family reunifications for Palestinians in Israel who marry Palestinians in the occupied territories. Such families are under pressure to move abroad so they can live together.

More significantly, two years later Israel pulled its few thousand settlers out of Gaza, in part so it could claim it was no longer occupying the coastal enclave, even as it blockaded it from land, air and sea. It has argued unconvincingly – as the weekend’s events prove – that about two million Palestinians there, who constitute the fastest-growing Palestinian population, have been removed from the demographic equation.

Withdrawing from the rest of the territories has proven even harder. There is almost no support among Israeli Jews for giving up East Jerusalem and its holy sites, even though it is home to 300,000 Palestinians.

And a rapidly shrinking Israeli centre-left has lost the campaign to withdraw from the parts of the West Bank where large numbers of Palestinians live.

The right is committed to seizing all of the West Bank. The question now is how to annex it without the Palestinians becoming the majority population. Palestinian legislator Ahmed Tibi warned his Jewish colleagues last week that they were bringing closer their nightmare scenario of a Greater Israel ruled by an “Arab prime minister”. But no one, including Mr Tibi, believes that will be allowed to happen.

Instead two varieties of annexationists have emerged.

The first are those who want to intensify the campaign to force Palestinians out of most of the West Bank, gradually herding them into a handful of cities, in preparation for a series of ever-expanding annexations.

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem issued a warning last week that dozens of Palestinian farming communities were facing imminent expulsion from Area C, which forms two-thirds of the West Bank.

Israel has stepped up home demolitions, torn up roads, denied Palestinians electricity and water, encouraged settler violence and conducted military and live fire training on Palestinian land. The aim, said B’Tselem, is to avoid international censure as Israel makes “life unbearable to force them to leave, as if by free choice”.

These are the “moderates” in the government. The other camp, exemplified by deputy defence minister Eli Ben Dahan, believes all the West Bank can be annexed, with the Palestinians viewed more like trees than human beings.

Last week he told Arutz Sheva, a settler news agency, that the army’s warning of a Palestinian majority should not “scare us”. Palestinians would simply be denied voting rights for the foreseeable future.

“They are far from [a] meaningful democracy as we know it,” he said, adding that Palestinians might eventually earn citizenship in a Greater Israel if they submitted absolutely. “There are many examples of citizenship that are given gradually,” he added.

Seventy years on, as the massacre in Gaza has underscored, Israeli leaders are faced with the same dilemma as its founders: should they again use violence to drive Palestinians from their homeland or establish an unapologetic and brutal apartheid state ruling over them?

April 3, 2018 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Shadi Ma’ali seized by disguised Israeli occupation forces in the heart of Bethlehem

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – March 25, 2018

Former long-term hunger striker and Palestinian refugee, Shadi Ma’ali, was seized by undercover occupation forces at dawn on Saturday, 17 March in the heart of the city of Bethlehem on Manger Street.

Ma’ali, from Dheisheh refugee camp, was attacked by so-called “mustaribeen,” occupation forces that dress to appear as Palestinians.

Ma’ali, who was on hunger strike for over 40 days in 2015 with five of his comrades to demand an end to administrative detention, has been repeatedly arrested and has spent years in Israeli prisons. His fellow former hunger strikers have also been repeatedly targeted; Nidal Abu Aker is held without charge or trial under administrative detention while Ghassan Zawahreh has been transferred to the military courts after over a year and a half of imprisonment with no charge.

In a statement following Ma’ali’s abduction, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said that “the abduction… once again raises new questions about the Palestinian Authority security forces and their inability to protect Palestinian citizens or detect and respond to the ‘mustaribeen’ attackers… This crime will not succeed in breaking his will and determination.”

Meanwhile, the military court hearing of wounded Palestinian prisoner Abdel-Aziz Arafa, also from Dheisheh camp, was postponed until 8 April. Arafa was seized on 7 August 2017, the same night that fellow Palestinian refugee Raed al-Salhi was shot by Israeli occupation forces. Salhi was isolated from his family and denied visits in the hospital for a month before he was killed by his injuries. As Salhi was fatally shot, occupation forces also shot Arafa in the leg; he has been held in the Ramle prison clinic and has undergone multiple operations during his detention.

Salhi was a beloved son of the camp who was deeply involved in political organizing, library volunteering and many other aspects of camp life. From an impoverished family, he dedicated his life to the freedom of his people and was shot down, unarmed, by the occupation forces who sought to imprison him for this very reason.

March 25, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh has family visit with wife and daughter for first time since 2009

Wafa’ and Rita Abu Ghoulmeh
Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network – March 25, 2018

The wife and daughter of imprisoned Palestinian leader Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, 50, were permitted to visit him for the first time in many years at Hadarim prison on 20 March, reported Hadf News.

Wafa’ Abu Ghoulmeh, Ahed’s wife and a Palestinian organizer, and Rita Abu Ghoulmeh, their teen daughter, have been denied visits with Ahed repeatedly over the years. This was the first visit that Wafa’ and Rita were able to conduct together since 2009.

Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh, a leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is serving a life sentence in Israeli prison; he was abducted with Ahmad Sa’adat and their comrades Hamdi Qur’an, Basil al-Asmar and Majdi Rimawi on 13 March 2006. They had been held in a Palestinian Authority prison in Jericho for the past four years under U.S. and British guard; in 2006, following promises of Palestinian Legislative Council members to release the PA political prisoners, the Israeli occupation violently attacked and destroyed the prison.

Abu Ghoulmeh and his comrades were seized first by the PA and then the occupation forces after the PFLP’s military wing assassinated notorious far-right, racist Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in 2001, in response to the assassination of PFLP General Secretary Abu Ali Mustafa by occupation forces using U.S.-made and -provided weaponry.

During his imprisonment, Abu Ghoulmeh has been repeatedly held in solitary confinement and denied family visits; he has been a leader in the prisoners’ movement and participated in prisoners’ leadership councils, hunger strikes and protests.

Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh’s daughter Rita in 2013 with a poster of her father

In speaking about the visit, Wafa’ Abu Ghoulmeh expressed the difficulties experienced at the hands of the Israeli occupation for Palestinian families who seek to visit their imprisoned family members, beginning their journey at 5 a.m. to pass all of the Israeli checkpoints. After arriving at the prison, she said, all of the families are searched extensively, accompanied by continuous shouting and screaming from occupation soldiers. She noted that the occupation deliberately delays and detains people during these searches. “On the day of our visit, a number of the prisoners’ family members were held back, including the father of Ahed Tamimi, and her brother was prevented from visiting,” said Abu Ghoulmeh.

Family members are forbidden to bring food, drink or personal items with them. Wafa’ said that she could only speak to her husband over a telephone, behind a glass wall. “One policeman stands behind the prisoner and another behind the visitor. Every word we say is heard by this guard… On the way back, we are subject again to the same procedures and harassment. The visit is a joy for prisoners’ families, but it is not without painful moments, especially when watching prisoners with their children.”

She noted that Hadarim prison, where Ahed Abu Ghoulmeh is held, is a type of mass isolation with 100 Palestinian prisoners; all of the men held there are serving life sentences. It is part of the same complex as HaSharon prison, where the women prisoners are held. She noted that family members are forbidden from bringing educational and political books to prisoners in Hadarim, and only religious books and novels are permitted to enter.

Despite the restrictions and repression imposed by the Israeli occupation, Abu Ghoulmeh is preparing to write a doctoral thesis on the Palestinian prisoners’ movement and the psychological situation of people with high sentences. He has compiled research and written significant portions; however, when he was in Ramon prison, the Israeli prison administration confiscated his writings as well as the archive of educational materials maintained by the prisoners. She noted that Abu Ghoulmeh was looking toward Arab and international universities to complete his education; while a number of European universities reportedly expressed interest in facilitating Abu Ghoulmeh’s continued education, he is unable to attend classes and the supervisor of his work is also imprisoned, Marwan Barghouthi.

She said that a Moroccan university has expressed initial approval of the project but seeks to partner with a Palestinian university. In addition, she said that Abu Ghoulmeh is committed to spending every moment in the prison in research, study or teaching other Palestinian prisoners.

March 25, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nariman and Ahed Tamimi: Icons of Palestinian Resilience

By Bassem Tamimi | MEMO | March 20, 2018

The incarceration of the two most important women in my life, my wife Nariman and daughter Ahed, is not an extraordinary or exceptional case. On the contrary, Palestinians have continued to endure such atrocious behaviour from Israel as an occupying power since the Nakba of 1948. Perhaps my family represents a model of Palestinians in general, and women specifically, who suffer from inhumane practices on a daily basis.

While families in the Middle East and elsewhere celebrate Mother’s Day, my heart aches for my late mother who passed away about three years ago. She died after suffering from a severe illness, while also still grieving the murder of my sister Bassema. About 25 years ago, my sister was brutally beaten to death by a group of Israeli settlers at the entrance of an Israeli court while waiting to see her detained son. During this painful period, I also went through one of the most difficult and life-threatening periods of my life. While incarcerated in an Israeli prison, I sustained a brain hemorrhage that led to a coma, which left me incapacitated for a long period. The day I was released from Israeli prison, my sister was buried; a devastating time for me and my family. While the Palestinian people continue to suffer from this indefinite occupation, it feels as if these devastating days are a never-ending part of our everyday lives.

Such is the case as my wife and daughter continue to be imprisoned by the Israelis. In the early morning hours of 19 December, 2017, over 30 Israeli soldiers invaded my home and imprisoned my 16-year-old daughter, Ahed. The soldiers declared my village a closed military zone and sealed off all entrances and exits. With more than 12 military jeeps, they fired teargas and detonated sound bombs – they came to terrorize my child and family. Ahed was strong, resilient and calm. While sitting chained in an Israeli military jeep, she called, “Don’t worry, I am strong”. Yes, my child will continue to be strong and resilient and perhaps that is why many people idolize her, while others fear her strength.

Prior to the arrest, some Israeli groups launched a vicious campaign against her because she stood tall against Israeli intimidation and brutality. When my wife Nariman attempted to visit her at the Israeli interrogation centre, she was also arrested. Today, these two strong women await justice and freedom.

I should not be surprised by Ahed’s perseverance, strength, and rejection of the occupation. When she was a small child she asked me what ‘occupation’ means. “Fear,” I said. Despite Ahed’s gentle and warm personality, she grew up knowing how to face that fear and to be strong in the face of it. She stood strong against an armed solider and all that he represented in this illegal occupation. All she did was to unwaveringly say no, in her words and actions, to the occupation.

Despite Ahed’s youth, she stood strong and proud against intimidation and threats during her interrogation by the Israeli military. They tried to break her will, but my child won. In a letter sent through her lawyer, Ahed said, “What happened was expected, and when I remember why I am in Israeli prison, my will becomes stronger. This cause deserves a great deal. We have endured difficulties and we will overcome, as I was taught by my parents. The encouragement and enthusiasm I have received has made me immensely happy, however, I hope that the rest of the Palestinian prisoners receive the same support as I have.”

No doubt, I am a proud father, a father of a girl that has become an icon of popular and peaceful resistance. However, my heart is full of sadness and anger as my child is robbed of her childhood.

Despite my family’s long history of peaceful resistance and demonstrations, and both myself and Nariman’s numerous arrests by the Israelis, I cannot hide the fact that I am in distress and fear for Ahed’s future—perhaps because this is her first experience in Israeli prisons and her first time away from home.

Since 2010, Nariman has participated in hundreds of peaceful demonstration organized in our village against the Israeli occupation. Our home was raided hundred times and Nariman was arrested three times—but this did not deter her from continuing her struggle against the occupation. During the course of demonstrations, she rescued countless Palestinian youth who sustained injuries and attacks by the Israeli military. Yet, she was not able to rescue her own brother who was brutally killed by the Israeli military in 2012. Nariman captured the Israeli attacks on video that day, but did not know that she was in fact filming the death of her own brother. Planting the seeds of resilience in Ahed and my children, Nariman continues to be a role model to women everywhere.

The Palestinian people continue to endure hardship and dispossession, from the time of the Nakba in 1948 until today, both at the hands of the Israeli occupying authorities, as well as the terror of illegal Israeli settlers. Palestinians worldwide, whether living under occupation, in the refugee camps, or elsewhere in exile—continue to live a daily Nakba. We in An Nabi Saleh village represent every Palestinian family who continues to endure Israeli policies of disenfranchisement, a policy that deprives Palestinians of the basic human right to live free. Despite these inhuman and illegal policies and practices against our families, and especially against women in particular, Palestinian women have persisted in their fight. In An Nabi Saleh, women and girls are leaders, and their role in peaceful demonstrations is vital, and are considered role models for many women here in Palestine and abroad.

While the Israelis chose Mother’s Day to prosecute Nariman and Ahed, my family, village, and Palestinians worldwide await the day when they, and all political prisoners, are released from Israeli prison. I would like to extend my family’s sincere gratitude to all those who have supported my wife and daughter, especially human rights organizations.

I am a proud husband and father. I am proud of all the women and mothers of Palestine who, with their strength and determination, have taught us to be fearless. I am proud that today, my child’s beautiful face has become a universal symbol of steadfastness, resistance and anti-injustice – like the iconic image of Che Guevara.

March 21, 2018 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment