Palestinian teen Ahed al-Tamimi
Teenage Palestinian resistance icon Ahed al-Tamimi, who on Sunday was released after an eight-month stint in Israeli custody, now hopes to return to her normal life.
The 17-year-old has some very bad memories of the Israeli forces who killed, arrested and injured several of her family members in recent years.
In an exclusive interview with Anadolu Agency, Ahed said: “I will continue resisting the Israeli occupation and am ready to face them again if they enter our home.”
She added: “It is the destiny of the Palestinian people to resist the occupation.”
A total of 291 Palestinians are currently in Israeli prisons, a Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official said on Sunday.In a statement, Hanan Ashrawi, a PLO Executive Committee member, said: "There are currently nearly 5,900 Palestinian prisoners, including 291 children in Israeli prisons."The statement comes after teenaged Palestinian resistance icon Ahed al-Tamimi and her mother were released by Israeli authorities after an eight-month long detention.Third Palestinian dies of wounds in Gaza protestsIsraeli forces storm J'lem's Aqsa, injuring worshipers"Israel persistently violates the rights of Palestinian political prisoners while the international community turns a blind eye to such illegal behavior and inhumane treatment," said Ashrawi.Al-Tamimi became an international icon for Palestinian resistance after she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier during a raid on her home to arrest her brother.Israeli forces arrested the Palestinian girl in December 2017 after a viral video showed her slapping an Israeli soldier; later an Israeli court handed down an eight-month long sentence in March for her “attack” on an Israeli soldier.In 2012, Istanbul’s Basaksehir Municipality had granted al-Tamimi the prestigious Hanzala Courage Award for defying Israeli soldiers after she was photographed showing her tiny fists to the occupying forces.
291 Palestinian children being held in Israeli prisons
As for her ambitions in the upcoming period, she said she hopes to study international law with a view to “defending Palestinian children and the cause of our people”.
While in Israeli custody, Ahed managed to obtain a high school diploma.
Ahed was detained by Israeli forces last December after she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier during a raid on her home.
In March, an Israeli court slapped her with an eight-month prison term for “attacking” Israeli security personnel.
Palestinians use water tank truck to provide drinking water as water crisis worsens in Gaza City, Gaza on May 03, 2018. The EU started operations at the biggest solar energy field in the Gaza Strip to fuel projects that will provide drinking water to people in dire need, the European Commission (EC) announced on Thursday. With the new energy field and new investments foreseen, drinking water is expected to eventually reach 250,000 people in Southern Gaza by 2020, according to the EC.Water shortage in Gaza
Show All
Several of her family members, including her parents and brothers, have been repeatedly arrested by the Israeli authorities.
Hassan Shukah, a Palestinian prisoner in solitary confinement in Israel’s Ramleh Prison, entered his 67th day on hunger strike on Friday.According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Shukah -- who is waging a hunger strike to protest his ongoing placement in what Israel calls “administrative detention” -- was recently taken to Israel’s Kapalan medical center following an abrupt deterioration of his health.Shukah, 30, was first placed in administrative detention in 2017. After waging a 35-day hunger strike, he reached an agreement with the Israeli authorities to be released in June of this year.However, after being placed in administrative detention again following the expiry of his prison term, he launched a second hunger strike, which remains ongoing until now.Israel’s longstanding policy of administrative detention allows it to jail suspects -- without trial or charge -- for renewable periods of up to three months.According to Palestinian figures, over 6,400 Palestinians are currently in Israeli custody, some 550 of whom have been placed in administrative detention.155 Palestine protesters killed by Israel since Mar. 30US Palestine refugee bill could backfire: diplomatOver 3,900 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa complex in July
Palestinian prisoner enters 67th day on hunger strike
In 2012, her uncle, Rushdie al-Tamimi, was shot dead by Israeli troops in Nabi Saleh. In 1993, her aunt, Bassima al-Tamimi, was beaten to death by an Israeli policeman while attending her son’s trial.
Since her early childhood, Ahed attended weekly anti-occupation rallies in her village.
During these rallies, her parents recalled, she would yell and shout insults at Israeli troops.
Her mother, Nariman, who was also recently detained for eight months, told Anadolu Agency: “I had a difficult time while in detention. I was subjected to harsh interrogations and held in solitary confinement for 15 days, while receiving news of the arrest of my son, Waed, and the martyrdom of my cousin, Ezzedine.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday warned Iran that any attempt to block the Bab al-Mandab Strait would face the wrath of an “international coalition”. The Bab al-Mandab links the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea via the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea. Netanyahu issued the threat following recent Iranian threats to close the strategic waterway in retaliation for U.S. economic sanctions on Tehran. “Early this week, we saw a sharp clash with Iranian proxies who tried to obstruct navigation through the strait near the entrance of the Red Sea,” Netanyahu said while addressing naval cadets at a graduation ceremony Haifa. Netanyahu cancels Colombia trip, citing Gaza situation“If Iran tries to block the Bab al-Mandab, I’m convinced it will find itself facing a determined international coalition tasked with preventing this,” he added. Netanyahu went on to stress the waterway’s strategic importance to Israel. “The sea provides many opportunities,” he said. “Above all, it allows the small state of Israel to extend its reach by deploying our vessels… across a vast area,” he asserted. Israel marks launch of Jewish center in JerusalemLast week, Saudi Arabia suspended crude oil transfers through the Bab al-Mandab after two of its oil tankers were allegedly attacked by Iranian-backed rebels off Yemen’s coast. “Saudi Arabia is temporarily halting all oil shipments through the Bab al-Mandab until the situation becomes clearer and maritime transit through the strait is secure,” Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said at the time.Israeli PM warns Iran over attempt to close key straitOne day later, Qassem Soleimani, head of Iran’s elite Quds Force, said the Red Sea was “no longer safe” for U.S. naval forces. An estimated 7 percent of all international maritime traffic transits through the Bab al-Mandab each year.
Israeli PM warns Iran against blocking Bab al-Mandab
“If we stay in our homes, we may die by fire, like the Dawabshah family,” Nariman added. “If my child goes to the mosque, he could be burnt alive like Mohamed Abu Khudair.”
“We have no choice but to resist the occupation,” she said. “My daughter Ahed has become a model for all the sons of Nabi Saleh.”
“I am the sister of a martyr and two of my uncles were martyred by the Israeli occupation,” she went on. “My eldest brother was injured by Israeli forces in Lebanon and my father spent many years in Israeli prisons.”
She urged the international media to report on the many other detainees currently languishing in Israeli prisons, especially children.
“The Israeli authorities have threatened my home with demolition, while homes for Jewish settlers -- who came to our country only a few years ago -- are being built all around us,” Nariman lamented.
“From a very young age, my daughter has faced the Israeli occupation,” the mother recalled. “She took part in the marches and stood up to the Israeli army to defend her family and people.”
An Israeli court this week sentenced Darin Tatour, a prominent Palestinian poet, to five months in jail after convicting her of “inciting terrorism” in a poem she posted on social media.Tatour, a 36-year-old resident of the northern Galilee region, was first detained by the Israeli authorities in 2015 for her poem entitled, “Resist, My People, Resist”.On Tuesday, she was sentenced to five months behind bars and six months’ probation after being convicted of “inciting violence” and “supporting a terrorist organization”.The poem that drew the Israeli authorities’ wrath reads in part:Resist them, my people, resistResist the settler’s robberyFollow the caravan of martyrsTear the constitution of shameThey burn the childrenResist them, my people, resistIt remains unclear whether Tatour plans to appeal Tuesday’s court sentence.Israeli court slaps Palestinian poet with jail termDouble standardsIn a Wednesday article, Israeli daily Haaretz appeared to criticize the double standards of the Israeli judicial system, which it accused of turning a blind eye to the incitement of violence by extremist rabbis and Jewish groups.The Israeli judicial system, Haaretz asserted, “cannot discriminate between offenders who commit similar offenses based on their ethnicity or religion”.The Israeli authorities, the newspaper goes on, appear to have “learned nothing” from their “resounding failure to mete out justice against rabbis who encourage ‘the heroes of the Jewish underground’ [i.e., extremist Jews who call for violence against non-Jews]”.The jail term received by Tatour, it added, “shows that what rabbis in Israel may do, an Arab poet may not”.“When it’s Jews [inciting violence], it’s an ‘underground’, not terrorism,” the newspaper states.Over 3,900 settlers stormed Al-Aqsa complex in JulyAccording to Haaretz, those who praised the “heroism” of Baruch Goldstein -- an extremist Jewish settler who killed 29 Muslim worshipers in the city of Hebron in 1994 -- “paved the way for the assassination the following year of [Israeli] Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin”.Haaretz also cited a case from 2012 in which Israeli Attorney-General Yehuda Weinstein halted an investigation into the authors of “Torat Hamelekh”, a religious tract that discussed how Jewish religious law viewed the killing of non-Jews.Israel arrests 9 Palestinians in overnight raidsThe newspaper goes on to quote the doctrine of certain extremist rabbis -- verbatim -- who openly call for the murder of non-Jewish infants.“Even [when it comes to] babies who violate the seven Noahide commandments [that apply to non-Jews], consideration should be given to killing them due to the future danger that will be posed if they are allowed to grow up to be evil like their parents,” it reads, according to Haaretz.
'Double standards of the Israeli judicial system'
Sitting next to his wife, Bassem al-Tamimi, Ahed’s father, told Anadolu Agency: “I hope my daughter has a peaceful future and beautiful life far from the harassment of the Israeli occupation.”
“The occupation comes to our homes to assault us. We don’t go to them. That’s why resistance is an obligation,” he added.
Between 1988 and 2013, Bassem was jailed by the Israeli authorities nine separate times, during which he was subjected to various kinds of torture.
“Our family has suffered deeply as a result of the occupation,” he said. “My sister was martyred in 1993 and my cousin and son -- along with several close friends -- were all shot dead by Israeli troops.”
Addressing the occupation, Bassem asserted: “You must get out of our lives. And the international community must not remain silent. It is time to end the Israeli occupation of Palestine.”