20 dec 2019
Israeli policies have transformed human bodies into bargaining chips, and mourning into a political act that is easily criminalised
My uncle recently passed, and after his wife and children washed his body, gave him a final embrace, and put him in his final resting spot, they shared their grief with friends, family and acquaintances.
Only then were they able to begin mourning his loss. This sacred process of mourning allows communities and loved ones to begin moving forward - to move on, and to provide a final act of giving to the deceased. Only then can they begin accepting condolences.
At the funeral, I watched the pale, grieving faces and thought: “At least he died of natural causes. At least we got to bury him and shower him with love.”
Cemeteries of numbers
I say that with the recognition that most Palestinian families know of one martyr within their extended circles. Worse off are the families of Palestinian martyrs whose bodies are still being held by Israel.
Since 1967, hundreds of Palestinian bodies have been held by Israel: some in freezers, and others believed to be in the notorious “cemeteries of numbers”. Families of the martyrs have been trying to bring them back home.
Yet, the first demand of Palestinians is not for Israel to return our bodies; it is to stop killing us in the first place. Stop taking land, displacing families, incarcerating entire generations, and enabling a foreign population to take over what little remains of Palestinian cities, only to punish anyone who says “enough”.
Loss, in the frame of the Palestinian struggle, is a relentless reality in the Palestinian experience. It comes mired in political realities and psychosocial dominance. Loss becomes a fight against a powerful regime for the simple act of burial - to give prayers for peace and mercy over a body that was once so full of life, only to return to the phantoms they leave in the home - and that is no simple task.
During a news conference in 2016, one mother spoke to me, uttering in laboured breath: “Please write something. We want to bury our children. We want to bury our children.”
I listened to her pleas, and thought about how many families must endure loss first in the fact that their loved one is killed by Israel; then, in recognising the reality that there will not likely be any accountability; then, in the misconstrued reports and representations by mainstream media; and finally, in having to negotiate with the power that killed their loved one over the release of the corpse.
Glorifying martyrdom
Although martyrdom is often singularly showcased as part of the Palestinian experience, it is an intricate and important narrative of most nations trying to glorify the death of their people in the name of ideology. Even Israel participates in martyrdom glorification, but more often that is coated in the prevalent jingoism and the remembrance of its soldiers.
Our martyrs are valuable to us not just because of the struggle they represent, but also because they are people we have played with, fought, loved or disliked. Palestinian martyrdom takes on another dimension through how it is illustrated in the media, hindering our ability to bring a shred of dignity to those killed and those trying to move forward.
Not only are Palestinians denied the ability to die in peace; they are also stripped of the right to acknowledge that their death was caused by an unremitting occupying power.
When Palestinians are killed by Israeli forces, they are referred to in the passive form. The Palestinian “dies” rather than being “killed”. The Palestinian rarely has a name to showcase the travesty of this loss of life to the power of an army and a regime that is violently forcing itself into the Palestinian space.
This helps Israel not only to systemically colonise, displace, and mass incarcerate Palestinians with impunity, but also to colonise the space between Palestinians themselves. Even in mourning, there looms a scent of oppression and degradation.
Israeli forces even sometimes raid funeral processions of martyrs. By doing so, Israel transforms human bodies into bargaining chips and mourning into a political act that is easily criminalised.
Collective punishment
It is no wonder that in 2018, the Knesset passed a law that judicially affirmed Israel’s ability to withhold Palestinian bodies until preconditions are accepted for funeral arrangements.
Bodies are kept from bereaved families and utilised for political gain by various parties, despite this being a violation of international humanitarian law. It is a testament to Israel’s effort to control Palestinian bodies and further objectify them, in line with Israel’s common practice of collective punishment.
Gaza is enduring a slow death because of the punitive measures against the entire strip. A man in Rafah once told me: “We are being prepped to be sent to burial.”
But Gaza and the withholding of bodies are not the exception. From the increased surveillance of Palestinians through CCTV cameras stationed across towns and cities, to checkpoints, to incessant home demolitions, Israel is also socially engineering our emotions.
We cannot mourn, move or breathe without considering what Israel’s powerful army may do to us. Israel’s army is among the top 20 most powerful in the world, with a defence budget exceeding $19bn.
The fact that Israel maintains its right to withhold Palestinian bodies “regardless of their political affiliations” shows that the efforts behind this are not simply tied to Israel’s constant explanations of “security” and “defence”.
This is a statement that Israel is in control of not only the land, but the people - and that includes denying the right to mourn those taken from us.
Mariam Barghouti
Hailing from Ramallah, Mariam Barghouti is a Palestinian writer and commentator. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Al-Jazeera English, Huffington Post, Middle East Monitor, Mondoweiss, International Business Times and more.
My uncle recently passed, and after his wife and children washed his body, gave him a final embrace, and put him in his final resting spot, they shared their grief with friends, family and acquaintances.
Only then were they able to begin mourning his loss. This sacred process of mourning allows communities and loved ones to begin moving forward - to move on, and to provide a final act of giving to the deceased. Only then can they begin accepting condolences.
At the funeral, I watched the pale, grieving faces and thought: “At least he died of natural causes. At least we got to bury him and shower him with love.”
Cemeteries of numbers
I say that with the recognition that most Palestinian families know of one martyr within their extended circles. Worse off are the families of Palestinian martyrs whose bodies are still being held by Israel.
Since 1967, hundreds of Palestinian bodies have been held by Israel: some in freezers, and others believed to be in the notorious “cemeteries of numbers”. Families of the martyrs have been trying to bring them back home.
Yet, the first demand of Palestinians is not for Israel to return our bodies; it is to stop killing us in the first place. Stop taking land, displacing families, incarcerating entire generations, and enabling a foreign population to take over what little remains of Palestinian cities, only to punish anyone who says “enough”.
Loss, in the frame of the Palestinian struggle, is a relentless reality in the Palestinian experience. It comes mired in political realities and psychosocial dominance. Loss becomes a fight against a powerful regime for the simple act of burial - to give prayers for peace and mercy over a body that was once so full of life, only to return to the phantoms they leave in the home - and that is no simple task.
During a news conference in 2016, one mother spoke to me, uttering in laboured breath: “Please write something. We want to bury our children. We want to bury our children.”
I listened to her pleas, and thought about how many families must endure loss first in the fact that their loved one is killed by Israel; then, in recognising the reality that there will not likely be any accountability; then, in the misconstrued reports and representations by mainstream media; and finally, in having to negotiate with the power that killed their loved one over the release of the corpse.
Glorifying martyrdom
Although martyrdom is often singularly showcased as part of the Palestinian experience, it is an intricate and important narrative of most nations trying to glorify the death of their people in the name of ideology. Even Israel participates in martyrdom glorification, but more often that is coated in the prevalent jingoism and the remembrance of its soldiers.
Our martyrs are valuable to us not just because of the struggle they represent, but also because they are people we have played with, fought, loved or disliked. Palestinian martyrdom takes on another dimension through how it is illustrated in the media, hindering our ability to bring a shred of dignity to those killed and those trying to move forward.
Not only are Palestinians denied the ability to die in peace; they are also stripped of the right to acknowledge that their death was caused by an unremitting occupying power.
When Palestinians are killed by Israeli forces, they are referred to in the passive form. The Palestinian “dies” rather than being “killed”. The Palestinian rarely has a name to showcase the travesty of this loss of life to the power of an army and a regime that is violently forcing itself into the Palestinian space.
This helps Israel not only to systemically colonise, displace, and mass incarcerate Palestinians with impunity, but also to colonise the space between Palestinians themselves. Even in mourning, there looms a scent of oppression and degradation.
Israeli forces even sometimes raid funeral processions of martyrs. By doing so, Israel transforms human bodies into bargaining chips and mourning into a political act that is easily criminalised.
Collective punishment
It is no wonder that in 2018, the Knesset passed a law that judicially affirmed Israel’s ability to withhold Palestinian bodies until preconditions are accepted for funeral arrangements.
Bodies are kept from bereaved families and utilised for political gain by various parties, despite this being a violation of international humanitarian law. It is a testament to Israel’s effort to control Palestinian bodies and further objectify them, in line with Israel’s common practice of collective punishment.
Gaza is enduring a slow death because of the punitive measures against the entire strip. A man in Rafah once told me: “We are being prepped to be sent to burial.”
But Gaza and the withholding of bodies are not the exception. From the increased surveillance of Palestinians through CCTV cameras stationed across towns and cities, to checkpoints, to incessant home demolitions, Israel is also socially engineering our emotions.
We cannot mourn, move or breathe without considering what Israel’s powerful army may do to us. Israel’s army is among the top 20 most powerful in the world, with a defence budget exceeding $19bn.
The fact that Israel maintains its right to withhold Palestinian bodies “regardless of their political affiliations” shows that the efforts behind this are not simply tied to Israel’s constant explanations of “security” and “defence”.
This is a statement that Israel is in control of not only the land, but the people - and that includes denying the right to mourn those taken from us.
Mariam Barghouti
Hailing from Ramallah, Mariam Barghouti is a Palestinian writer and commentator. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Al-Jazeera English, Huffington Post, Middle East Monitor, Mondoweiss, International Business Times and more.
17 dec 2019
According to the Palestinian Prisoner Society (PPS) said that, on Monday, the Israeli authorities issued an administrative detention order for a period of four months against female Palestinian journalist Bushra al-Tawil, 26, who was detained last week at her family home in al-Bireh, the Palestinian News and Info Agency reported.
This brings the number of Palestinian women held in administrative detention to three, including Shorouk al-Badan, from Bethlehem, and Ala al-Bisher, from Qalqilia. The number of female prisoners in Israeli jails has reached 42.
Al-Tawil has been arrested three times before, in 2011 she was sentenced to a prison term of 16 months, and was released as part of a prisoners’ exchange deal.
In 2014, the Israeli military re-arrested her to serve her previous sentence. In 2017, al-Tawil was arrested again and placed under administrative detention under the pretext of secret evidence, she was detained for eight months.
Once again, on December 11, days after the release of her father, Jamal al-Tawil, former mayor of al-Bireh, who served 20 months in administrative detention for his role in the resistance. Al-Tawil’s mother had also served time in Israeli detention for her resistance of the occupation.
This brings the number of Palestinian women held in administrative detention to three, including Shorouk al-Badan, from Bethlehem, and Ala al-Bisher, from Qalqilia. The number of female prisoners in Israeli jails has reached 42.
Al-Tawil has been arrested three times before, in 2011 she was sentenced to a prison term of 16 months, and was released as part of a prisoners’ exchange deal.
In 2014, the Israeli military re-arrested her to serve her previous sentence. In 2017, al-Tawil was arrested again and placed under administrative detention under the pretext of secret evidence, she was detained for eight months.
Once again, on December 11, days after the release of her father, Jamal al-Tawil, former mayor of al-Bireh, who served 20 months in administrative detention for his role in the resistance. Al-Tawil’s mother had also served time in Israeli detention for her resistance of the occupation.
9 dec 2019
The Palestinian Commission of Detainees’ and Ex-Detainees’ Affairs has said that the Israeli prison service continues to impose punitive measures on prisoner Nael al-Barghouthi, 62, who has been in jail for 40 years.
In a statement on Sunday, the Commission said that its lawyer recently visited prisoner Barghouthi in Hadarim after he was transferred from Eshel jail, where he had been isolated for one week.
It added that the jailers also imposed a financial penalty on him and deprived him of using the commissary and seeing his family for one month at the pretext that he issued a statement to mark 40 years in detention.
Barghouthi, from the village of Kobar in Ramallah, was first arrested on December 18, 1977 for resisting the Israeli occupation. He was sentenced to three months in prison, but 14 days after his release, he was rearrested and later sentenced to life in prison plus 18 years.
Many years later, Barghouthi was released in 2011 in a prisoner swap deal brokered through mediators between the Hamas Movement and Israeli occupation state. However, he was ordered not to leave his own town after his release.
He got married a month after his last release thinking that he was going to have a normal life again and raise a family, but this did not last. He was rearrested in 2014 and had his previous life sentence plus 18 years reinstated.
In a statement on Sunday, the Commission said that its lawyer recently visited prisoner Barghouthi in Hadarim after he was transferred from Eshel jail, where he had been isolated for one week.
It added that the jailers also imposed a financial penalty on him and deprived him of using the commissary and seeing his family for one month at the pretext that he issued a statement to mark 40 years in detention.
Barghouthi, from the village of Kobar in Ramallah, was first arrested on December 18, 1977 for resisting the Israeli occupation. He was sentenced to three months in prison, but 14 days after his release, he was rearrested and later sentenced to life in prison plus 18 years.
Many years later, Barghouthi was released in 2011 in a prisoner swap deal brokered through mediators between the Hamas Movement and Israeli occupation state. However, he was ordered not to leave his own town after his release.
He got married a month after his last release thinking that he was going to have a normal life again and raise a family, but this did not last. He was rearrested in 2014 and had his previous life sentence plus 18 years reinstated.
5 dec 2019
Member of Hamas’s political bureau Mousa Dudin revealed that mediation attempts by several Arab, Islamic and Western countries and parties had been made to broker a new prisoner swap deal, but they were unsuccessful because of Israel’s intransigence.
In press remarks to the Palestinian Information Center (PIC), Dudin said that the last mediation attempt was made in recent times, adding that Egypt was at the forefront of Arab mediators.
The Hamas official also noted that other countries and parties tried to mediate in this file, most prominently Qatar, Turkey, Sweden and Germany.
“Those attempts failed to make any progress because of the occupation’s intransigence and its reluctance to engage in this file,” he said, affirming that a new swap deal can never take place without the Israeli side honoring the requirements of the previous deal.
He said that the Israeli occupation had rejailed a large number of ex-detainees who were released as part of the 2011 swap deal, stressing the need to release them before talking about another deal.
In press remarks to the Palestinian Information Center (PIC), Dudin said that the last mediation attempt was made in recent times, adding that Egypt was at the forefront of Arab mediators.
The Hamas official also noted that other countries and parties tried to mediate in this file, most prominently Qatar, Turkey, Sweden and Germany.
“Those attempts failed to make any progress because of the occupation’s intransigence and its reluctance to engage in this file,” he said, affirming that a new swap deal can never take place without the Israeli side honoring the requirements of the previous deal.
He said that the Israeli occupation had rejailed a large number of ex-detainees who were released as part of the 2011 swap deal, stressing the need to release them before talking about another deal.
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