Yesterday, at a protest in front of Ofar prison, Palestinian activists Manal Tamimi got arrested by Israeli military. The protest was organised to call for the immediate release of Ahed, Nariman and Noor Tamimi from Nabi Saleh as well as Munthar Amira from Bethlehem. This makes Manal the fourth woman of the Tamimi family arrested over the last week while Ahed’s arrest has been extended today for another five days.
Israel has over the last two weeks dramatically intensified its repression and arrests of Palestinians. Since Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, not only at diplomatic level protests have been growing. On the ground in Palestine, almost daily actions, protests and clashes have been continuing and Israel has reacted with the only means it knows: brutal military force.
16-year old Ahed Tamimi was arrested in a pre-dawn raid on the family home and taken to prison because of a video her mother had filmed of her bravely standing up against fully armed soldiers.
The soldiers had shot point blank a rubber coated bullet in the face of her cousin, who had to be kept in a medically induced coma and woke up only 72 hours lately. Luckily, he is now recovering. In the meanwhile, Ahed had tried to drive the soldiers out of their courtyard and slapped one of them in the face. As the video of the incident, filmed by her mother went viral, Israeli military arrested her and later her mother, Nariman Tamimi (53 years) as the author of the film and Noor Tamimi, her 20-year old cousin who can also be seen in the video.
Yesterday, Israeli military arrested Manal Tamimi (44 years old), another woman of the family, in the protest to free the women and other activists of the Palestinian popular struggle.
Israel’s brutal repression of Palestinian popular resistance and even more so, Palestinian women in struggle, shows at the same time the fragility of supremacist power in front of people determined to defend their rights.