Child-torturing Israel says Mohammed Tamimi 'Confessed' to Falling Off Bike Rather Than Being Shot in Head

Andrés Perezalonso
Sott.net

Days after Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi was imprisoned for slapping an Israeli soldier in her hometown of Nabi Saleh, members of her extended family living in Deir Nitham were threatened by an Israeli captain during a raid: "The day will come when you wish you are not a Tamimi." In early January, the Tamimis from Deir Nitham buried 16 year old Musaab al-Tamimi after he was shot on the neck during clashes with Israeli soldiers. Musaab was the first Palestinian killed by the Israeli Defense Forces in 2018.

The long-term resistance of Tamimi family to the Israeli occupation is becoming something of an obsession for Israeli authorities. In some cases, they are losing their grip on reality. Two years ago, Knesset member and former ambassador to the US Michael Oren initiated a parliamentary committee investigation to find out if the Tamimis were "not a real family... not genuine, and was specially put together for propaganda" purposes by the Palestinians, in which case this would represent "exploitation of children". Unsurprisingly, this conspiracy theory "didn't reach unequivocal conclusions."

Contrary to Oren's show of concern for the Tamimi children, the IDF has targeted members of the family irrespective of their age or innocence. On the 26th of February at 3 a.m., the Israeli military raided Nabi Saleh and arrested ten members of the Tamimi family for no apparent reason. Half of them are minors, including Ahed's cousin Mohammed. The arrests were carried out after collectively punishing the neighbourhood by spraying it with 'skunk water', a putrid substance normally used to disperse crowds:  

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Empire Files: Abby Martin Meets Ahed Tamimi—Message From A Freedom Fighter

The IDF vs The Teenage Girl: Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi Arrested For Slapping Soldiers Who Shot Boy

Andrés Perezalonso
Sott.net

Ahed Tamimi lives in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. She has literally been fighting tooth and nail against Israeli occupation soldiers since before she was a teenager. In the 2015 video above, we see her fighting off a soldier who was trying to take away her then 11 year-old brother Mohammed. Since the video, she became both a symbol of Palestinian resistance and an easily recognizable target for Israelis, both civilian and military.

She told Al Jazeera:

"Many Israelis threatened me on social media after the video was released, demanding that I be detained or even killed... The harassment handcuffed my life. I was scared to even go outside or visit my friends." [...]

The harassment began immediately following the video's release, as Israelis called her a "terrorist" on social media and threatened to kill her, the family says. Bassem, Ahed's father and a long-standing leader in the village, said that her 19-year-old brother, Waed, was detained after the release of the video. At the start of his 10-month stay in Israeli jail, Ahed's mother, Nariman, received permission to enter Israel to visit him, and Ahed tagged along.

"When we passed a checkpoint near Jerusalem, the Israeli soldiers got on the bus and immediately singled her out," Nariman told Al Jazeera. "While everyone else was permitted to pass, Ahed was pulled off the bus and told she wouldn't be allowed into Israel."

During the village's protests, Israeli forces would often scream Ahed's name and shout curses at her. "Look! It's Ahed Tamimi. Shoot her!" Bassem recalled one soldier as saying.

The family was often scared for their daughter, he added: "Whenever the soldiers recognise her, they do something to make her life difficult. Every time she left the house, we were scared something would happen to her." Ahed was even forced to stay at her cousin's home in Ramallah, where she attends school, to avoid the danger of passing through Israeli checkpoints on her way from Nabi Saleh.

She began attending protests at Nabi Saleh when she was nine. Here she is when she was young enough to be half the size of the armed soldiers she confronted: 

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