[News] War on Gaza: Why Palestinian teenagers are driven to battle

[Anti-Imperialist News]

middleeasteye.net
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/war-gaza-why-palestinian-teenagers-are-driven-battle>
War on Gaza: Why Palestinian teenagers are driven to battle
Linah Alsaafin
August 23, 2024
------------------------------

When it comes to the world’s normalisation and acceptance of Palestinians
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/palestine> being killed by Israeli
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/israel> forces, it should be of no
surprise that the deaths of two Palestinian teenagers in the occupied West
Bank in separate incidents last week barely registered.

What was extraordinary about these 18-year-olds was their commitment to
fighting Israeli occupation
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/topics/occupation>, despite their young age.

Wael Mishah and Tariq Daoud were both released during the prisoner exchange
between Israel and Hamas last November
<https://www.npr.org/2023/11/26/1215298016/israel-and-hamas-complete-third-prisoner-hostage-exchange>.
During the swap deal, 240 Palestinian
<https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67039975> women and children
were freed in exchange for 81 Israelis and 24 foreigners held in the Gaza
Strip.

According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society, Israel has since rearrested
<https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20240819-israel-re-arrests-palestinian-woman-freed-under-november-swap-deal-bringing-total-to-24/>
24
of those it released.

As well-wishers gathered that November night in Beitunia, west of Ramallah,
to receive the dozens of Palestinian children released from Israeli jails,
Mishah was hoisted on shoulders to celebrate his freedom. He chanted
<https://twitter.com/jalestinian/status/1823972910677062116/video/1> in
support of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, which the UK
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/uk> and other countries have
proscribed as a terrorist group.

“May God protect the resistance, have mercy on the martyrs, and heal our
wounded,” Mishah said in a hoarse voice, still wearing a grey prison
uniform.

Mishah, who is from the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, told the media of
the deplorable conditions faced by Palestinian children imprisoned by
Israel, ranging from verbal assaults to severe physical beatings, to
forbidding them from showering.

“Our joy is indescribable, but incomplete because children are still in
prison,” he said.
Corruption and complicity

On 15 August, a month after his 18th birthday, Mishah was killed by an
Israeli drone at dawn as he fought against an Israeli raid on the city of
Nablus.

His mother said <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gbb8kBt_St8> that her son
was heavily affected by the genocide taking place in the Gaza Strip. “He
went from being a prisoner to being wanted, to confronting [the
occupation], then a martyr.”

That cycle is by no means an aberration for Palestinians in the occupied
West Bank. Daily Israeli raids into villages, towns and refugee camps have
led to more than 600 Palestinians
<https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd735zvg1q9o> being killed since 7
October when the war broke out.

Youths are facing an ever-shrinking space for political expression and
self-determination, amid rampant settler colonisation. Frustrated by the
corrupt and complicit Palestinian Authority, which cracks down on
dissidents and engages in security collaboration with Israel, they are left
with few options.

Just days before Mishah’s killing, Daoud was gunned down by Israeli forces
near the occupied West Bank town of Azzun on Monday.

Today, the nearly year-long genocide in Gaza represents a rupture in the
status quo

According to Al Jazeera and local Palestinian sources, Daoud was wanted for
carrying out several shooting attacks involving Israeli settlements and
Israeli vehicles in the northern occupied West Bank. His body is being
withheld by Israel, a common state practice that denies Palestinian
families the opportunity to fully grieve.

His family home had reportedly been raided at least 40 times
<https://www.aljazeera.net/politics/2024/8/15/%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A7%D8%AD%D8%AA%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%84-%D9%8A%D9%86%D8%AA%D9%82%D9%85-%D9%85%D9%86-%D9%85%D8%B7%D8%A7%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B6%D9%81%D8%A9-%D8%B9%D8%A8%D8%B1>
to
pressure him into surrendering, while his parents were arrested 25 times,
according to his older brother. Several other family members have also been
repeatedly arrested.

The Qassam Brigades issued statements
<https://x.com/AJABreaking/status/1823075469316477290> of condolence for
both teens, hailing their roles in the organisation. A third prisoner
released in the November swap, 18-year-old Jibril Jibril, has reportedly
gone into hiding and remains wanted in connection to attacks on Israeli
forces. His family has also reportedly been targeted, with Israeli soldiers
repeatedly arresting and interrogating his father.
Political travesties

The involvement of these three teenagers in fighting against Israel’s
occupation can only be understood in the context of the political
travesties that have beset them since their births in 2006.

That year witnessed the Palestinian legislative elections, with Hamas
participating for the first time. Hamas won by a landslide, but the Bush
administration in the US <https://www.middleeasteye.net/countries/us> did
not take kindly to this exercise of Palestinian democratic rights and
sought to overthrow Hamas by engineering a coup
<https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2008/04/gaza200804> led by Fatah strongman
Mohammed Dahlan.

The coup was thwarted by Hamas, and 2007 witnessed Palestinian civil
infighting and the official severance of the West Bank and Gaza Strip
territories.

<https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/gaza-war-white-liberals-genocide-not-complicated>

Gaza: This is the worst of humanity. This is the ‘never again’ moment in
history


Over the next 15 years, the Israeli military waged several wars on Gaza,
killing thousands of people. Meanwhile, the occupied West Bank saw
increasing settlement construction and displacement of Palestinians from
their lands. Emboldened settlers launched attacks on Palestinians, amid the
inaction of a belligerent and increasingly autocratic government led by
President Mahmoud Abbas and his cronies.

Today, the nearly year-long genocide in Gaza represents a rupture in the
status quo. The killing of tens of thousands of civilians, alongside the
territory’s utter devastation, has revealed Israel’s true intentions: total
obliteration of the Palestinian people, whom it views as a demographic and
existential threat.

These are the factors driving teenagers like Mishah, Daoud and Jibril
towards a life of battle. Before he died, Daoud expressed hope
<https://palinfo.com/news/2024/08/14/906695/> that Palestinians were on
“the path to freedom and liberation from the occupation”.

As poet Refaat Alareer
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/refaat-alareer-palestinian-scholar-poet-israel-air-strike-killed>,
who was killed by Israel last December, wrote in a 2022 essay
<https://inthesetimes.com/article/palestinian-struggle-armed-conflict-gaza-israel-idf>,
it seems that nothing Palestinians or their supporters do will ever satisfy
Israel: “We have no choice but to recover, stand up again, and continue the
struggle.”

*The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not
necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.*
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