Support Ibrahim

3 years have passed since my friend Aqil was brutally killed by the Israeli occupation soldiers during a peaceful protest against the Israeli apartheid wall on 05.06.2009.

The Israeli soldiers shot him in the heart, with a 0.22 caliber, a weapon that it illegal according to the International law. He was trying to rescue 16 year Muhammed Mousa, who got shot in the stomach with the same illegal ammunition. According to the Israeli occupation soldiers, that was a valid reason to shoot and kill him. Aqil died just 20 meter away from my family home. Even on the day of his funeral, while I was carrying him together with my friends during the funeral procession, I still could not believe that he was dead.

Maybe it was beause he was my hero. He was always trying to help other people and that’s why he wasl always getting shot and injured – more than a hundred times – yet, he never lost the smile on his face and recovered quickly. Only when I sayed ‘Goodbye’ in the mosque and kissed on his face and on his head , only then did I realize that he had left us.

But how was this possible? Just five hours before he got killed we were drinking coffee together, smiling and laughing and talking about the time we had spent together, jailed on the Israeli Ofer military jail, and about our dreams for a better future. Even when I could no longer deny that you were dead, because we had just buried you, I still felt paralyzed, unable to cry. I was searching for tears, but they had disappeared, just when they were so much needed. All I felt was my heart that was about to explode.

Today, all of us in Ni’lin are remembering you, my friend. We are remembering and celebrating everything we had together. And today I want to tell you all the things that I wanted to tell you, but then you got shot and killed and violently taken away, so I never had a chance to tell you.

Aqil my beloved friend, you took care of me in jail in my hardest times when I was terribly sick, when I was homesick, when I was alone, and desperate and sad. You were a father to me and a friend and a brother at the same time. There are no words that could possibly express my feelings for you: the gratitude and friendship, and how much I miss you every day. How much we all miss you. Today I can’t stop crying while I think of you.

Even though you taught me not to cry because the hardship of our lives requests that we be strong. You were the one who told me that crying won’t change a thing and that if we start crying we will never be able to stop, because there sad things and oppression and loss is happening to us every day.

Today my beloved friend, we are all thinking of you, as we do every day. And we will keep the promise we gave you: to fight for our land and for freedom, to fight for justice and to stay human in the face of the Israeli oppression, injustice, and violence.

Aqil my friend, you are such an inspiration for all of us, we all miss you, you will remain in our hearts and thoughts forever! We will talk about you everyday and spread your story, to tell that whole world that you were a human being, just as we are human beings who deserve to live in peace, freedom and justice!

When i first Stood up, i was so surprised when the amazing people started to chant free free Palestine, my body started to shake and i didn’t know how to act, after the middle of my talk, i looked at the people and found that there were more than 50 person or almost everyone was crying, this effected my feelings a lot, then i felt i wanna cry and i tried to hold myself as much as i can.

i didn’t understand my feelings well because i have made more than 200 or 300 presentation already, but this talk was different and these amazing people were making me feel different and actually they were different!!! it inspired me a lot.

i was very moved and inspired by the Marxism 2012 conference, with more than 70 interesting ,session with a lot of inspiring people and more over, is the end of the conference where every body sang an inspiring song called Internationale!!
what ever i say, im sure there is no word is enough to express about my exact feelings!!!

actually i have learned alot, and i have met with amazing people who i will never ever forget!! and i was so inspired actually!!
and i really would like to encourage everyone to attend to the coming conference in the next year 2013 to see and feel as i did and then you would all feel my feelings.

all the world is united and will never be defeated!!!!
we fight for one world!! our fight is one fight!!!!

my Talk at Marxism 2012 conference!!! and i am actually sooo honored to attend to this amazing conference!!!

Comme ils le font toutes les semaines, les habitants de Ni’lin sont allés manifester vendredi 10 février contre le mur d’apartheid dont la construction se poursuit dans leur village. Cette fois, la manifestation a également eu lieu en solidarité avec le prisonnier politique palestinien Khader Adnan qui entamait ce même vendredi son 56èmejour de grève de la faim. Adnan, un représentant du Jihad Islamique, a commencé une grève de la faim illimitée il y a presque deux mois, pour protester contre le système israélien de détention administrative (système qui rend possible la détention par Israël de Palestiniens sans chefs d’inculpation pour une durée de 6 mois renouvelables). Actuellement, Adnan se trouve à l’hôpital où il est nourri de force.

Les manifestants, dont le point de ralliement était le mur d’apartheid à Ni’lin, ont exigé que justice soit faite pour Khader Adnan ; ils espéraient aussi sensibiler le reste du monde à la situation du jeune homme. Il faut absolument que des actions aient lieu au niveau international et ce, sur-le-champ, si l’on veut pouvoir sauver Adnan. Accompagnés de militants pour la paix venus d’Israël et du monde entier, les manifestants palestiniens ont défilé en brandissant des photos d’Adnan et des drapeaux palestiniens.

Lorsque le cortège a atteint le portail menant au mur, plusieurs manifestants ont réussi à en forcer l’ouverture avant de tenter de se rendre sur leurs terres de l’autre côté. Les soldats israéliens ont alors fait reculer la foule à coups de grenades lacrymogènes et de bombes assourdissantes, provoquant des inhalations de gaz qui ont fait s’évanouir un manifestant et suffoquer plusieurs d’entre eux. Certains sont parvenus à atteindre la barrière électronique de l’autre côté du mur et se sont mis à la découper mais les soldats israéliens ont riposté avec brutalité, blessant l’un d’eux.

Au bout d’une trentaine de minutes et à force de jets de gaz lacrymogène, les soldats ont réussi à faire reculer la foule suffisamment loin pour qu’ils referment le portail, tout en continuant à lancer des grenades lacrymogènes sur les manifestants.

La manifestation s’est finalement terminée à 15H. D’autres auront lieu et ce jusqu’à ce que le mur tombe.

After the brutally murdering of the 10 years old Ahmed Mousa by Israeli occupation forces during a peaceful demonstration against the building of the apartheid wall on ni’lin land in 29.07.2008, the Israeli soldiers thought that we will get scared and stop from protesting peacefully against the theft of our land.During the funeral of Ahmed, My friend yousef Amireh told me: I wish if I could do something to prevent what happened to Ahmed from happening. Ahmed Mousa was a neighbor of Yousef Amireh.

Villegers of Ni'lin carrying the body of Ahmed Moussa during his funeral in the West Bank village of Nilin near Ramallah July 30, 2008. photo by:Fadi Arouri

After we made the holly funeral of Ahmed Mousa, We made another demonstration in the same day condemning what they did to Ahmed and against the apartheid wall on our land in the same time.

During the protest, A military jeep pulled up next to a yard where my friend Yousef Amireh ((who was only 17 years old)) was standing. Suddenly, From the bullet proof window of the jeep, a barrel of a gun was extended through the firing loophole and shot my friend Yousef Amireh with two rubber coated steel bullet from too close range in his head and penetrating his skull, then he fall down on the ground and started bleeding. Then he was sent to the hospital in Ramallah.

Yousef Amireh in the hospital during his fight for surrvival and his father is looking sadly at him

Upon arrival to the Ramallah hospital, Yousef Amireh was diagnosed by the doctors as brain dead and that his death was a matter of hours. He died after four days in a bed died in the hospital after he was fighting so hard to survive. We made his funeral in 04.08.2008.

Me(with the yellow T-Shirt) During the funeral of my friend yousef

Palestinian mourners carry the body of Yussef Ameira during his funeral in the West Bank village of Nilin, near Ramallah, Monday Aug. 4, 2008. photo by: Nasser Ishtayeh

Today 04.08.2011, we witness the third painful anniversary of the killing of my friend Yousef Amireh. Our Demonstration today was dedicated to yousef and in memory of him.

Ni'lin village Comemorates the third anniversary of the killing of Yousef Amireh/05.08.2011. Photo by: Ni'lin Sons

Yousef Amireh was not only from my family, but he was also one of my best friends and we were in the same grade in the scool, setting next to each others in the same chairs. We were playing with eachothers, laughing with each others and crying with eachothers.

Sometimes he was getting angry with me and other time I was getting angry with him but we were very close friends. When ever I remember him I feel so much pain and sadness.
I miss you so much my friend, and I just want to tell you that I am so sorry because the world is still turning a blind eye on what the Israeli occupation merciless killers did to you, but despite that you will never be forgotten. You are in my heart,in my thoughts and in all the hearts of the people of your town Ni’lin and your blood will never go in vain.

The village of Ni’lin is still mounting courageous with a strong will and determination to free its land despite the brutally suppression by the Israeli occupation forces and despite the so much bleeding we will never give up.

Free Free Ni’lin……Free Free Palestine.

My father and grandfather setting in the only field that have been left for our family after the wall built on our lands.

My father’s message to the world in the nakba day:

On the 15^th of May of every year, the Palestinians commemorate the day of the Nakba that the day of their catastrophe in 1948 accompanied with the declaration of the state of Israel. In fact, the Palestinian dilemma began much earlier when the Zionist movement was able under the protection of the British mandate to set up the essentials before the state was created, The transition to a statehood  was a declaration. They wanted to create a predominantly Jewish state in an area which was overwhelmingly not Jewish by disenfranchising the indigenous population of Palestine.

Since then, it is called a day of remembrance ,the Palestinian remember the genocidal ethnic cleansing, the systematic expulsion and displacement from their home land. This of course, was followed by massacring innocent victims, committing rapes and other atrocities, burning, bulldozing homes and orchards, blowing up and stealing home’s property and culminated by preventing expelled Palestinians from return.

To us, this day means upheaval day, violence and cataclysmic loss, it describes the terror which drove almost one million people out of their homeland ,stripping them of identity, dignity, honors and the most basic of human rights leaving them in a perpetual suffering in exile and crumbling under the ugliest and worst occupation the history has ever known.

For 63 years, the situation has dragged on, men and women holding the papers and keys to their former homes, clutching the faded and cracked photos of their happier days; everything rendered absolute by the artificial creation of a state for foreign people on land that has been for Palestinian for millennia.

We are a refugees our original home town is jaffa city, my family lived the catastrophe and saw all the massacres and were under thread and danger from the Zionist groups at that time, then we came to Ni’lin town after 1948 and still our suffering didn’t end, only my father who stayed in Palestine and all his brothers are living in the refugee camps in Jordan and they can not access to Palestine, we were having our own land which were stolen by the building of the annexation wall on it and now we have nothing.

Zionism’s 19^th century birth in 1895 founder  Theodor Hertzel wrote “We must expropriate gently the private property on the state assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by denying it employment in our country”.

David Poen gurion, the first Israeli prime minister wrote “ we have come and have stolen their land…….we must do everything to ensure they never do return”.

We raise two questions and keenly wait for an answer. How long Israel will be above the international law? Why are international laws applied to some countries and not applied to others? We think it is a shame on the honour of the international community to keep on turning a blind eye of what Israel is doing against the Palestinians. there must be a limit for this satanic and monacratic state deterning it from premediately violating the international law.

Finally, We are in a quest for a world that holds on the truth, stands by it’s words and side by the just and internationally-recognized rights of the Palestinians. On our side, the day of Nakba will remain embedded in the Palestinian consciousness. A historic fact, it represents an appalling injustice but inspiring our resolve to keep on struggling for liberation, independence, peace and just redress, nothing less.

Today’s protest against the apartheid wall was dedicated to Vittorio Arrigoni, the Italian freedom fighter who gave his life for Palestine. He lived in Gaza since 2008 and his mission was to protect the Gazawis from Israeli harrassment and killing, acting as a human shield. Also, he reported to Europe what was really going on during the atrocious war on Gaza in 2008, speaking out against the horror and the lies of Israeli propaganda. Vittorio, you will always be remembered for your dreams of peace, justice and freedom for Palestine.

Our demonstration went on for about 3hours. When we approached the wall with pictures of Vittorio, the soldiers started shooting tear gas at us. A Palestinian journalist got shot in his leg with a tear gas projectile, while taking pictures. He got released from the hospital a few hours after the protests finished. As usually, the soldiers tried to arrest the protesters, shooting also sound bombs. But they didn’t succeed.

We believe that it is Israel’s new strategy to pay traitors to the Palestinian cause, in order to execute brave Internationals who devoted their lives to us, and to peace in homeland Palestine. And we are very well aware that the atrocious murdering of our beloved Italian brother Vittorio, as well as the horrifying assasination of Juliano Mer Khamis of the Freedom Theatre in Jenin 10 days earlier happened in order to crush the International solidarity with us. Who else is it, that actually profits from these killings? But still, we are hopeful, since our friends and supporters abroad know very well that we very much treasure their support and honor them and would do everything to protect them as much as we can from any harm. We miss Vittorio and Juliano so much and their violent death is very very painful for all of us.

I watched many many videos of Vittorio in the past days. In one of them he spoke about Nelson Mandela, who said: “A winner is a dreamer that never gives up.” Vittorio, you are a true winner. Your ideas and dreams and your kind soul will live forever in our hearts.