Israeli justice is defined by two events on Monday: the military parole board further reduced Elor Azarya’s prison sentence for killing an incapacitated Palestininian suspect, and a military appeals court rejected Ahed Tamimi’s appeal for an open trial on charges of slapping an Israeli soldier occupying her home.
Israel’s military appeals court ruled on Monday against an appeal by 17-year-old Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi and her defense team to hold the teenager’s trial proceedings in open court, citing historical “benefit” of closed-door trials for minors. Fadi Quran, coordinator of the Free The Tamimis campaign, tells Mondoweiss, “The military can close the courtroom doors but it cannot close people’s’ eyes to the injustices that are happening.”
Major General Yoav Mordechai, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, claimed that 15-year-old Mohammad Tamimi admitted that the injury to his head was sustained from a bicycle accident, and not from Israeli forces shooting him in the face. Mohammad tells Mondoweiss he only said this because Israeli forces had “beaten him” into confessing. “We were in a car on our way to the interrogations and there were two Israeli officials who kept beating me in my face, back, everywhere and kept telling me that I had to admit it was a bicycle accident,” Mohammad said. “I was very scared and I didn’t want them to continue beating me, so I confessed.”
In a sign of how unsettled Israeli society is by the Tamimi family’s nonviolent resistance in occupied Nabi Saleh, Major General Yoav Mordechai claims that Mohammed Tamimi, 15, was not shot in the head by Israelis in December, a lie of stunning audacity.
In the middle of the night on Monday, the Israeli military raided the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh in full force, a common occurrence for the village’s internationally-recognized residents, the Tamimi family, who have seen several family members arrested from the village in the past few months. On Monday alone, Israeli forces detained 10 members of the extended Tamimi family, including five minors between the ages of 14 and 17. Among the detainees was 15-year-old Muhammad Tamimi, who is scheduled to have reconstructive surgery on his skull due to being shot in the face by Israeli soldiers with a rubber-coated steel bullet in December.
The military judge closed the doors on 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi’s initial trial hearing for slapping a soldier in occupied Nabi Saleh December 19. He said he was acting in the best interest of a juvenile defendant. But it is in Ahed Tamimi and all Palestinians’ interest for the trial to be open so that the occupation can be revealed to the world.
The civil rights organization Dream Defenders, along with leading entertainers and civil rights icons including Danny Glover, Rosario Dawson, and Grey’s Anatomy star Jesse Williams, issue a statement in support of Ahed Tamimi: “The Tamimi family stands up to Israel’s brutality because they believe Palestinians, like ALL people, should be free. Dream Defenders stands with them and all Palestinians in their righteous struggle. Now, and always, we commit to building a more just and loving world for us all.”
When Israeli lawmaker Oren Hazan, a member of the governing coalition, told BBC he’d kick Ahed Tamimi’s face and land her in hospital, Israeli apologist ‘Honest Reporting’ attacked the BBC, in a piece titled “BBC News Kicks Israel in the Face”. But Hazan was saying what other Israeli leaders have said.
On January 31st Ahed Tamimi’s family celebrated her 17th birthday without her. Tamimi has been in Israeli detention since a pre-dawn raid on her family home on December 19th. While her case has become a global symbol of Palestinian resistance, the Tamimi family is missing several of its members in Israeli prisons, including Mohammad and Osama Tamimi who have been kept in solidarity confinement. “The Israeli’s believe this virus of non violent resistance that needs to be killed in Nabi Saleh so it doesn’t spread. Now they’re trying to punish us through our children,” Manal Tamimi tells Mondoweiss.
Bethlehem, occupied West Bank — Ahed Tamimi, a prominent teen activist, turned 17 on Wednesday in…