Democratic Palestine : 23 (ص 10)
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- Democratic Palestine : 23 (ص 10)
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ploded in the washroom before we went
out to demonstrate. The Zionists
patrolling the area stormed the school
on hearing the explosion. We felt utter-
ly ridiculous afterwards for not having
been more careful; one of us could have
been in the washroom by chance when
it exploded.
Any time the Zionist authorities got
wind of our activities in the school, they
would storm it. One time they were
particularly brutal. They cordoned off
the school and a whole troop of soldiers
charged into the classrooms. Not one
girl escaped being brutally beaten up;
the eyes of one of my classmates were
smashed by a soldier. Girls that tried to
hide under the desks were pulled out by
their hair and beaten. The soldiers lined
the teachers up against the corridor
wall, along with the principal, and
threatened to shoot them if they tried to
call for help, or moved to defend the
girls. I remember that about 200 girls
had to be hospitalized for broken arms
or legs, or concussions. The central
hospital had to be cleared to make
room for these cases.
The number of injured would have
been much higher had not the women
of an area known as Shaja’yeh (literally
meaning ‘the brave’) intervened; they
were well-known for their daring con-
frontation of Zionist soldiers. About a
hundred of these women, bare-handed,
started to fight the soldiers surrounding
the school. They were especially
outraged that the ambulances were not
allowed in to take the injured to
hospital. I remember that one woman
actually tried to wrench a machine gun
out of a soldier’s hand. When she
couldn’t manage that, she settled for
grabbing his helmet off his head. She
started to run, kicking the helmet ahead
of her as the soldier ran after her. That
year they stormed our school four
times, closing it down for days or weeks
at a time.
The years when Guevara of Gaza was
leading the PFLP’s struggle in the Strip
were truly among the highlights of
Palestinian struggle. I cannot describe
the immense feeling of pride when we
read the headlines about how the
Zionists ruled Gaza by day, but the
resistance ruled it by night. We paid a
heavy price however. Every day we
would go to the main hospital in Gaza,
to find out who had been martyred. The
bodies of the martyrs were laid out ona
cold slab of marble in a bare, dismal
room in the hospital, to be identified by
10
the family. There was always an air of
sympathy for the families and outrage
at the fascist authorities. Sometimes
when a particularly well-known mili-
tant had been martyred after living in
hiding for months, and inflicting heavy
losses on the enemy, word of the mar-
tyrdom would spread like wildfire. The
hospital square would be overflowing
with people inflamed with outrage.
They would storm the hospital, lift the
body high above their heads and march
with it in a demonstration, defying the
enemy soldiers’ guns and all. I re-
member all of this as if it were yes-
terday.
MY BROTHER’S
MARTYRDOM
We were brought up by our parents
like most other people. We were not
rich, nor were we poor. We never lack-
ed anything, and our parents prided
themselves that they were always able
to provide for our smallest needs. It
therefore came as a shock to them when
they found out that my youngest
brother was a member of a resistance
Organization. It was everybody’s
general impression that you are forced
to take up that road in life only because
you need money. Our family found out
about my brother’s political affiliation
only six months before he was mar-
tyred.
One day he rushed into the house and
told them that somebody had confessed
in jail and brought his name up; he had
to go into hiding. For six months we
contacted him only with difficulty in
out-of-the-way places. He studied for
his high school certificate during these
six months, gave in his examinations
and was accepted at Cairo University’s
engineering faculty. The Zionists came
to our house a few times and threatened
us, to try and find out where he was
hiding, but to no avail. Sometimes they
would come after midnight, storming
the house and turning the kitchen up-
side down. Soldiers with the machine
guns poised would be on the roof, at the
doorstep, in the front yard, and in the
house.
Then one day, in the afternoon of
January 1,1970, they stormed our home
for the last time. I was alone; the rest of
the family was at the market. Our
whole neighborhood was surrounded.
The soldier in charge told me that my
brother had gotten into a fight and was
down at the police station. I was to in-
form my family to come. When my
family was informed, they went and
found out that he had been dead for
five days. His body was torn apart by
machine gun bullets. When he died, he
was 21 years and three months old.
Later on we found out that a col-
laborator had discovered my brother’s
hideout and informed on him. The
Zionists surrounded the room where he
was hiding. A battle ensued, and he
managed to kill the commander of the
Zionist patrol and wound several
others, before they killed him. Our
comrades had found out who the col-
laborator was; they vowed that he
would be dead and buried before my
brother was buried, and they carried
out their vow. The next day the col-
laborator was shot dead, and his family
buried him before we even knew about
my brother’s death.
I will not recount the details of
mourning and sadness, but I will just
mention one positive thing that emerg-
ed from this tragedy. The shock of my
brother’s martyrdom made my family
realize more concretely what the
revolution was all about. The change
was not so dramatic that I dared to tell
them about my own participation as a
party member, but I did notice a change
in their attitude towards others whom
they knew played a role in the revolu-
tion. They were more receptive, more
sympathetic, more willing to help out
or contribute. Contrary to what the
Zionist authorities expect, the pain and
tragedy inflicted on our people have not
made us cower. Rather this has led to
the mobilization of even broader sec-
tors of our people to fight against the
occupation.
Finally, I left the Gaza Strip not
because I was deported, pursued or
wanted, like thousands of others. I left
to study at the university in Beirut.
Now, because I have been outside the
occupied territories for so long, I have
lost the right - according to the Zionist
authorities - to return to my homeland,
Palestine.
Um Samir is still a militant, still a comrade. She retold the stories of her past ex-
perience with modesty and sometimes embarrasment at what she believed were in-
significant events. Her contribution, sacrifices and devotion to the cause, however,
like those of thousands of other men and women, are the ingredients of the formula
for the liberation of Palestine. - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 23
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