[News] Israel's Executions Can't Kill Palestinian Resistance: Remembering Ashraf Na'alwa, Saleh Barghouthi, Majd Mteir and Hasan Arda

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://samidoun.net/2018/12/israels-executions-cant-kill-palestinian-resistance-remembering-ashraf-naalwa-saleh-barghouthi-majd-matir-and-hasan-arda/ 



  Israel's Executions Can't Kill Palestinian Resistance: Remembering
  Ashraf Na'alwa, Saleh Barghouthi, Majd Mteir and Hasan Arda

December 13, 2018
------------------------------------------------------------------------
/Ashraf Na’alwa, Saleh Barghouthi, Majd Mteir (l-r). Graphic: Quds News/

On 13 December 2018, Israeli occupation forces shot down four 
Palestinians, including several resistance fighters who had evaded their 
pursuit for months. Ashraf Na’alwa, 
<http://imemc.org/article/soldiers-kill-ashraf-naalwa/> 23, was killed 
by occupation forces who attacked the home where he was staying in Askar 
refugee camp near Nablus. He had been pursued by occupation forces since 
he carried out an armed resistance operation on 7 October in the illegal 
colonial settlement of Barkan in the northern West Bank of occupied 
Palestine in which two settlers were killed.

Na’alwa, a Palestinian worker at a factory in the colonial settlement, 
evaded occupation forces for months. During that time, his entire family 
was repeatedly harassed and attacked by occupation forces. His mother, 
sister, brother and father 
<https://samidoun.net/2018/10/palestinian-women-prisoners-escalate-struggle-against-repression/> 
were all repeatedly detained and interrogated, while his home village of 
Shweika near Tulkarem was subjected to ongoing attacks, raids and 
intensive surveillance. Many of his family members remain behind bars as 
we remember him today. Occupation forces ordered his family home 
demolished, a tactic of collective punishment that the Israeli 
occupation continued from the former British colonial mandate over 
Palestine.

Israeli sources reported that Na’alwa’s location was finally revealed 
under “harsh interrogation,” usually a euphemism for torture under 
interrogation. The occupation forces deliberately aimed to kill Na’alwa, 
who resisted until the last moment; indeed, Israeli headlines bragged 
about “eliminating” the “terrorist.” Occupation forces reportedly chased 
Na’alwa through the camp for hours before surrounding him in the 
building. Around the bloody scene, occupation forces seized more 
Palestinians, accusing them of “providing aid” to the “wanted” 
resistance fighter.

The extrajudicial execution of Ashraf Na’alwa did not come alone today. 
Saleh Omar Barghouthi 
<https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israelis-palestinians-killed-west-bank-east-jerusalem-attacks-1238233370>, 
29, the son of former Palestinian prisoner Omar Barghouthi 
<https://samidoun.net/2013/08/longest-serving-administrative-detainee-omar-barghouti-released-from-israeli-prison/>, 
who served 25 years in Israeli prisons, was shot dead near the village 
of Sarda near Ramallah. Barghouthi, from Kobar village, carried out an 
armed resistance action at Ofra illegal colonial settlement on Sunday, 9 
December, wounding seven settlers. Occupation forces attacked the his 
taxi he drove, seized him and shot him dead, according to Palestinian 
witnesses at the scene.

Barghouthi is also the nephew of Nael Barghouthi 
<https://samidoun.net/2017/02/nyc-protest-condemns-resentencing-of-palestinian-prisoner-nael-barghouthi-and-hps-collusion-with-israel/>, 
one of the longest serving Palestinian prisoners, with 39 years in 
Israeli prison. Saleh’s brother, Asem, has spent 10 years in Israeli 
occupation prisons, while another uncle, Jacir, was deported to Gaza 
when released from Israeli prison.

Also on Thursday morning, Israeli occupation forces in Jerusalem shot 
Majd Mteir 
<http://imemc.org/article/israeli-soldiers-kill-a-palestinian-in-jerusalem-2/>, 
26, a Palestinian refugee from Qalandiya camp, ten to twelve times in a 
row. Witnesses said that Mteir was left lying on the ground bleeding for 
40 minutes before his death. Occupation forces accused him of attempting 
to stab Israeli armed “border police” in Jerusalem.

These killings were carried out in a coordinated fashion, alongside the 
arrest of dozens of Palestinians 
<http://asravoice.ps/post/10977/40-%D9%85%D8%B9%D8%AA%D9%82%D9%84%D8%A7-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B6%D9%81%D8%A9-%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%82%D8%AF%D8%B3-%D8%A8%D9%8A%D9%86%D9%87%D9%85-%D8%B9%D8%A7%D8%A6%D9%84%D8%A9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B4%D9%87%D9%8A%D8%AF-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%B1%D8%BA%D9%88%D8%AB%D9%8A> 
on the same night. Clearly, these were intended to be a deadly blow not 
only against these strugglers, but also the Palestinian resistance as a 
whole.

Nevertheless, ensuing events made clear that the military power of the 
occupation and its extrajudicial executions would only inflame 
Palestinian resistance further. Three Israeli soldiers 
<http://imemc.org/article/two-israelis-killed-in-a-shooting-attack-near-ramallah/> 
at the illegal colonial settlement of Givat Asaf were shot dead by 
unknown Palestinian resistance fighters, who left the scene, withdrawing 
from the area, later on Thursday morning. This response indicated that 
Palestinian resistance forces did not accept that the blood of these 
young strugglers should be spilled casually and without cost to the 
colonial occupier.

The assassination raids recall previous attacks, like those on Basil 
al-Araj 
<https://samidoun.net/2017/03/thousands-of-palestinians-join-funeral-of-resistance-for-basil-al-araj/> 
and Moataz Washaha 
<https://samidoun.net/2017/07/israeli-occupation-forces-slay-palestinian-youth-in-dheisheh-camp-during-arrest-raid-seize-former-hunger-striker-bilal-diab/>, 
Palestinian strugglers targeted for Israeli “elimination.” The policy of 
extrajudicial killings and assassinations by the Israeli state stretches 
back years and beyond borders, targeting resistance strugglers, local 
organizers and national leaders: Ghassan Kanafani, Abu Ali Mustafa, 
Sheikh Ahmad Yassin, Khaled Nazzal, Fathi Shiqaqi, Abu Jihad, Abdel-Aziz 
Rantisi and many others, including some of the Palestinian people’s 
brightest writers, poets and emissaries to the world. Despite decades of 
assassinations and killings, the Palestinian resistance has not been 
crushed. Instead, it has continued to adapt, survive and grow, resisting 
a brutal, colonial occupation and its imperialist sponsors despite vast 
disparities in wealth and resources.

Israeli occupation forces have imposed a harsh siege on Ramallah and the 
surrounding villages. They shot dead 60-year-old Hamdan Arda 
<http://maannews.net/Content.aspx?id=970153>, originally from the 
village of Arraba near Jenin, in his vehicle near el-Bireh, accusing him 
of attempting to run over soldiers. Arda was returning home from his 
aluminum factory when he was shot. As he lay inside his car, the 
soldiers refused to allow the Red Crescent ambulance to reach him and 
provide treatment. The killing of Arda came alongside attacks by 
soldiers and settlers on Palestinian cities and villages. Six 
Palestinians were wounded in el-Bireh, shot by live ammunition and 
rubber-coated metal bullets. Illegal colonial settlers attacked 
Palestinians and their vehicles in cities and towns throughout the West 
Bank of occupied Palestine, while Palestinians took to the streets in 
protest.

Palestinian political parties, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the 
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the Democratic Front for 
the Liberation of Palestine and even Fateh called for mobilization 
inside and outside Palestine to confront the escalating occupation 
attacks. Meanwhile, Palestinian Authority President Abu Mazen attempted 
to distance himself from “violence 
<https://www.timesofisrael.com/abbass-office-condemns-attacks-blames-israel-for-tense-climate/>,” 
while leaving the PA’s security coordination with the Israeli occupation 
intact.

These events come only a week after the latest effort by Israel and the 
United States at the United Nations to attack and criminalize 
Palestinian resistance. An attempt to pass a General Assembly resolution 
against Palestinian resistance actions in Gaza failed. This was only the 
latest attempt to redefine international principles in the interests of 
imperialism, seeking to undermine the position expressed UN’s General 
Assembly resolution 34/43 (1982) 
<http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/37/a37r043.htm>. This document 
supporting Palestinian rights as well as those of African peoples 
fighting colonization and apartheid “Reaffirm[ed] the legitimacy of the 
struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national 
unity and liberation from colonial and foreign domination and foreign 
occupation by all available means, including armed struggle…Strongly 
condemn[ed] those Governments that do not recognize the right to 
self-determination and independence of all peoples still under colonial 
and foreign domination and alien subjugation, notably the peoples of 
Africa and the Palestinian people.”

*Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network highlights the 
importance of global solidarity with the Palestinian people, their 
liberation movement and their resistance. We remember and honor Ashraf 
Na’alwa, Saleh Barghouthi, Majd Mteir and Hasan Arda, as we remember the 
over 200 martyrs of today’s intifada, the Great March of Return in Gaza. *

*As we look back on 31 years of the First Intifada and see its spirit 
reflected today throughout occupied Palestine, we urge people of 
conscience around the world to organize protests and actions to stand 
with Palestinians confronting occupation, colonization and imperialism. 
We also urge communities, municipalities, university groups and trade 
unions to escalate the boycott of Israel, including economic, academic 
and cultural boycott – and especially a military embargo of the 
occupation state. *

*The lives of these strugglers shall not be lost in vain, but will live 
on as symbols of resistance and the ability of an indigenous people to 
struggle by all means despite the most challenging odds and the most 
disadvantageous balance of power. From the river to the sea, Palestine 
will be free!*

-- 
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863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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