The Homecoming

by Alice Speri
The Intercept

How Ahed Tamimi Became the Symbol of Palestinian Resistance to Israeli Oppression

NABI SALEH, WEST BANK — As if anyone needed reminding, even on the day of her release from prison, Israeli authorities seemed to want to show Ahed Tamimi, her family, and her many supporters that they control Palestinian lives.

Ahed and her mother, Nariman, were supposed to be freed on Saturday after serving an eight-month sentence in an Israeli military prison, but because Saturday is not a work day in Israel, their release was postponed. On Sunday, their family was told that they would be freed at 7 a.m. at a military checkpoint in the northern West Bank, nearly an hour and a half drive from their village, Nabi Saleh. When relatives and friends arrived there, the military sent them, as well as dozens of members of the press, to a different checkpoint, nearly two hours in the opposite direction. When they reached there, Bassem Tamimi was told, again, that his daughter and wife would be released at the first checkpoint. As the convoy of cars turned around one more time, they received another call telling them to head back to the second checkpoint.

“They were playing cat and mouse; they were trying to break everyone,” Manal Tamimi, Ahed’s aunt, told The Intercept. “They don’t need to give any justification. They just do what they want.”

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