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| Image: Badia Dwaik |
Badia Dwaik is an activist crusading for
the Palestinian cause. He is a Human Rights Defender in the Israel-Palestine
context.
It was the second day after my cousin
passed away – in the same month and as my father had passed on, while we were
marking his first anniversary of death. It was going to be a long day. I was in
charge of doing the rituals towards paying our respects to her body.
I had just arrived and had set my computer
to follow the Palestine news and especially Hebron, which was besieged. People
there were suffering collective punishment since three Israeli teenagers - one of
whom was a soldier - were allegedly kidnapped.
The news reported that the IOF was raiding
Palestinian homes and beating and arresting some of the families. Not owning a
camera myself, I visited my friend Imad who has a camera loaned by the Israeli Human
Rights Organisation called B'Tselem.
I collected the camera and asked a Basque
friend called Ator to accompany me. When we arrived we saw many people
gathering. There were two members of the Christian Peace Makers teams(CPT)
present and I asked them about the situation.
They told me a little and I asked them to
join me to determine what had occurred. They informed me that the IOF were
barring people from approaching the Rajbi occupied building and Kriat Arba
settlement area. I tried to find out by myself.
When I came within 200 meters, I heard soldiers
in the dark. They asked me to stop but I continued walking. I tried to explain
to him that I am a Human Rights Defender. He shot a sound bomb at me. I then I
tried again, so he shot another at me. I was alone except for my Basque friend
a little distance away when four masked soldiers came.
One of them pointed a gun in my face after
which they all started to beat me. They hit my camera and threw it in the
street. I stepped back to call families I knew. I called Jamal who lives there
first and has camera too and he told me about Nasser and Bassam Jabrri that
soldiers raiding their homes.
Having learned some of them had gone to
hospital, I went direct to the hospital. I witnessed people with beatings to
various parts of their bodies. Bassam told me five sons of his brother Nasser
were arrested and one of his own sons. Soldiers had stamped on his daughter’s
hand. Two more people from the Al-jabri family had been arrested. One mother
whose home had been raided reported that soldiers had pushed her when she was
on the stairs. Badia is very proud of his job. “I am ready to do everything for my people,
everything to have this illegal behavior of Israeli army against Palestinian
stopped, it’s my land and being an activist for this is the only way I can see
myself” he said. And added “Vittorio Arrigoni (an Italian activist of ISM
kidnapped and then killed in Gaza in 2011) used to say to Stay Human. I think
that stay human it’s not enough in this land, we also have to try to be
positive and don’t lose hope”