By Dr. Haidar Eid – Gaza
In 2009, 21-year-old Ibrahim Abu Thurayya, together with some other youngsters, was targeted by an Israeli F16. He lost both legs. On December 15, 2017, Ibrahim was killed by an Israeli sniper on the eastern borders of Gaza while carrying a Palestinian flag and peacefully protesting against American president’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
Ibrahim was a wheelchair- bound double amputee!
What is the message that apartheid Israel wanted to send to us, Palestinian, by brutally killing Ibrahim in broad day light?
‘There are no red lines! We, The Chosen People, can kill the most vulnerable amongst you regardless of international law and international humanitarian law. You have to accept your status as “two-legged” beasts, “cockroaches” that we must crush, the goyim whose only role is to serve us! We have the US, Arab janissaries and a complicit EU on our side. UN and its SC? They are useless: how many of their resolutions have been implemented? NONE! Jerusalem is ours; in fact, all of Palestine is Eretz Israel”
Ibrahim’s crime? He was a Palestinian at the beginning of the 21st Century living in the most densely populated area on Earth, Gaza. He was not born to a Jewish mother.
Being an Arabic speaking Palestinian who does not understand the English of BBC and CNN, or the Hebrew of Israeli TV Channels, Ibrahim was never able to comprehend the Israeli logic behind the attack that had cost him both legs in 2009.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman do not have to face his family and explain to them as to why they, “men of peace,” had to kill their disabled son. He, together with other Palestinian young men, is to blame for “forcing” the Israeli “boys” to shoot them. They should not have existed in the first place.
“Jerusalem is ours” was one of the last uttered sentence by Ibrahim, as seen on camera; he had never been to Jerusalem, and now he has flown away, with a flock of birds, before reaching the city.
But tens of thousands of Palestinian men responded to Ibrahim; they attended his funeral chanting his name, “Ibrahim, The Martyr of Jerusalem!”
And all I could do is write a poem and sing it in his memory!
Lyrics:
We have a martyr,
His blood runs in my veins,
Whether from Khuzaa or Shejaeyya,
His songs are sung by me,
My martyr is Habibi,
Shahidi, Habibi
– Dr. Haidar Eid is an Associate Professor at the Department of English Literature, Al-Aqsa University, Gaza Strip, Palestine. He is also a one-state activist and a member of Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). He contributed this article this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
