Deep Pain in a Beautiful West Bank Home: The Dead Sons of the Arrabis | Israel-Palestine conflict

Jenin, occupied West Bank, Palestine – Muhammad Arrabi’s family, which remains, lives in the heart of the old city of Jenin in a house that has been inherited by the family for 185 years.

The Arrabi family consisted of ten people – a mother, a father, four daughters and four sons – until the Israeli army killed three of their sons, culminating in the shooting of Muhammad, the third brother who was killed.

Jenin, old town and new

A visitor to the old town of Jenin will notice the beautiful houses that have been passed down through generations of families and are still lived in today. The Arrabi family home is one of them.

But almost every house in Jenin has been damaged in some way, either by the stones that make up its walls or by the people who live in them.

Jenin is known for its history of resistance and has long been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The city and its refugee camp were frequently raided by the Israeli military, resulting in deaths, injuries, significant damage to infrastructure, and fighting.

Despite the beauty of the Arrabi House, deep sadness lurks within its walls.

The brothers’ loss left lasting scars on their 78-year-old mother Umm Fouad and five remaining siblings: her daughters – Ruba, 52; Suhad 51; Nour, 42; and Reem, 38 – and 35-year-old Fouad.

Mohammed was the youngest brother. After Ruba, Suhad, Nour and Fouad got married, he lived with Reem and her mother for about six years.

Umm Fouad relied on Muhammad for everything.

Mohammed gave his mother her medicine, ran errands and looked after her, but now she has lost “hand and foot,” said Fouad, who used a Palestinian expression to express the extent of one person’s dependence on another.

Umm Fouad is still coming to terms with Muhammad’s death on August 29 and lives with the constant pain of loss.

However, her first loss was her firstborn, also named Fouad. He was a child during an Israeli attack on Jenin during the first Intifada, known as the Intifada of the Stones.

The boys threw stones at the Israeli armored vehicles and soldiers.

The soldiers responded by shooting the young people, and in 1988 Fouad was shot dead by an Israeli sniper.

A year later, Umm Fouad gave birth to a baby boy and named him Fouad in honor of his murdered older brother.

In 2003, during the Second Intifada, her 29-year-old son Rashad, a Palestinian resistance fighter, was killed in a clash with the Israeli army near their home, where he tried to take on an Israeli tank.

Rashad was seriously injured and the army prevented medical teams from reaching him until he died.

Three young men tried to retrieve Rashad’s body, but the Israeli army opened fire on each attempt. Nidal Al-Kastouni, Yousef Al-Amer and Muhammad Fuqaha were killed in the attempt.

Tragedy struck again last month when Mohammed was killed at the same spot where Rashad fell. He was shot by a sniper while holding his phone to document what the Israeli army was doing in their neighborhood.

The prisoner who became a “martyr.”

Mohammed had a deep bond with his father Bassam, whom he also looked after.

His father, in turn, relied on Mohammad for everything and was always by his side.

Mohammed completed high school but was unable to attend university.

Mohammed was arrested twice by Israeli forces and spent a total of three years in prison.

His first arrest came in 2016, when he was 24 years old. He was accused of “incitement” and sentenced to one and a half years in prison. He was arrested again in 2019 and spent another year and a half on charges of “planning an act of resistance.”

While in prison, his father’s health deteriorated and he died in 2020 before Mohammed could say goodbye.

This loss affected Muhammad deeply. He often spoke with friends about the emotional toll of not being able to bury his father and how much he missed his father and his brothers Fouad and Rashad.

However, after his first release from prison in 2017, he got a job at Vamos, a local burger restaurant owned by his sister Noor and her husband Mamoun Al-Yabdawi. He loved the work and dreamed of owning his own restaurant.

Abu Hazim, who worked with him at Vamos, said he missed the joy Muhammad brought to the workplace.

Al-Yabdawi remembers Muhammad’s kindness and how he snuck a little more food into people’s orders.

His neighbor Khaled Abu Ali, who also worked at Vamos, said evening gatherings with neighborhood youth felt incomplete without Mohammed.

“Two weeks before Mohammed’s death, he invited more than 30 young men from the neighborhood to a barbecue to celebrate some high school graduates.

“Knowing that their financial circumstances did not allow for a celebration, he wanted to make them happy. It was his ‘Last Supper,'” Abu Ali said.

The news of Muhammad’s death was not unexpected. It is not uncommon for a family in Jenin to receive such news.

The Arrabi family in particular, who lost two sons in the same way, live in constant fear whenever the city is attacked.

Abu Ali said the family, or what was left of it, was forever changed.

“Fouad is no longer the person he once was. He used to be happy and full of life, but now he never smiles anymore. Sadness clings to him. His sister Reem is heartbroken. She was incredibly close to Mohammed.”

The real burden Fouad feels now may be to protect himself so as not to cause further harm to his mother and sisters.

Regarding the loss of his third brother, Fouad says: “We have been making sacrifices for the fatherland for 36 years. We sacrifice what is most precious to us – the blood of our children.”

“No funeral without ceremony, no mourning without burial”

Mohammed was killed on August 29 during the storming of Jenin and its refugee camp after a 10-day military operation that Israel said was aimed at breaking up cells of Palestinian fighters.

Israeli forces killed 22 Palestinians and injured more than 30 in the raids.

They besieged local institutions, including the Jenin city government, the civil defense and the electricity company. ordered the evacuation of buildings; and blew up a house near the Ansar mosque in the camp.

Military bulldozers destroyed roads, water and sewer systems, utility poles, homes and vehicles.

Throughout this period, Muhammad’s body lay in a mortuary in the nearby town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin. Fouad insisted that “Mohammed will not be buried without a proper ceremony and there will be no mourning until he is buried.”

In Palestine, it is common for people to gather around grieving families to offer support, but Israeli snipers and bulldozers blocked the way, isolating Mohammed’s family in their grief.

When the raid was over, Mohammed was finally buried near his brothers Fouad and Rashad and their father Bassam.

Twenty-one other people killed in the raid were also buried, while thousands of people from Jenin Governorate attended the funeral.

After Muhammad’s assassination, Fouad said, the house built by four young men has now collapsed, with three of its pillars collapsing over the course of 36 years.