DHEISHEH CAMP, West Bank — ABefore 14-year-old Amr Khamour was shot deadShot twice by Israeli troops while throwing rocks at a military jeep during an Israeli army raid, he passed the time dancing with friends, recording videos on his phone.
However, after her death in January, her parents found a photograph of a handwritten farewell message on her phone.
“If I come to you as a martyr, God willing, don’t cry,” he wrote to his mother. “And forgive me for all the mistakes I made.”
“Don’t be sad, father,” Amr continued. “I wanted the sacrifice and I received it.” He concluded with words of love for his girlfriend: “God gave me the person close to my heart, Kariwan.”
Palestinian boys like Amr—no affiliation with armed groups like Hamas or Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but willing to confront Israeli troops— are leaving farewells for loved ones, requests for forgiveness and calls to fight Israel.
The messages are known as “testaments” in Arabic, even if their authors are not leaving behind material goods.
Many scribble them on notebook sheets, with words crossed out, a sign of doubt as to what to say.
parting wills they reflect a sense among many young boys that death is heroic, significant and inevitable during the bloodiest period for Palestinians in nearly two decades in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Israel, signaling that it sought to eradicate armed groups, recently launched its largest military incursion in decades into the West Bank, in the Palestinian city of Jenin, killing at least 12 Palestinians, local officials said.
At least 155 Palestinians have been killed this year, mostly during Israeli military incursions, or in attacks by extremist Israeli settlers. Furthermore, at least 29 Israelis have been killed by Palestinian attackers this year, one of the highest numbers since 2008.
With the increasing violence, many young Palestinians feel additional pressure to get involved in the fight against Israel.
Samah Jabr, the director of the mental health unit for the Palestinian Authority, commented that will writing was mired in generational traumas among Palestinians living in the occupied territories.
Some of the farewells written by young Palestinians in recent months have quoted the words of 22-year-old Uday al-Tamimi. Fleeing after shooting at an Israeli roadblock at the entrance to the Shuafat refugee camp, killing one soldier, he wrote a message saying his attack “was a drop in the stormy sea of fighting.”
“I know that I will become a martyr sooner or later, and I know that I did not liberate Palestine through this operation,” wrote Tamimi, a resident of the camp. “But I carried it out with one goal in mind: that the operation mobilize hundreds of young men to bear arms after me.”
Mental health experts like Jabr said they needed to help young Palestinians channel fear or frustration into productive action instead of confrontations with Israeli forces that could cost them their lives.
Less than two weeks before Amr was to be killed, his friend, 15-year-old Adam Ayyad, was shot dead during a military raid in Dheisheh. Like Amr, he used to sneak out of his home and throw rocks at soldiers, his family said.
About a month before Adam’s death, his mother, Wafaa Ayyad, found a farewell message written by him. She tore it up and begged him not to write another. But she did, carrying it in her pocket, where he was found after he was shot and taken to the hospital.
“I wanted to do a lot of things, but we live in a place where reaching for your dreams is impossible,” Adam wrote. “Sacrifice is victory. It is true that your life ends, but at least it ends in happiness.”
Days later, Amr visited Adam’s grave in what is known as the martyrs’ cemetery, on the outskirts of Dheisheh. He told friends that he wanted to be buried in the empty grave next to Adam’s.
Some of Amr’s friends admit that they have already written their wills. And some say they have already claimed his grave in the martyrs’ cemetery.
By: RAJA ABDULRAHIM and HIBA YAZBEK
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/6810976, IMPORTING DATE: 2023-07-19 21:00:06
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