Israel arrests brother, cousin of Palestinian teen protest icon Ahed Tamimi
Footage of overnight raid shows Tamimi hugging brother Mohammad before shouting at soldiers as they escort him out of their home
RAMALLAH, West Bank — The family of Palestinian protester Ahed Tamimi said Monday that her younger brother and cousin had been arrested in an overnight raid of their central West Bank village.
Ahed’s father Bassem Tamimi told AP that soldiers broke in early Monday and arrested 15-year-old Mohammed. He said the boy had broken his arm over the weekend while running from tear gas during protests in their village of Nabi Saleh. Bassem suspected Mohammed had been detained for throwing stones at IDF soldiers. Ahed’s cousin Mu’ayyid was arrested in a separate home raid in the town.
Footage of Mohammad’s arrest posted by his mother Nariman to Facebook shows 18-year-old Ahed hugging her brother goodbye before shouting at the soldiers as they escorted him out of the home.
She later posted to Instagram a photo of Muhammad and Mu’ayyid with the caption “May god free you from prison, my dear ones.”
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The military said it arrested 21 Palestinians overnight for rioting and other offenses, without providing further details.
Last August, an Israeli military court sentenced Tamimi’s brother Wa’ed to 14 months behind bars for throwing stones at security forces in two clashes over the last three years.
Wa’ed Tamimi, 22, was arrested in May over an incident that took place the previous year, in March 2017, in which he and others from Nabi Saleh hurled stones at an army jeep that had gotten stuck in the town.
According to the indictment against Wa’ed, a soldier suffered a hand injury as a result of the rock throwing.
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That verdict came less than a month after Ahed and Nariman were released from prison after serving nearly eight months for hitting a soldier, in a case that drew international attention.
That incident was captured on Facebook live and quickly went viral, showing then 16-year-old Ahed slapping and shoving the soldier outside her home in Nabi Saleh.
In Ahed’s version of the incident she said the soldiers featured in the video had shot her cousin in the head with a rubber bullet an hour before the filmed encounter. Under the terms of a March 2018 plea bargain, the 17-year-old admitted to aggravated assault against an IDF soldier, incitement to violence and disrupting soldiers on two other occasions.
Ahed’s incarceration drew attention from around the globe, transforming the teen into a Palestinian icon. Many Palestinians see her as bravely standing up to military control over the West Bank, while Israelis accuse her family of using her as a pawn.
