Crowds greet Palestinian teen after release from Israeli prison

Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi left prison Sunday and was greeted by crowds of supporters after serving eight months for slapping Israeli soldiers, an episode that made her a symbol of resistance for Palestinians.

Tamimi, 17, and her mother Nariman, who was also jailed over the incident, arrived in their village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank, where they were mobbed by journalists.

Easily recognisable by her shock of reddish hair, Tamimi wore a Palestinian-style keffiyeh around her neck, at times appearing relaxed but at other moments overwhelmed as television cameras followed her.

“The resistance continues until the fall of the occupation, and of course the (female) prisoners in jail are all strong,” Ahed Tamimi said, her voice barely audible above the crowd.

“I thank everyone who supported me in this sentence and supports all the prisoners.”

Her father Bassem put his arms around Ahed and her mother as they walked together along a road, while a crowd of around 100 chanted “we want to live in freedom”.

At a press conference later at a square in the village, Tamimi sat at a table behind a forest of microphones, a translator providing an English version of her remarks.

She declined to take questions from journalists from the Israeli media because of what she said was unfair coverage of her and her family’s cause.

She said she planned to study law to hold Israel’s occupation accountable.

“Of course I am very happy that I came back to my family, but that happiness is partial because of the prisoners who are still in prison,” she said.

Tamimi also visited the tomb of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in Ramallah and laid flowers there, before meeting Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

‘Jailing of a child’

Israeli authorities appeared keen to avoid media coverage of the release as much as possible, and conflicting information had meant supporters and journalists scrambled to arrive on time at the correct location.

Tamimi and her mother had been driven early on Sunday from Israel’s Sharon prison into the West Bank, authorities said.

But the location of the checkpoint where they were to cross into the territory was changed three times before it was finally announced they were being taken to a crossing at Rantis, about an hour’s drive from the initial location.

In a sign of the sensitivity of the case, Israeli authorities on Saturday arrested two Italians and a Palestinian for painting Tamimi’s image on the Israeli separation wall cutting off the West Bank.

The trio were released by Sunday evening, Italian and Israeli officials said.

Both Tamimi and her mother were sentenced to eight months by an Israeli military court following a plea deal over the December incident, which the family said took place in their garden in Nabi Saleh.

They were released some three weeks early, a common practice by Israeli authorities due to overcrowded prisons, Tamimi’s lawyer Gaby Lasky said.

Video filmed by Tamimi’s mother of the December incident went viral, leading Palestinians to view the teenager as a hero standing up to Israel’s occupation.

But for Israelis, Tamimi is being used by her activist family as a pawn in staged provocations.

They point to a series of previous incidents, with older pictures of her confronting soldiers shared widely online.

Many Israelis also praised the restraint of the soldiers, who remained calm throughout, though others said her actions merited a tougher response.

Rights activists condemned Tamimi’s jailing.

Omar Shakir of Human Rights Watch tweeted on Sunday that “Israel’s jailing of a child for 8 months -- for calling for protests and slapping a soldier -- reflects endemic discrimination, absence of due process and ill-treatment of kids.”

“Ahed Tamimi is free, but 100s of Palestinian children remain locked up with little attention on their cases,” he said.

Embassy protests

Tamimi was arrested in the early hours of December 19, four days after the incident in the video. She was 16 at the time.

Her mother Nariman was also arrested, as was her cousin Nour, who was freed in March.

Israel’s military said the two soldiers had been in the area on the day of the incident to prevent Palestinians from throwing stones at Israeli motorists.

The video shows the cousins approaching them and telling them to leave, before shoving, kicking and slapping them.

Ahed Tamimi is the most aggressive of the two in the video.

The heavily armed soldiers do not respond in the face of what appears to be an attempt to provoke rather than seriously harm them.

They then move backwards after Nariman Tamimi becomes involved.

The scuffle took place amid clashes and protests against US President Donald Trump’s controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.

Relatives say that a member of the Tamimi family was wounded in the head by a rubber bullet fired during those protests.