Hebron- Over more than 7 and a half decades of struggle, the names of Palestinian families from various governorates have appeared in the struggle record, due to the heavy prices they paid on the road to liberation. Among them were martyrs, prisoners, and detainees from different generations.
In Mount Hebron, south of the West Bank, the Al-Faqih family contributed martyrs and prisoners in different generations from the Nakba of 1948 until today, in addition to persecutions and house demolitions, thus forming a model for the Palestinian situation in general.
Returning to the past, only 6 months had passed since the marriage of Youssef Ahmed Al-Faqih, when he was martyred in the summer of 1956, while he was at the head of his work in the Jordanian army, which was ruling the West Bank at that time, in the village of Al-Burj, southwest of the city of Hebron, east of the contact line with the territories. Occupied in 1948.
On that day, 6 years after the Nakba, the occupation soldiers tried to enter the village, coming from the western side. He rushed to his rifle, but its bullets accidentally hit him and he was martyred. His story turned into a novel that his mother passed on to her children and grandchildren who did not live through that stage.
Inspiring testimony
The story of the fighter Youssef turned into a topic of discussion in the family councils, and he inspired its members and his spirit continued to flow among them, according to his brother Ayed Al-Faqih, speaking to Al-Jazeera Net, so they memorized it by heart, so that among them were born those who followed his path and died as a martyr, and others who received the prison chains from their hands and bodies.
On December 27, 2002, the young man Ahmed Ayed al-Faqih, the son of our speaker, a resident of the city of Dura in the south of the West Bank, set out for the “Otniel” settlement, one of the settlements south of Hebron, to carry out an operation that led to the killing and wounding of a number of settlers and his martyrdom, to follow the path of his uncle, who He has always been a source of inspiration for him, and he is affected by his story whenever he hears it from his relatives.
The father of the martyr Ahmed says that he and all his family members were persecuted and threatened after Ahmed’s martyrdom. He spent 12 days investigating, while his son Youssef was arrested for about 7 and a half years, in addition to his house being demolished.
Ayed Al-Faqih, a retired employee who was not born at the time of his brother’s martyrdom, adds that his martyr son used to hear from his grandmother the story of his martyr uncle Youssef, and was affected by it until he became a martyr, noting that Ahmed’s body was detained for 14 years, then recovered after human rights organizations took action.
A third martyr on the road
About 62 years after the martyrdom of his uncle Youssef, and about 14 years after the martyrdom of his cousin Ahmed, the young man, Muhammad Jabara al-Faqih, continued on their path. On July 1, 2016, he carried out an operation in which he killed an Israeli rabbi from the same settlement in which his cousin was martyred, and then He was persecuted until he was assassinated in the village of Surif, west of Hebron, and the house in which he was located was demolished on the 27th of the same month, and his body is still detained in the cemetery of numbers, according to his brother Hussein al-Faqih.
Al-Faqih added, in his interview with Al-Jazeera Net, that his family was subjected to persecution and arrest after the operation of his two brothers and during his persecution, adding that he was arrested and summoned several times, as was the case with his mother and brothers, and he added that the circle of persecution and arrests expanded to include at least 25 individuals from the relatives and in-laws of the martyr. Muhammad and even his uncles, in addition to raiding homes and destroying their contents.
The same spokesman pointed out that his brother, the martyr Muhammad, had previously spent 5 years in detention, and was martyred, leaving his wife pregnant with his son, who was named after him, “Muhammad.” He also mentioned that the occupation continues to arrest his brother Suhaib since 2016, and he has been sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Hussein Al-Faqih pointed out that one of his aunts was married and living in Jordan, and when she received the news of her brother’s martyrdom, she remained in a state of mourning until her death years ago. “She avoided adornment and wore the traditional dress that symbolizes mourning, without bright colors.”
Martyr’s Day
The Palestinians commemorate “Palestinian Martyr’s Day” on January 7 of each year, during which they remember their martyrs, whose number, according to official Palestinian authorities, is close to about 130,000 martyrs, since the 1948 Nakba.
This day was adopted as Palestinian Martyr’s Day in 1969, 4 years after the martyrdom of the first martyr in the armed Palestinian revolution, the martyr Ahmed Musa Salama from the Fatah movement, which fell on January 1, 1965, while it was known as the “Eilaboun Tunnel” operation. Northern territories occupied in 1948.
The past year was considered the bloodiest for the Palestinians since 1948, with the largest number of martyrs in a year, with the martyrdom and loss of about 29,500 Palestinian citizens, as follows:
- 21 thousand and 822 martyrs in Gaza.
- More than 7,000 are missing in Gaza.
- 527 martyrs from the West Bank.
While the data indicate that about 11,540 Palestinians were martyred during the period from the end of 2000 until the end of 2022, and according to the Palestinian National Information Center, the number of Palestinian martyrs in the Nakba battles reached about 15,000 Palestinian martyrs, while the number of Arab martyrs reached between 3,500 and 7,000 thousand martyrs.
According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the number of Palestinian and Arab martyrs since the Nakba of 1948 until May 2023 (the anniversary of the Nakba) reached about 100,000 martyrs.
Since last October 7, the occupation army, with American support, has continued to wage a devastating war on the Gaza Strip, which – in addition to the martyrs – has led to about 56,450 wounded, the displacement of about 1,900,000 Gazans, and major destruction of homes and infrastructure.