Nearly two dozen Bedouin women, enrobed in black, sat on the floor of a modest hut that baked under the desert sun of the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The room was quiet, the women still.
The women are on a hunger strike to call for Israeli authorities to release the body of a beloved community leader killed during a clash with a Jewish settler last week. They say they will continue until the man’s remains are returned for burial in his hometown of Umm al-Khair.
Witnesses said Awdah Al Hathaleen was shot and killed by a radical Israeli settler during a confrontation caught on video. Israeli authorities said they would only return the body if the family agrees to certain conditions that would “prevent public disorder.” The villagers say those include limiting attendance for a funeral that would normally draw hundreds and burying him at night in a nearby city.
“We want him to be buried here in Umm al-Khair and have a respectable funeral without any conditions. What did we do to deserve this treatment? We did nothing,” said his mother, Khadra Hathaleen, 65, who is among the dozens of women, aged 15-70, from the village who are on strike.
Palestinian women on hunger strike demand Israel return body of activist killed in West Bank settler clash
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