In their own words…
Nine Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders shed insight and voice on their political struggles and the prices they’ve paid.
Interviews with: Riham Nassra, Nasser Nawajah, Sami Huraini, Samah Salaime, Muhammad Abu Hummus, Mohammed Khatib, Ori Givati, Aziz Abu Mdigham Al-Turi, and Yoni Mizrahi.
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Riham Nassra is a Palestinian human rights attorney based in Haifa. She is one of the few lawyers who works in both the Israeli civil courts and the IDF military courts in the occupied West Bank.
“Providing legal defense is a necessity, I think. We don’t have the privilege of just throwing our hands up and allowing mass arrests.
When I’m defending an activist, or a shepherd, or a Palestinian farmer, I want to take the burden of the arrest and the criminal proceedings off their shoulders, so that they’ll dare to return and herd their flocks, so that they’ll go to harvest their land…
… so that they continue to protest the occupation and its injustices.”
Nasser Nawajah is veteran documenter and field researcher for B’tselem. He is a resident of Susiya, a village in Masafer Yatta, and has documented human rights violations by army and settlers there since he was a teenager. In 2023, he was persecuted and tried in military court for his human rights activities.
” You always feel wanted – by the police, the Shin Bet, the army. If I go to any checkpoint, and they check my ID, I get held up for at least an hour, because I’m wanted for arrest. And that’s the price we pay as Palestinians, trying to protect human rights in these areas.
Israel is afraid of every time someone presents the truth to the world, and shows what is happening. It’s our voice that really scares them. And they do everything they can to restrict us and make us afraid…”
Sami Huraini is a leader of the nonviolent resistance movement against ethnic cleansing in Masafer Yatta, in the South Hebron Hills of Area C. He is one of the founders of Youth of Sumud, a grassroots group that organizes residents of the area to oppose settler expansion and military violence.
” Now I am facing a trial, because I was demonstrating. I was asking justice for Haroun Abu Aram, who was shot and paralyzed by Israeli soldiers in his village. This is a crime.
When we say No, when we reject this crime, we are arrested, and we are jailed, and we are charged with organizing illegal demonstrations, and assaulting soldiers… It’s all fake charges, just in order to stop you as an activist from your work and from your activism.
… We believe in this way, of nonviolence. But always, the soldiers and settlers are pushing you, creating an environment that will always push you more and more. Then they have the excuse to arrest you and say This is a terrorist. “
Samah Salaime is a social worker and feminist activist. She is the founder of Na’am-AWC (est. 2009), organizing both Jewish and Arab women against gender-based violence, femicide, and other critical social issues.
” The oppression machine against women uses the same tools as the oppression machine against the Palestinian people.
For me, it’s a matter of: We must collaborate. Because Arab women and Jewish women both face gender-based violence.
If you see the whole picture, you will see that political extremists and conservatives from both the Arab society and the Jewish society don’t like what we have to say about women’s freedom and the right of a woman to her own body. So I know that my agenda makes some people angry.”
Muhammad Abu Hummus is longtime Palestinian activist from the neighborhood of Isawiya and a leader in the nonviolent movement against the settler takeover of East Jerusalem.
” I’ve been arrested over 200 times. I was injured by live fire over 50 times, by rubber bullets, by shock grenades. I was beaten several times. They repress us and beat us in the hope that our young children will forget Palestine, will forget the Nakba.
I can’t talk about the mental and physical damage. Only God knows about it. But that’s the price I pay for belonging to my land, for my love of my people.
I have waged a nonviolent struggle, and still I’ve been shot with live fire. I was unarmed and I did not have Molotov cocktails. Still, I was shot.
The occupation is violent. We are not. “
Mohammed Khatib is a Palestinian attorney and leading member of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee (PSCC). He is a founder of the peaceful resistance movement against the construction of the apartheid wall and settler land theft in Bil’in since 2005.
“Since 2005 until 2011, Bil’in had regular demonstrations, and we managed to change the route of the wall. But still, the settlements exist, the walls exist, and the Israeli violations continue against us… There have been hundreds of people who have been injured, hundreds of people who have been in jail, including me and my colleagues in the Popular Committee…
Nonviolent resistance is not a tactic. It’s a strategy. For example, in Bil’in, we tied ourselves to the olive trees. These are civilian people, normal people, farmers who are just trying to defend their source of life. And then there is the occupier, the occupation force, who deals with us with force. In this way, everyone will see who’s the victim and who’s the victimizer.
There can be no doubt about it.”
Ori Givati is a veteran Israeli anti-occupation activist and former Advocacy Director of Breaking the Silence. He is a 7-time beneficiary of HRDF legal aid.
” One of the most important things for me when I go to the field or to a protest is the knowledge that if I will be arrested, there will be someone representing me. This allows me as an activist to do my activism.
I don’t think I would have gone to some of these actions if I didn’t know that someone would be there to represent me.
… In many cases, when I was interrogated, I knew more about my rights than the person interrogating me.”
Aziz Abu Mdigham Al-Turi is a Bedouin citizen of Israel and leader of the struggle against state-ordered demolitions of his home village of Al-Araqib in the Naqab (Negev).
“Since September 27, 2010, they’ve demolished the village 202 times. They erased the lives of 573 people…
They saw we were persistent. They started to use criminal law, civil law, to impose fines – this is all according to their laws. They use the Israel Land Administration Law, the Green Patrol Law, the Planning and Construction Law. Laws, laws, laws! All these laws are against me.
And the people passing the laws, those in the Knesset, their only goal is to take my land away.”
Yoni Mizrahi is an archaeologist and former Executive Director of Emek Shaveh, an NGO that challenges the instrumental weaponization of Israel’s archaeological industry to uphold Zionist mythologies and erase Palestinian history.
” Our attitude is that the historical story doesn’t belong only to one particular ethnic or political group. In Israel, history is often appropriated by the stronger side, claiming that Jewish history is more important than other history. Archaeology occupies the land, and justifies ownership of that land. And it’s important for us to explain that the historical story is not one-dimensional like that – it’s much more complex and diverse.
For this, we were dragged into civil lawsuits over our work, by settlers or by the Israel Antiquities Authorities. Instead of trying to develop your actual activities, you’re often just busy defending yourself. “
To read our complementary publication “Voices of Human Rights Defenders,” click HERE.
The videos were produced with the support of KURVE Wustrow – Centre for Training and Networking in Nonviolent Action, Germany, within the framework of the Civil Peace Service Programme, funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
