Video: Palestinian women rescue child from attack by Israeli soldier

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 29 August 2015

This video shows several women preventing an Israeli soldier from abducting a Palestinian child in the village of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank on Friday.

The footage, shot by Bilal Tamimi, shows a masked soldier assaulting a child whose arm is in a cast.

The child is clearly distressed. A man screams at the soldier “he’s a boy! he’s a boy!” but the soldier continues his attack.

A short time later, several women appear and pull the soldier off the boy, braving his blows, but preventing the abduction from taking place.

Palestinians intervene to prevent the abduction of a Palestinian boy by an Israeli soldier during a protest against Israeli colonization in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, 28 August.

Shadi Hatem APA images

One of the women also pulls the mask off the would-be abductor, allowing the suspect to be identified.

Ma’an News Agency identifies the boy in the video – and photos of the incident that have circulated online – as 12-year-old Muhammad Basim Tamimi.

The women who intervene to rescue him from the occupation soldier are identified as his mother Nariman Tamimi, his sister Ahed Tamimi and aunt Manal Tamimi.

Villagers in Nabi Saleh hold weekly demonstrations against the violent theft of their land for nearby Israeli settlements.

They are frequently the targets of attacks and abductions by occupation soldiers.

The video has attracted widespread attention, including in Israel.

But as Phan Nguyen pointed out on Twitter, the Israeli mainstream news site Ynet seemed more worried that the occupation soldier was receiving “little sympathy”:

In recent years several villagers have been severely injured or killed, including, notoriously, Mustafa Tamimi, who died after Israeli forces shot him in the head at close range with a tear gas canister.

As of June, 160 Palestinian children aged 12-17 were in Israeli military detention, according to Defense for Children International–Palestine. Palestinian children detained by Israeli occupation forces face routine abuse and brutality amounting to torture.

Editors note: the original video embedded in this post appears to have been removed by YouTube. Another version of the same footage was added in its place.

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Comments

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Zionism is Not Judaism replied on

The sooner the racism known as Zionism is put to rest, the less likely scenes such as this will not be seen.

What was that Nimrod thinking? Was he looking to break the kid's other arm.

Zionism is largely a creation of certain criminal financial and commercial elements in the West to deprive the great majority of the people of the Levant and Africa of their property, labor and future.

It must end.

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tom hall replied on

A thrilling exhibition of manly virtue on the part of this soldier of Zion. And to deprive such a warrior of his mask is despicable, when it's so clearly essential to his mission. On his behalf, let's all express our disgust at the women's reprehensible rescue of an injured boy. Shocking. Simply shocking.

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Dean Olson replied on

I immediately saw in the video why Black Lives Matter and Palestinians have been drawn together and are supporting each other, because of their common plight. We had Katrina, Ferguson, Charleston. They have Gaza, the West Bank, the refugee camps. Those persecuted, being put down, seen as non entities, devalued. Disenfranchised by those in power, abused, humiliated by thugs who wear masks so they cannot be identified. And who are we with? Who do we identify with?

You don't need the 10 commandments to know human decency, respect, honor, integrity, and reverance of life. You don't do things like this to another person, race, group of people or nation. Do you? We do, right here in the good U.S. of A. They do right there in the Occupied Territories. Maybe that's why our government has their back. Maybe that why Palestinians and Black Lives Matter join hands. Who are we with? Whose hand are we willing to reach out, maybe step across a line, and stand with in solidarity. Enough is enough!

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Hank replied on

Gee wiz just look at how violent these Palestinian women are! They are terrorizing a soldier just doing his job of abducting another Palestinian child for God knows what! He was just going to question the child about his "terrorist" activities and then let him go back to his family with a piece of bubble gum! These poor little IDF soldier are so misunderstood by these violent terrorist women who have the audacity to try and take back their flesh and blood from someone there to protect and serve their occupation. Maybe Nutty Yahoo will carpet bomb the neighborhood to teach these "terrorists" a lesson.

This is all sarcasm for those unaware yet. Advice to the IDF- pick on someone your own size!

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The Third Reich replied on

Great Job never be afraid of these cowards.

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Yesh Prabhu replied on

I see that this video has been deleted by YouTube.
There was another video of this incident on YouTube recorded by Bilal Tamimi and titled Nabi Saleh (v=pvJNYjzm9jk). To my great surprise, I saw just two minutes ago that, that video, too, was deleted by YouTube. YouTube stated that: “This video has been removed because its content violated YouTube’s terms of service.” It is more likely that YouTube deleted this video because of the intense pressure from Israeli government and from powerful people here in the USA. More than 4 million viewers watched this video on Face Book and YouTube. There was nothing objectionable in the content of the video. The video only showed the brutality of the IDF soldier towards the 12 year old Palestinian boy with a broken arm.
This is what I wrote after watching that video.
I first watched this video in the Times of Israel, and now I watched it again, here, to see whether my first impressions hold. They did. Here in the United States, it is illegal for cops to put choke hold, or the "head hold" during arresting a person, because the victim could easily die from strangulation. In fact, several have died from strangle hold. But this is West Bank, occupied Palestine. Here the IDF soldiers follow neither domestic laws, nor International Laws, because they know they will not be held accountable for their behavior and actions, no matter how atrocious. Putting a choke hold on a twelve year old boy, whose arm is in a cast: Wasn't this IDF soldier so very brave? May be the Israeli government will give him a medal of honor or the "Star of David"for his valor. Watching this video should make any decent man who has conscience feel sick in the stomach. This video is one more evidence, if more evidence is needed, that many of the IDF soldiers behave more like a hoodlum in a ghetto, than like a soldier.
Yesh Prabhu, Bushkill, Pennsylvania

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tom hall replied on

Thanks for the heads-up on the video deletion, Yesh. Perhaps one of the correspondents at the Electronic Intifada could ask YouTube for an explanation. Exactly how did the video violate their policy? It certainly looks like they're bowing to pressure in removing it. A brief article may be in order.

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Peter Loeb replied on

" ZIONISM MORAL AND JUST

....If anyone objects that this point of view is immoral. I
answer: It is not true: It is not true that Zionism is either
moral and just, or it is immoral and unjust. But that is
a question we should have settled before we became
Zionists. Actually, we have settled that question, and in
the affirmative. We hold that Zionism is moral and
just. And since it is moral and just, justice must be done,
no matter whether Joseph or Simon or Ivan or Achmet
agree with it or not.

There is no other morality."
---Vladimir Jabotinsky
"THE IRON WALL (WE AND THE ARABS)"
Rassvyet, Belin, November 4, 1923

Do you feel yourselves "moral and just"?

Of course "our Allies" (the Zionist state the US and others
support always considers itself moral and just.

If this be justice and morality, I prefer something else please !

(Cited in Lenni Brenner's 51 DOCUMENTS: ZIONIST
COLLABORATION WITH THE NAZIS."
(Barricade Books, Inc. 2002)

----Peter Loeb, Boston, MA, USA

Ali Abunimah

Co-founder of The Electronic Intifada and author of The Battle for Justice in Palestine, now out from Haymarket Books.

Also wrote One Country: A Bold-Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse. Opinions are mine alone.