Trial of teenage protester begins
TEL AVIV: The trial of Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian teenager turned protest symbol who hit Israeli soldiers in a viral video, begun yesterday.
Ahed will face 12 charges, including assault and incitement, in the Ofer Military Court in the West Bank. Her trial, which will likely take months, has sparked immense public interest and international condemnations of the minor’s imprisonment. Palestinians see Ahed as a hero who opposes Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank, while Israel says she is an agitator who attempts to provoke soldiers on film as part of a Palestinian PR campaign.
In the video, the 17-year-old with curly blonde hair is seen slapping and punching two Israeli soldiers who entered the driveway of the family’s home during a protest in her home-town of Nabi Saleh.
International human rights groups, the EU, and others have criticised Israel’s handling of Ahed, which has placed scrutiny on the Israeli military court system that Palestinian youths face in the West Bank.
Her case is connected to Nabi Saleh, which has staged weekly demonstrations since 2009, after the Israeli army restricted Palestinian access to nearby lands, making way for Jewish settlers in the area. Members of the Tamimi family, which numbers in the hundreds, have died and been arrested in the protests and Israeli commentators have accused them of placing minors in harm’s way.