Life Under Israeli Occupation, As Told by the Tamimi’s

A harrowing account of the cruelty of Israeli occupation by one of Palestine’s most fearless families in resistance — the Tamimi family — whose home I visited as part of a nine-day student-led trip to the West Bank.

Listening to Janna Jihad at her home in Nabi Saleh, West Bank.

On January 10th, 2020, before the world came to a screeching halt just two months later, I found myself in the West Bank in the living room of the Tamimi family. Who are the Tamimi’s? A Palestinian family from the village of Nabi Saleh who became internationally known when 16-year-old activist Ahed Tamimi was imprisoned for eight months for famously slapping an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldier. Since her arrest, Ahed has become a symbol of the Palestinian youth’s resistance against Israel’s brutal occupation of the West Bank. But even within her own family, she is not alone.

As we entered into the Tamimi’s home, we saw a display of gas canisters in the front yard that had been thrown at the family by the IDF over the years.

At the Tamimi’s home, our student group was warmly greeted by Manal Tamimi and her 13-year-old niece, Janna Jihad. Janna, Ahed Tamimi’s younger cousin, is often dubbed the “world’s youngest journalist”. Since the age of seven, Janna has been recording the daily atrocities IDF soldiers inflict on Palestinians and posting them on social media to give the world a firsthand…