Deep pain in a beautiful West Bank home: The Arrabis’ dead sons | Israel-Palestine conflict

Jenin, occupied West Bank, Palestine – Muhammad Arrabi’s family, what’s left of it, lives in the heart of Jenin’s Old City in a house the family has handed down for 185 years.

The Arrabi family had numbered 10 – a mother, a father, four daughters and four sons – until the Israeli army took the lives of three of their sons, culminating in its shooting of Muhammad, the third brother to be killed.

Jenin, Old City and new

A visitor to Jenin’s Old City will note the beautiful houses, which have been passed down through generations of families and are still lived in today. The Arrabi family home is one.

But nearly every home in Jenin has been damaged somehow, either in the stones that make up its walls or the people who live inside them.

Known for its history of resistance, Jenin has long been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The city and its refugee camp have frequently been raided by the Israeli military, leading to deaths, injuries, extensive damage to infrastructure and fighting.

Despite the beauty of the Arrabi house, deep sorrow lingers within its walls.

The loss of the brothers left lasting wounds for their 78-year-old mother, Umm Fouad, and five remaining siblings: her daughters – Ruba, 52; Suhad 51; Nour, 42; and Reem, 38 – and 35-year-old Fouad.

Mohammed was the youngest brother. After Ruba, Suhad, Nour and Fouad got married, he lived with Reem and their mother for about six years.

Umm Fouad relied on Muhammad for everything.

Muhammad gave his mother her medicine, ran errands and cared for her, but now, she has lost her “hand and foot”, according to Fouad, who used a Palestinian expression to convey the extent of someone’s dependence on another.

Umm Fouad has yet to come to terms with Muhammad’s death on August 29, living as she is with the constant ache of loss.

Her first loss, however, was her firstborn, also named Fouad. He was a child during an Israeli assault on Jenin during the first Intifada, known as the Intifada of the Stones.

The boys would throw stones at the Israeli armoured vehicles and soldiers.

The soldiers would respond by shooting the young people, and in 1988, Fouad was shot and killed by an Israeli sniper.

A year later, Umm Fouad gave birth to a baby boy and named him Fouad in honour of his slain older brother.

In 2003, during the second Intifada, her 29-year-old son Rashad, a Palestinian resistance member, was killed in a clash with the Israeli army near their home, where he tried to take on an Israeli tank.

Rashad was badly injured, and the army prevented medical crews from reaching him until he died.

Three young men attempted to retrieve Rashad’s body, but the Israeli army opened fire each time they tried. Nidal Al-Kastouni, Yousef Al-Amer and Muhammad Fuqaha were killed trying.

Last month, tragedy struck again when Muhammad was killed in the same spot where Rashad had fallen. He was shot by a sniper while holding his phone to document what the Israeli army was doing in their neighbourhood.

The prisoner who became a ‘martyr’

Muhammad shared a deep bond with his father, Bassam, whom he also took care of.

His father, in turn, relied on Mohammad for everything and was always by his side.

Muhammad completed high school but was not able to attend university.

Arrested twice by Israeli forces, Muhammad spent a total of three years in prison.

His first arrest occurred in 2016 when he was 24 and was accused of “incitement” and sentenced to a year and a half. He was arrested again in 2019, spending another year and a half on charges of “planning to carry out an act of resistance”.

While he was in prison, his father’s health deteriorated, and he passed away in 2020 before Muhammad could say goodbye.

This loss deeply affected Muhammad. He spoke often to friends about the emotional toll of not being able to bury his father, talking about how much he missed his father and his brothers, Fouad and Rashad.

After his first release from prison in 2017, though, he got a job at Vamos, a local burger restaurant owned by his sister Noor and her husband, Mamoun Al-Yabdawi. He loved the work and dreamed of having his own restaurant.

Abu Hazim, who worked with him at Vamos, said he misses the joy Muhammad brought to the workplace.

Al-Yabdawi remembers Muhammad’s kindness and how he would sneak a bit of extra food into people’s orders.

His neighbour Khaled Abu Ali, who also worked at Vamos, said evening get-togethers with neighbourhood youth feel incomplete without Mohammed.

“Two weeks before Muhammad’s passing, he invited more than 30 young men from the neighbourhood to a barbecue feast to celebrate some people who had graduated from high school.

“Knowing their financial circumstances didn’t allow for a celebration, he wanted to bring them joy. It was his ‘Last Supper’,” Abu Ali said.

The news of Muhammad’s death was not unexpected. It is not unusual for a family in Jenin to receive such news.

The Arrabi family, in particular, having lost two sons in the same way, lives in constant fear with every raid on the city.

Abu Ali said the family, or what’s left of it, is changed forever.

“Fouad isn’t the person he once was. He used to be cheerful and full of life, but now he never smiles. Sadness clings to him. As for his sister Reem, she is heartbroken. She was incredibly close to Muhammad.”

Possibly the true burden Fouad feels now, he says, is trying to keep himself safe to avoid causing his mother and sisters further pain.

Commenting on the loss of his third brother, Fouad reflects: “For 36 years, we’ve sacrificed for the homeland. We sacrifice what is most precious to us – our children’s blood.”

‘No burial without ceremony, no mourning without burial’

Muhammad was killed on August 29, during the storming of Jenin and its refugee camp after a 10-day military operation that Israel said was aimed at dismantling cells of Palestinian fighters.

Israeli forces killed 22 Palestinians and injured more than 30 in the raids.

They besieged local institutions, including the Jenin Municipality, Civil Defence and the electricity company; ordered the evacuation of buildings; and blew up a house near the Ansar Mosque in the camp.

Military bulldozers destroyed roads, water and sewage systems, electricity poles, homes and vehicles.

Throughout, Mohammed’s body lay in a morgue in the nearby town of Qabatiya, south of Jenin, Fouad insisting that “Mohammed will not be buried without a proper ceremony, and there will be no mourning until he is laid to rest.”

In Palestine, it is customary for people to gather around the bereaved family to offer support, but Israeli snipers and bulldozers blocked the way, isolating Mohammed’s family in their grief.

Once the raid ended, Mohammed was finally buried near his brothers Fouad and Rashad and their father, Bassam.

Twenty-one other people killed during the raid were also buried with thousands of people from Jenin governorate attending the funeral.

In the aftermath of Mohammed’s killing, Fouad said, the home that was built by four young men has now crumbled, three of its pillars having fallen over the span of 36 years.