Deep pain in a beautiful West Bank home: The Arrabis’ dead sons
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
The stunning homes that have been preserved and still stand today will appeal to visitors to Jenin’s Old City.  , The Arrabi family home is one.
However, almost every home in Jenin has suffered damage in some way, either from residents or the stones themselves.
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.
Deep sorrow still permeates the Arrabi house despite its beauty.
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 is still dealing with Muhammad’s death on August 29 and is still dealing with the pain of loss.
Her first loss, however, was her firstborn, also named , Fouad. During the first Intifada known as the Intifada of the Stones, Israel attacked Jenin as a child.
The boys would pelt stones at Israeli soldiers and armored vehicles.
An Israeli sniper shot and killed Fouad in 1988, and the soldiers would then shoot the young people.
In honor of his slain older brother, Umm Fouad gave birth to a boy a year later, and he was given the name Fouad.
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 had severe injuries, so the army prevented medical personnel from reaching him until he passed away.
The Israeli army opened fire on three young men as they tried to retrieve Rashad’s body, but they each succeeded. Nidal Al-Kastouni, Yousef Al-Amer and Muhammad Fuqaha were killed trying.
When Muhammad was killed in the same location as Rashad, tragedy struck once more last month. While keeping his phone, a sniper shot him to record what the Israeli army was doing in their neighborhood.
The prisoner who “martyr” was.
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 was unable to enroll in a university after finishing high school.
Muhammad was detained twice by Israeli forces, and he was imprisoned for three years total.
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 detained once more in 2019 and was detained on suspicion of “planning to carry out an act of resistance” for a further year and a half.
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 frequently addressed friends about how deeply he misses his father and his brothers, Fouad and Rashad, and how difficult it is to carry his father’s funeral.
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 envisioned opening his own restaurant because he enjoyed the work.
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.
Without Mohammed, his neighbor Khaled Abu Ali, who also worked at Vamos, said evening gatherings with neighborhood youth feel unfulfilled.
“Muhammad invited more than 30 neighborhood young men from the neighborhood to a barbecue feast to honor some high school graduates,” he said two weeks prior to Muhammad’s passing.
” 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. A family in Jenin frequently receives 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 once had a happy and life of his own, but he now never smiles. He is held by sadness. As for his sister Reem, she is heartbroken. She was incredibly close to Muhammad. “
According to him, Fouad’s real burden right now is trying to protect himself from harm from further pain for his mother and sisters.
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 ‘
After a 10-day military operation, which Israel claimed was aimed at destroying Palestinian fighters’ cells, Muhammad was killed on August 29 when Jenin and its refugee camp were stormed.
In the raids, Israeli forces carried out more than 30 injuries and 22 Palestinian deaths.
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.
Thousands of residents of the Jenin governorate were present for the funeral service, and twenty-one of the dead were also interred at the site.
Source: Aljazeera
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