The name of Ahed Tamimi appears on the list of 30 Palestinian prisoners that Israel released this Wednesday as part of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas. Currently, 102 hostages and 210 Palestinian prisoners have been released as part of the prisoner exchange. The 22-year-old girl, who is being held at Damon Prison near Haifa, was seen in a video reuniting with her mother.
Ahed Tamimi comes from a family of prominent Palestinian activists. His father, Bassem Tamimi, is an activist who previously organized protests against the Israeli occupation and was repeatedly detained, most recently after October 7th. He has been in prison ever since.
Ahed became famous for slapping an Israeli soldier when he was just 16 years old. A video captured the moment of impact. The images went around the world and he soon became an icon of the resistance. So much so that her memoir, “They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl’s Fight for Freedom,” was published by Random House in 2022.
The young woman, now 22 years old, was arrested during an Israeli army raid in the Palestinian town of Nabi Sahel following the Hamas attack on October 7th. Authorities accused the Palestinian activist of “incitement to terrorism” for posting an image on an Instagram account linked to her in which she referenced Hitler and called for Israeli settlers to “massacre, drink their blood, and to eat their skulls”. » .
“Our message to the settler herds is that we are waiting for you in all cities (in the West Bank) from Hebron to Jenin. We will massacre you and you will say that what Hitler did to you was a joke. We will drink your blood and eat your skulls. Come on, we are waiting for you,” said the message, written in Hebrew and Arabic, which according to her family’s version was not written by Ahed.
Tamimi was among hundreds of Palestinians arrested by the Israeli army in the occupied West Bank following the Hamas terror attack.