Family of slain Palestinian woman fights for return of her body

By Salam Abu Sharar

JERUSALEM (AA) - Five-year-old Sulaf escapes from her grandmother's lap to play with her friends for hours in the courtyard of her home in Abu Dis in East Jerusalem. Her family says she does this whenever they meet in the living room because she gets annoyed at being in a place that reminds her of her mother, Mai.

On June 16 this year, Mai Afana, 29, was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces near the town of Hazma, north of Jerusalem while she was driving home. The Israeli army claimed that she intended to carry out a stabbing and run over the soldiers, which her family denied, especially since she was in poor health.

Her husband, Hussein Jaffal, recalls her constant determination to achieve her ambitions despite all the obstacles she was encountering and that she always took care of everything on all occasions and family obligations.

"She was pregnant with our child Sulaf when she discussed her Master's thesis, and then immediately enrolled in doctoral studies at Mutah University in Jordan.

She used to go to Jordan twice a week to attend lectures and continue her preparation to discuss her doctoral thesis," says Jaffal.

A few days before her death, she was preparing to discuss her thesis online from her home to allow her family to attend the discussion since travel to Jordan was complicated due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We were planning together to celebrate her graduation, but the Israeli bullets smashed her dream,” Jaffal says.

Jaffal walks around the house, full of memories with his wife. He describes how she managed the house in an excellent way and maintained contact with his family and her family without affecting her professional and academic success. He recounts the days when they had gathered before the occupation killed her and prevented him from taking a final farewell look at her.

The occupation continues to hold her body despite all efforts to recover it.

"She was very affectionate in her relationship with my mother, treating her as a friend and sharing many details. She couldn't go on a picnic without taking my mom with us," Jaffal recalls.

As he watches his only daughter play, his eyes don't stop looking for Mai in every detail of the place, and he describes the house as completely empty in Mai's absence and that everything in the house reminds him of moments that brought them together throughout their six years of marriage.

“A few days before she was killed, I was giving her a gym course so that she could give a bunch of drills. We had a nice time training together, but we didn't know that those beautiful memories were the last thing that would bring us together and recalling it would be painful that way,” said Jaffal.

Since her death, Mai’s family has been demanding the return of her body through constant family sit-ins at the entrance to the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim and near the military barrier between Jerusalem and its eastern suburbs.

Twice a week, the family shares the presence of legal activists, people from the town of Abu Dis and national factions to put public pressure on the occupation.

"The officers come to the sit-in in front of the entrance to the settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, telling us that our daughter's body will not be returned to us. They don't follow the case. They just say this to vanquish us,” says Mai’s uncle Hani Afana.

The family and its supporters are constantly suppressed during sit-ins with sound bombs, batons, and sometimes tear gas canisters.

The legal staff continues to argue at the Israeli Supreme Court for the retrieval of the body, with no formal response to date from the court.

"Her mother suffers from severe psychological pain, and she hopes for nothing but a farewell look at her and to bury her," says Afana.

According to Mai's husband, the family has continued their sit-in and protest against the holding of his wife's body since June 19 and will continue to do so until its retrieval and burial.

“I do not accept that my wife will remain in the hands of the occupation, in a fridge 70 degrees below zero, I want to bury her with dignity as befits a woman like her,” said Jaffal.

The occupation is holding bodies of 254 Palestinian martyrs in the digit tombs. They are named so because each martyr's grave bears a number instead of their own name. They are secret cemeteries used by the occupation to detain the bodies of martyrs. Four of these tombs have been uncovered and the occupation refrains from giving death certificates to the families of the martyrs. In addition to 81 martyrs in the refrigerators, the occupation refuses to extradite them as a form of punishment against their relatives.

"The international community must cease its double standards and cover up of the crimes of the occupation. They are the authors of charters, treaties, and human rights, and they must protect their resolutions and force the occupation to implement them," Jaffal said.

"I don't understand what the benefit of the Palestinian Authority's security coordination is if it is unable to retrieve the body of my wife and those of hundreds of other martyrs.”

The National Campaign for the Retrieval of the Bodies of Palestinian and Arab War Victims Held by Israel launched a social media campaign to support the efforts to retrieve the martyrs’ bodies. It has interacted globally in New York City. A die-in and solidarity march was held at Grand Central Terminal for the global day of action to support the Palestinian campaign for the retrieval of martyrs’ bodies.