More and more young Palestinian women are participating in protests against the Israeli regime as tensions keep soaring across the occupied territories following a surge of deadly atrocities against Palestinians during the past few days.
Despite facing Israeli soldiers’ rubber bullets, tear gas, stun grenades and even live fire, young Palestinian women rid their fear of detention and abuse to join the front lines along with males and challenge the presence of the intruders.
They also suffer casualties in their efforts towards liberation of their motherland from occupiers. A young pregnant woman was killed along with her three-year-old daughter in Israeli airborne aggression on the besieged Gaza Strip on Saturday while Israeli man shot and seriously injured a Palestinian woman in al-Quds on Wednesday.
“We make up half of society. We also have the right to defend our country," said a Palestinian female student, wearing the traditional keffiyeh, during a face-off with the Israeli military at a checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Ramallah, AFP reported.
Another young woman said that “If everyone's scared, no one will sacrifice themselves for the nation.”
Arrest and detention are a real threat to young women in Palestine. According to the Palestinian Prisoners Society (PPS), the Tel Aviv regime is holding 25 Palestinian women as captives, 15 of them were taken to prison in September.
Fearless of how they would be treated in the Israeli detention centers, the young women say they want to end Israel's occupation as well as “harassment” by Illegal settlers in the occupied West Bank.
“It should be up to the people to decide, and I don't believe in negotiations,” said an 18-year-old accounting student, referring to decades of futile peace talks with Israel.
Moreover, young women have a growing presence at the funerals arranged for Palestinians shot dead by Israeli military forces.
“Intifada continues,” said a first-year literature undergraduate.