Strong, brave and stubborn -A Palestinian woman

Photo credit: Emmet Sheerin/EAPPI

“I am very strong, very brave and very stubborn!”

Hanan Soufan is a widow and mother of nine, and we are sitting in her living room. For me she is the epiphany of a strong Palestinian woman, and I ask her if she is comfortable being a role model for other women and a symbol of the strength of other Palestinian women.

“It is not just me we have a lot of women like me in Palestine. Inshallah, something more will not happen to me, because now the attention is on me. Then instead the eyes of the world will be drawn to them, the other strong Palestinian women out there, and it would make their struggle and strength known.” “I cannot leave my land, my house. I have not got any choice.”

Raising her voice Hanan says: “They can do what they need; I will still stay in my house. I will defend it anyway I can. I will not give them my land.”

Hanan laughs when considering her vision for the future. “If we are still alive in the future”, she says with a smile. “I have not got any ideas for the future -every time we are attacked my knees are shaky. It is a pain in my knees, I cannot escape, and I am afraid.” Referring to the nearby future she says “We hope it will be quiet, but now it’s the season of the burning, and I am afraid.”

The Soufan family lives in the outskirts of the village of Burin and are separated from the rest of the village by a road. The settlers are known to harass the family, throwing paint bombs and sending burning tires down the hill. In 2002, the settlers set fire to the house which gave Soufan’s husband a lethal heart attack. Now the family is supporting themselves through their eight sheep, and six beehives.

“We have daily, daily troubles. The settlers have burnt two cars, they have stolen our horse that we can still see up on the hill, they poisoned 20 sheep and they cut down 50 olive trees. They also broke our solar panels…It does not matter if internationals are present. Our family is known in 16-17 countries, but the settlers do not care. The army just tells the internationals to leave.”

Burin, and the case of the Soufan family is only one example of the struggle facing the Palestinians resisting the settlers. Yet Hanan sitting on the coach with the portrait of her dead husband behind her illustrates the determination and strength of Palestinian in general, and the strength of Palestinian women in particular.