East Jerusalem neighborhood bucks Israeli restrictions with mass funeral
A small East Jerusalem neighborhood defied Israeli-imposed conditions and held a mass send off for one of their neighbors killed by Israeli police while protesting the demolition of homes and their replacement with a park.
The front page of the July 2 edition of Al-Quds, Palestine’s largest-selling newspaper, spoke volumes. The paper's editors dedicated all eight columns to the huge public funeral for Mohammad Obeid, a young man from the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Issawiya. The headline read, “Martyr Obeid of Issawiya Given a Proper Funeral.” A four-column picture showed the massive crowd carrying the flag-draped body aloft, and Samir Obeid, the slain man's father, being hoisted above supporters’ heads in a sea of people and flags.
Obeid's funeral, and a mass one at that, was not supposed to be held in the middle of the day or in Issawiya. Israeli authorities, who had snatched Obeid’s body from a car en route from the hospital, had insisted that Obeid be given a simple burial at night outside the town with no more than a handful of people in attendance. On June 29, the Israeli High Court had rejected a petition by the Obeid family to retrieve the body so they could give Mohammad a proper burial.
Mohammad Obeid was shot and killed at the age of 20 by Israeli security personnel on June 27 in Issawiya during protests against a park being planned to occupy land where some Palestinian homes are scheduled for demolition. Israel admitted to killing Obeid, but said the officers only fired at him after he threw fireworks at anti-riot personnel. After Israeli troops seized the body, they had tried to negotiate how he should be buried.
The daily protests in Issawiya have since escalated and spread. Eighty Palestinians suffered varying degrees of injuries on June 28 in what the Palestinian media are calling the “Issawiya intifada.”
