“The cemetery was full of settlers and Israeli soldiers. Family members tried to approach, but soldiers and settlers initially prevented them from entering.” [Getty]
Palestinian Mohammad Al-Asaasa never imagined that the first hours of grief following his elderly father’s death, Haj Hussein Mohammad Hussein Al-Asaasa (Abu Ezzat), from the village of Al-Asaasa, south of Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank, would turn into a nightmare.
Mohammad was forced to exhume his father’s body from its grave only hours after burial, before holding a second funeral and reburying him in a neighbouring village after Israeli settlers dug up the grave and threatened to remove the body by force last Friday.
At noon on Friday, 8 May, the Al-Asaasa family in the village of Al-Asaasa received news of the death of Haj Hussein Mohammad Hussein Al-Asaasa (Abu Ezzat), age 85. He died of natural causes after suffering several health problems in recent years, including previous heart surgery; valve and artery complications, as well as fluid build-up in the lungs.
But the shock of his death became even greater after Israeli settlers exhumed his grave.
“The family immediately began arrangements to bury my father in the village cemetery, where the family and villagers have buried their dead for decades. The cemetery contains between 150 and 200 graves and is located around 500 metres from the Tersala settlement,” his son, Mohammad Al-Asaasa, told The New Arab. “After my father died, the family contacted the relevant authorities, who coordinated with the Palestinian liaison office. About an hour later, we received a response permitting the burial between 4:30 pm and 5:30 pm, on condition that participation was limited to around 40 people.”
According to Al-Asaasa, Israeli settlers returned to the illegal Israeli Tersala settlement around six weeks ago, which had been evacuated in 2005 and lies near the village. Israeli authorities informed residents that the area surrounding the cemetery had become a “military zone” and that access required prior coordination.
Mohammad recalled the final moments that he believed would mark the end of events following his father’s death.
“We performed funeral prayers for my father at the village mosque and then headed to the cemetery. Israeli soldiers were present around the cemetery during the burial, without confrontation, but the settlers inside the settlement above the cemetery were also there. They were shouting, cursing, insulting and provoking us, but we ignored them. We only wanted to bury our father in peace.”
After the burial ceremony ended and the family returned home to receive mourners, young men from the village came running with news that, at first, Mohammad said seemed impossible to believe: the settlers were digging up his father’s grave.
They immediately rushed to the cemetery, where the scene was worse than they had expected.
“The cemetery was full of settlers and Israeli soldiers. Family members tried to approach, but soldiers and settlers initially prevented them from entering. After insisting, they managed to reach the cemetery gate,” he described.
A man who identified himself as responsible for the settlement approached them and said firmly, “This grave must be removed from here.”
Mohammad said he could not comprehend what he was hearing. He tried to explain that the burial had taken place following official coordination and prior approval, but the settler responded clearly, “I do not recognise the coordination. This land is ours.”
A body removed by force
According to Mohammad Al-Asaasa, the discussion quickly reached a dead end, and the family were told they had two choices: either remove the body themselves or allow a bulldozer to dig up the grave and throw the body outside.
“Several family members managed to enter the cemetery, but we found that my father’s grave had already been dug up. The digging had reached the stones covering the burial chamber. Had we been delayed a little longer, they would have removed the body and thrown it outside,” said Mohammad.
Faced with that reality, the family had no choice but to retrieve the body. The funeral became two funerals in one day.
Haj Hussein’s body was taken back to the family home before relatives began searching for a new burial place. The family contacted residents of the neighbouring village of Al-Funduqomiya to request permission to bury him in its cemetery.
There, funeral prayers were held again in the cemetery courtyard before he was buried for the second time within a matter of hours.
For the family, however, the story was not only about moving a grave or changing a burial site. Mohammad stressed that the issue touched on the sanctity of the dead, something he said is unacceptable in any religion.
Mohammad Al-Asaasa also expressed concern that the threat extends beyond the removal of his father’s body and now endangers both the cemetery and the village itself.
When the family entered the cemetery after the incident, they found clear signs of vandalism, including the theft of the cemetery’s water tank, the disappearance of tools used to maintain it, and damage to several gravestones.
Haj Hussein, displaced from the city of Al-Khdeira near Haifa during the Nakba, had seven sons, four daughters and around 35 grandchildren.
In his youth, he worked as a labourer, then in sheep trading, before retiring more than two decades ago and remaining at home.
But his death left the family in shock.
“We never imagined this could happen to my father, not even in our dreams,” Mohammad remarked.
The village of Al-Asaasa, established in 1963 about one kilometre from the Tarsala settlement, has witnessed shifting conditions since settlers returned to the area around a month and a half ago “with ferocity and violence”.
This followed more than 20 years of evacuation under the so-called “disengagement plan”, which included the withdrawal of settlements from Gaza and the northern occupied West Bank.
For residents of al-Asaasa, fear is no longer limited to land confiscation, the return of settlements or even grave desecration. It now extends to fears of attempts to force residents to leave through a series of attacks that have already begun.
Creating a coercive settlement environment
Amir Daoud, director-general of documentation and publishing at the Palestinian Wall and Settlement Resistance Commission, told The New Arab that what happened in Al-Asaasa goes beyond burial issues or the imposition of facts by force.
He said it reveals “an escalating level of settler terrorism operating under direct protection from Israeli occupation forces”.
Daoud added that these practices target not only land, but also “memory, existence and national and human symbolism”.
This is part of a policy aimed at creating a coercive environment that pushes Palestinians living near settlements to leave, even depriving them of basic human rights such as burying their dead with dignity.
Daoud further noted that the northern West Bank, particularly areas surrounding Jenin, is witnessing an unprecedented surge in Israeli military orders.
It also moves to reposition settlements through around 11 new sites, in addition to returning to four illegal settlements evacuated in 2005, while creating a security environment that paves the way for more Israeli colonial expansion.
Article translated from Arabic by Afrah Almatwari. To read the original, click here.
