Why are Palestinian teenagers driven to battle ?
The global normalization and acceptance of Palestinian deaths at the hands of Israeli forces render the killings of two Palestinian teens in distinct instances in the occupied West Bank in August almost unremarkable.
The remarkable aspect of these 18-year-olds was their dedication to opposing Israeli occupation, despite their young age.
Wael Mishah and Tariq Daoud were both liberated at the prisoner exchange between Israel and Hamas in November of last year. The exchange agreement released 240 Palestinian women and children in exchange for 81 Israelis and 24 foreigners detained in the Gaza Strip.
The Palestinian Prisoners Society reports that Israel has since rearrested 24 individuals it previously released.
On that November evening in Beitunia, west of Ramallah, well-wishers assembled to welcome the several Palestinian children released from Israeli prisons, as Mishah was held on shoulders to celebrate his freedom. He chanted his support for the Qassam Brigades, the military faction of Hamas.
Mishah, wearing a gray prison uniform, said in a hoarse voice:
“May God protect the resistance, have mercy on the martyrs, and heal our wounded.”
Mishah, who is from the Balata refugee camp in Nablus, informed the media about the abysmal conditions endured by Palestinian children incarcerated by Israel, which include verbal abuse, severe physical assaults, and denial of access to showers.
He stated:
“Our joy is indescribable, but incomplete because children are still in prison.”
An Israeli drone killed Mishah on August 15, one month after his 18th birthday, at dawn while he was fighting an Israeli raid in the city of Nablus.
“He went from being a prisoner to being wanted, to confronting [the occupation], then a martyr.”
Palestinians in the occupied West Bank are not exempt from this cycle. Since the outbreak of war on 7 October, daily Israeli raids into villages, cities, and refugee camps have resulted in the killing of over 716 Palestinians.
Young people are encountering a progressively diminishing arena for political expression and self-determination amongst rampant settler colonization. Disappointed with the corrupt and complicit Palestinian Authority, which suppresses dissent and collaborates with Israel, they find themselves with limited alternatives.
Israeli forces shot Daoud days before Mishah's assassination near the occupied West Bank town of Azzun.
As reported by Al Jazeera and local Palestinian sources, Daoud was wanted for conducting multiple shooting attacks targeting Israeli settlements and cars in the northern occupied West Bank. Israel is withholding his body, a prevalent official practice that prevents Palestinian families from grieving.
According to his older brother, his family home had been subjected to at least 40 raids to force him into surrender, while their parents had been detained 25 times. Numerous further family members have been consistently arrested.
The Qassam Brigades released condolence statements for both teens, praising their contributions to the organization. The third prisoner released in the November exchange, 18-year-old Jibril Jibril, is presumably in hiding and is still wanted in relation to attacks against Israeli forces. Israeli forces have consistently arrested and interrogated his father, targeting his family.
We can only understand the involvement of these three teenagers in resisting Israel's occupation within the context of the political injustices they have endured since their birth in 2006.
The Palestinian legislative elections occurred that year, marking Hamas's first participation. Hamas achieved a decisive victory; however, the Bush administration in the United States disapproved of this exhibition of Palestinian democratic rights and tried to take down Hamas through a coup orchestrated by Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan.
The coup was foiled by Hamas, and 2007 marked the onset of Palestinian civil conflict and the formal division of the West Bank and Gaza Strip regions.
In the subsequent 15 years, the Israeli military waged several wars on Gaza, killing thousands of people. Meanwhile, the occupied West Bank experienced an increase in illegal Israeli settlements and the displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their ancestral lands. Emboldened Israeli settlers launched assaults on Palestinians amidst the inaction of a belligerent and increasingly dictatorial administration under President Mahmoud Abbas and his associates.
Currently, the nearly-year-long genocide in Gaza signifies a disruption of the status quo. The slaughter of tens of thousands of civilians, along with the complete destruction of the territory, has exposed Israel's true objectives: the entire annihilation of the Palestinian populace, which it perceives as a demographic and existential threat.
These are the causes pushing teens such as Mishah, Daoud, and Jibril toward a life of fighting. Prior to his death, Daoud expressed hope that Palestinians were on:
“The path to freedom and liberation from the occupation”.
Poet Refaat Alareer, who Israel murdered last December, expressed in a 2022 essay that no actions by Palestinians or their supporters seem to satisfy Israel:
“We have no choice but to recover, stand up again, and continue the struggle.”