Things that should never be extinguished

This Wednesday, 28 January, marked six months since an Israeli settler murdered Palestinian activist, teacher, and community leader Awdah Hathaleen, as Awdah defended his home village of Umm al-Khair. 

Since that day, the small agricultural community has faced relentless raids and arrests by the Israeli military, threats of large-scale home demolitions, the expansion of a settler outpost in the middle of their land, and the denial of any semblance of justice for Awdah’s murder by Israeli courts — all while trying to grieve. 

Adjacent villages have been dealing with their own daily avalanches of physical violence. On Tuesday night, 27 January, settlers launched a coordinated pogrom across three communities in the Masafer Yatta region: Khirbet al-Fakhit, Khirbet Halawe, and Khirbet al-Tabban. Bales of hay were set alight, before hordes of settlers armed with clubs entered residents’ homes, inflicting serious injuries including a fracture to a man’s skull. 

It is crucial to highlight the way that settlers and the state are working in conjunction to ethnically cleanse the West Bank; that afternoon, Israeli military forces had already raided Khirbet al-Fakhit, filling up the village’s water wells with cement.

There appears no end to the small details of the brutality meted out to Palestinians by Israel. While the pogrom was unfolding in Masafer Yatta on Tuesday night, occupation forces raided a cultural centre in Qalandiya refugee camp a few dozen miles away, where they smashed up violins and ouds – the classical Middle Eastern lute which may or may not share an etymological root with the name Awdah, meaning “return”. 

Not unlike a musical instrument that has been broken in half and estranged from its own music, the following untitled prose poem by Hanady Hathaleen, Awdah’s widow, is an amalgamation of two fragments of her writing. The prose poem has a long and rich tradition in Palestinian literature; the freedom and immediacy of the form enables words to flow where there are none to draw on, documenting from within ongoing trauma, displacement, and genocide, where there is little time for contemplating the problems of rhyme and meter.

With Hanady’s support, I have translated the poem from her original Arabic.  

– Kate Greenberg

The sixth month has passed since the passing of my love, the light from my eyes, the fading of my smile, and the artery that makes my heart go on, the essence of my life, and all its fragrances, the meaning of my soul, the nectar of my flowers, my sanctuary, the pillar of our house, the cement of our foundations, the angel of hope and safety, the sparkle and beauty of my eyes, the companion of my heart, the partner of my soul, the lamp of my path, my departed prince, everything that was beautiful in my life, half my religion, all of myself. The first half of this year has passed through me as someone drowning somehow passes through a wave. It took from me everything that should never be taken and extinguished in my heart things that should never be extinguished. I have changed so much that I have lost recognition of myself. Every day it has been me fighting against collapsing into my own silence, every day it has been me putting myself back together on my own. Half a year which taught me that grief does not go anywhere, but instead takes up residence within us, leaving us incomplete no matter how much we yearn to be whole.▼