12-year-old Gazan child called Nimr Al-Nimr was released to Rafah, south of the Gaza enclave, from Israeli prison after spending almost three weeks of anguish mingled with sever physical and psychological torture.
The little child went out of prison with revenge filling his heart to smash Israeli soldier’s head in return for the humiliation he faced by an Israeli soldier. Nimr, whose name means tiger, awaits the day he could hold a weapon and resist the “savages”, swearing when he grows up to step on an Israeli soldier’s head.
‘I’ll give him back what he did to me. I’ll step on his head like he stepped on mine, and I’ll spit on him like he spat on me,” Nimr insisted.
The Onset
The story of Nimr bagen when he was chasing after parachute aid boxes dropped by relief planes on far areas in Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza. He was accompanying his neighbours and relatives when the Israeli army showered them with live bullets and sudden militant attack.
Many people had managed to survive, but, unfortunately, five bullets were faster than Nimr’s movement and penetrated his small body instantly, taking him immediately to the ground.
The voices of people had gradually fainted with the accelerated movement of the Israeli army, and Nimr’s blood was flowing from his abdomen and leg while parachute aid boxes continued to fall on the ground. A paradoxical image was drawn as he tried to resist his pain, reopen his eyes, and stretch his hands to catch an aid box; however, the little one realized he was chasing only a phantom upon glimpsing from a nether angel the Israeli soldiers’ boot rising like a monster above him then tumbling heavily on his head in a repeated and painful manner.
The indiscriminate beating lasted for minutes until he lost consciousness. It took the soldiers little effort to transfer the small body into a detention box then to Israeli prison.
“Before the army arrested me, I was running with people behind the aid boxes, but gunfire broke out, and I fell to the ground with blood pouring from my stomach and legs,” he said as he breathed in soreness.
In prison
Upon regaining consciousness, he found himself on a bed with other prisoners groaning in pain, undergoing treatment for three days before being transferred to a detention camp near ‘Zikim’ in northern Gaza.
“When I asked for medicine, I had to beg for it. They tortured me with the lack of medication,” says the child, Nimr, as he recounts terrifying details about his two-week arrest and torture in Israeli prisons.
He recalled that the Israeli settlers brought their young children to urinate on them, and kept drumming on the prison door all the night along. If they looked out, they would spit in their faces, electrocute them, and bring dogs day and night to howl and bite them.
Nimr, who bears signs of extreme exhaustion, continued: “During my time in prison, I suffered humiliation and and felt oppressed every day. What did I do wrong to them? Why did they shoot explosive bullets at me?, he desperately wondered.
With sadness, Nimr mentioned that he was injured in his foot, resulting in severed arteries, in addition to injuries to his back and abdomen.
Despite that, he emphasized that his wounds worsened days after his arrest as he was transferred to a cell with a gravel floor, where a loudspeaker remained played on all night to torture him psychologically.
In the interrogation room, the officer kept asking him about his relatives, neighbors, who is involved in resistance factions, and where the tunnels are. He replied that he didn’t know, as he is just a child. However, the Israeli officer called me a liar and threatened to kill him if he doesn’t provide an answer.
A Sole Breadwinner
The 12-year-old child Nimr Al-Nimr is the sole breadwinner for his family, he reminisced that every time he woke up in prison, he could glimpse the shadow of his little sister asking him to bring her food.
When he was with his family, his sister was opening the door for him, hugging me, and asking if he could bring chicken and bread. Instead, he gave her a tomato to eat.
‘One day, the Israelis came and arrested me. I always thought about my sister, wondering who would bring her food. Our situation is very difficult,’ concluded Nimr
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