ISM honours Kayla Mueller
Today, 10th February, Kayla Mueller’s family confirmed she has been killed.
Abdullah Abu Rahma, coordinator of the popular committee in the village of Bil’in where Kayla joined the protests, told
ISM: “Kayla came to Palestine to stand in solidarity with us. She marched with us and faced the military that occupies
our land side by side with us. For this, Kayla will always live in our hearts. We send all our support to her family and
will continue, like Kayla, to work against injustice wherever it is.”
Kayla Mueller volunteered with the International Solidarity Movement from August to September of 2010.
On 4 August 2013 Kayla, 26, originally from Prescott, Arizona, was working with Syrian refugees when she was kidnapped
after leaving a Spanish Doctors Without Borders hospital in Aleppo. Since that time she has been held in captivity by
Da’esh (ISIS). This information was not previously released publicly out of concerns for her safety. On February 6th,
Da’esh announced that she had been killed by Jordanian airstrikes in Raqqa, northern Syria. The validity of their
announcement has not been confirmed.
Our hearts are with Kayla, her family, friends, and all those who have lost liberty, lives and loved ones in the global
struggle for freedom and human rights.
With the ISM, Kayla worked with Palestinians nonviolently resisting the confiscation and demolitions of their homes and
lands. In the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of Occupied East Jerusalem, she stayed with the Al Kurd family to try and
prevent the takeover of their home by Israeli settlers.
Kayla published writing online about her work in Palestine with the International Solidarity Movement in August and
September 2010. “How can I ignore the blessing of freedom of speech when I know that people I deeply care for can be
shot dead for it?” she wrote.
Below are excerpts from two of Kayla’s posts.
October 29, 2010:
“I could tell a few stories about running desperately from what you pray are rubber-coated steel bullets launched from
the gun tip of a reckless and frightened 18-year old.”
“I could tell a few stories about sleeping in front of half demolished buildings waiting for the one night when the
bulldozers come to finish them off; fearing sleep because you don’t know what could wake you. . . . I could tell a few
stories about walking children home from school because settlers next door are keen to throw stones, threaten and curse
at them. Seeing the honest fear in young boys eyes when heavily armed settlers arise from the outpost; pure fear, frozen
from further steps, lip trembling.”
“The smell and taste of tear gas has lodged itself in the pores of my throat and the skin around my nose, mouth and
eyes. It still burns when I close them. It still hangs in the air like invisible fire burning the oxygen I breathe. When
I cry tears for this land, my eyes still sting. This land that is beautiful as the poetry of the mystics. This land with
the people who’s hearts are more expansive than any wall that any man could ever build. Yes, the wall will fall. The
nature of impermanence is our greatest ally and soon the rules will change, the tide will turn and just as the moon
waxes and wanes over this land so too the cycles of life here will continue. One day the cycle will once again return to
freedom.”
“Oppression greets us from all angles. Oppression wails from the soldiers radio and floats through tear gas clouds in
the air. Oppression explodes with every sound bomb and sinks deeper into the heart of the mother who has lost her son.
But resistance is nestled in the cracks in the wall, resistance flows from the minaret 5 times a day and resistance sits
quietly in jail knowing its time will come again. Resistance lives in the grieving mother’s wails and resistance lives
in the anger at the lies broadcasted across the globe. Though it is sometimes hard to see and even harder sometimes to
harbor, resistance lives. Do not be fooled, resistance lives.”
On New Year’s Day of 2011, Kayla received news that Jawaher Abu Rahma, from the village of Bil’in where Kayla had
demonstrated in solidarity with her and her family, had been killed by tear gas asphyxiation. On the first of January
2011, Kayla wrote:
“I felt compelled to blog on this today. The first day of 2011, the actual day that she died, just a few hours ago in a
village called, Bil’in.”
“Every Friday in Bil’in villagers and international/Israel activists march to the barbed wire fence where an enormous
and expanding illegal settlement is visible to protest the theft of their land and their livelihoods. The Palestinians
are armed with rocks, the other activists with cameras and collectively they are armed with their bones. Each Friday the
demonstration is met with violence; rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas and sounds bombs are the usual choice of
artillery. Lives are taken as a result of the violence and Jawaher Abu Rahmah’s life was taken today.
I have been to this village,
I demonstrated in this village,
I demonstrated arm in arm with her brothers,
and I knew her.”
……………
“My first demonstration in Palestine was in Bil’in and that is when I met Ashraf, Jawaher’s brother. Despite his broken
English he always made a point to make sure we were ok when we were at the demonstration in his village, to help us
cough up the tear gas and walk off the anxiety. He showed us his village and we played with the kids. Ashraf would bring
us water or tea and help us find rides out of the village back to the cities. In the summer of 2008, Ashraf was
participating in the demonstration and was detained by the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). After he was blind-folded and
his hands bound, an IDF soldier shot him in the foot from a distance of about 2 meters shattering his toes and leaving
him in trauma as one could imagine.”
(As with all of these video clips, the content may be too graphic for some, please use discretion).
“Just the next year in 2009 Ashraf’s brother, Bassem Abu Rahma, was participating in the demonstration and was
attempting to communicate with the IDF soldiers telling them to stop shooting the steel-coated rubber bullets as an
Israeli activist had been shot in the leg and needed medical attention. Not soon after an Israeli soldier illegally used
a tear gas canister as a bullet hitting Bassem in the chest, stopping his heart and killing him instantly.”
And now just today, the daughter of the Rahmah family, Jawaher, has been asphyxiated from tear gas inhalation. Jawaher
was not even participating in the weekly demonstration but was in her home approximately 500 meters away from where the
tear gas canisters were being fired (by wind the tear gas reaches the village and even the nearby illegal settlement
often). There is currently little information as to how she suffocated but the doctor that attended her said a mixture
of the tear gas from the IDF soldiers and phosphorus poisoned her lungs causing asphyxiation, the stopping of the heart
and death this afternoon after fighting for her life last night in the hospital. The following is a clip from today
showing hundreds of Palestinians, Israelis and international activist carrying her body to her families home where they
said their final goodbyes.
“This family has a tragic story, but it is the story of life in Palestine.”
“Thank you for reading. Ask me questions and ask yourself questions but most importantly, question the answers.
Forever in solidarity,
Kayla”
ENDS