Ahed Tamimi breathes freedom »

West Bank – Ina Follow-up: The Palestinian girl, Ahed Tamimi, was warmly received after her release from the Israeli occupation detention centers, where she was imprisoned last year after she was filmed kicking and slapping an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank. Video footage showed crowds of Palestinians welcoming the girl, who became a new “Palestinian icon,” after the incident that took place last December 15, outside her home in the village of Nabi Saleh. Her mother posted the incident directly on Facebook and it quickly spread. The girl, who was 16 years old at the time, was charged with 12 charges, including serious assault, which sparked a wave of condemnations from several countries and human rights organizations. A spokesman for the Israeli Occupation Prisons Service said on Sunday morning: “Ahed left Sharon Prison, and she is on her way to the West Bank, where her family lives, which has a long history of protesting against an Israeli settlement near her home.” The case touched on what included legitimate resistance to the Israeli occupation, which has now entered its fifty-first year, in the lands that Israel seized during the 1967 war. Ahed’s supporters view her as an “icon of protest” and a brave girl who slapped the two soldiers in anger, after she learned that the occupation forces The Israeli woman injured her 15-year-old cousin and fired a rubber bullet at him from close range in the head during confrontations that saw soldiers throwing stones. Since 2009, the village of Ahed, the village of Nabi Saleh, has witnessed periodic anti-occupation demonstrations, which often end in clashes that witness the throwing of stones at Israeli forces. Ahed participated in similar marches when she was young, and has many well-known confrontations with Israeli soldiers. After the recent confrontation, posters bearing pictures of the girl became widespread in the West Bank, and approximately 1.7 million people around the world signed a petition calling for her release.