Family mourns Palestinian barrier protester

Source The National (UAE)

Nearly every Friday for the past five years, Jawahar Abu Rahmah, 36, was a regular face at the weekly protests in her village of Bil'in. In her red-checked headscarf, she marched with hundreds of other activists on the Israeli-built barrier that has separated farmers from large tracts of their land. The snaking fence of barbed wire and towering slabs of concrete, projected to stretch 723km when completed, has disrupted the lives of thousands of Palestinians. Even after her brother, Bassem, was killed when an Israeli tear-gas canister struck his chest at a demonstration there in 2009, those who knew her say Jawahar, one of seven in her family, remained committed to the non-violent ethos of the Bil'in demonstrations. Last Friday she became ill during the weekly protest. The following day she died from what doctors at a hospital in Ramallah said was tear-gas asphyxiation. The young woman's death prompted an immediate response from Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator in peace talks with Israel, who condemned it as "this abominable crime by the Israeli occupation army in Bil'in against people taking part in a peaceful demonstration".