The Carpenter's Wife

[Violet_Crumble]

by Gideon Levy
October 22, 2005


Why did Haifa Hindiya, a 38-year-old married woman and mother of five, stab a soldier at a checkpoint on the first day of the month of Ramadan? Was it because she was battered and humiliated by her husband, as her family claims? Or because she was mentally ill, suffering from depression, as her husband alleges? Did the fact that her parents' house was demolished three years ago, even though her parents had done nothing wrong, have an effect, as her brother claims? Was it because of the occupation, as claimed by Fatah, which immediately adopted her into the movement's fold and declared her a shahida (martyr) after she was shot and killed by the soldiers at the checkpoint?

Two homes in Nablus are now in mourning for Haifa Hindiya. The mourners in a home in the neighborhood of Upper Dahiya, high up on Mount Eival, are her parents, sisters and brother; the mourners in a home on the edge of the Balata refugee camp are her husband and children. Each group is hurling serious accusations at the other, but both homes agree that Haifa wanted to die. She was finished with her life. "She wanted to rest," says her mother, who saw her for the last time on the evening before she went to the checkpoint, a fateful evening whose events are also in dispute. The husband says that her mother threw her out, the mother says that she implored her daughter to go home to her husband ahead of the holiday.

It was the first day of Ramadan and the woman from the edge of Balata apparently succumbed to fear of the holiday. A month of festive family meals evening after evening to break the fast can be an oppressive and threatening burden for a shaky family and an equally shaky women. So, the only way out that appeared on her gloomy and stifling horizon was to take a knife and go to the checkpoint that closes off the city. There is nothing easier than committing suicide at an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) checkpoint. All you have to do is take out a knife and inflict a light wound on a soldier - in this case a female soldier - and your body will immediately be riddled with bullets. That is exactly what happened to Haifa, the woman who was finished with life. Her last wish - to die before the holiday season - was fulfilled by IDF soldiers.

To Israeli eyes, the Balata refugee camp, situated on the slopes of Nablus, looks like an evil place. It is a collection of wretched, densely packed shacks dominated by the color gray. The carpentry shop of Munir Yaish is located on the first floor of the building on the edge of the camp, and on the third floor - a makeshift space reached by a wobbly staircase - is the family's home. It was here that the carpenter Munir Yaish and his wife Haifa Hindiya lived. Here they raised their five children: Farida (14), Asaraa (12), Rahama (10), Ahmed (8) and Tisnim (6). Here they lived their lives and had their ceaseless quarrels. Here Haifa, 38, fell into a depression, surrounded by her husband's family, who apparently bullied and abused her. The fact that she had four daughters and only one son was one of the pretexts for this treatment. Her children apparently also shunned her, under the influence of their father and his family.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=8979