They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom

by Ahed Tamimi

By 2008, they had built an additional fence around the settlement that took in even more of our land. Palestinian farmers were cut off from their crops and grazing pastures, jeopardizing their livelihoods. Although the Israeli government protects the settlers and treats the land they steal as if it were part of Israel, this time an Israeli court actually ordered the fence to be taken down. It was, but the courts did nothing more to stop the settlers of Halamish. Undeterred, they took our precious Ayn Al Qaws spring and built a pool to collect the springwater. They added a shading structure, benches, and a swing set. They put up signs around the area that read Meir Spring, renaming our centuries-old water source after one of their settlement’s founders. And they could do this all because they were protected at every step by the Israeli military—after all, the Israeli military, the settlers, the courts, and the government are all part of the same system.