Bellingham Herald · Bellingham, Washington · 17 March 1976

CP-1976-011

Plight of four schoolgirls illustrates frustration of West Bank occupation

World Affairs

William Frye

Transcribed from the clipping

“RAMALLAH, Occupied West Bank, Israel — Four distressed high school girls, aged 16 to 18, sat in Mayor Karim Khlaf’s office and told a story that epitomizes the sadness and the frustration of the Israeli occupation of the Jordanian West Bank. The girls had taken part in a demonstration in their 11th and 12th grade classrooms at the Ramallah Secondary Girls School, cheering for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and against Israeli occupation. Israeli soldiers came and took some of them away. They were brought before a military court and 20 of them were fined between 5,000 and 6,000 Israeli pounds each. This is a sum equivalent to between $677 and $800. They could not pay. The court gave them a month to raise the money. The deadline was near, and they were terrified. If they did not pay, their fathers would be taken to jail. The girls sat near the mayor’s desk, twisting their hands and trying to fight back the tears. Their parents, one said, tossing black pigtails defiantly, supported them. But naturally, the fathers did not want to go to jail. Mayor Khalaf, a 38-year-old Palestinian, said he would try to get the fines reduced, and if that failed would see if he could raise the money among Ramallah businessmen. The girls left with a ray of hope… The spokesman, David Zohar, said there were many such cases each year. The fines, a spokesman said, range between ‘some hundreds and some thousands of pounds.’ In the Israeli view, this is a relatively mild security measure. In one school, the Kadri Toukan School in Nablus, 73 youngsters were hurt by club-swinging soldiers. In another, the Al Bireh Secondary Girls School near Ramallah, a 26-year-old teacher, Floranda Lahham, blocked the soldiers’ way in a doorway and was sentenced by a military court to five years in prison. The jail term was later commuted, but Lahham had to pay a 2,500-pound ($340) fine and was suspended from her job without pay for six months. Her mother is dead and her father is unemployed. The four girls spilled out these stories, and others, with great earnestness and deep concern. Their sincerity was evident. The mayor and an Anglican priest, the Rev. Audeh G. Rantisi, head of a nearby evangelical home for boys, supported their account… Thirteen college men were hospitalized and five were fined 3,500 pounds (almost $500) each. The mayor and city council later resigned in protest… Children have taken to the streets because their elders do not dare protest openly and they do, it is said.”

Context added by this archive

Schoolgirls of sixteen to eighteen, fined more than a year’s wages for cheering in a classroom, sitting in the mayor’s office trying not to cry because their fathers will go to prison if they cannot pay. One of them tosses her pigtails and says her parents are behind her. A twenty-six-year-old teacher, Floranda Lahham, stood in a doorway to stop the soldiers and was given five years, commuted to a fine and six months without pay. Her mother is dead and her father has no work, and the paper prints that too.

Cite this item

"Plight of four schoolgirls illustrates frustration of West Bank occupation," Bellingham Herald, 17 March 1976. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1976-011. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1976-011

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