DUMA, West Bank // Thousands of Palestinians gathered on Monday for the funeral of a woman who became the third member of a family to die from a Jewish extremist firebomb attack on their home.
Reham Dawabshe died of her injuries on her 27th birthday on Sunday, five weeks after her 18-month-old son, Ali, burned to death in the attack in Duma near Nablus.
Her husband Sa’ad, 32, died a week later in an Israeli hospital in Beer Sheva. The only survivor, 4-year-old Ahmed, suffered second-degree burns to 60 per cent of his body.
The boy is still in hospital and has been told about his parents’ deaths.
Extremist settlers have been blamed for the arson in which petrol bombs were hurled through the window of the home and racist graffiti was scrawled on an outside wall.
The attack sparked protests in both Palestine and Israel and led to a crackdown by the Israeli government on far-right Israeli groups. There have, however, been no arrests directly relating to the case.
“We have been living through 35 days of agony,” the cousin of Reham, Aisha Dawabshe, 47, told The National.
Reham had suffered third-degree burns to 90 per cent of her body and her body had rejected a skin graft, leading to infection that eventually led to organ failure, she said.
She died with her mother Satireh, father Hussein and three aunts at her side.
On Monday, Reham’s body was taken from the Sheba Medical Center at Tel Hashomer near Tel Aviv, where she had been in intensive care, and transported to Duma in the West Bank for the funeral.
Ahead of the funeral, a group of Palestinian teenagers in school uniform waited patiently outside the burned-out Dawabshe family home. The girls were from a secondary school near Nablus where Reham had worked as a maths teacher.
Mourners moved slowly in lines inside the house paying their respects. Some of them broke down in tears and were consoling one another with hugs.
A banner hung from outside the house of Mohammed Abu Khdeir, the Palestinian teen from East Jerusalem who was burned alive by Jewish extremists in the summer of 2014 ahead of the war in Gaza between Hamas and Israel.
“They burned the infant,” was written neatly in Arabic to the left of the front entrance to the home.
Inside, a charred armchair sat in the entrance way covered in flowers and text from the Quran.
In the bedroom where the toddler Ali perished, a baby’s push chair stood against one wall covered with a kaffiyeh and surrounded with flowers and messages of condolence.
Mithal Bashar, 14, carried a bouquet of home-grown flowers as she described Reham as one of her favourite teachers.
“The last time I saw her was during the final exams and I expected to see her again at the beginning of the new school year. Today I am saying farewell to her and I know she would have been happy because half of the 20 students in my class passed their exams.
“It was a shock for us when we heard what happened, it was an ugly crime ... and we hope that justice will be done.”
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas declared three days of mourning and ordered flags lowered to half-mast.
Secretary general of the Palestinian Liberation Organization Saeb Erekat said the tragedy was unlikely to be the last attack by Jewish extremists on Palestinians inside Israeli occupied territory.
“If Israel is not stopped and held accountable then Reham will not be the last victim of Israeli terror. There is a culture of hate that has been developing in Israel by supporting settlements and apartheid,” he said.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed his condolences to the Dawabshe family on Monday and said that security forces were doing all that they could to catch the perpetrators and bring them to justice.
Neither of the two agencies investigating the attack, the Israeli Security Agency, Shin Bet, and the Israeli police, have commented on the case due to a gag order.
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
* Additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
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Our legal advisor
Ahmad El Sayed is Senior Associate at Charles Russell Speechlys, a law firm headquartered in London with offices in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Hong Kong.
Experience: Commercial litigator who has assisted clients with overseas judgments before UAE courts. His specialties are cases related to banking, real estate, shareholder disputes, company liquidations and criminal matters as well as employment related litigation.
Education: Sagesse University, Beirut, Lebanon, in 2005.
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
Getting there
The flights
Flydubai operates up to seven flights a week to Helsinki. Return fares to Helsinki from Dubai start from Dh1,545 in Economy and Dh7,560 in Business Class.
The stay
Golden Crown Igloos in Levi offer stays from Dh1,215 per person per night for a superior igloo; www.leviniglut.net
Panorama Hotel in Levi is conveniently located at the top of Levi fell, a short walk from the gondola. Stays start from Dh292 per night based on two people sharing; www. golevi.fi/en/accommodation/hotel-levi-panorama
Arctic Treehouse Hotel in Rovaniemi offers stays from Dh1,379 per night based on two people sharing; www.arctictreehousehotel.com
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
'Jurassic%20World%20Dominion'
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
MATCH INFO
Chelsea 3 (Abraham 11', 17', 74')
Luton Town 1 (Clark 30')
Man of the match Abraham (Chelsea)
Zayed Sustainability Prize
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups
Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.
Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.
Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.
Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).
Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.
Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.
Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.
Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Celta Vigo 2
Castro (45'), Aspas (82')
Barcelona 2
Dembele (36'), Alcacer (64')
Red card: Sergi Roberto (Barcelona)
Company profile
Company name: Suraasa
Started: 2018
Founders: Rishabh Khanna, Ankit Khanna and Sahil Makker
Based: India, UAE and the UK
Industry: EdTech
Initial investment: More than $200,000 in seed funding
