Ali is carried into the room in the arms of Uncle Bilal, his father’s brother. Everyone falls silent, some eyes fill with tears at the sight of the little baby. Ali is not yet two months old – and his father was killed last Friday by the Israel Defense Forces. A single bullet was fired at him and struck his chest from a distance of a few hundred meters.
A mourning poster with Imad Duikat’s photo.
Alex Levac
The makeshift memorial to Imad Duikat.
Alex Levac
Bilal, Imad Duikat’s brother, holds baby Ali. Imad’s four daughter sit next to them. Imad’s father, also named Ali, is in the foreground.
Alex Levac
Imad Duikat, a simple laborer, had been among hundreds of fellow inhabitants of the West Bank village of Beita, who every Friday gather across from Evyatar, an illegal outpost whose settlers have left for the time being but whose dwellings are still there, intact. Village leaders insist that they will not rest until the last stone is removed from Evyatar, and the land – which they say belongs to Beita and three other nearby villages – is restored to its owners.
Duikat, 38, was drinking water from a disposable cup in the midday heat when he was shot. The cup now lies at the center of the improvised memorial – a circle of stones – that his friends have placed around the dried bloodstain where the bullet slammed into him. His infant son Ali, and his four sisters, will never see him again. Imad’s grandfather, also named Ali, presses his little grandson to his heart and gives him a kiss.
This simple home, lying deep inside Beita, is steeped in mourning. We arrived there early this week to visit Imad’s father, brother, children and other relatives. The grieving women were on the first floor. A group of local men had gathered to console each other in a hall in the center of the village.
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