Ahmad Dawabshe. (WAFA Images) 

By Zahran Maali

NABLUS, Wednesday, July 31, 2019 (WAFA) - Ten days ago, Ahmad Saad Dawabshe celebrated his ninth birthday and today he is completing his fourth year in laser treatment to recover from the effects of burns to his body.

Ahmad was the only survivor of the July 31, 2015 arson by Jewish settlers of his family’s Duma village home southeast of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. His father, Saad, 32, his mother, Riham, 27, and his infant 18-months old brother, Ali, were all burnt alive and perished in the terrorist attack.

For the fourth consecutive year, the only survivor of that terrorist attack celebrates his birthday with his relatives and friend. This year, however, he was given a small-scale celebration confined to his uncle Nasr Dawabshe and grandparents following the death of his uncle.

The arson, which took place in the same month Ahmad was born, turned this month into one of pain and agony instead of festive and celebration, not only for Ahmad but for his extended family and village. Seeing his family burnt alive in an arson that almost killed him after Jewish terrorists from the illegal settlement outpost of Yesh Kodesh threw incendiary bombs inside the room where the family was sleeping is not something he can forget easily, particularly with the scares that the arson has left on his body and mind.

Arson is one of the most important tools used by Jewish terrorists against Palestinian civilians. It includes burning farms, trees, mosques, churches, schools and homes.

"We cannot forget the wound of the family and this crime that shook the conscience of the world,” said Nasr Dawabshe. “But, we as a family, like the rest of the Palestinian people, face such acts with patience and perseverance.”

For the last four years, the family has been shuffling from Israeli court hearings on the arson and hospitals for the treatment of Ahmad’s severe burns, said Dawabshe.

"Even since the 2015 arson, Ahmad has been getting laser treatment four times a year to heal the deformities caused by the fire. This treatment may last 15 years," explained Dawabshe.

He said that Ahmed is in the fourth grade and practices his hobbies in horseback riding, playing football and swimming. His relatives try to help him forget what happened to his family, but the wound is great and gruesome, so the scenes of his family burnt alive do not leave his mind and he is awakened by nightmares whenever he hears of an attack by settlers on a Palestinian village.

"The anniversary goes by on and we live its details every day with every attack by the settlers and assault on our people. For four years we did not have one good night sleep. We remain awake and alarmed when we hear any sound or movement. We expect it to be an attack on us by the settlers or a member of the village," said Dawabshe.

He points out that it is not only the laser operations that bother Ahmad, who needs a repair of his right ear, which he lost from the fire, when he completes 16 years of age, which may require treatment for another four years.

On the hearings in the Israeli courts, Dawabshe says that after four years for the crime, the family faces a real challenge in the murderers being released. After 17 settlers were accused of the case in 2015, only one remains in custody and the Israelis are doing every effort to have him released.

"The settler gangs receive full care and support from the Israeli government, the Israeli occupation police and the Israeli judiciary," he said. "It shows in the way they deal with the case which says to the settlers, ’Do what you want but do not leave any trace of your attacks against the Palestinians. And if anyone left a trace, we in the Israeli government and judiciary, will absolve you and defend you’."

Although the settler, Amiram Ben-Oliel, has confessed to committing the crime of burning the Dawabshe family and has replayed the event, there are new attempts by his defense team that says his confessions were extracted under torture, according to Dawabshe.

He added that the Dawabshe family, with the assistance of the Palestinian Foreign Ministry, had gone to the International Court of Justice and handed over the case of the Dawabshe family to the United Nations Prosecutor. However, the latter will only consider the case after exhausting all legal proceedings before the Israeli courts.

He explained that the case has been before the Israeli courts for four years and can continue for another year or more and that Israel is trying to block efforts by the Palestinians and the family to go to international judiciary. He stresses, however, that after the case ends in Israeli courts, it will be taken to international courts to repudiate the authenticity of the Israeli justice system, which the international community knows it is biased toward the settlers and gives them licenses to kill and power to continue their terror against the Palestinian civilians.

M.K.