Bassem al-Tamimi

Activism Background Tamimi was ten weeks old at the time of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in June 1967 and hid with his mother in a cave during the conflict. established in 1977. The protests regularly lead to violent clashes, with Palestinian youths throwing stones and Israeli forces firing on protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons. Since the end of 2009, 64 people (13% of the village's population) has been arrested. His home has also been designated for demolition by Israel's Civil Administration.

Tamimi, during his trial, repeatedly questioned the legitimacy of the Israeli military court trying him as well as Israeli regulations regarding public gatherings. A military spokeswoman stated that the sentence had been suspended due to "irregularities in the trial" and Tamimi's "clean prison record". Under the terms of Tamimi's suspended sentences, he would be imprisoned for two months if he participated in an illegal demonstration within two years of the sentencing, and imprisoned for seven months if he participated in "activity against the security forces" within five years. Responding to the suspended sentences, Tamimi said, "I feel that my whole life is under the surveillance of the judge." Human Rights Watch stated that the conviction "violates [Tamimi's] right to freedom of assembly, while [the court's] conviction of him on a second charge of urging children to throw stones on the basis of a child’s coercively-obtained statement raises serious concerns about the fairness of his trial."

October 2012 arrest On 24 October, Tamimi joined 80 other activists, both Palestinian and international, in a protest at a Rami Levy supermarket in the West Bank just north of Jerusalem. The activists carried banners reading "Boycott occupation and its products." Tamimi was arrested during the protest, which the Israeli police called "an illegal demonstration." He was released in early 2013. The charges against him were dismissed by a judge two weeks later. |source=

In 2015, the Anti-Defamation League condemned a post (since deleted) by Tamimi on social media, where he allegedly spread the false myth of the Israel harvesting the organs of Palestinian children.

In December 2017, Tamimi's 16-year-old daughter, Ahed Tamimi, was seen in a viral video, pushing, punching and kicking Israeli soldiers, following their cousin being shot in the face with a rubber bullet and being put into an induced coma. The next day, she was arrested for the first time by the Israeli army, in a pre-dawn raid on their home in Nabi Salih. Later in the day, Ahad's mother Nariman was allegedly arrested too when visiting her daughter at a police station. In the wake of the incident, Israeli Education Minister Naftali Bennett declared that the young women involved "should finish their lives in prison".

On the 29 October 2023, while travelling to visit relatives in Jordan, Tamimi was detained at Allenby Bridge and last heard of when the family was telephoned by an anonymous woman from Silwan from Hadassah hospital where he had been taken after suffering from a dangerous rise in blood pressure. His voice can be heard reassuring the family that he was all right. Some time later, the woman sent a photo of him bound in ziptie cuffs as he underwent his checkup. The family learnt he had been sentenced to 6 months of administration detention in early November.

He was permitted a visit from his lawyer shortly before Eid al-Fitr in April 2024. On the expiry of his first detention, the sentence was renewed under secret hearings. A friend who suffered the same fate was released and enabled Tamimi's lawyer to ascertain some elements surrounding the circumstances and reasons for his incarceration. When Haaretz attempted to publish what it called ‘the Kafkaesque proceedings of judicial review’, the Israeli military censor blacked out a large part of their report. Tamimi is one of 7016 Palestinians, as of 29 May 2024, held in detention by Israel without any conviction, of whom 60% are being held without charges being laid or a trial leading to conviction.

Personal life Tamimi has a wife, Nariman, The Tamimis say they were a Christian family, who became Muslim before they came to Nabi Salih (from Hebron) 300–400 years ago. In 2012, a photograph of his daughter Ahed shaking her fist at an Israeli soldier became internationally famous, and she received the Handala Courage award in Istanbul, meeting Turkey's then prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

In 1993, Tamimi's sister Bassama Tamimi died while attending his remand hearing at the military court in Ramallah, allegedly after she was pushed down a flight of stairs by an Israeli army interpreter. Bassem's cousin Rushdi Muhammed Sa'id Tamimi was convicted of the October 1993 murder of Haim Mizrahi, a settler from Beit El, and was released in 2013. Bassem was arrested and reportedly tortured. In December 2011, Tamimi's cousin Mustafa Tamimi was killed by a direct hit from a gas grenade fired at close range. In November 2012, Tamimi's brother-in-law Rushdi Tamimi was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers.