As I sit on my sofa, I am confronted by a drawing of Handala on the shelf opposite me. This iconic figure, created by Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali, symbolizes the enduring Palestinian struggle. Handala’s back is turned as he silently observes the world’s injustices.
I have just watched a video, aired by Israel’s Channel 12, of Israeli soldiers apparently raping a Palestinian prisoner in Sde Teiman detention camp; the event occurred in late July. The video depicts a group of Israeli soldiers selecting a man, blindfolded and with hands bound, from among about 30 detainees lying on the ground. As a dog barks nearby, they take him aside, surround him, and conceal what they are doing to him by holding up riot shields.
According to Aljazeera, the Israeli media reported that the detainee endured extreme torture and suffered serious anal injuries, resulting in paralysis; his condition was so severe that he was taken to a hospital. The Israeli military police detained 10 soldiers suspected of involvement in the incident for questioning; only five were taken into custody.
I cried in anger and despair after watching this video. I couldn’t help but see Handala in the victim, trying to protect himself with his hands behind his back.
A perverse tactic of war
My new, distressing interpretation of Handala as rape victim is a product of the obscene levels of violence Palestinians face during the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza. The weaponization of sexual violence has long been a tactic of war against Palestinian men, women, and children to increase their trauma and humiliation, but it is now being documented on a horrific scale.
Through more than 300 days of Israel’s war on Gaza, multiple verified cases of sexual violence and harassment in Israeli detention camps have been reported by a variety of human rights organizations. United Nations experts confirmed in February of this year that they have collected credible allegations that Israeli soldiers have sexually assaulted Palestinian women and girls, especially at the detention camps.
They confirmed at least two cases of rape and other cases of torture and threats of rape, and they called for investigations. Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, affirmed in a Guardian article that the number of evidence-supported cases downplays the real extent of sexual violence.
Just prior to the videotaped incident at Sde Teiman, Palestinian lawyer Khaled Mahajneh revealed horrifying details after making a visit to that same detention camp. He confirmed different cases of Israeli sexual violence against the Palestinian detainees.
On one occasion, Israeli soldiers stripped detainees naked and raped them using a variety of tools such as sticks and electric bars, in front of other detainees and Israeli soldiers. Many freed Palestinian detainees have reported similar forms of rape or seen the same inflicted on others and that soldiers had trained dogs to attack, urinate on, and even rape detainees.
A new interpretation of Handala
The iconic Handala character is a barefoot scruffy refugee camp child, his back to us. His age is fixed at 10 years old — the age of Naji Al-Ali when Israel forced his family to be displaced in the Nakba of 1948.
Handala’s name comes from a bitter fruit to remind us of our harsh reality and to suggest the bitter nature of resistance. Ali created this image in 1969 to express his anger at the injustices inflicted upon Palestinians by the Nakba and to draw the world’s attention to them.
For Palestinians, Handala represents all of us, uniting all factions and backgrounds under a shared identity. The iconic character is a stark reminder of our collective consciousness and our assertive, unapologetic stance in the face of oppression.
Handala embodies our dynamic resistance and our rightful refusal to normalize the heinous crimes committed by the Israeli colonial occupation.
Since October 7, increased attention has been given to Handala as an icon of the suffering we Palestinians have encountered and the resilience we have developed to endure it. His image has appeared at demonstrations, on walls, and at protest encampments in cities around the world.
My new interpretation of Handala as rape victim resonates with a long-standing question of why the child Handala has his hands positioned behind his back. Some say, “He is the symbol of the Palestinian refugees that are waiting for justice and return.” When I was growing up, people said to me that this posture was like that of our elderly people, so the child Handala symbolized his own aging as he longed to go home to Palestine.
But for me he now calls to mind the many people I know who have been exposed to sexual violence and used their hands or bags to cover themselves.
This is a new way of looking at Handala, even for myself, and I have been studying sexual violence against Palestinians for some years. It pains me that my new perception of him, caused by watching the Sde Teiman video, now takes precedence over Handala the Nakba victim who is longing for return or resisting occupation.
Now I see the Handala of old but with his hands cuffed like a prisoner and a bloody patch on his pants to show he has been sexually abused. His back is still turned to the world that is, as ever, indifferent and silent.
Handala now tells us that what is being raped are not only individual Palestinians, but also human dignity. The world’s consensus approval of Israel’s weaponization of sexual violence, and its deafening silence in response to such video-recorded atrocities, is a collective betrayal of all of us.
Painful as it is to look at the new, bleeding rendition of Handala, this is nevertheless a reflection of our daily reality. Handala adapts to the evolving reality of Israeli colonization and is a symbol and manifestation of everything we go through as Palestinians.
For decades, this world has silently watched a succession of horrific atrocities against the Palestinians; Handala now reminds us that with the same inaction the world watches the rape of our dear men, women, boys, and girls.
