In the military courtroom,
a 16-year-old girl with blonde hair:
Wearing a pale-colored coat,
red hat and black sneakers.
Her hands cuffed and ankles clamped with iron,
Surrounded by Israeli police,
facing judges in army uniforms.

From inside the iron cage, she appears,
With eyes tired, yet still glowing
like the sky of occupied Palestine
Unadorned, she shines,
Unaffected and uncontrived.

She smiles once her eyes meet those of her father;
he’s been jailed ten times too.
She looks for her mom—
But she’s also arrested.

Handcuffed and shackled,
her wild mane of hair tamed…but not.
Through the lens of the camera,
she looked me in the eye

Ahed’s charge: slapping injustice.
“Get out of my house,” she said to the intruders
who forced their way into her house in Nabi Saleh.
She slapped her occupier, without touching his insolent face.
“You are dangerous,” says the military judge.
“She should spend her life in prison,”
says the high government official.
She is a threat to this "invincible" army:
Her only weapon the heart of a lion.