Palestinian teen whose family begged him not to "fight" Israel, died as a "martyr," was glorified as a heroic "giant" by Arafat and PA
Headline: “Faris Ouda – 21 years since the struggle with the Merkava [tank]”
“An’am Ouda, the mother of Faris [Ouda] (i.e., teen who died while participating in violent confrontations against Israel), told [the official PA news agency] WAFA on the 21st anniversary of his death as a Martyr that will take place tomorrow, Monday, Nov. 8, [2021]… that his cousin Shadi died as a Martyr several days before him…
She added: ‘We finished mourning over Shadi, and we opened a mourner’s [house] for Faris. He took a wreath from Shadi’s grave and hid it under the staircase, and he asked the photographers to photograph him in the confrontations in his last days to print a picture for him. One of the photographers brought a picture of Faris throwing rocks at tanks to our home. I took it with concern and hid it so that his father would not see it. When I asked him what the story of the wreath and picture is, he said “I brought them for the day of my death as a Martyr”’…
Faris, whose mother An’am brought him back dozens of times from the sites of confrontation, and whom the entire family lay in wait for him to prevent him from going to throw rocks, stood in front of a procession of Israeli tanks…
The ban – and sometimes even beatings – did not stop him from coming out to the confrontations. On the day of his death as a Martyr they locked him at home, and he went out through the window and down a pipe. Thus for nothing in return he gave us an incredible picture of a child fighting dozens of Israeli tanks with rocks – and then he was shot and executed. [Former PLO and PA President] Martyr Yasser Arafat repeated his name – Martyr Faris Ouda – again and again, and connected his name with his famous saying: ‘The people of giants’ …
In conclusion, we remind that the poster of Faris standing in front of the tank was printed many times. One of these times the number of copies was 150,000. They all disappeared within days because the public hurried to buy them.”
Faris Ouda - 14-year-old Palestinian who was presented by PA Chairman Yasser Arafat as a role model for Palestinian children because he sought and achieved death as a "Martyr" in confrontations with Israel during the PA’s 5-year terror campaign. According to his family and the official PA daily, on Nov. 8, 2000, the day he was killed, before heading towards the areas where Palestinian and Israelis were involved in fighting, Ouda left a wreath around his picture in his room with the words: "Heroic Martyr Faris Ouda." [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Nov. 30. 2000] The PA daily wrote that Ouda had said to his mother, "Don't be afraid, mother, Martyrdom (Shahada) is sweet, and I’m an atonement for the Al-Aqsa Mosque." [Official PA daily, Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, Feb. 3, 2001]
Yasser Arafat – Founder of Fatah and former chairman of the PLO and PA. During the 1960s, 70s and 80s Arafat was behind numerous terror attacks against Israelis. Although he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994 together with then Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and then Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Shimon Peres “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East" after signing the Oslo Accords peace agreement, Arafat launched a 5-year terror campaign - the second Intifada (2000-2005) – in which more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered. Arafat died of an illness in 2004.