Mother celebrates her “Martyr” son’s “wedding”
Headline: “A Martyr in a wedding yard”
“One-and-a-half hours before a live bullet split the chest of Abd Al-Jawad Saleh (i.e., terrorist, participated in violent confrontations against Israeli soldiers near Ramallah on July 7, 2023), he stood alongside his cousins and the young people of his village Aroura… and participated in their joy after eating with those present a lunch held for the occasion of his cousin Malek’s wedding.
News arrived that the occupation forces and settlers were invading the adjacent village Umm Safa, northwest of Ramallah. Abd Al-Jawad left the celebration quietly and went there to help block the aggression together with the residents. The occupation soldiers surprised him with a bullet that struck his chest. He said the two testimonies [of Muslim faith] and then ascended to Heaven as a Martyr.
There, in the village of Aroura, the joy was at its peak, but it turned to tragedy after news arrived that Abd Al-Jawad, 24, was wounded…
That night, Abd Al-Jawad was supposed to go with his family to another wedding of his relative Ibrahim…
According to her relatives, the mother of Abd Al-Jawad loved to participate in all the events of the village’s residents, but today she has become the mother of a Martyr whom she once dreamed of seeing as a groom [anddreamed] that her village’s residents would participate in her joy over his wedding.
A heavy silence prevailed, but then the calls of the participants in the funeral procession and the women’s sounds of joy and crying shook the walls of the home. The mother, Taghrid Al-Arouri, got up and went towards the door. She opened her arms wide and said in a voice that rose above the voices of those participating in the funeral: ‘Welcome, my son. You have illuminated the home, Abd.’ Afterwards, she turned back and said angrily to the crying women: ‘Why are you crying? This is a groom (i.e., a Martyr's funeral is considered his wedding to the 72 Virgins in Paradise in Islam), make sounds of joy for the groom. Welcome, groom.’ …
The mother refused to wear black clothing as a sign of mourning over her son while bidding him farewell for the last time. Instead, she wore clothing embroidered with red, and when we approached her and asked her about it, she responded: ‘Abd is a groom and today is his wedding.’”
[Official PA daily Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, July 9, 2023]