Self-proclaimed Palestinian “protest icon” Ahed Tamimi vowed to continue fighting the Israeli military in her first public statement since being released from prison Sunday morning.
Tamimi was set free the HaSharon prison to a West Bank border crossing with her mother Nariman, who was sentenced at the same time.
While being welcomed later in her village of Nabi Saleh, the teen broke down in tears and told the crowd she was “extremely happy” to be “in the arms and embrace of my family.”
“My happiness is not complete without my sisters [Palestinian female prisoners], who are not with me. I hope that they will also be free,” she said.
“My message here is that our resistance will continue, particularly our resistance for equal rights,” she said through a translator.
Last December, Tamimi and her mother were arrested by Israeli forces after a video showed the young woman, then 16, hitting and slapping two armed Israeli soldiers in an unprovoked attack outside her home (see below).
Israeli politicians hailed the restraint of the soldiers as evidence of the military’s values.
Ahed’s father, Bassem, told AP his daughter received a call from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan soon after her release. Bassem Tamimi says he does not know what Erdogan said to his daughter.
Erdogan received Ahed Tamimi in Turkey in 2012, after she scuffled with an Israeli soldier trying to arrest her brother.
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