Immediately after the founding of the Hamas movement in 1987, Maryam Farhat joined it (Palestinian Al-Rai Agency)
A Palestinian activist and politician, a leader in the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), and a representative in the Gaza Legislative Council for the Change and Reform Bloc. She was born in 1949 and lived a life full of stories of redemption. She became famous by the nickname “The Khans of Palestine” after she pushed her children to join the ranks of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The military wing of Hamas. 3 of them were martyred and she received their news with patience and steadfastness. She died after a severe struggle with illness in 2013.
Birth and upbringing
Maryam Muhammad Youssef Muheisen Farhat was born on December 24, 1949 in the Shujaiya neighborhood in the eastern Gaza Strip, located southwest of Palestine, to a simple family. She grew up with 10 brothers and 5 sisters.
Study and scientific training
She excelled in her studies and completed the basic stages in Gaza schools, and secondary school in Al-Zahraa School. While she was at the beginning of high school, she married Fathi Farhat, but that did not prevent her from continuing her academic career, and she obtained a high school diploma while pregnant with her first child.
Maryam Farhat died on March 17, 2013 in Al-Shifa Hospital and was buried in the Martyrs’ Cemetery (social media sites)
Struggle experience
Since her childhood, she was influenced by her surroundings, as she opened her eyes to the events after the Nakba, then she lived through the events of the tripartite aggression against Egypt in 1956, and was affected by the nationalist tide at the beginning of the sixties of the last century, then she witnessed the events of the setback in 1967, and in the late sixties and beginning of the seventies of the 20th century she belonged to the Islamic movement. She became the librarian of the Islamic Academy.
Immediately after the founding of the Hamas movement in 1987, she joined it and began sheltering those persecuted from the Al-Qassam Brigades, such as Muhammad Al-Deif, Awad Salmi, Raed Al-Hallaq, Ayman Muhanna, and others, in her home.
One of the most important people she sheltered was Imad Aql, one of the most prominent founders of the Phalange, even though he was only 22 years old at the time. He and a number of his companions hid in her house in the Shujaiya neighborhood for nearly an entire year.
On November 24, 1993, forces consisting of 60 armored vehicles surrounded the house and engaged in a violent clash with Imad and his companions, who refused to surrender and became martyrs on the same day.
Her sons joined the Al-Qassam Brigades, and she continued to support them. She would visit their headquarters and help them as much as she could. At the same time, she engaged in advocacy and institutional women’s work. She also took care of poor families and gradually rose in the Hamas movement to participate in the elections of the Legislative Council for the Change and Reform Bloc in 2006, winning and becoming Member of the Education Committee.
After the stifling siege imposed by Israel on the Gaza Strip in the first half of 2006, I traveled with Council delegations to several countries to bring aid.
"The Khans of Palestine"
She was not satisfied with her struggle activity, as she urged her children to join the ranks of the Al-Qassam Brigades, and she had 6 sons and 4 daughters.
She became famous in 2002 when she appeared in a video clip bidding farewell to her son Muhammad, who was only 17 years old, and urging him to die for the sake of God and to enlist in the occupation soldiers and not return except carried on the shoulders of men, before carrying out a commando operation in the Israeli “Atzona” settlement in the south of the Gaza Strip. On March 7 of the same year, it led to the death of 9 soldiers and the injury of 20 others.
On February 16, 2003, her eldest son, Nidal, who was a field commander in the Al-Qassam Brigades, was assassinated after planting an explosive device in a small drone that he was preparing with his comrades in the military manufacturing unit. He was martyred that day with 5 of them, and his mother received the news with all patience, fortitude, and joy at his testimony.
In 2005, the Israeli occupation forces targeted a car east of Gaza City in which her third son, Rawad, was traveling. From an early age, he accompanied the leaders of the first ranks of the battalions when they were hiding in his parents’ house, and excelled in the field of military manufacturing and making explosive devices.
His mother received the news of his martyrdom with the same fortitude and joy. The Palestinians called her “Khansa’a of Palestine,” following the example of Khansaa Tamadur bint Amr, who encouraged her four sons to wage jihad and accompanied them with the army during the time of Omar ibn al-Khattab. She received the news of their martyrdom in the Battle of Al-Qadisiyah with patience and steadfastness.
As for her fourth son, Wissam, nicknamed “Abu Hussein,” he spent about 11 years in occupation prisons, before he was released in 2005 during her lifetime, but he was assassinated like his brothers after her death.
Maryam Farhat with her two sons, members of the Al-Qassam Brigades, the martyrs Wissam (left) and Moamen (French)
Jobs and responsibilities
Secretary of the Islamic Academy Office.
President of the Lighting Candles Association for the Care of Martyrs’ Children.
Member of the Legislative Council for the Reform and Change Bloc 2006.
Death
In the last days of her life, she suffered from severe cirrhosis of the liver and inflammation of the intestines, so she traveled to Cairo to receive treatment, but about two days before her death she returned to the Gaza Strip, and the doctors decided to immediately admit her to intensive care.
She died on March 17, 2013 in Al-Shifa Hospital and was buried in the Martyrs’ Cemetery east of Gaza City next to the graves of her three children, after a solemn funeral in which thousands participated, led by senior leaders of the Hamas movement.
Source: Al Jazeera + Palestinian press