Nablus -

While she was in a deep slumber, we knocked on the door of her house asking permission to enter. Umm Askar was tired of illness and prevented her from even opening the door and receiving guests, which she did in the most dangerous and difficult times during the Israeli occupation army's incursions into her house over and over.

In the western neighborhood of old Nablus (northern West Bank) and in the al-Atira neighborhood in the Haddadin market, the house of Nayfa Zaid al-Kilani (Umm Askar) was and still is a witness to the heroism of the sixty-year-old woman in harboring Palestinian persecutors and resistance fighters in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, unaware of the occupation’s punishment and its measures that went beyond the limit of her injury and the arrest of her husband. Abu Askar to the threat of assassination.

Under a long arch, we walked to Umm Askar’s house and groped for its ancient stones that dated back to thousands of years, like the old houses of Nablus.

Abu Askar supported his wife in harboring the pursuers and providing them with what they needed (Al-Jazeera)

Redeem everything

A few years ago, we went back to Umm Askar to talk about her sheltering the pursuers and securing their needs. She helped us, despite the severity of her illness, with words that made an impact in our ears, and she told Al Jazeera Net, "I saw them sleeping on the ground, covering the sky, and carrying their souls on their hands defending their homeland, so how do I leave them?!"

With her husband, Umm Askar continued her struggle, sacrificing everything. She had the mother, the doctor, and the watchful eye who watched every small and big thing to prevent them from any harm. "They left their families and children and came to defend the homeland."

At that time, Umm Askar used her small kitchen as a means of earning a living. She prepared ready-made food with it and cleaned the “empties” (sheep intestines), and what she saved from the money she spent to help the resistance fighters. She did not only provide food and drink, but she divided them into her house;

A room for her and her family and a second for them.

Even her only room is filled with their pictures, letters and artwork, and every time she looks at her she tries to be patient with them.

As one of the homes of "Old Nablus", in which the resistance fighters took shelter at the time due to its complex geographical nature;

Umm Askar's house formed a strong fortress in front of the Israeli army and its repeated incursions, and the subsequent detention, investigation and threat under penalty of persecution to hand over the resistance fighters when the Israeli officer called her "Nimrod", and told her, "We negotiate, captain to captain."

Azzam al-Kilani (Abu Askar) explains how the occupation soldiers arrested him and roamed the streets of Nablus with him before leaving him in shackles in a state of panic and fear.

Abu Askar, 65, uses a small coffee kiosk at the door of his house as a means of earning a living to take care of himself and his sick wife.

Abu Askar points to the holes made by the occupation's bullets in the door and the ceiling of the room, and raises his hand towards the roof of the house and says, "Look there. From that corner, an Israeli soldier fell. He and others were chasing the pursuers. He fell to the ground and died two days later."

Umm Askar keeps pictures and messages of chasers, including those who were martyred and others captured (Al-Jazeera)

Their mother who did not give birth to them

Umm Askar gathered her strength again, and went on to say that after all these years, some of her "persecuted sons" have died, and have become a martyr, and others are languishing in the prisons of the occupation.

And whoever is martyred is brought to his mother, Umm Askar, in her house, to bid him farewell with ululations, and her love does not break with those who are arrested among them, and she delegates her granddaughters to visit him, as she is forbidden from that.

A message sent by the captive Sajid from his prison to Umm Askar reads, "The most beautiful mothers who waited for their son and he returned as a martyr, so there is nothing to fulfill your right, my mother."

Zaher al-Shashtri, a leader in the Popular Front who closely accompanied the role of Umm Askar, told Al Jazeera Net, "She received them in her house, chasers and martyrs, and she set up mourning homes for them, and walked with their funerals, and mourned them in black."

It was reported that she would leave them at home for days, and talk about its construction and volunteer it to serve them and their needs.

Al-Haja Nayfa Al-Kilani was known by her nickname “Umm Askar”, but she had only one daughter, and she was known for her “camouflage” as “Sharifa Al-Kilani”, which was what puzzled the occupation army every time it stormed her house.

Umm Askar still keeps the pictures of the stalkers on the wall of her room (Al-Jazeera)

hidden struggle

Umm Askar did not fight the struggle only in the Al-Aqsa Intifada, but this she did in the Intifada of the Stones in 1987, she was smuggling the militants and providing them with food and drink.

Umm Askar has always loved the struggle and was the vanguard of the resistance. She was born into a revolutionary family in her country, Maythlon, near the city of Jenin (in the northern West Bank).

From her father, who belonged to the Black Panther group (the military wing of the Fatah movement in the late eighties), she gained the meaning of resistance, and she cherished both fear and composure.

There is another thing that Allam Kaabi, the deported captive to Gaza and one of the pursuers whom Umm Askar embraced, sees.

It is how she formed a unique model for the "hidden Palestinian struggle." She did not mean money or fame, but rather wanted to exercise the tenderness of motherhood for those stranded.

"How could she not? She is the one who gave us more than her tenderness when we were hedging the dining table, and she was urging us to eat more food," Kaabi says to Al Jazeera Net, and adds, recalling how she used to treat him and stand over his head for hours when the disease struck him.

As for the house, it was at their disposal without pretension, "and she would check on us if we were absent and wait for us at the door of the house", and she would grieve silently if one of us was martyred or captured, because she is our mother who did not give birth to us, and she is the woman who embodies the homeland with her heart.

Once, Umm Askar - continues Kaabi - bought beds at her own expense to provide a clean and safe accommodation. In her presence, you do not feel that you are being pursued and wanted by the occupation, and you enter a fortified fortress that will not harm you as long as you are in it, "and this castle is the heart of Umm Askar."

Kaabi concluded his speech with us with the phrase, "Forgive me, you faithful one."

Umm Askar's house is still a witness to the details of the story of her struggle, which everyone who lived it remembers. As for her, whenever she comes to the biography of her "resisting sons", she awakens her exhausted body and sends peace and forgiveness to them.