Faten Habash’s father wept as he assured his daughter there would be no more beatings, no more threats to her life and that she was free to marry the man she loved, even if he was a Muslim. All he asked was that Faten return home.
Hassan Habash even gave his word to an emissary from a Bedouin tribe traditionally brought in to mediate in matters of family honour, a commitment regarded as sacrosanct in Palestinian society. But the next weekend, as Faten, a 22-year-old Christian Palestinian, watched a Boy Scouts parade from the balcony of her Ramallah home she was dragged into the living room and bludgeoned to death with an iron bar. Her father was arrested for the murder.
‘He gave me his word she would not be harmed,” said Ibrahim Abu Dahouq, the Bedouin mediator. ‘He was crying and begging her to come home … We never believed that love would lead to death in this ugly way.”
Two days later, another ritual of killing unfolded a few kilometres away in Jerusalem.
Maher Shakirat summoned three of his sisters to discuss a family uproar after one of them, Rudaina, was thrown out by her husband for an alleged affair. Maher listened to Rudaina’s denials, and her sisters’ pleas that they were not covering up the affair. Then he forced the three women to drink bleach before strangling Rudaina, who was eight months’ pregnant. The other sisters tried to flee but Maher caught and strangled Amani (20). The third, Leila, escaped but was badly injured by the bleach.
Maher is in hiding but his parents were arrested for allegedly ordering the murders and his wife was detained as an accomplice. As he was taken into custody, Rudaina’s father, Amin, was asked why his daughters were killed. ‘Because they dishonoured the family,” he said.
The murders of Faten Habash and the Shakirat sisters last month were the latest in a series of brutal ‘honour killings” that have shaken the Palestinian community over recent weeks.
After Faten’s murder, several hundred Palestinian women held a vigil in Ramallah to demand an end to honour killings. The Palestinian Women’s Affairs Minister, Zuhaira Kamal, called for a change to laws inherited from the days of Jordanian rule that deem all women to be ‘minors” under the authority of male relatives and that provide for a maximum of six months in prison for killings in defence of ‘family honourâ€.
But those calls have met with resistance in Parliament where religious Palestinian MPs argue that reform will lead to a collapse of the moral fabric of society.
‘They’re very traditional there,” said Maha Abu Dayyeh Shamas, director of the Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling. ‘They say these are our traditions, that a man who is in a moment of anger is driven to do these things. It gives a message to the community that you can kill without punishment. We have a lot of complaints from women that their husbands are having affairs. We ask these MPs if they think these women should be allowed to kill their husbands. They can’t answer that question.”
According to the Palestinian Women’s Affairs Ministry, 20 girls and women were murdered in honour killings last year and about 50 committed suicide — often under coercion — for ‘shaming” the family through sex outside marriage, refusing an arranged marriage or seeking a divorce. Another 15 women survived attempts to kill them.
The ministry says dozens of other killings are covered up each year. ‘We had one woman of 26 who was certified as dying of old age,” said Abu Dayyeh Shamas.
Faten Habash’s murder was unusual because she came from the Christian minority in the Palestinian territories. Her desire to marry a young Muslim, Samer Hamis, so infuriated her family that the couple decided to elope to Jordan.
Faten’s father enlisted the family priest to stop his daughter on the grounds that, even though she was 22, all women are legally regarded as minors under the authority of their male relatives. The Palestinian authorities returned Faten to her home where she was beaten and her pelvis broken as she was either thrown from a window or jumped trying to escape.
She spent six weeks in hospital. She sought protection under an ancient Bedouin formula for resolving disputes, known as Tanebeh. Abu Dahouq, a lawyer for the Dawakuk tribe, negotiated with the Habash family. Dahouq said: ‘Faten believed she had received a guarantee of security.” Two days later she was murdered. ‘This family had no honour, no manners, no ethics.â€
Although honour killings have a long history in Palestinian society, women’s rights groups say the rise in these murders cannot be separated from the resurgent violence of the past four years of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. ‘Things are breaking down because of the changing relationship between men and women. Increased numbers of women are the main source of income while her husband sits around. That is the kiss of death for that family,” said Abu Dayyeh Shamas.
‘Men feel they have lost their dignity and that they can somehow restore it by upholding the family’s honour. We’ve noticed recent cases are much more violent in nature; attempts to kill, rape, incest. There is an incredible amount of incest.”
Amira Abu Hanhan Qaoud murdered her daughter, Rafayda, because she became pregnant after being raped by two of her brothers.
‘My daughter fell over and broke her knee. I took her to hospital and there the doctor told me she was pregnant. So I killed her. It’s as simple as that,” said Qaoud on her doorstep in Ramallah. She waited until the baby was born and given up for adoption. Then she presented her 22-year-old daughter with a razor blade and told her to slash her wrists.
Rafayda refused, so her mother pulled a plastic bag over her head, sliced her wrists and beat her head with a stick. The brothers, Fahdi and Ali, were sentenced to 10 years for the rape. Qaoud spent two years in prison for killing her daughter.
The repercussions of Faten Habash’s murder are still being felt; the man she loved is in protective custody after threats from the Habash family.
The Bedouin mediator says the Habashes have dishonoured his tribe by breaching the pledge that Faten would not be harmed. ‘The crime is not against the girl, the crime is against our family,” said Abu Dahouq. ‘Since they have broken their word, we have the right to retaliate. There will be a reaction for betraying their religion and betraying us.” —