Raymonda Tawil

Life

Raymonda Tawil - Hawa is poet, writer and Palestinian journalist, born in 1940 in Acre in a prominent family of Palestinian Christians. She spent part of childhood as a boarder with French Catholic sisters. Her public life began with an intellectual show that was held in Nablus, northern West Bank. Independent-spirited columns earned her the nickname "The Lioness of Nablus". In 1978, Raymonda Hawa Tawil opened a Palestinian news agency in Jerusalem, which published the Palestinian-oriented magazine Al Awda ("The Return"). Because of her political activities as a journalist, she was placed under house arrest for six months by Israeli military decision. She was also imprisoned for forty-five days for so-called subversive activities during clashes with newcoming Jewish settlers and vigilante Zionist extremists, during which she underwent a severe beating. These experiences pushed to write about Palestine in collaboration with the Israeli journalist Peretz Kidron. She was a Christian who visited churches of multiple denominations, she has always advocated dialogue and reconciliation between the two peoples, a position that sometimes earned her hostility.

Politics

Having narrowly escaped a targeted attack whose perpetrators were never found, she fled to France while Yasser Arafat head of the PLO in Tunis married Suha, Raymonda Tawil's daughter. In 1994, she returned to Gaza and attended the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, while remaining very close to her French and Israeli friends. In 2000, at the outbreak of the Second Intifada, she lived in Ramallah, not far from the Muqata, the headquarters of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank. She had an office next to that of Arafat, who she saw often. The Israeli government decided to confine Arafat's freedom of movement. IDF tanks surrounding the Muqata and partially destroyed the region with bulldozers. Month later the situation worsened and towns run by the Palestinian Authority were reoccupied . Living alongside the President, Raymonda Tawil become Arafat's confidant and a close acquaintance. She accompanied him to the Jordanian helicopter which would transport him to Amman to meet Jacques Chirac. Raymonda Tawil also attended Arafat's funeral.

From 2004 to 2007 she lived with her daughter Suha Arafat in Tunisia. The family was evicted from Tunisian territory by then President Ben Ali in August 2007 and subsequently took refuge in Malta. She wrote about her life experiences in memoir-like accounts. One of her quotes was the line: "This is a strange one country where we live. Power outages are in his image. Palestine is in the night, deprived of light as freedom. From time to time the light returns. So hope returns too. And then everything stops again, everything is off. In the dark, looking for some hope and comfort. Candles are lit to try to convince yourself that all is not lost. Is this going to last? This will he end?"

Pictures of Raymonda Hawa TAWIL'S HOME IN Acre, Palestine, that was taken by the Israelis in 1948 and transformed into a youth center. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Raymonda_Hawa_Tawil_house