Long before October 7th her cell was covered in faeces. Ahed Tamimi describes how when she was thrown in jail for slapping an Israeli soldier she was days away from taking her final exams in school. She mentions how many times her parents were arrested. She describes how as a little girl she visited her father in a desert prison and her elation when their fingers manages to touch. She details life under the occupation, the night raids, the attacks of settlers backed by the IDF, she recollects how as children they played their own game of cowboys and indians, jews and Arabs, they would play protesters brutalized by the Israeli forces and journalists covering the protests and medics treating the wounded. Sometimes they would pretend some of them died or went away to prison for a year or so. They played this a lot and she says it made their free time about stressful things, but it was their way of coping. She mentions how for the longest time she never met any Israelis who were not violent settlers or soldiers. Eventually Israeli activists come and visit them and help them. Some were fluent in both Arab and Hebrew and helped the local Palestinian families deal with the many challenges of life under occupation. Some of them became dear friends of her parents. It's a very vivid and easily accessible account. She tries to make the horror as digestible as possible, but many scenes are a kick to the stomach. She describes the way a Palestinian dies after losing an eye. She tries to keep her sense of humor when telling us how Israel uses something called 'skunk water' to deal with protesters. A liquid so foul it has you stinking for days no matter how many times you wash. This book tells of a struggle between hilariously dumb Goliaths and cunning Davids who, despite having almost no means to fight their oppressors, manage to have fun defying those who seek to subjugate them. They Called Me A Lioness, by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri is the account of how a very brave girl was grabbed for slapping a soldier helping illegal settlers encroach upon her native land. Reason for arrest not stated during arrest. Pictures taken to humiliate her during arrest. Tried by kangaroo courts Interrogated alone, at night, by barking, manipulative interrogators, with no adult to represent her, a child, present. Humiliating body and hair searches. Impossibly small showers at the prison. Family members killed while in prison. Very crowded damp cells surprise family meet-ups set up by the guards only to discover spyware is taped to the chairs so the interrogators can overhear the meet. one apple or orange per imprisoned girl a week. one knife at meal times for a large group of girls. She starts using the lid of a tuna can as a knife even though it cuts up her hands every time she uses it. One book every few months allowed to be brought in by family, if the prison approves attempts to have her incriminate family members. No contact with family members for many months, not even in court. Very lenient sentences for IDF soldiers who shoot innocent Palestinians. Even though they try to break her she remains defiant and makes fun of her jailors. She and other girls pretend to be doing a seance to call up ghosts and a jailor runs away, too scared to do the head count she had come for. Her interrogators are woefully uninformed, are entirely out of touch with the realities of the circumstances they force Palestinians to live in, fail to even collect the most basic facts about their captive and use the most simplistic manipulation tactics. She talks very captivatingly about how Palestinians cannot travel around in the land they were born in, but at the same time tourists from far away places with no connection to the land are able to go where they please. This book tells of a struggle between hilariously dumb Goliaths and cunning Davids who, despite having almost no means to fight their oppressors, manage to have fun defying those who seek to subjugate them. This happened years before October 7th, conditions in Israeli prisons have worsened at breakneck speed since. We've all seen how they are now sinister dungeons where doctors and teenagers alike are tortured to death, sometimes raped by dogs and as we've all found out: sodomized by groups of Israelis on camera who are then later excused cause of 'exceptional circumstances.'