Personal Info
- Country of residence: Portugal
Information
Basel Mahmoud Ibrahim Al-Araj was born in the village of Al-Walaja in the Bethlehem Governorate on January 27, 1984. He studied the primary stage at the Al-Walaja village school, and the secondary stage at the Bethlehem Boys Secondary School, from which he obtained his high school diploma in 2002. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy from 6th of October University in Egypt in 2007. He worked as a pharmacist in the Shuafat camp between (2009-2011), and as a researcher with the Palestinian Museum team in the town of Birzeit in 2014.
Al-Araj was active in the field of cultural resistance. In early 2011, he participated in a project to explore the land of Palestine and document Palestinian resistance experiences since the 1930s. He was a key member of the staff of the free popular university project known as the Suleiman al-Halabi Circle for Colonial Studies and Intellectual Liberation, and one of its lecturers, where he taught a course on the history of resistance in Palestine. He is also one of the founders of the Bab al-Wad website. His activism extended beyond cultural resistance, encompassing various forms of struggle, including marches, demonstrations, sit-ins, and volunteer work. He became involved in popular youth movements against the occupation and its practices, and participated in demonstrations against settlement projects, such as those in the village of al-Walaja against settlements and the separation wall, and the 2013 demonstrations against the Prawer Plan settlement project in the Negev. He also regularly participated in funeral processions for martyrs in West Bank cities, towns, villages, and refugee camps. He was involved in the movement against the internal Palestinian division in Ramallah in 2011, and in the Return Marches commemorating the Nakba.
He had experience in acquiring weapons, training with them, and preparing to use them in resisting the occupation. He also had experience in going into hiding, as he disappeared from sight with his two friends, Muhammad Harb and Haitham Siyaj, between the first and eighth of April 2016, until they were arrested by the Palestinian Authority security services from one of the valleys of the village of Arura in the Ramallah Governorate. Al-Araj lived as a fugitive between the eighth of September 2016 and the sixth of March 2017.
Al-Araj wrote a number of articles and studies, delivered a series of lectures, held a number of cultural meetings, and was a guest on a number of satellite channels and radio stations on various occasions. His writings were collected in a book entitled “I Found My Answers: This Is How Martyr Basil Al-Araj Spoke.”
Al-Araj believed in Palestine from its sea to its river, and called for resistance against the occupation by all means, foremost among them armed resistance, whose history and symbols he used to praise. He called for a boycott of the occupation economically, culturally and emotionally, and opposed settlement, negotiations, their references and results, especially the Oslo Accords and their consequences. He called for ending the division and achieving unity on the basis of the program of resistance and liberation.
In his will, which he wrote before his assassination, he said: “…If you are reading this, it means that I have died, and my soul has ascended to its Creator. I pray to God that I may meet Him with a sound heart, facing forward without turning away, with sincerity without a trace of hypocrisy… And now I am walking to my death, content and convinced, having found my answers. Woe is me, how foolish I was! Is there anything more eloquent and expressive than the act of a martyr? I should have written this months ago, but what prevented me from doing so was that this is your question, you who are alive. So why should I answer for you? You should search for it yourselves. As for us, the people of the graves, we seek nothing but the mercy of God.”
Al-Araj suffered during his struggle; He was arrested by the Israeli occupation forces for one day in 2011, during which he was beaten and three ribs were broken. He was also assaulted by the Palestinian Authority security forces during his participation in a demonstration against the resumption of negotiations in 2013, sustaining a head injury. In April 2016, he was arrested by the Preventive Security Service along with five of his comrades on charges of planning operations against the occupation. He was subjected to torture, and he and his five friends went on a hunger strike to demand their release from PA prisons between August 28 and September 6, 2016. They were released from Beitunia prison on September 8, 2016. The Israeli occupation forces re-arrested his group while continuing to pursue him for six months. They raided his home several times, threatened his family, and besieged a house near Qaddura refugee camp where he was hiding. He was assassinated on March 6, 2017, and his body was returned to his family twelve days later. He was buried in his village. On the seventeenth of March, 2017.
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