Fida al-Sharafi

Summary

Palestinian infant in Gaza whose eye was destroyed by a rubber bullet, whose account as retold in Sherna Berger Gluck’s memoir is used in Chapter 1 of Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine to show how Palestinian testimony is made to require corroboration by UN officers and human rights agencies (Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, PDF p.46-47).

Her mother recounted to Gluck that nine months earlier, carrying her infant in her arms while shopping in the open market during the brief lifting of the curfew, a volley of tear gas was unleashed and the baby was hit in the eye by a rubber bullet; the soldier who fired it tried to remove it; “For the rest of her life, Fida al-Sharafi will wear the glass eye, which her mother took out to show us” (PDF p.46-47).
Gluck’s footnote to the account: “The mother’s account was corroborated by a UN officer the next day” (PDF p.47).

The name is spelled “Fida al-Sharafi” at PDF p.47 (printed p.30) and “Fida al-Sharifi” at PDF p.49 (printed p.32) of the same source, both as printed; the spellings are held side by side, not reconciled.
Her parents initially did not want to tell her story; Gluck recounts the couple overcame their reluctance at “the urging of the other women of the household”, a hesitation Kelly reads through Audra Simpson’s ethnographic refusal (Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, PDF p.67-68).

tags
aliases	Fida al-Sharifi