A Palestinian history full of sacrifices

Abu Jilda (Ahmed Hamad Al-Hamoud) and Al-Armit (Saleh Ahmed Al-Armit) These two names are mentioned in the Palestinian oral history, the day after they killed a British police officer on May 22, 1933. The stories that are told about the two heroes, Abu Jilda and Al-Armit, are similar to the stories of the “Green Hand” movement. Founded by Ahmed Tafesh, at the end of 1929, the members of this anti-British movement soon dispersed, after Ahmed Tafesh fled to Jordan, so he was arrested and handed over to the British in Palestine, and he was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

After the First World War, which ended in 1918, family disputes occurred in Palestine. Families differed in their ways of confronting the Zionist movement, whether through fighting or through negotiations and peace. Conflicts occurred between them, marred by treachery and hostility. The most famous and prominent novels of Palestinian history in resisting the British occupation, and the Palestinian poet Haroun Hashem Rashid wrote about them in a book under the title (Abu Jilda and Al-Armit Yama Kisra Baranit).

They are two Palestinian peasants who established the nucleus of a revolutionary cell to resist the British Mandate in Palestine. Abu Jilda's roots go back to the town of Tamoun, east of Nablus, while his companion Abu Al-Armit is from the village of Bita, south of Nablus.

In the early thirties, the two began to form the first resistance movements to the British mandate in Palestine. The (Abu Jilda) movement was one of the strongest movements that caused severe damage to the Mandate forces, and it did not show mercy to the collaborating Palestinians. These were placed by Abu Jilda and his men on the side of the British and the Zionists, and dealt them severe blows in the (Jenin) area in particular, and reached their property, and to them personally.

The name of Abu Jilda was a source of terror for the British soldiers, their senior generals, and their local followers, as he was beaten and disappeared without leaving a trace, and therefore eyes were planted to follow him. Where his uncle (Salim Hassan Adili) was asked to bring him to the Al-Kashla building in Nablus for an interview according to guarantees for his release. Al-Arameet delayed his response so that he could leave, and so that he would not be betrayed and arrested. When the officers failed to woo Al-Arameet or reach Abu Jilda, they began spreading rumors. Which says that they are thieves and bandits, and people should beware of their gang, and report to the police station any evidence or information useful in reaching the leader of that gang as they called it.

According to popular oral accounts, the British Mandate recruited a Bedouin to join Abu Jilda and either kill or surrender him when the opportunity arose. And after two months of his company with them, when the revolutionaries dealt with him as one of them, this man took advantage of everyone's sleep and tried to betray Abu and flog him.

With the failure of the Bedouin in the assassination of Abu Jilda, Britain intensified its pursuit of Abu Jilda, but Abu Jilda and his companions were sufficiently aware of the danger that surrounded them, so they proceeded to constantly change their places of residence and move between the north and the south, and they found help from the peasants, and their movement increased in strength and fame, and they With several operations to resist the British and Jewish settlers.

In 1933, Saleh Al-Arameet and Ahmed Al-Mahmoud "Abu Jilda" fell into an elaborate ambush set up for them in cooperation with a relative of Abi Jilda, and Britain summoned Al-Arameet's uncle (Salim Hussein Adili) to get him and his friend Abu Jilda and those with them out of the cave in which they hid. Thus, the heroes were taken to detention, and there they remained in the Al-Mascobiyeh prison in Jerusalem, awaiting the death sentence.

In the memoirs of Najati Sidqi, a Palestinian writer and national activist, he tells us that (Al-Armit) asked his mother to bring a dagger with her on the next visit because he will put it with him in his grave, and he will slaughter the traitor who betrayed him! While the last words of Abu Jilda, who was presented to the gallows, were indifferent to the British officers, "You guys are in your thoughts... Palestine is a trust in your necks... Beware of wasting a grain of sand from the land of Palestine."

Abu Jilda and Al-Armit are still present in the popular Palestinian songs, one of which says:

Abu Jilda said, "I am Al-Tamuni... All enemies do not care about me."

Abu Jilda said: And you are Al-Aramiti.. And if I die with my palms, I will cry

Abu Jilda said, O brother Saleh. Hit don't skip and age is going

Abu Jilda said, I am Al-Armaiti... By God, I am one of the state's rulings verbally

And Abu Jilda is walking alone.. and Al-Arameet is his capital

And Abu Jaldah and Al-Armit.. Whenever they broke a headband.

Abu Jilda and Al-Arameet were from the general Palestinian people, and they felt the injustice, aggression, and settlement that might befall this people, so they defended the land in their own way, and recorded an honorable history in the struggle of the Palestinian people.