Underground Women’s Resistance
Zahrat Al Uqhuwan زهرة الأقحوان
A teacher of math changed from skirt to pants and went underground. With 13 other Jaffan women, Zahrat Al Uqhuwan (The Daisies), a secret organisation, carried out strategic planning and armed resistance during the defense of their hometown Jaffa 1947-1948.
“Fraternity – Devotion – Selflessness” Zahrat Al Uqhuwan’s motto
“The fighting in Jaffa, in the Jabalia area, was extremely tough because it was right next to Tel Aviv. Do you know who led the resistance there? It was a woman commanding the volunteers there. Her name was Mouhiba Khroshid. This should be written in history.”
Musallam Bseiso, for Al Jazeera
Zahrat Al Uqhuwan
Palestinian cities were specifically targeted in 1948, Jaffa the most urban and richest Palestinian city, was a main target and was among the ones that struggled the most. Erasing urban Palestinian life was an aim. Cities are where the intellect, business, and culture meet and where the future is built. Jaffa’s highly modernized urban growth resulted in a quadrable population from the 1920s to the late 1940s. Many people arrived in the city from all over Palestine, and the Mediterranean. This meant that a certain cohesion needed in times of war was weak. The defense of Palestine and Jaffa was in the hands of the British Mandate. The British did not defend Jaffa or the Jaffans. Jaffans fought Zionist gangs for their lives, homes, and their city, until the very end. Jaffa fell when Palestine was still Palestine, two days before the state of Israel was declared. The British were part of getting the Jaffans into the sea on boats on the way to exile. The refugees turned Jaffans, 98% of the population, left in all directions, many on fishing boats to the other Mediterranean port city, Gaza. Gaza today has a serious Jaffan part, heritage, and continuity. When we speak about Gazans today, we are often speaking about Jaffans, their children and grandchildren.
Secret oath on Thursday 20 February, in Jaffa in 1947: “I swear by my honor, my religion, and my denomination to be loyal to my principles and spend what is dear and precious for the sake of goodness to help the needy and weak” was sworn by 14 women who also swore to keep their membership of “Zahrat al Uqhuawan” a secret. The founding document had the signatures of Muslim and Christian Jaffan women including Yusra Toukan, Adla Fatayer, Fatma Abu Al-Huda, Victoria Humsi, Subhiya Awad, Khadija Kilani, Madiha Al-Batta, Najma Okasha, Maysar Daher, Saniya Irani, Faiza Shloun, Mabara Khaled and Najla Al-Asmar (who became leader of the Secret Land Organization).
مهيبة خورشيد، نريمان خورشيد، يسرا طوقان، عدلة فطاير، فاطمة أبو الهدى، نجلاء الأسمر، صبحية عوض، خديجة كيلاني، مديحة البطة، ميسر ضاهر، سنية إيراني، فايزة شلون، مبرة خالد، نجمة عكاشة.
Muhiba Khorsheed was the founder, and the first member was her sister Nariman Khorshid. Later, during their operations, more women and some men joined the organisation.
Zahrat Al Uqhuwan started with charity and interfaith work. With the escalation of the organised terror attacks on Jaffa by Zionist gangs, Al Uqhuwan became an armed resistance group. The women collected rifles, grenades, and machine guns, and recruited more members. They joined men in armed operations and participated in demonstrations and collecting donations. Zahrat Al Uqhuwan was in the news: “Arab girls are in the first ranks of warriors,” wrote Jaffan Newspaper al-Difaa’ (Defense). And “Zahrat Al Uqhuwan restored Arab women to their historic dignity,” wrote Jaffan Falastin (Palestine)
Sisters
Muhiba Khorshid is the Palestinian founder and leader of the armed underground resistance, Al Uqhuwan. Muhiba was a feminist, a member of the ‘Arab Women’s Association’, a strategist, and an excellent speaker.
Muhiba was born in Jaffa on 18 April 1925. She studied Arabic Literature and Journalism and became a math teacher. She liked to sculpt and play the violin. Muhiba worked for equality and religious tolerance and was outspoken enough to be summoned for investigation by the British Mandate authorities. She was able to avoid the investigation by obtaining a false medical report. One day in early 1947, Muhiba saw a six-year-old Jaffan child being shot dead in his mother’s arms by a Zionist. That moment changed her life and she contacted the Palestinian chief in command Abdel Kader Al Husseini and that was the beginning of Al Uqhuwan. From that moment on, she worked fully with armed resistance, every day of the week. Muhiba developed as a resistance strategist, field fighter, and courageous leader who knew how to keep her group together, safe and supported. She worked across different borders of religion, gender, class, and armed hierarchies and she communicated directly with the highest resistance commanders. Twenty-five days before her city fell and she turned a refugee, Muhiba celebrated her 23rd birthday by defending her city fighting and resisting, until Jaffa was occupied.
Nariman Kohrsheed, Muhiba’s younger sister was born in 1927 in Jaffa. Nariman was a secretary at a chemical plant in Tel Aviv before she joined the resistance. Her turning point was when she sat at home and watched from her window Zionists attacking a Jaffan route bus and beating its passengers. On her way to work the same day, she saw a whole residential building being destroyed by Zionist terrorists.
“What a tragedy! What is it I’m seeing? What happened to the Arab lands? Indeed, it is a great disaster that the tongue and the heart are unable to describe.” Nariman said at a public speech and was dismissed from her work in Tel Aviv because of that speech. Now the Uqhuwan had its second member. Nariman Khorshid led the training of the military section of Al Uqhuwan and was proud of wearing pants and being armed.
The Battlefield
The Uqhuwan women fought side by side with men in the resistance, particularly in Karam al-Suwwan and Darwish neighborhoods in Jaffa. Resistance leaders Abdul Wahab al-Iraqi and Ali Bey al-Turki were impressed by their bravery and work and supported the group. Nariman Khorshid tells how the Hagana Zionist gang (a terrorist group according to The British Mandate) tried to attack the Islamic Orphanage in the center of Jaffa. Ten women fighters from Al Uqhuwan stood on the battlefield alongside men in a combat that lasted three hours and resulted in one of the Uqhuwan women getting killed. The Zionist gang was defeated and withdrew from the orphanage.
Nariman tells of another battle: “Once, my companions and I clashed in a heated battle with a strong Zionist terrorist gang. The fighting continued for a long time with grenades, machine guns, and rifles until we ran out of ammunition after we killed many. When our ammunition ran out, we were attacked with grenades and some shrapnel hit me. I passed out and almost fell captive in their hands. But God bless! Several Arab soldiers were close to us, so it was difficult to take us captive. And the Arab soldiers rushed and rescued me.”
The orphanage survived the first attack, but “On January 4, 1948, a truck loaded with explosives covered with oranges exploded in front of the New Seraya, a government building housing an orphanage, the social welfare offices, and a kitchen for the poor. Thirty Jaffans, many of them orphan children were killed, and over 150 people were injured. Ismail Abu-Shehade was working at a garage nearby when he heard the explosion: “They claimed that the Seraya was a center for terrorists, but it was nothing but an orphanage. Lots of children were killed” (LeBor, 2017, p. 108). The bombing, by Jewish militants, terrorized Jaffa. Municipal services nearly ceased, and the middle-class exodus accelerated further. The Jewish Irgun militia (Etzel) knew when Jaffa residents would meet in cafes to hear the daily news broadcasts and would roll in barrels filled with explosives at the cafés (LeBor, 2017, p. 111)…The port was overwhelmed with thousands of refugees cramming into small boats to find little space on larger vessels anchored out to sea. As the larger ships set off full of refugees, they became targets of shells by Zionist terrorists as they passed Tel Aviv, according to refugee Mustafa Hammami…”We few families who stayed went to live in the orange groves” (LeBor, 2017, p. 117)…On April 25, three weeks before the end of the British Mandate, the Irgun attacked the Manshiyya neighborhood for six days…on 13 May, 24 hours before the declaration of Israel’s independence, Jaffa surrendered and was placed under Israeli military rule (Golan, 2009)…Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion declared in a cabinet meeting in June that “We must settle Jaffa, Jaffa will become a Jewish city” as Jewish troops began to loot property in vacant Palestinian homes (LeBor, 2017)…In July, the newly formed Israeli government created a Transfer Committee to prevent the return of the refugees and to settle new Jewish immigrants, including Holocaust refugees, in the now vacant homes.”
The British who occupied Palestine as a mandate to care for, left the Palestinians alone under the attack of well-equipped Zionist terror groups, Muhiba and Nariman needed support from abroad. Nariman visited King Abdullah of Jordan on the recommendation of the Supreme Executive Committee. She also met the Chief in Command, Mufti, Hajj Amin Al-Husseini, in Syria. The Uqhuwan’s resistance strategy worked locally, nationally, and internationally.
As a result of the military success of the women’s resistance, some male resistance fighters felt uncomfortable and attempted to stop Al Uqhuwan. On the 16th of March 1948, during one of the most difficult periods of fighting, Muhiba Khorshid sat down and wrote a letter to the highest command in Palestine, to commander in chief Haj Amin-al Husseini. In her letter, she named the men harassing the women’s armed struggle, including the general commander in Jaffa, Adel Najm al-Din al-Iraqi:
“… the commander of the Jabaliya region does not like the serious activity in our region as a result of the support we get, and our attacks on Zionist gangs in the Bat Yam region, where we inflicted heavy losses in lives and vehicles, while we had no losses. When it became clear to Sheikh Hassan Salameh that nothing would deter us from our determination to resist and struggle, he gave strict orders to stop us…”
Muhiba wanted a quick end to the harassment and more support for their work. To make sure, copies of the letter were sent to: ‘The Secretary General of the League of the Arab States’ – Abd al-Rahman Azzam Pasha, and ‘The commander of the Liberation Army in Damascus’.
The letter was signed “Fraternity – Devotion – Selflessness” Zahrat Al Uqhuwan.
Terror strategies through history: In 1799, Napoleon allowed hundreds of Jaffans to flee after the horrific massacre he and his army inflicted in Jaffa- so the news would spread horror. In 1948, while Jaffa was still under the British Mandate rule and protection, between 9-11 April over 100 Palestinians were massacred in the most horrific way in the village of Deir Yassin by Zionist militias (partly led by Menachem Begin). That massacre was meant to spread horror and a warning and was a turning point for unarmed Palestinians fleeing en masse. Yet villages, towns, and cities resisted. But on the 22nd of April, the north port city, Haifa, fell. When Jaffa was still under British rule and protection, on May 13th, 1948, two days before the State of Israel was declared, Jaffa fell to the Haganah Zionist militias. A Memorandum was presented by the representative of the Arab Higher Committee for Palestine (of whom Alfred Roch was a co-founder and member) at the UNO United Nations Organisation, reporting attacks and massacres against Palestinian Arab civilians. On April 24, the Israeli government announced the official unification of the Tel Aviv and Jaffa municipalities, after Jaffa was 98% ethnically cleansed. Jaffa was over.
Al Uqhuwan women: Victoria Houmsi
The story of Zahrat Al Uqhuwan is one of Muslim and Christian Palestinian women, who were already active in the Jaffa urban scene in different fields. We don’t know about all the members because most were loyal to their oath of keeping their membership a secret, until death. A few came out and we know that Victoria Houmsi was part of Zahrat Al Uqhuwan mainly focusing on intelligence, spying on British soldiers and Zionist gangs. Victoria was a renowned businesswoman and a co-owner of The Arabic Hotel in Jaffa before she bought her partner’s shares and became the sole owner of her hotel in 1939. The Arab Hotel was on al-Mahatta (Station) Street, a notable landmark in Jaffa until the Nakba when she was forced to flee to Jordan. Victoria Houmsi lost her hotel, home, and city. She kept the hotel keys, which are now with her grandson Khalil.
Al Uqhuwan women – Madiha Al Batta
In addition to Al Uqhuwan, feminist Jaffan women were involved in political life, to name just a few: Odette Azar, was a Jaffan feminist social organiser, and leader of demonstrations. Other Jaffan feminists and women leaders are Um Ghaleb Ad Dajjani, Um Kamal Abu Laban, Salwa Damashqiyya-Said and Samia Damashqiyya Abu El Jabeen and Yousra Touqan Abu El Jabeen, to name a few. More names and details need to surface to understand the intricate and crucial role of intellect and resistance that Jaffan women played.
Exile
Jaffa fell and was ethnically cleansed. From about 120,000 inhabitants, only 3,900 were able to stay. The ability to stay in Jaffa was regarded as a superpower by the Jaffans turned refugees. Nariman fled to Beirut via Jaffa port and later moved to Cairo. Like all Jaffans who had to flee and became refugees in one night, the Khorshid sisters were never allowed to even visit, let alone return. Muhiba worked in teaching, got married, and had children. Nariman joined the Imbaba Aviation Institute in Egypt in July 1948 to train as a pilot. Nariman aimed to continue the work to return to Jaffa, and twenty women joined her, she trained as a pilot and she trained the rest of her group. She soon realised that although the United Nations had made the return of the Palestinian refugees a condition for Israel to join the UN, that the world was not supporting this basic right. Nariman worked in an organic fertilizer company in Cairo, married, and had children. Muhiba died in 2008 and Nariman in 2015, both Al Uqhuwan leaders are buried in Cairo.
Her Legacy: The Dabka School Naqsh in the Tal El Zaatar refugee camp, has a “Nariman Khorshid” Dabka group, keeping Nariman’s memory as inspiration.
Jaffa: “On April 6, 1948, the settlers of Belarus had already fought the war, and this was before the Declaration of Independence was announced. Towards the end of the mandate, the Jewish Agency purchased the British Army camps, known as Camp 80 and Camp 87 adjacent to Pardes Hanna and this was supposed to be a smooth transfer. But this was a time of war…The Azerbaijan Organization that participated in the fight – and several weeks later even conquered Jaffa – sought a way to urgently obtain a large number of weapons and ammunition. The solution was to send Ezel fighters to Camp 80 disguised as British soldiers and to equip them with fake delivery certificates as if they came to pick up the equipment for the evacuation of the camp. At some point, the British camp commander suspected the Ezel men. A battle broke out and the Ezel men killed 7 British soldiers, including the commander himself, and one member of the Ezel, Yitzhak Kova.”
*In addition to the Uqhuwan, we know of two other women’s resistance organizations in Palestine, plus multiple individual women resistance fighters.
- “The Black Palm” was a Palestinian women’s resistance organisation active in the Jerusalem area during the Great Revolt in the 1930s. Among other actions, the group sent threatening messages to the British Police, and some of its members were arrested, tried in military courts, and imprisoned. One of the group’s members was Munira al-Khalidi, who was sent to prison in 1937.
- “The Comrades of Qassam” was a women’s resistance group active alongside the “Al-Qassam Comrades”. This resistance group was founded in Haifa in 1930 and opposed British occupation.
- Among individuals, the most famous is Fatma Khaskiyya who took part in the 1936-39 Great Rebellion and was a leader of armed resistance in 1948 and responsible for arms. She lost her daughter in battle but continued and turned refugee after she was declared wanted by Israel ‘dead or alive’. She fled to Jordan and died a refugee there.
References
https://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/32151
https://www.palestineremembered.com/Jaffa/Jaffa/Picture117588.html
https://www.loc.gov/rr/amed/pdf/palestine4/Jewish-Atrocities-in-the-Holy-Land.pdf