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Rani Bornat: The Symbol of Bi’lin
June 30, 2008
Source : Palestine Monitor
Rani Bornat is representative of many rural Palestinians, one of ten children born to a shepherd in the village of Bil’in. Educated in an industrial school, he excelled in electronics. After secondary school, he applied for further studies at university but was not accepted. Instead he went to work in Israel. Before the Second Intifada, his dreams were to get married, build his own house and own a car. But after September 2000, his life changed.
The day after then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon visited the Dome of the Rock complex in Jerusalem – a key symbol of the Palestinian national struggle - instigating the Second Intifada, demonstrations broke out across the West Bank. Indignant Palestinians took to the streets in protest at the visit, which they saw as a blatant attempt by Sharon to reflect Jerusalem’s status as the ‘eternal capital of Israel’.
Rani was one of those protestors. Three days after Sharon’s visit, a peaceful demonstration took place in Ramallah. The objective was to walk to a nearby checkpoint in protest. As the demonstration progressed, the protestors found themselves ambushed by Israeli soldiers, despite the fact that the area lay under the full control of the Palestinian Authority. The soldiers opened fire on the crowd. In panic, many threw themselves into the ditches that lined the road and began throwing rocks. From the ditches, the protestors believed they were safe. But they hadn’t noticed the snipers that were positioned above them.
“I believed I was going to die. There was lots of shooting, exploding bullets, live fire and tear gas. I said, “There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet,” and gave my wallet to a friend so that he could give it to my parents. Another friend who was near me was shot in the neck and the bullet exited his leg. He died. People were dying around me.”
As the snipers rained down bullets on the protestors Rani, among others, was struck. “The shot was supposed to hit me in the head,” Rani says with a slight grin. “Instead, it struck me in the neck and exited the middle of my back.”
Rani was rushed to hospital in critical condition. The bullet had shattered two of his vertebrae, severed his spinal cord and carotid artery and caused massive damage to many of his internal organs. The hospital in Ramallah put an artificial artery in Rani’s neck but the situation looked bleak. The doctors pronounced him clinically dead and declared him a martyr. He was transferred by helicopter, along with 21 others from the demonstration, to Amman, Jordan, for treatment.
Rani spent the next three months in a coma in an Intensive Care Unit. Surgeries were performed on his stomach, intestines and back to remove parts of his organs that were destroyed by the bullet. While in the coma, he had a stroke that rendered the left side of his body useless. He finally woke up, but he couldn’t move or speak initially. During his time in the ICU, he was given between 70 and 80 units of blood.
Five months after his injury, Rani left the ICU and first saw the sunlight. He was kept in Jordan for six-and-a-half months for more treatment. His doctors advised him to stay two months more but Rani was anxious to return home, so he left. When he tried to cross the border back into the West Bank, he was denied re-entry by the Israeli military for several days. When he was eventually allowed back to his home, he spent the next few days with his family but was then sent to a rehabilitation center for another six months.
Rani’s injuries have left him in a motorized wheelchair with only the use of his right hand.
Anyone who has heard his story would be tempted to call Rani a broken man. But as I sat in his home and asked him about his condition, I could see a man who has not been stopped despite the many extreme obstacles that have been placed in his path.
The first time I met Rani was at a demonstration in his home village of Bil’in. I was shocked to see a man in an electric wheelchair motoring up to the Wall with a Palestinian flag waving proudly behind him. The terrain of Bi’lin is treacherous even to the healthy. I was afraid for him when I saw him maneuvering with difficulty among the stones along the road. I didn’t know if he could retreat quickly enough when the shooting started, but he pressed on up to the front of the column of demonstrators.
As I spoke with him in his home I realized the deep ties he has to the non-violent resistance against the occupation in Bil’in. Since protests started in 2004, he has not missed a single one. He goes to the protests armed with his voice and a camera.
“I go to support in the only ways I can: shouting and documenting.” Over the years he has taken over 40,000 pictures and videos of the situation in Bil’in. His most recent video is one of his brother taking a live round in the leg from an Israeli soldier.
Rani has even helped to organize some of the creative protests in the village. He was proud to tell me that he had organized a disabled persons’ demonstration in which about 15 people with disabilities marched to the Wall along with other demonstrators. Before the march reached the Wall, Israeli soldiers fired on them. Rani proudly showed me the video of the courageous people with disabilities being attacked by Israeli soldiers. “I guess they thought we looked threatening,” he says with a laugh as we watched soldiers launch tear gas and shoot at a crowd of people in wheelchairs.
“They don’t treat me any differently even though I’m handicapped,” he says as he shows me marks on his legs and shoulders from rubber coated bullets and tear gas canisters. “Once I was sitting on my porch and I heard an explosion. They had shot me with a sponge bullet.” The bullet sits on his shelf along with other demonstration memorabilia. “Twice they have shot my chair and destroyed it. Both times it cost 9,000 shekels to repair ( $3,000 US). The Bil’in village council decided to replace it with a new one because I couldn’t afford the second repair.”
He also continues to be harassed by Israeli forces. His family lives on the outskirts of the village, very near to an Israeli settlement. On many occasions, they have been shot at and had tear gas thrown into the house. They are the first to get raided during the night raids carried out by Israeli military. His parents have been beaten several times. His father had lost land to the Wall.
Rani’s brother Ibrahim was shot in the leg at the demonstration last week and is still in hospital. I asked for more information about Ibrahim. “He has 80 documented injuries from the demonstrations. He has no bones in his forehead because a tear gas canister shattered them. He’s been shot in the head with rubber-coated bullets and now he’s in the hospital because of his leg.”
I asked him if he is ever scared at the demonstrations. “No. What more can they take from me that they haven’t taken?”
I asked him if he believed his sacrifice and the sacrifices of his family are worth it.
“Yes,” he answers quickly. “This is Palestinian land. If we don’t resist this cancer, the soldiers will keep coming. We need to come out and resist. When we resist, they will fear us and they won’t take everything.”
Despite Rani’s physical setbacks his spirit is not broken. His courage in the face of seemingly over-whelming odds shames even the bravest men. He is living proof that the body can be broken but the spirit is never crushed.
