Talib calls terrorist who tried to ram, stab IDF soldier: ‘Loving daughter, successful student’

Talib calls terrorist who tried to ram, stab IDF soldier: ‘Loving daughter, successful student’

On Saturday, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (Mich-D) tweeted a call for Israel to release the body of Mai Afana, a terrorist killed after she attempted to ram her car into a group of IDF soldiers at a checkpoint near Jerusalem on June 16. Tlaib claimed that “the Israeli government” killed Ofana who the congresswoman described as a “mother, loving daughter & successful Ph.D. student.”

Meet Mai Afana’s mother, Khuloud, who is fighting to be able to bury her daughter & begin her healing. Mai was a mother, loving daughter & successful PhD student. She was killed by the Israeli government last June. Israel won’t release her body to her family. pic.twitter.com/kHehtA0yeW

— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) August 28, 2021

The 29-year old Arab resident of Abu Dis suburb of Jerusalem drove her car at the group of soldiers but when she was unsuccessful in ramming them, she exited her vehicle while brandishing a knife and rushed at the soldiers. She was shot and killed in the incident. 

Despite Tlaib’s description, if one inspects Afana’s social media (as blogger Elder of Ziyon did), it will be discovered that she posts constant praise for terrorists who murder Jews, a character trait Talib did not specify in her description of Afana. 

Tlaib called for Israel to release the body of Ofana which she tweeted is being held “without proof”. In the same Twitter thread, Tlaib decried that the body of Afana’s brother, Ahmed Erekat, was also held by the Israeli government after he was killed last year while carrying out a ramming attack that injured one female soldier. He was shot as he exited his vehicle.

In 2019, the Israeli High Court ruled that the IDF could keep bodies of alleged terrorists in custody for the purpose of ensuring national security, such as using the remains of Hamas terrorists as bargaining chips in an eventual exchange with the Gaza-based terror group. This condition for holding bodies was explicitly made in an Israeli Security Cabinet’s decision of January 2017 regarding a “uniform policy for the treatment of terrorist bodies”.

It should be noted that Hamas routinely holds the bodies of IDF soldiers and has held the bodies of  Lt. Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul since 2014.