Breaking: Israeli warships and drones are surrounding the Handala ship near the shores of Gaza

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#BREAKING 🚨🚨

Israeli warships and drones are surrounding the Handala ship near the shores of Gaza, amid growing fears it will be prevented from reaching the port and breaking the siege

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Who is Handala, the barefoot, spiky-haired boy who symbolizes Palestinian resistance?

RAMALLAH, West Bank — His hair is like a hedgehog, his feet are bare, his clothes are rags and his back is to the world always. His name is Handala.

A character created by Palestinian newspaper cartoonist Naji al-Ali in 1969 — two years after the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — the boy known as Handala is a symbol of the Palestinian struggle and resistance to occupation to this day.

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Handala is forever 10 years old — the age that Ali was when his family was forced to move during the mass displacement of Palestinians in 1948 when the state of Israel was formed. Palestinians and their supporters refer to that displacement as the Nakba, or Arabic for "catastrophe."

Ali's refugee boy character shares his name with a resilient, bitter plant that grows in the Middle East called handal. It has deep roots and will always grow back even if it's weeded out.

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https://www.npr.org/2024/02/06/1228097975/handala-naji-al-ali-cartoon-palestinian-symbol