User:Coffeeandcrumbs/Naila Ayesh

Naila Ayesh is a Palestinian feminist activist who was a leader in the Palestinian resistance during the First Intifada.

Ayesh is the subject of a 2016 documentary directed by Julia Bacha titled Naila and the Uprising.

Early life and education
Naila Ayesh was born in 1961 to a family originally from Lifta in the outskirts of Jerusalem. When she was 8 years old in 1969, her family home was demolished by Israeli forces during the occupation of the West Bank following the 1967 War.

El-Bireh.

Ayesh became involved in political activism in 1982 while attending the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences where she also met future husband, Jamal Zakout, a Palestinian from ??.

First Intifada and Exile
Ayesh married Zakout in 1986. She was pregnant in 1987 when she was arrested for the first time and sent to the Moscovia Detention Centre in Jerusalem. She later recounted that she was "interrogated for two weeks" and "tied to the chair in a very uncomfortable way for days" even though she had told her captors that she was pregnant. She was held for 45 days, beaten, tortured, denied medical treatment, and subsequently miscarried while in custody.

Zakout was deported to Lebanon on August 1, 1988. He was suspected of being a member of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. On October 5, 1988, Ayesh was arrested for a second time. The Israeli forces took her from her home in Gaza to HaSharon Prison to be held under administrative detention. She was the seventh woman to be held administrative detention during the First Intifada. On October 16, her appeal to be released from detention was denied, and she was remanded to the full six-month detention while caring for her seven-month-old baby in prison. For the several months she was in custody, her son lived in the Israeli prison with her.

In 1990, Ayesh was able to leave Palestine and join her husband. She was also barred from returning to Palestine for two years.

Later life
Ayesh founded the Women’s Affairs Training and Research Center, an non-governmental organization based in Gaza. She has served as director of the organization since 1996.

Ayesh left Gaza in 2008 to move to the West Bank, but travels back and forth to work with the Women's Affairs Center. As of 2010, the Center had a job training program and published Al Ghaida, the only women's magazine in Gaza. Ayesh serves as director of the Center.