Testimony at the Funeral of Qassam and His Companions in Haifa

"Ahmad gasped as he entered the shop one afternoon in the autumn of 1935 and shouted: The Sheikh and his companions were martyred in Ya'bad. The farmer was stunned by the magnitude of the sorrow and cries and asked: Who is the Sheikh?… Qassam was killed by the accursed English."

This was in Haifa, on the day the news of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam's martyrdom reached there, in a book from Hawran to Haifa by writer Ziad Muhammad al-Zoubi, published in its first edition by the Arab Institute for Studies and Publishing in 2020. The book includes a testimony relayed from his father, Muhammad al-Zoubi, who lived and worked in Haifa during Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam's activity there, and his martyrdom in Ya'bad, and the day of his funeral in Haifa to the cemetery of Balad al-Sheikh, where he was laid to rest in the 1930s.

We convey this testimony at a time when the genocide of Gaza continues, and Ben Gvir's call to demolish and raze the tomb of Qassam, which had already been restored after being previously destroyed in the cemetery of Balad al-Sheikh.

Sheikh Qassam was martyred on November 20, 1935, and his body, along with the bodies of his two martyr companions, Yusuf al-Zeibawi and Atiyah al-Masri, was transferred to Haifa on the evening of the same day of their martyrdom, and they were buried the next day in a single funeral that began from Qassam's house in Haifa to their final resting place in the cemetery of Balad al-Sheikh.

It was Akram Zaiter who organized and gathered for Qassam's funeral through the Islamic University newspaper, as he dictated to it on the evening of the Sheikh’s martyrdom, and via phone, a statement that bore his signature, according to what was documented by the late Palestinian researcher Sami Hamuda in his study "Consciousness and Revolution: A Study in the Life and Struggle of Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam 1882–1935."

The mobilization statement read:

"Tomorrow, we will march in the funeral procession of the honorable Sheikh Izz ad-Din al-Qassam, head of the Muslim Youth Association in Haifa and the head of its grand mosque, along with his brothers who were killed beside him in Ya'bad, and we will bid them farewell in Haifa, and I call upon the leaders and heads of parties today to join the procession."

Regarding the morning of the funeral of Qassam and his companions, al-Zoubi recounts:
They reached Qassam's house, and saw the black flags raised on the walls of the houses near Qassam's house. There were many people in front of Qassam's house in a state of shock. Muhammad - referring to Muhammad al-Zoubi, the witness - saw a man dressed in strange black attire, with a white shirt and a black tie, wearing a black fez on his head and with curled mustaches, approaching the coffin and wrapping it with a flag, but it was not the Palestinian flag. When he asked, he was told: This is the flag of Iraq, expressing that Qassam is a martyr for all Arabs on the land of Palestine. When the coffin of one of his companions arrived, the same man wrapped it with another flag, which he was told was the flag of Saudi Arabia. As for the third coffin, it was wrapped with the flag of Yemen.

When Muhammad asked his friend Ahmad - who was Ahmad, the witness's friend - who the man was, he told him: This is Rashid al-Hajj Ibrahim, Qassam's companion and one of his strongest supporters from the leadership of Haifa.

Many people gathered, and they were told that the government - the British mandate authorities - had prevented the funeral from passing through the city. The cries of the mourners rose in rejection of this decree, and there were many police officers present, but they retreated.

As for the men, they increased in number by the minute until they became in the thousands. Young men carried Qassam's coffin, including Ahmad, who was then followed by other young men carrying the other two coffins, which Muhammad recognized were those of Sheikh al-Zeibawi and the fighter Atiyah, and they moved with the three coffins in succession along the road through the city, disregarding what the British mandate government had decided. The grand funeral chanted: "Allahu Akbar, Allahu Akbar against the colonizers."

It was clear that they were heading to the Al-Istiqamah Mosque, which had witnessed Qassam's first calls to jihad. The funeral only briefly stopped in front of the Al-Istiqamah Mosque before directing itself to the Grand Mosque in Al-Jreena, and after the prayer for the martyrs, the furious crowd returned to King Street, then to Faisal Square, continuing their march to Al-Hijaz Street, and from there to the cemetery of Balad al-Sheikh, which took three hours to reach.

It was the largest funeral Haifa had ever witnessed, with the participation of people from the city and other cities in Palestine, as if they were saying: This is the martyr of the entire nation, and we will struggle against you, O English, and against your allies from the Jews and collaborators.

Muhammad, who participated several times along with Ahmad, who did not leave his sight while carrying the coffin, buried him in the earth. Tears streamed from Muhammad's eyes more than once as he listened to the takbirs.

He returned with Ahmad, and he was not allowed to return to the Tira - meaning Ahmad was not allowed to spend the night in the village of Tira al-Karmel - but he slept with him and his brother in their room, after a long and exhausting day, to the extent that they did not talk to a farmer about the historic funeral of the three martyrs...

The witness recalls that he decided to be among those appointed to Qassam's groups in the city of Haifa, and mentioned his friend Ahmad who regularly went after finishing work in the shop every day to the Al-Istiqamah Mosque to meet his brothers who called themselves "Brothers of Qassam," and received instructions from the leaders of this group, such as Sheikh Abdullah Younis, Sheikh Kamal al-Qassab, Sheikh Hussein al-Hammadi, and Sheikh Muhammad al-Khatib.

News of attacks on English police stations and Jewish interests came daily from various parts of Palestine. Ahmad communicated these news or Muhammad read them in the printed newspapers...

As the days passed, the witness recalls, with the acceleration of events, a popular song started to fill Haifa and Palestine in general, sung by the people:

Oh graceful tall one, paint, O painter
A picture of Palestine and a picture of Qassam
And the eyes of the revolutionaries, by God, do not sleep
Victory, oh martyrdom, this is our motto...