For Intisar Hijazi, last Monday (7 October) began as usual, with her heading in to the school where she works as a counsellor. It ended with Hijazi in handcuffs, blindfolded and sitting in the back of a police car. The cause: she had earlier used TikTok’s “On this Day” feature to repost a year-old video of her dancing to the song “Good Times” by Chic. The subtext: that video had originally been uploaded on the morning of 7 October 2023.
It was part of an online trend from September 2023, and she uploaded the clip before she learned of the events of that day. In retrospect it was bad timing, but she was clearly not celebrating the attacks: few of her social media posts had any political content, and she made other posts mourning the Israeli victims of the Hamas massacre. Nonetheless, upon seeing the video a few days ago, the minister for national security Itamar Ben Gvir ordered her arrest. He later posted a photograph of her in the back of a police car stating he had “forwarded the video to the team for dealing with incitement” to terrorism, leading to Hijazi being “immediately arrested at her home”.
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