Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd, the twin sibling activists have been listed among the 100 most influential people and the activist twins of Sheikh Jarrah by Time Magazine.
The list consists of six categories: Icons, Pioneers, Titans, Artists, Leaders, Innovators. The Sheikh Jarrah activists made the list in the “Icons” category.
“Through online posts and media appearances, sibling activists Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd provided the world with a window into living under occupation in East Jerusalem this spring—helping to prompt an international shift in rhetoric in regard to Israel and Palestine,” Time wrote about the El-Kurds.
Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd were temporarily detained by Israeli authorities this May for challenging existing narratives about Palestinian resistance through viral posts and interviews, humanizing the experiences of their neighbours and pushing back against suggestions that violence was being predominantly carried out by Palestinians.
Tensions in Sheikh Jarrah spilled into the nearby Old City, when Israeli forces attacked worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque and Hamas militants in Gaza responded with rocket fire into Israel.
The El-Kurd family for more than a decade, along with dozens of their neighbours in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, has been fighting against the possibility of forced removal from their homes by Israeli settlers.
Time also wrote that around the world, their grassroots organizing helped inspire the Palestinian diaspora to renew protests. And in the U.S., long Israel’s strongest ally, polls show growing support for Palestinians, so far without any cost to public support for Israel.
The twins have been described as charismatic, bold and recognizable voices of those threatened with losing their homes in Sheikh Jarrah by the Time.
In a statement on Twitter on Wednesday, Mohammad El-Kurd said that, “Being named under the most 100 influential people was ‘positive’ but making symbols, which reduces the struggle of an entire people to one face, is not enough to support Palestinian people.”
Time Editor-in-Chief, Edward Felsenthal, said that the top 100 list features “an extraordinary leaders from around the world working to build a better future” who “in a year of crisis have leaped into the fray.”