Israa Zourob, the 17-year-old who died during an exorcism

In short
Israa Zourob, 17, died in Gaza in early February 2014 during an exorcism at a “Quranic medicine” centre: the sheikh, convinced she was possessed by a jinn, forced her to drink a litre of water with half a kilo of salt. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights called for an investigation, and the post-mortem found excess salt in her digestive system.

Anyone who thinks exorcisms are exclusive to the Christian world is very much mistaken. Israa Zourob, a 17-year-old Palestinian girl, died during an exorcism carried out in her country by a healer who believed she was possessed by a demon.

Israa Zourob

Israa was 17 and lived with her family in Gaza. She had a happy life, but one day she began hearing voices and strange noises. Frightened, she told her parents, who decided to take her to an Islamic medicine centre. There, sheikhs (elders or teachers) treat people with prayers instead of medicines.

They were received by sheikh Abu Harith, who had no doubts: Israa Zourob was possessed by a jinn, a demon. On 2 February 2014 the exorcism to expel the jinn from the girl’s body began.

The exorcism of Israa Zourob

Abu Harith told the girl’s parents to buy half a kilo of salt, then dissolved it in a litre of water. He ordered the girl to drink it, but when she complained that it was far too salty, the sheikh forced the water down her throat with the help of her brother, who held her still.

Israa’s mother said that before making her daughter drink the salt water, the man recited what sounded like prayers. But he spoke so fast and so confusedly that she is not sure the words came from the Quran.

After being forced to drink, Israa turned blue, stopped breathing and died. Her mother does not know whether she suffocated or died of salt poisoning; she only knows that her daughter is gone. The next day the public prosecutor ordered a post-mortem: according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), the initial examination found an excessive amount of salt in her digestive system.

The arrest

Shortly afterwards, sheikh Abu Harith was investigated by the Gaza police. The man holds a diploma in “Sharia sciences” and runs an Islamic medicine centre where prayers are used in exorcisms to drive out jinn or to counter the evil eye.

Exorcisms are far from rare in Gaza, and in 1998 another woman had already died while a sheikh tried to drive a jinn out of her body. She had been beaten so savagely that she fell into a coma and died shortly afterwards.

Because of limited medical education and few police checks, these centres are sadly still very common in the Gaza Strip. How many more deaths will it take before these centres are closed for good?

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