Moheba Khorsheed

Moheba Khorsheed
مهيبة خورشيد
Personal details
Born	1925 (1925) Jaffa, British Mandatory Palestine
Died	2000 (aged 74–75) Jordan
Other political affiliations	Arab Women's Association of Palestine
Military service
Commands	The Chrysanthemum Flower
Battles/wars	1948 Palestine war

Moheba Khorsheed was a Palestinian activist and leader of the Zahrat al-Uqhawan (The Chrysanthemum Flower in English), an all-female armed group to fight against Zionist paramilitaries in the 1948 Palestine war. ^[1]

Early life

Khorsheed was born in the Palestinian city of Yaffa in 1925. She studied at the Higher Teachers' Institute in Jerusalem, where she earned a diploma in education. ^[2] She returned to her hometown of Yaffa, where she taught math at an all-girl secondary school. She later joined the Arab Women's Association of Palestine. ^{[3] [4]}

Founding of The Chrysanthemum Flower and the 1948 Palestine war

On February 27, 1947, Khorsheed and her sister Nariman Nihad Khorsheed ^[5] founded the Chrysanthemum Flower as an all-female political group. ^[6] Before the war the Chrysanthemum Flower, was actively engaged in providing medical treatment and establishing a welfare network to help students and poor people and promoting interfaith rapprochement. ^[7] after the outbreak of the 1948 war, the group's role was to raise funds to buy weapons and to provide aid to displaced Palestinian families, but After Khorsheed witnessed a Palestinian boy being killed by a Zionist paramilitary sniper, ^[8] the group turned into an all-female armed resistance network. ^{[9] [10]} Their main activities were ambushing Zionist militants. In one Al-Jazeera interview Khorsheed told a story about how she raided a Zionist paramilitary camp in the middle of the night and killed their leader and captured the others. ^[11]

After the war

After the fall of Yaffa to Zionist paramilitaries, she was displaced by boat to Egypt. ^[12] Then, she moved to Lebanon and later to Jordan, where she became a teacher again and got married. She died in 2000 in Jordan. ^{[3] [13]}

References

1. Koutteineh, Farrah. "International Women's Day: When Palestinian women brought Israel's occupation to the brink of collapse". The New Arab.
2. Motaz (2021-08-16). "مهيبة خورشيد... في معنى الهوية والحياة في ظلال فلسطين | نبيل السهلي". القدس العربي (in Arabic). Retrieved 2025-05-26.
3. "Radical Lives: Moheba Khorsheed". Novara Media. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
4. ""زهرة الأقحوان".. أول تنظيم عسكري نسائي في فلسطين - نون بوست". www.noonpost.com. Retrieved 2025-05-26.
5. Remoundou, Natasha. Savage Memory, Technologies of Necropower, Feminist Decolonial Resistance: A Palestinian Antigone in Ireland. Heidelberg University. p. 12.
6. Abusalama, Shahd. Women Revolt: Between Media Resistance and the Reinforcement of Oppressive Gender Structures. p. 8.
7. خاص بـ عــ48ـرب/ المحامية تغريد جهشان (2016-03-08). "في الثامن من آذار: زهرة الأقحوان". موقع عرب 48. Archived from the original on 2018-07-06. Retrieved 2025-05-26.
8. "Sisters Uncut: International Women's Day of Resistance". Sisters Uncut. Retrieved 2025-05-26.
9. "Women of the resistance". Counterfire. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
10. "مهيبة خورشيد.. معلّمة حملت السلاح ضد الكيان الصهيوني". جريدة القبس. Retrieved 2025-05-24.
11. صادق, ميرفت. ""زهرة الأقحوان".. أول تنظيم نسوي لمقاومة الاحتلال في فلسطين". الجزيرة نت (in Arabic). Retrieved 2025-05-24.
12. BAZARRNA (2023-12-11). "Women and Armed Resistance in Palestine -1947". Bazarrna. Retrieved 2025-05-26.
13. "The role of Palestinian women in resistance". openDemocracy. Retrieved 2025-05-26.