What changed Abed’s mind about joining the Jihad, what pushed him over the top to take an active role in the struggle, was relatively sudden, although it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Some picked up arms out of despair, sometimes strapping explosives to their bodies and blowing themselves up along with as many of the enemy as possible. Others joined out of sheer anger, frustration and hatred.Abed best fitted this latter category, though he didn’t discuss his innermost feelings with anyone, not even his mother. It was not a desperate act and he would certainly never throw his life away on a suicide bomb attack.
The event that wrenched open his heart and ignited the embers happened during the week he turned twenty-six years old, the same week he opened a metal shop of his own. The peace for him ended late one Sunday night during an Israeli incursion into the Rafah refugee camp.
These attacks were not unusual by any means and happened nearly every night somewhere in Gaza; raids by tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and Apache helicopter gunships, deep into the towns from any one of the numerous military outposts that surrounded the Strip. After the 1967 war, the Israelis decided they wanted Gaza for themselves and gradually carved chunks out of it by building settlement fortresses for their own people to occupy. By the time Abed reached his twenties, almost 50 per cent of Gaza had been confiscated to house only a few thousand Israelis. The explanation for the nightly incursions was to protect the settlements and discourage the Palestinians from attempting to expel them.
The first clue that danger was in the wind that night for the people living in Rafah camp was a cessation in the sporadic bursts of machine gun fire in no-man’s-land along the border a street away.There was always a burst every ten minutes or so. A saying in the camp was that one slept with the gunfire and was woken by the silence.
Abed sat up in his bed, his ears searching to confirm the sounds he was as familiar with as the wind whistling through the date trees and the waves crashing on to the beach. When he was sure the distant creak and rumble was that of tanks and APCs, he put on his jeans and trainers and went to the front door, opening it just enough to peer carefully into the dark street. As the metallic clatter grew louder, there was the unmistakable crunch of a nearby building being crashed through. It appeared that Abed’s neighbourhood was the night’s target. That was not new, of course. Rafah had been attacked dozens upon dozens of times in the past few years, but there had not been an incursion into Abed’s immediate neighbourhood for several months.
He was tempted to make his way down to the corner of the block to the main street that led to the marketplace to take a look and confirm what by now was obvious, but the snipers would most likely already be on the prowl, and if he was seen he would be shot. They were not the only unseen danger; the Apache gunships would also be hovering high above, their engines cloaked by noise suppressors, watching through night vision aides for anything living to show itself in the battered streets below. Many residents, regardless of age or gender, had died with a bullet to the chest or brain because they had been too curious and had not fought the urge to look out of their window during such times.
There was another loud crash from the opposite direction, followed by the guttural revving of a massive engine: another tank. They were penetrating from several directions. Whatever their area of focus was, Abed decided his home must be close to it, if not directly in it.
Suddenly the house at the end of the street crumpled and a tank brushed aside the front of it as if it were made of sugar blocks. A burst of machine gun fire followed as the tank continued past Abed’s block and on to the next.
There was another long rattle of machine gun fire from behind the house which was very close. Then came the sound of someone running down the street towards him. The next burst of fire was different, lighter. Abed knew it was not the enemy. It was erratic and had the desperate characteristics of the hunted, not the hunter.
Abed could make out two men in his street carrying AK47 assault rifles, an easily recognisable weapon since they were often on display in Gaza City during the daytime when the Israelis rarely attacked. Israeli soldiers carried mostly American M16s or Canadian versions of the same model. They never used AK47s.
The men paused outside Abed’s house looking uncertain about where to go next, with little time to decide. Abed remained still, watching them from the shadow of his door, which was slightly ajar. One of them sensed Abed and looked straight at him, and for a moment Abed wondered if they were considering an escape through his home. If the enemy suspected, it would mean the end of his home, literally, and possibly his incarceration. Despite the dangers, Abed opened his door to offer them entry.
‘Close your door,’ the man said. ‘Stay out of sight.’ He was tall and lithe and gripped his rifle close to his body, his finger through the trigger guard, ready to use it in an instant. Abed did not know him although he looked vaguely familiar. The man was not from Rafah camp. Perhaps he was from Khan Younis, the larger town just north of Rafah.The man tapped his partner who was covering the other direction and they ran down a narrow alleyway opposite Abed’s front door.
A moment later he heard more running in the direction the men had come from, and he instinctively closed his door and carefully drew the bolt across without making a noise. There was a roar of engines and the sound of masonry crumbling; one of the buildings behind Abed’s home had gone down. Then many footsteps charged past his front door and gunfire erupted, followed by shouts in Hebrew. Everyone in the camp would be wide awake by now. Families would be huddled together in fear, praying their door would be passed by, that they would be among the lucky ones tonight.
A helicopter roared overhead drowning out all other sounds. Abed froze in the darkness as the helicopter’s searchlight shone through gaps in the corrugated roof above the front door sending shafts of light across his face. As the helicopter moved on, a voice speaking in Arabic came over a hand-held loudspeaker.
‘This is the IDF. All men from the age of fourteen to sixty come out of your homes with your hands raised!’
Abed was immediately filled with concern. The last time a callout happened in his neighbourhood he was eighteen. He had been made to line up along with a dozen other men, a few older but mostly his age or younger, and they were searched and ordered to remove their shoes. Several boys were slapped about, two beaten quite severely for not co-operating quickly enough, but Abed had received little more than a few shoves, the most severe one accompanying his dismissal when he was pulled away from the wall, pushed up the street and told to go home immediately without looking back or he would be shot. He obeyed them to the letter. The IDF, the Israeli Defence Force, was not to be trifled with.They were ruthless jailors, without compassion, and punished severely those who did not obey them, and just as often those who did.The rules of Gaza at night were the rules of the jungle, and the IDF had all the teeth and claws.
The loudspeaker’s message was repeated over and over in all directions. Abed remained behind his front door unsure what to do. If he went outside he feared it would be different this time. He was a man now and adults were often beaten and nearly always taken away and interrogated, which usually lasted a couple of days. He still had a lot to do to get his new metal shop ready to open for business, with supplies due to be delivered in the morning, which he had to be there to receive. But if he did not go outside and the IDF decided to search his home, he might be shot or accused of colluding with terrorists.The latter meant immediate imprisonment without trial for God only knew how long. Some men had been gone for years without even being charged. But compliance did not ensure safety either. There were endless stories of men, and also boys, who had left their homes as ordered in just such a situation, and been shot or beaten and left for dead.The least Abed could expect was to be half-stripped and taken to a holding area, or driven to another part of the Strip and left to find his own way back without money for food or transport. Being beaten was inevitable. It would be down to the mood of the troops as to how badly. If one of their own had been killed recently then it did not bode well for anyone. Resistance was out of the question, and to defend one’s home was to die as a terrorist. Many Palestinians had guns but few who lived in the camps. The most common was the AK47 but some had M16s, and there was even the occasional British GPMG, a heavier belt-fed machine gun. But guns were expensive in Gaza.
Ironically, most of the weapons smuggled in were not from other Arab countries, which in truth gave little support to the Palestinians. The Palestinians bought their weapons from the Israelis themselves, the so-called Israeli Mafia mostly; they passed through the settlements to be sold by the settlers themselves, the very people the guns might be used against. An AK47 could cost from three to five thousand US dollars, making Palestine the most inflated weapons’ market in the world - in Baghdad an AK47 could be picked up for as little as thirty-five dollars. Some of the weapons originated from the West Bank, captured or found by Israeli soldiers during raids and then sold on to the Mafia.Weapons captured in Gaza were usually recycled back to the Palestinians at the going rate, a poignant example of commerce rising above conflict.
The loudspeaker voice came again, this time warning that any man found hiding would be guilty of terrorism.Abed had to go. Staying was a much greater risk. He quickly removed his trainers and put on an old pair of shoes since there was a good chance he would lose his footwear and the trainers were new.
As he reached for the bolt, he heard something behind him and looked over his shoulder. His mother stood at the corner of the hallway in her sleeping gown looking at him. He could not see her eyes in the darkness but he knew she was filled with fear.
‘Don’t go out there, Abed,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘Please don’t go, my son.’
His stomach began to churn as his own fear grew. ‘I must,’ he said.
He reached for the bolt again and drew it across.
‘Abed. Please. Don’t,’ his mother pleaded again, her voice trembling.
‘Go back to your room, Mother.’
He started to open the door then paused as he remembered something. He pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it to the ground so that he was naked from the waist up. Some people had died because the soldiers feared they were wearing an explosive belt. At least he would remove that excuse to shoot him, not that they needed one; he was Palestinian and that was reason enough in their eyes.
‘Abed, don’t go,’ his mother begged one last time, then she broke into tears knowing her son would do what he had decided and nothing she could say would change his mind.
As he opened the door he looked back at her, but she had her head in her hands, unable to watch him go. He stepped out into the street and raised his arms.
There were half a dozen soldiers a couple of yards away and they quickly trained their rifles on him. ‘Come out!’ one of them yelled.
An officer stepped forward, a large man no older than Abed, dressed like the others in a khaki uniform, a harness with weapons pouches about his chest and wearing a helmet, the straps tight under his chin. ‘Forward!’ he shouted as he closed in, his rifle aimed directly at Abed’s face.
Abed walked calmly forward keeping his hands high. The officer reached for him and was immediately joined by another soldier who grabbed Abed harshly as if he might fly away, pulled him up the street and slammed him against a wall.Another soldier joined them to search Abed’s trousers and legs while the officer stepped back.
‘Take your trousers off,’ the officer shouted.
Abed did not move quickly enough for their liking and one of the soldiers slapped him brutally across the face and repeated the officer’s command. ‘Take your trousers off!’
Abed was still too slow, refusing to give up all his dignity, arrogance his only weapon. He lowered his hands to unbutton his trousers and received another fierce slap across his face. ‘Move when we speak!’ shouted the soldier who hit him. Abed flashed a look at him; he was no more than eighteen years old. He appeared to be nervous. This was probably his first incursion, or first close contact with the enemy in a hostile situation. The soldier’s uniform was a size too large for him and his weapons pouches were worn and undone. Abed glanced at the others as he pulled down his trousers. They were all filled with the same hate and eagerness to kill the vermin that lived on their promised land. As he pulled a trouser leg over his shoe, the soldier who had slapped him grabbed it and yanked so hard he pulled Abed’s feet out from under him and Abed fell back against the wall, his backside hitting the street with a thump. He had grazed his back on the wall but he ignored the pain. The soldier continued to pull hard on Abed’s trousers, tearing at them until one of the legs popped over the shoe, the other shoe coming off with the last tug of the other trouser leg. He tossed the garment aside and kicked Abed.
‘Get up,’ he shouted. When Abed did not move straight away he kicked him again. Abed’s fear was growing by the second. The blood lust was in their eyes and he could feel they wanted to kill.
The soldier helped Abed up by his hair and Abed lost control for one second, pushing the man’s hand away.The soldier could not believe the animal’s audacity and clenched his jaw as he raised the butt of his weapon to strike, but the officer grabbed the soldier’s webbing and pulled him back.
‘So, we have a spirited one . . . What’s your name?’
‘Abed Omar.’
‘You live in that house?’
‘Yes.’
‘Who else is in the house?’
‘Only my mother.’
‘Let’s go and see if you’re telling the truth.’
‘I am telling the truth.’