passion – his urge to become a martyr.
“We are educated strugglers,” he said. “We are not terrorists and the world should recognise that our acts are not intended to be pure, cold-blooded murder.”
“The Palestinian people had sought help from Arab countries, the United States and Europe in their attempt to establish an independent state,” he said, “but to little or no avail.”
“Finally, I searched for my God in the holy Koran and found it filled with verses and commands on how to end my oppression,” he added, eyes blazing. “I discovered late that victory is only granted by God and not by (Tony) Blair and Bush. My aim is to liberate my land and to transfer the triangle of fear to (the Israeli) environment.”
Delivered with emphatic gestures, this was his chilling justification for the mission he would soon undertake: “Israel attacked my honour, inflicted pain in our mothers and fathers and I have to inflict the same on them until Israeli mothers scream at their government and plead with the world to end the conflict. I will persist until they experience the same fear and pain our mothers daily feel.
“I cannot stand in front of a tank that would wipe me out within seconds, so I will use myself as a weapon. They called it terrorism, I say it is self-defence. When I embark on my mission I will be carrying out two obligations: one to my God and the other to defend myself and my country.”
Yunis lit a cigarette and declared that life was “precious”. He would rather be enjoying “normal days and nights, parties, family gatherings and seaside picnics,” he said. “We are doing this as long as we are under occupation and until liberation we have no choice but to fight.”
Until the day of his mission dawns, Yunis will remain engrossed in study of the Koran. He is convinced that he has no choice but to follow the path assigned to him, and nothing could sway him from it. “Freedom is not handed as a gift. History is testimony to the fact that major sacrifices have to be made to attain it,” he said.
“At the moment of executing my mission, it will not be purely to kill Israelis. The killing is not my ultimate goal, though it is part of the equation. My act will carry a message beyond those responsible and the world at large that the ugliest thing is for a human being to be forced to live without freedom.”
Like Yunis, Abu Fatah, his commander, is an educated man – a second year university student in international law. He delivered a brief history of Israeli-Palestinian conflict that culminated in the first Intifada starting in 1987, the Middle East peace process and the second Intifada, which began in September 2000.
He railed against Israeli settlements, political detentions and restrictions on the movements of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians within and between the territories.
After “self-restraint” during the first year of the latest Intifada, he explained, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade – a branch of the Fatah organization of Yasser Arafat, the Palestinian leader – decided to follow the example of the more radical Islamic group, Hamas, and launch suicide attacks. It has no shortage of volunteers.
A specialist unit is responsible for selecting candidates. Anyone under eighteen is rejected, so are married men with children and anyone without a sibling who may be a family’s sole breadwinner.
Those who excel militarily and show steely composure in stressful situations are most likely to be chosen. The young men must be reasonably religious, convinced of the meaning of “martyrdom and jihad (holy war)”. They should also be of a build and shape that will enable them to move easily among Israelis – disguised if necessary in skullcap and wig, with ringlets down the side of the face – as they wait for the moment to strike.
The commander observes candidates over several days as they go about their routine business in public and at home. If the assessment is positive, he informs them of their selection.
An intense twenty-day period of religious study and discussion ensues between the commander and each candidate. Verses from the Koran about a martyr’s attainment of paradise are recited constantly.
The candidate is reminded of the good fortune that awaits him in the presence of prophets and saints, of the unimaginable beauty of the houri, or beautiful young woman, who will welcome him and of the chance he will have to intercede on behalf of seventy loved ones on doomsday. Not least, he is told of the service he will perform for his fellow countrymen with his sacrifice.
“Of course I am deeply saddened when I have to use a suicide attacker. I am very emotional and at times I cry when I say goodbye to them,” the commander said softly. “These men were not found on the streets. These are educated men who under normal circumstances would have the potential of being constructive members of society. If they did not have to carry out such a mission, they could have become a doctor, a lawyer or a teacher.”
Once the bomber’s preparations are complete, he is collected by another member of the unit who accompanies him on the final journey to his target. It is only just before the assault that he is told the details of his operation, whether he will be a bomber or will attack with grenades and guns until he is shot dead.
Ten to fifteen minutes before being dropped at the target, the bomber straps on a hand-tailored vest filled with about ten kilos of explosive and five kilos of nails and metal. He is then given his final instructions about the precise point at which he should detonate himself.
“The less he knows the better for the martyr, since he will not have much time to think of the target nor to experience doubts,” the commander said. A separate unit has the job of finding potential targets for suicide attacks.
Asked whether the recent killings of innocent young civilians by suicide bombers in cafés and restaurants could be condoned, Abu Fatah’s tone hardened. “Do you think when an Israeli tank shells a house it considers whether there are children at home?” he snapped. “There are ugly consequences for both sides in a war.”
Ahmad, the second suicide attacker, has no reservations. A twenty seven-year-old student from the Gaza Strip, he carries the deeds and keys to the family house in Jaffa from which his grandmother was driven when the modern state of Israel was established as a Jewish homeland in 1948.
“My grandmother represented the history of the Palestinian people,” said the quietly-spoken Ahmad, one of eight children who lives with his mother.
“She spoke to us of Jaffa, its grape vines and the seaside. She instilled in us a love for the home we did not know and over many tears recounted old stories of life once upon a time in Palestine.” Ahmad said he fell in love with Jaffa through his grandmother’s tales and longed for the day when he would have a chance to visit the old place. Instead, he grew up in a small concrete house allotted to the family by the United Nations.
He was twelve when the first Intifada began and his anger at what he regarded as the humiliation of his family under occupation eventually made him determined to fight for “dignity”.
“I did not join Fatah to kill. My aim in joining was to try and provide security, if only to my immediate family. Were it not for the occupation, I would not have become a Fatah member in the first place. I let go of my dreams of Jaffa and of ever reclaiming my grandmother’s house. I was never a person who sought to annihilate the Israelis.
“I gave them the land that originally belonged to me but instead of accepting it graciously I found them still seeking to deprive me of the right to live freely and peacefully in my tiny few square metres.”
The failure of the peace process meant “having to live in an
