Son of Hamas (23 page)

Exactly five minutes later,
boom!
Building Two. “Everybody out!”
Boom!
Building Three.
Boom!
Building Four.
Boom!

“Take off your clothes!” came the demand over the loudspeakers. The Israelis took no chances that someone might still be armed or packed with explosives. Hundreds of men stripped naked. They were given jumpsuits, loaded onto buses, and taken to nearby Ofer Military Base—where the Shin Bet discovered its mistake.

Of course there were too many people to lock up, but the Israelis wanted only the fugitives anyway. They had planned to sift through the detainees and release all but those on its list of suspects. The problem was that everybody had left their clothes—with their ID cards—back at the compound. How would the security forces distinguish between wanted men and police?

Ofer Dekel, Loai’s boss’s boss, was in charge. He called Jibril Rajoub, who had been away from the compound at the time of the attack. Dekel gave Rajoub a special permit so he could pass safely through hundreds of tanks and thousands of soldiers. When he arrived, Dekel asked Rajoub if he would mind pointing out which men worked for him and which were fugitives. Rajoub said he would be happy to. Quickly, Rajoub identified police as fugitives and fugitives as police, and the Shin Bet released all the wanted men.

“Why did you do that to me?” Dekel asked, after he figured out what had happened.

“You just blew up my offices and my compound,” Rajoub calmly explained in what amounted to a Palestinian version of “Duh.” Dekel also seemed to have forgotten that his PA pal had been wounded a year earlier when IDF tanks and helicopters leveled his home, making him even less inclined to do favors for the Israelis.

The Shin Bet was deeply embarrassed. The only thing they could do in retaliation was release an official account that branded Rajoub as a traitor for turning over the wanted men to Israel in a deal brokered by the CIA. As a result, Rajoub lost his power and ended up as head of the Palestinian Soccer Association.

This was clearly a debacle.

Over the next three weeks, the Israelis did lift the curfew from time to time, and during a break on April 15, I was able to bring some food and other necessities to my father. He told me he didn’t feel safe in that house and wanted to move. I called one of the Hamas leaders and asked if he knew of any place where Hassan Yousef could be protected. He told me to take my father to the location where Sheikh Jamal al-Taweel, another high-profile Hamas fugitive, was hiding.

Wow,
I thought. The arrest of Jamal al-Taweel would certainly make the Shin Bet feel much better about Operation Defensive Shield. I thanked him but said, “Let’s not put my father in the same place. It might be too dangerous for both of them to be there together.” We agreed on another spot, and I quickly got my father settled in his new safe house. Then I called Loai.

“I know where Jamal al-Taweel is hiding.”

Loai couldn’t believe the news; al-Taweel was arrested that very night.

That same day, we also nabbed another of the IDF’s most wanted men—Marwan Barghouti.

Though Marwan was one of Hamas’s most elusive leaders, his capture actually turned out to be quite simple. I called one of his guards and talked with him briefly on his cell phone while the Shin Bet traced the call. Barghouti was later tried in a civilian court and sentenced to five consecutive life sentences.

Meanwhile, not a day passed when Operation Defensive Shield did not make international headlines. Few were flattering. Out of Jenin came rumors of a large-scale massacre, which no one could verify because the IDF had sealed the city. Palestinian cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said 500 were dead. The figure was later revised to about 50.

In Bethlehem, more than 200 Palestinians were under siege in the Church of the Nativity for about five weeks. After the dust had settled and most of the civilians had been allowed to leave, 8 Palestinians had been killed, 26 were sent to Gaza, 85 were checked by the IDF and released, and the 13 most wanted were exiled to Europe.

All told during Defensive Shield, nearly 500 Palestinians were killed, 1,500 were wounded, and nearly 4,300 were detained by the IDF. On the other side, 29 Israelis were dead, and 127 were wounded. The World Bank estimated the damage at more than $360 million.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Supernatural Protection

Summer 2002

Wednesday, July 31, 2002, was a scorcher. One hundred and two degrees Fahrenheit. On the Mount Scopus campus of Hebrew University, no classes were in session, though some students were still taking exams. Others lined up to register for fall classes. At 1:30 p.m., the university’s Frank Sinatra Cafeteria was packed with people cooling off, enjoying iced drinks, and chatting. Nobody noticed the bag that had been left there by a contract painter.

The massive explosion gutted the cafeteria and left nine people dead, including five Americans. Eighty-five others were injured, fourteen seriously.

That same day, my good friend Saleh disappeared. When we checked the locations of the other four on our most-wanted list, we found that they, too, had disappeared without a trace, even severing all connection with their families. We were able to identify the Hamas cell that planted the bomb and found that its members were from inside Israel, not the occupied territories. They carried blue Israeli ID cards that allowed them to go anywhere they wanted. Five were from East Jerusalem: married, nice families, good jobs.

During the course of the investigation, one name came to the surface: Mohammed Arman, a man who lived in one of the Ramallah villages. Under torture, Arman was asked to identify the man behind the Hebrew University attack. He said he knew him only by the name “Sheikh.”

The interrogators brought in photographs of suspected terrorists, like a book of mug shots in an American police station, and told him to point to “Sheikh.” Arman identified a picture of Ibrahim Hamed, providing us with the first hard evidence of his involvement with suicide bombings.

We would learn later that, once identified, Hamed used his exposure to protect Saleh and the other members of his cell. All the cells under his command had been told that if they were captured, they were to blame everything on Hamed, since he no longer had anything to lose. So for the time being, the trail ended with Ibrahim Hamed. And he was nowhere to be found.

* * *

During the months following Operation Defensive Shield, Ramallah was under curfew. Arafat’s operations were pretty much shut down. USAID had suspended its projects and was not allowing its employees to enter the West Bank. Israeli checkpoints strangled the city, letting nothing but ambulances in or out. And I was officially a fugitive. All of this made it very difficult for me to get around. Nevertheless, I still had to meet with the Shin Bet every other week or so to discuss ongoing operations that could not be discussed on the telephone.

Equally important, I needed emotional support. The loneliness was terrible. I had become a stranger in my own city. I couldn’t share my life with anybody, not even my own family. And I couldn’t trust anyone else. Ordinarily, Loai and I met at one of the Shin Bet safe houses in Jerusalem. But I could no longer get out of Ramallah. It wasn’t even safe for me to be seen on the streets in the daytime. None of the usual options were possible.

If special forces came in Palestinian cars to pick me up, they risked being stopped by feda’iyeen and exposed by their accents. If security agents in IDF uniforms pretended to kidnap me, somebody might spot me jumping into the jeep. And even if it worked, how many times could we get away with that ruse?

Finally the Shin Bet came up with a more creative way for us to meet.

Ofer Military Base, a couple of miles south of Ramallah, was one of Israel’s highest-security facilities. The place was crammed with secrets and wrapped in security. The Shin Bet local offices were there.

“Okay,” Loai told me. “From now on, we’re going to meet at Ofer. All you have to do is break in.”

We both laughed. And then I realized he was serious.

“If you’re caught,” he explained, “it will look to everyone like you were trying to infiltrate a major military installation to plan an attack.”

“
If
I’m caught?”

The plan was troubling. And late one night when the time came to put it into action, I felt like an actor on opening night—about to step onto a set he had never seen before, dressed in a costume he had never worn before, with no script and no rehearsal.

I didn’t know that the Shin Bet had positioned their own agents in the two guard towers flanking the spot in the outer perimeter that I was supposed to breach. Nor did I know that more armed security agents equipped with night-vision gear were stationed along my route to protect me in the unlikely event that somebody might be following.

I just kept thinking,
What if I make a mistake?

I parked my car out of sight. Loai had instructed me to wear dark clothes, not to carry a flashlight, and to bring a pair of bolt cutters. I took a deep breath.

Heading into the hills, I could see the twinkle of the base lights in the distance. For a while, a pack of stray dogs barked at my heels as I followed the rise and fall of the rugged terrain. That was okay, as long as they didn’t draw any unwelcome attention.

Finally I came to the outer fence and called Loai.

“From the corner, count seven stanchions,” he said. “Then wait for my sign and start cutting.”

I cut through what had become the old fence after a new one had been built about twenty feet inside at the start of the Second Intifada.

I had been warned about the guard pigs (yes, I said guard pigs), but I didn’t encounter them, so it didn’t matter. The area between the outer and inner perimeters formed a run that, at any other military base in the world, would be patrolled by German shepherds or other highly trained attack dogs. Ironically, the kosher-conscious Israelis used pigs. It’s true.

It was thought that the presence of pigs and the threat of possible contact with them would serve as a psychological deterrent to any prospective terrorist who was a devout Muslim. Islam forbids contact with pigs as vehemently as does Orthodox Judaism. Perhaps even more so.

I never saw pigs guarding a settlement, but Loai told me later that they did sentry duty at Ofer Military Base.

I found a small door in the inner fence that had been left unlocked. I went through, and there I was, with guard towers rising up on either side like the devil’s horns, inside one of the most secure military installations in Israel.

“Keep your head down,” Loai said into my ear, “and wait for a sign.”

There were bushes all around me. After a few moments, several of them started moving. Turns out, some of them were actually the agents who were usually present in our meetings, but now they were carrying heavy machine guns and wearing IDF camouflage uniforms with branches sticking out all over. I could tell they were having fun playing commando—just one more dress-up role in a repertoire that ranged from terrorists and feda’iyeen to old men and the occasional woman.

“How are you doing?” they asked me, as if we had just sat down together in a coffeehouse. “Is everything okay?”

“Everything is okay.”

“Have you got anything?”

Sometimes I brought them recording devices or other evidence or intelligence, but I was empty-handed this time.

It started to rain, and we ran up and over a hill to an area where two jeeps waited. Three of the men jumped into the first jeep, and I jumped in the back. The others stayed with the second jeep to secure my return. I felt sorry for the guys we left behind because it was raining pretty hard. But they still seemed to be enjoying themselves.

After meeting with Loai, his boss, and the guards for a few hours, I left the same way I had come—pleased with myself, even though the trek back was long, wet, and cold.

This became our standard way of meeting. It was perfectly choreographed and executed flawlessly every time. I didn’t have to cut the fence again, but I always carried the cutters, just in case.

* * *

After my “escape” from the highly visible IDF raid, I continued to keep tabs on my father to make sure he was okay and see if there was anything he needed. Every once in a while, I stopped by the USAID office, but since we had suspended most of our work, what little I needed to do I was able to finish from my computer at home. At night, I hung out with wanted people and gathered intelligence. And late at night, once or twice a month, I infiltrated a top secret military installation to attend a meeting.

In my spare time, I continued to hang out with my Christian friends to talk about the love of Jesus. Actually, it was a lot more than talk. Even though I was still just a follower of the Teacher, I felt as if I was experiencing God’s love and protection every day, and it seemed to be extending to the members of my family as well.

One afternoon, special forces troops were searching the City Inn for fugitives and came up empty, so they decided to take a break at a nearby house. This was common practice. The IDF didn’t need orders or authorization. When things were relatively quiet, their special forces soldiers simply commandeered somebody’s house in order to grab a few hours of rest and maybe get something to eat. Sometimes during heavy fighting, they even broke into local homes and used the occupants as human shields—much like the feda’iyeen often did.

On this particular day, they chose the house in which my father was hiding. The Shin Bet didn’t know this was happening. None of us did. The fact that soldiers picked that particular house on that particular day was something no one could have predicted or prevented. And when they arrived, my father “happened” to be in the basement.

“Could you please not bring the dogs in here?” the woman who lived there asked the soldiers. “I have little children.”

Her husband was terrified that the troops would find Hassan Yousef and arrest them for harboring a fugitive. So he tried to act normal and unafraid. He told his seven-year-old daughter to go and shake hands with the commander. The commander was charmed by the little girl and figured she and her parents were just a regular family who had nothing to do with terrorists. He asked the woman politely if his men could rest for a little while upstairs, and she said that would be fine. About twenty-five Israeli soldiers stayed in that house for more than eight hours, unaware that my father was literally right beneath them.