trying to protect Palestinians.
I didn’t believe that everybody in Israel and the occupied territories needed to become a Christian in order to end the bloodshed. But I thought that if we just had a thousand Amnons on one side and a thousand Mosabs on the other, it could make a big difference. And if we had more … who knows?
A couple of months after arriving at Ofer, I was taken to court, where no one knew who I was—not the judge or the prosecutors, not even my own lawyer.
At my trial, the Shin Bet testified that I was dangerous and requested that I be kept longer. The judge agreed and sentenced me to six months in administrative detention. Again, I was transferred.
Five hours drive from anywhere, in the sand dunes of the Negev Desert and very near the Dimona nuclear plant, stood the tent prison of Ktzi’ot, where you melted in the summer and froze in the winter.
“What’s your organization?”
“Hamas.”
Yes, I still identified myself as part of my family, as part of my history. But I was no longer like the other prisoners.
Hamas was still the majority. But since the start of the Second Intifada, Fatah had grown significantly, and each group had about the same number of tents. I was tired of pretending, and my newfound ethical code kept me from lying. So I decided to keep mostly to myself while I was there.
Ktzi’ot was serious wilderness. The night air echoed with the sounds of wolves and hyenas and leopards. I had heard stories of prisoners who had escaped Ktzi’ot, but no stories of anyone having survived the desert. Winter was worse than summer—freezing air and drifting snow and nothing but canvas to keep out the wind. Each tent had a moisture barrier across the roof. But some of the prisoners tore down pieces of it to make privacy curtains around their cots. The moisture from our breath was supposed to be trapped in that liner. But it just floated up and stuck to the naked canvas until it got too heavy. Then all that spit rained down on us throughout the night as we slept.
The Israelis virtually papered the camp with glue boards to try to keep the mouse population under control. Early one frosty morning while everyone else was still asleep, I was reading my Bible when I heard a squeaking sound, like a rusty bedspring. I looked under my cot and saw a mouse stuck to a glue board. What surprised me, though, was that another mouse was trying to save him without getting stuck himself. Was it his mate or a friend? I don’t know. I watched for about half an hour as one animal risked its life to save another. It moved me so much that I freed them both.
At the prison, reading materials were pretty much limited to the Qur’an and Qur’anic studies. I had only two English-language books that a friend had smuggled to me through my lawyer. I was deeply grateful to have something to read and to strengthen my English skills, but it didn’t take long for me to wear out the covers from reading the books so much. One day, I was walking around by myself when I saw two prisoners making tea. Beside them was a huge wooden box filled with novels sent by the Red Cross. And these guys were tearing up the books for fuel! I couldn’t control myself. I shoved the box away from them and started scooping up the books. They thought I wanted them so I could make my own tea.
“Are you insane?” I told them. “It took me forever to smuggle in two English-language books so I could read them, and you’re making tea with these!”
“Those are Christian books,” they argued.
“They are not Christian books,” I told them. “They’re
They probably wondered what was wrong with the son of Hassan Yousef. He had been so quiet, mostly keeping to himself and reading. Suddenly, he was raving about a box of books. If it had been anybody else, they probably would have fought to keep their priceless fuel. But they let me have the novels, and I returned to my bed with a whole box of new treasures. I piled them around me and wallowed in them. I didn’t care what anybody thought. My heart was singing and praising God for providing me with something to read while I tried to pass the time in this place.
I read sixteen hours a day until my eyes grew weak from the poor light. During the four months I spent at Ktzi’ot, I memorized four thousand English vocabulary words.
While I was there, I also experienced two prison uprisings, far worse than the one we had at Megiddo. But God got me through it all. In fact, I experienced God’s presence more strongly in that prison than any time before or since. I may not have known Jesus as the Creator yet, but I was certainly learning to love God the Father.
On April 2, 2003—as Coalition ground troops raced toward Baghdad—I was released. I emerged as a respected leader of Hamas, a seasoned terrorist, and a wily fugitive. I had been tried by fire and proven. My risk of being burned had decreased significantly, and my father was alive and safe.
Once more I could walk openly down the streets of Ramallah. I no longer had to act like a fugitive. I could be myself again. I called my mother; then I called Loai.
“Welcome home, Green Prince,” he said. “We missed you very much. A lot has been happening, and we didn’t know what to do without you.”
A few days after my return, I had a reunion with Loai and my other good Israeli friends. They had only one news item to report, but it was a huge one.
In March, Abdullah Barghouti had been spotted and arrested. Later that year, the Kuwaiti-born bomb maker would be tried in Israeli military court for killing sixty-six people and wounding about five hundred. I knew there were more, but those were all we would be able to prove. Barghouti would be sentenced to sixty-seven life terms —one for each murder victim and an extra one for all those he had wounded. At his sentencing, he would express no remorse, blame Israel, and regret only that he had not had the opportunity to kill more Jews.
“The spate of murderous terror that the accused let loose was one of the most severe in the blood-soaked history of this country,” the judges said.[12] Barghouti flew into a rage, threatening to kill the judges and to teach every Hamas prisoner how to make bombs. As a result, he would serve his terms in solitary confinement. Ibrahim Hamed, my friend Saleh Talahme, and the others, however, still remained at large.
In October, my project at USAID ended, along with my employment. So I threw myself into my work for the Shin Bet, gathering all the information I could.
One morning, a couple of months later, Loai called.
“We found Saleh.”
Chapter Twenty-Five
SALEH
Winter 2003—Spring 2006
It was easy to know where Saleh and his friends had
That the Shin Bet had found him broke my heart. Saleh was my friend. He had helped me with my studies. I had shared bread with him and his wife, and I had played with his children. But Saleh was also a terrorist. During his imprisonment by the Palestinian Authority, he had continued his studies through Al-Quds Open University and used what he learned to become such a great bomb maker that he could even make explosives from garbage.
After Saleh’s release by the PA, the Shin Bet watched to see how much time it would take him and his friends to rebuild the Al-Qassam Brigades. It didn’t take long at all. The rebuilt organization wasn’t big, but it was deadly.
Maher Odeh was the brains of the operation; Saleh, the engineer; and Bilal Barghouti, the recruiter of suicide bombers. In fact, the Hamas military wing consisted of only about ten people who operated independently, had their own budgets, and never met together unless it was urgent. Saleh could turn out several explosive belts overnight, and Bilal had a waiting list of candidates for martyrdom.
If I had believed Saleh was innocent, I would have warned him about what was going to happen. But when we finally connected the dots, I realized that he had been behind the Hebrew University bombing and many others. I understood that he needed to be locked away in prison. The only thing I might have done was introduce him to the
