Playing War. Part Two.
When the ambulance arrived, the wounded Palestinian was pushed inside, and in the commotion I hopped in as well and we sped away. The stone-thrower, an 18-year-old named Ibrahim Abusherif, arched his back and clenched and unclenched his fingers and shouted a single phrase over and over: ''Damn the Jews; damn the Jews.'' His right femur, the medic said, appeared to be shattered. The ambulance rattled across the dirt and onto the cracked pavement, and the bottles and bandages and intravenous bags slid about on their little shelves, and Ibrahim continued to damn the Jews.
At Shifa Hospital, he was hurried into the emergency room and laid on a bed beneath a bare, flickering bulb. The floor was made of rubber tiles, sticky with the blood of previous patients. Elsewhere in the emergency room, behind salmon-colored curtains, were 6 other injured fighters -- a handful of the 40 people who are injured, on average, each day in the clashes in Gaza. The hyperventilated gasps of earnest pain filled the room. On the wall was a poster of a suicide bomber who had blown himself up two weeks before. Written above the poster, in thick black letters, were the words, ''He is worth a thousand men.'' A doctor dug into Ibrahim's thigh and removed three twisted fragments of an M-16 bullet, which he held up like trophies. Then Ibrahim was rolled into surgery.
Rimal Boys' School, the school that the two slain boys attended, is hidden behind a stout cinder-block wall, insulated somewhat from the filth and clamor of Beach Camp. The entrance is a large steel door, upon which was spray-painted ''The Student Union Congratulates Our Martyrs.'' The school's headmaster guided me to one of Ahmed's former classrooms. Forty-four students, all boys, sat two to a wooden desk. (Palestinian girls attend their own schools and rarely appear at the clashes.) The rear wall was decorated with six posters of Ahmed, two posters of Ibrahim and a detailed drawing of a human cell, with the nucleus and cytoplasm and mitochondrion labeled in Arabic. Muhammad, the boy I'd met in the trenches, flashed me a brief, acknowledging smile, then propped his head in his left hand and focused on his book. Ahmed's desk, in the second-to-last row, had been turned into a shrine, decorated with a flag and a head scarf and a bouquet of plastic flowers.
Palestinian schoolbooks tend to offer a rather one-sided view of Middle Eastern history. In some texts, Nazism and Zionism are equated, and Palestinians are portrayed as the true historical stewards of the land. Maps of the region omit Israel entirely and label the land between Lebanon and Egypt as Palestine. According to a widely studied book, ''Our Country Palestine,'' ''The Jewish claim to historic rights to Palestine has no justification; it is a deceitful and disproved claim with no parallel in history, a blatant lie.''
Every student I spoke with, in the hallways, in classrooms, in the courtyard, insisted that he, too, wanted to be a martyr. ''I don't fear the bullets,'' one boy informed me. ''I want to be with God,'' said another. ''I will avenge Ahmed and Ibrahim's deaths,'' announced a third. This was, I suspected, a form of adolescent bluster, but no one would dare say anything different, especially in front of his friends. In the school's art room, though, the pictures on the walls offered a different perspective. The works were done in colored pencils, and they were nearly all fantasies -- not of violence, but of moments of almost profound simplicity: a family picnicking on a beach; two boys on a swing set; a tennis game on a tree-shaded court.
When school ended for the day, Muhammad agreed to let me walk home with him. Immediately outside the school's gate, he unbuttoned his school shirt to reveal an undershirt advertising his favorite musician, an Iraqi singer named Kazem el-Saher. At a record store he stopped and gazed at some of el-Saher's tapes, but he didn't have any money. Muhammad walked with a teenager's slack-legged gait, strolling along one of Beach Camp's central thoroughfares, which had a V-shaped notch running along the middle, transporting raw sewage to the sea. Beach Camp's idyllic name was bestowed because it abuts the Mediterranean, but the beaches were little more than garbage dumps.
There are no real side streets in Beach Camp, just alleys between the homes so narrow that people can pass one another only by turning sideways. The alleys were a cat's cradle of laundry lines, flush with school uniforms. The houses, concrete cubes with corrugated tin roofs, were packed together and stacked atop one another as if in a warehouse. Trash whirled about. In a vacant lot a few cactus bushes pushed through the sandy soil. Women shuffled their feet listlessly, hauling loads of laundry. Unemployed men sat around playing backgammon. The air smelled of fried fish and charred rubber and fresh mule dung. Small children, many of them barefoot, ran about in hyperkinetic herds, sometimes tossing rocks at one another, or playing marbles, or lighting cardboard fires. Older kids played soccer in the street. The average woman in Gaza gives birth seven times.
A vegetable stand sold a shopping bag's worth of tomatoes for the equivalent of a quarter. Gaza's borders had been sealed by the Israeli Army since the start of the violence -- the strip was now, for all practical purposes, a million-inmate prison. (Even the Internet had been disrupted.) Farmers, who worked humble plots in the few uncrammed corners of Palestinian-controlled Gaza, were prohibited from exporting goods, creating a glut. Most of the season's crops were expected to rot.
Graffiti was everywhere, on the walls of homes and shops and abandoned construction sites. Teams of painters, employed by each of the major political factions, were working daily, whitewashing old slogans and adding new ones, and for those without television or radio, the messages (''Death to Barak''; ''On With the Intifada''; ''To Jerusalem We Are Going'') served as daily updates on the mood of the Palestinian leadership. At Beach Camp's entrance, an Israeli flag was painted on the roadway and both sidewalks, so that anyone passing through had to step on it. Most pedestrians made sure to plant a foot in the center of the six-pointed star.
Muhammad has six brothers and seven sisters. His father, Tayser, is a janitor at Shifa Hospital; his mother, Anaam, owns a tiny shop next to their home. Their family name is Saman. Like many Muslims, Muhammad prays five times a day, though he said he wasn't especially religious. He attends mosque on Fridays, at a new building in Beach Camp where the sermons are usually laced with anti-Jewish screeds. He has never listened to rap music, or eaten at McDonald's, or heard of e-mail.
He sleeps on a reed mat in a room with eight of his siblings. He wakes up at 6 o'clock in the morning and eats a bit of cheese and falafel -- unless I wake up late; then I just run to school.'' In the rear of his mother's shop, in a metal cage, he keeps his pet birds, a dozen canaries. ''I like the way they look and I like the way they sing,'' he told me. Muhammad recently marked his 15th birthday but hadn't received any presents. The last gift he'd been given was nearly a year before, to mark Id al-Fitr, the post-Ramadan feast. His mother bought him a new pair of pants, the ones he was now wearing, which were too long and rolled at the ankles. In school, he's good at math and carpentry and not that solid in his foreign language, which is English.
Muhammad has never once in his life left the Gaza Strip. Yet when asked where he's from he'll respond, as many in Gaza do, with the name of a town on the other side of the Green Line. His family left Hamman in 1948, soon after Israel declared its statehood, a period during which tens of thousands of Palestinians relocated to Gaza, which was then under Egyptian control. Gaza was captured by Israel during the 1967 Six-Day War, and the settlements were soon established. Muhammad's parents have told him stories about Hamman -- though they, too, have never been there. ''It's a small town,'' Muhammad told me. ''It's filled with olive trees. There are big fields, and the soil is good. The water is good. It's healthy to live there.''
If Muhammad had the power to end the conflict, this is what he'd do: ''I'd give Palestinians back all of their homeland, and I'd send the Israelis to the countries they came from.''
And if the Israelis refused to leave?
''Then I'd kill them.''
I asked Muhammad what he'd buy if he had money. ''A gun,'' he said. The last two summers, he added, he attended a sleep-away camp where he learned to shoot M-16's and Kalashnikovs, firing at targets dressed up like Israeli soldiers. The camp was financed by the Palestinian National Authority, the governing body of the Palestinian-controlled areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This summer he's going again. As soon as he's 16, he told me, he'll join the Palestinian security services.
What would you buy, I asked him, if you could purchase more than just a gun?
''I'd buy a tank,'' he said.
But what if there were peace? Then what would you buy?
Muhammad thought for a second. He looked upward, as if calculating something, then grinned in a way that involved his entire face. ''I'd buy a bicycle,'' he said. ''A mountain bike. I'd buy a cell phone. I'd buy a bed, and a bedroom, and a desk, and a soccer ball. And a TV. And chocolate. I'd buy a lot of chocolate. I love chocolate.''
On the way to Muhammad's house, we stopped at Martyrs' Square, the centerpiece of Beach Camp, where a plaque lists 73 names of men and boys from the camp who have died fighting the Israelis. A ceremony known as a ''martyr's wedding'' was being held for Ahmed and Ibrahim. A large green tarp had been stretched over much of the square for the three-day celebration. Men sat in plastic chairs, drinking coffee and smoking apple-flavored tobacco from elegant water pipes. There were streamers hung with miniature Palestinian flags, and a disk jockey played the theme music of the uprising, most notably ''Jerusalem Never Dies,'' by the Egyptian singer Hani Shaker. Here, the graffiti reached critical mass; every political group had painted a sign congratulating Ahmed and Ibrahim for dying in the service of God. There were a pair of billboard-size murals, one of a burning Israeli flag, the other of a young boy hurling a stone. Kids jumped around on the empty chairs. A banner flew overhead, courtesy of the Popular Liberation Front: ''If You Want to Die -- Die a Martyr, Amid the Bullets.''
The festival felt neither weddinglike nor funereal. It was odd, stilted, like an ill-rehearsed play. Ahmed's father, Sliman, was sitting in the center of the square fingering a strand of prayer beads. People were all around him, yet he appeared to be alone. He had a gray mustache and a drawn face and curly hair, tinted with some of the red I'd seen in Ahmed's hair. ''I'm proud of my son; he fought for our homeland,'' he said, avoiding eye contact, his voice a monotone. ''He was very brave. A very brave boy.''
The women gathered at the family home, one street away. Ahmed had seven brothers and two sisters, all of whom lived in two underfurnished rooms. Ahmed's mother, Afaf, sat cross-legged in her black robe, clutching her son's book bag, surrounded by friends and relatives. There was an old yellow refrigerator in the corner and a ceiling fan overhead, but no electricity. A tray of dates served as refreshments. Unlike Ahmed's father, Afaf was animated and emotive and loud. What she said, though, bore no relation to what she was asked. She was simply chanting phrases. ''I am proud,'' she said. ''so proud. Look at how beautiful his wedding is. What a grand celebration. Thanks be to God. Did you see how his face shone? Oh, he is still alive! I will give all my children, if that's what it takes to get our homeland back. All of them can become martyrs. It will be a dignity to me.''
At Karni crossing, several of the boys casually mentioned that dying would not only transport them to paradise, it would also bring riches to their families. When a Palestinian is martyred in the war, no matter his age, the Palestinian National Authority issues a one-time payment of $2,000 to his family, followed by monthly payments of $150 that continue until the last child has left the house. The Red Crescent, an Islamic relief organization, contributes an additional $2,500. And the government of Iraq donates $10,000 to every martyr's family. Saddam Hussein has pledged $4.5 million to the Palestinian Authority -- enough to cover 450 martyrs -- and Gaza newspapers frequently run ads from martyrs' families thanking the Iraqi leader for his largess.
Ahmed's father told me that the Palestinian Authority's payment had already been delivered. The $2,000 came in an envelope, in United States currency. He was expecting the rest of the money in a matter of days. The first thing he planned to purchase, he said, was a set of Korans imprinted with Ahmed's name. He'd distribute them to his friends in Beach Camp. Next, he'd buy a carpet for the mosque. Finally, he said, with the remainder of the money, the family would buy a house. ''We are 12 people living in two rooms,'' he explained. He said he was looking for a little plot of land, where the family could grow olive trees. This is what Ahmed would have wanted, he mentioned. He had been unemployed for some time and said that there was no other way the family would ever be able to leave Beach Camp. ''Ahmed always asked why we couldn't move out of this camp and have a nice house,'' he said. ''Now we can.'' His wife, he added, was pregnant. The notion of an impending birth caused him to pause and, for the first time during our conversation, look directly at me and smile. ''If it's a boy,'' he announced, ''we'll name him Ahmed.''
Muhammad's home is a few steps from Martyrs' Square, down one of Beach Camp's narrow alleys. There were three rooms, two with dirt floors covered by rattan mats and one with a cement floor overlaid by a flowered carpet, the family's most valuable possession. The kitchen consisted of a few aluminum pots and a tiny propane stove, like one that might be used on a camping trip. There was no furniture. All of the family's clothes were kept in suitcases or plastic bags, as if, after 52 years, they still hadn't decided to move in.
Anaam, Muhammad's mother, was sitting in her store, a windowless box that sold soda, candy, eggs, flour, teacups and tampons. She wore a black-and-white checkered head cloth and a brick-red robe; her 5-year-old daughter, Esraam, sat on her lap. The store is a popular place, mainly because neighborhood kids know that they can stop by after school and Anaam will give them each a free piece of candy. There was electricity and a television, which was perpetually tuned to the Palestinian network, where endless images of Israeli soldiers' brutality accompanied a soundtrack of nationalistic songs. Muhammad and I slipped behind the counter and sat down.
''You know,'' said Muhammad's mother, gazing at her son, ''he goes to sleep scared and he wakes up scared.'' Muhammad sunk into his seat and rolled his feet on edge. When a friend of his stopped by a minute later, he made his escape. Anaam kept talking. She explained what happened to Raed, her oldest son. Raed is 28 years old. In 1995, he was shot in the mouth while stoning Israeli soldiers. The family can't afford dental work, and so he still has no teeth. Then she told me about her husband. It was a few months before Raed was shot, during a time the Israelis had imposed a strict curfew on Gaza. Her husband heard the 5 a.m. call to prayer and decided, defiantly, to walk to the mosque. A group of five soldiers caught him just outside the house and began beating him. The family rushed out to see what was happening. Muhammad watched as the soldiers broke his father's right arm with a billy club. He watched as they pounded his legs. ''He started screaming: 'My dad is dying! My dad is dying!''' said Anaam. ''He wanted to go after the soldiers, and I had to hold him back. I had to tell him no, you can't go after them.''
Ever since then, she said, Muhammad has harbored a frightening anger. ''He's told me, 'Mom, I've had enough of this life,' and it's made me scared. I've told him: 'Muhammad, please don't. You're too young. You're still a child.' But when the boys see their friends killed, they get angry, and they go to the clashes. Even if he'll go to heaven, no mother wants her child to die. I've told him that throwing stones at Jews will not make him a martyr. I've told him the real sacrifice is staying at home and helping care for his family. If you die doing that, I said, then you're a real martyr. I've told him that if he goes to the front and dies, then I'll be angry at him, and you know how God is -- God will never accept your martyrdom if your mother is angry at you. He said, 'O.K., Mom, I'll stay.' But every time he asks for a shekel I'm worried that it's for a cab to go to the clashes. I worry that the neighbors will come by and say, 'Congratulations, your boy is a martyr.' The last two days, since Ibrahim and Ahmed have gone, I've just sat and looked at him, at how beautiful he is.''
And then she pulled her scarf over her eyes and began to sob.
I found Muhammad just down the alley from the store, playing marbles with his friend. He'd taken his bird cage out, and his canaries were taking in a bit of sun. It was late in the afternoon, and the shadows were long. There was a clanging of the water truck's bell, and the neighborhood women grabbed their containers and headed into the street. The sky held the contrail of an Israeli fighter jet; on patrol, as always. Muhammad looked at me with a crooked face and asked if I told his mom that he'd gone to the clashes. I shook my head no. He shifted closer and whispered that he'd once stolen a shekel from the shop's till, so that he could take a cab to Karni crossing. I said that his mom would be very upset, and he said that he knew.
''Are you sure,'' I asked, ''that you want to be a martyr?''
''Yes,'' he said. ''I want to be a martyr.''
''Do you know what that means?''
''Throwing stones and Molotovs.''
''No,'' I said, curious. ''That's not what it means. It means dying.''
''I'll take a bullet in the leg,'' he said.
''That doesn't make you a martyr. You would have to take one in the head.''
''My brother was shot in the head.''
''To be a martyr,'' I said, ''it has to go all the way through. Are you sure you want to be a martyr?''
''No,'' said Muhammad. ''I want to be an architect.'' |
