The Rape of Lifta 2
Part two: The First Suicide-Bombing
Next thing I woke up aching all over, but cleaned up. I hadn’t the faintest idea where I was. Had I died, and was this Jannat? How can a bad man like me be in Jannat, after all I had done?
I am doctor Bourakiba, a voice informed me. I remembered the name. Might even have seen him once or twice. However, unable to open my remaining eye, I did not see him. He informed me that I had three broken ribs, a broken arm and a broken leg, had lost one eye, but luckily my skull was not cracked. It will take time, but we’ll get you in shape, insha Allah, he promised. Suddenly I remembered pocketing twenty-five pounds from the good doctor’s widowed sister. Why had the Yahudis not killed me, I asked myself, how am I gonna face the people I had stolen from? To augment my torment Dr Bourakiba mentioned that I was under his roof, that I should not worry about it, he knew that I had been living by myself, and he had arranged for me to stay with him until I was fit enough to manage by myself. Never, I feared, but said nothing.
Our community at Lifta must have been something special. You would have thought that they would join the people that I had stolen money from and stoned me to death, but they only tut tutted and commiserated with me when I encountered them, wishing me well. I, however, never stopped explaining how I blamed myself that I had listened to the voice of Shaitan, but that I will not rest until I reimbursed every single mil that I had stolen. I became more pious, doing extra nafl prayers begging for Allah’s forgiveness.
But where was I going to find the money to repay my debts? My situation would need to improve, but it was becoming worse, and I could not see that it would ever improve. The Yahudi was all over the place. Irgun, Lehi and Hagannah were in control of most things. They were running public order, having neutralised the local police, they were collecting the taxes, patrolling the streets, ordering people about, but worse, to encourage prompt migration, they were killing us on a regular basis. Pour l’exemple. Uniformed soldiers could be seen everywhere. The Palmach loved parading themselves in their tanks and half-tracks, but so far they only bombed one mosque where people whose houses had been burnt had sought refuge. That was not a climate where trade prospered.
There were two or three groups which had formed, with the vain purpose of putting a fight for our rights, but what could we do when we barely mustered a dozen rusty Winchesters and Lebels. My friend Alam Qadda had learnt Jiu Jiutsu when he spent six months in Paris, and a dozen of us began training with him. Fareed Al Arish who had studied chemistry at Cairo university proposed to make explosives, and explained that as people had large stocks of ammonium nitrate which was used as fertiliser, he was going to made his own TNT, but there were one or two issues he would have to deal with, mainly to stabilise the product so that it did not explode spontaneously by itself.
The Al Hasanin family had left in a panic, and their farm at the edge of town was empty. We moved in there to carry out experiments, and make our TNT. Fareed nearly lost an arm, but ended up producing an explosive that he was happy with.
Since I was never going to have money to pay for my debt, for my unforgivable sins, I was going to offer my life to the community which had nurtured me, which I had betrayed, and now seemed to have forgiven me. So whenever any dangerous schemes were being planned, they knew they could count on Amjad Ali Madhawi. I told Fareed that I was entirely at his disposal.
We planned to make a number of grenades with Al Arish’s powder, fitted in empty cigarette tins, with one firecracker as fuse. When lit, and thrown at our tormentors they would cause serious damage to them, and, Insha Allah, kill them.
The farmers of Lifta would have been happy to give us a bag or two of ammonium nitrate, specially as Hagannah had set fire to our crops, and few of them were inclined to work on their land in the knowledge that everything was likely to go up in smoke, but we were not going to ask them. If the project was to work, even our own people had to be kept in the dark, we decided. So we raided their stores and deviated a bag or two of the fertiliser and carry them to Al Hasanin’s farm after midnight. Only three people knew of our plans, Fareed and his brother Yusuf, and myself. My chemist friend was very earnest. He rarely smiled, and never laughed. Under the circumstances he was ideal for the job we had undertaken.
In those days, cigarettes came in batches of fifty in a small cylindrical metallic tin. We had gathered hundreds of these without telling people what we were going to do with them. One big advantage was that these tins had a firm, perfectly fitting lid. One of the staple diets of Palestinians was the pilchard which came in tins. Commonly known as, Glenryck, the British had arranged for massive quantities to be imported from South Africa. There were empty tins of Glenryck all over Lifta, and we collected hundreds of them, but unfortunately once it was opened, the top was discarded, which meant that we had to improvise a lid. In any case, the cigarette tin was the right size for making grenades.
The three of us weighed the ammonium nitrate accurately. Fareed said that it was imperative that we got the proportions right. Then we pounded charcoal, sulphur, and measured the quantities. Our head chemist then brought a bag of a white powder. What is this? Yusuf asked, and Fareed shook his head. He was not going to tell us. Why? I asked, did he not trust us?. If the Yahudis catch you, they will torture you to find all our secrets, so the less you know the better for everybody. I thought he had read too many spy stories. What if they capture you? Yusuf asked. Suicide is haram of course, he said, but Allah will forgive me. And he showed us a small blue pill.
We mixed the ingredients following our leader’s instructions and stacked the powder in two hundred cigarette tins. We then stuck a firecracker in the powder, and placed the lid which was fitted with a hole for the cracker fuse. Our thirty volunteers were given instruction on how to light the fuse and hurl the grenade at Irgun, Hagannah and the Palmach. And homes of Jews, if we later decided to extend our fight.
Our brigade did a lot of damage to the Yahudi, and many of our boys were shot dead. Death was never going to stop anybody. Their soldiers were all over the town, you saw them everywhere, walking in pairs, in their tanks and half-tracks. We understood perfectly that parading in them was a strategy to strike fear in our breasts so we would leave in droves, but the bulk of the people stayed put.
I was not entirely happy with the results of our action, in view of the casualties we had to suffer. It was this which led me to my plan. I needed a bigger bomb. I began by removing the bottom of some cigarette tins which happily was the same size as the Glenryck containers. I then soldered the smaller tin on the fish container, and was pleased with this metallic cylinder which came to a good length. I made two of them and filled them up with Fareed’s powder, inserted a firecracker in each of them and closed them tightly, with the fuse through a hole.
I approached Ma Effendi, and asked him for a big favour to which he readily agreed. It surprised me that for the good of our people he was willing to sacrifice his bread-winning urn. If Allah wants it put out of action, let His will be done, he said grandly. He was known for his grandiloquence. I’ll make another set, he said. My dear father made it himself. He was an accomplished tinsmith and taught me everything he knew.
My father had a great coat, and he was a rather large man, and he had inherited a leather from his own father. I put my bombs, one on each side of my waist, tightened the belt, and put the mantle on. I then got Ma Effendi to fit the urn on my shoulder. Thus equipped, I set forth one Friday, aiming for the Lifta Spring where the Yahudi enemy could be seen at all hours of the day, outside their half-tracks or tanks, laughing and smoking.
I didn’t really need to shout in the manner of street hawkers,
my dangling goblets were excellent muezzins calling out the thirsty, but for form’s sake, I kept repeating almiah aleadhbat alhulwa, sweet fresh water a few times. I turned the corner into the square bordering the Spring, and as I expected, saw three half-tracks with about twenty Yahudi soldiers, some in uniform with guns and unfriendly looks. I have often noticed how similar they are to us, always relaxed and bantering. Almiah aleadhbat alhulwa, I said a few times.
Zamil, yati huna, Fellow, come here, a few voices commanded.
Shay’ ‘akid ya sayidi, sure thing sir.
They began talking and bantering in their own language, then one man said, let’s have a taste of that piss of yours you call water in surprisingly good Arabic.
With pleasure sayidi, I said, but I’m dying for a fag.
Let him have his fag, said someone.
No, said someone else, give him one of ours. And one man offered me a Friends from a tin of Karaman Dick and Salti. Before anybody could offer to light it for me I produced a box of matches, opening my big coat. They must have seen my two bombs, but they had never seen anything of the sort before. That seemed to surprise them, but they shrugged. I lit a match, and lightning quick i lit the fuse on the bomb on my right. I noticed the look of shock or surprise on their faces, and seized that moment to light the other one.
Once you die, you become omniscient. I would learn that twelve Yahudis died instantly, with eight badly wounded. Allah must have helped, for all three of the half-tracks were either write-offs are severely damaged.
Of course nothing stopped them in their mission to expel us from our land. They finished by seizing what they wanted and created their own country. The people who controlled the world, the English, the French and the Americans, together with the guilt-ridden Germans did everything in their power to facilitate their conquest (and our collapse), giving them massive amounts of money, weaponry, F-15’s, F-35’s, Iron Domes, you name it, so they can stop us reclaiming our stolen land. We have nothing. our missiles don’t go where we want them, but wherever their fancy takes me. But I invented suicide bombing for our people. Insha Allah, with stones and rusty swords, one day we will reclaim what they stole from us.
