were experiencing the realization of a two-thousand-year-old dream. She was only a child at the time, yet she couldnât get rid of the feeling that it was at the expense of her people and her family.
And yet as time passed, she had tried to put aside those rancorous feelings and to concentrate on her own life. Whenever she was studying, she would make an effort to withdraw herself from the sounds of her house, which was too small for her large family, from the neighborâs constant screaming at his wife, from the stench of garbage left to rot in the sun. Fatima hated her neighborhood in Jerusalem. She hated the soldiers, with their smug looks and their fingers always on their triggers. She had studied diligently and worked long hours to become a nurse, and she had finally moved to Nablus, two hundred kilometers from Jerusalem.
She would make her way down the bright, coldly lit halls of the hospital in Nablus with an assured step, wearing military trousers, gym shoes, a white T-shirt, and white coat. It wasnât long before her dedication earned her a promotion to head nurse.
Every morning she walked to work through the Arab Quarter of Nablus, her kaffiyeh wrapped around her neck, nodding an occasional greeting before slipping into the labyrinth of narrow streets in the Old City. No one who saw her could have imagined that this inconspicuous woman, with such a reassuring, goodnatured appearance, would soon become the first Palestinian woman to organize and attempt to carry out a terrorist attack.
She had already been dividing her time between her nursing and her political involvement. At the hospital, she had met Yasir Arafat, with whom she was to form a close friendship in the future.
During the Six Daysâ War, wounded women and children from the cities, along with a stream of young soldiersâ mangled bodies, were brought to the hospital.
Many of them suffered without complaint; perhaps they unconsciously accepted theirs as a tragic destiny that kept repeating itself again and again, a game in which they were pawns moved about by more powerful forces. As she disinfected, treated, and stitched those lacerated bodies, she told herself that no reasons could ever justify so much anguish.
She felt as though it were 1948 all over again. Fatima could see her parents once more, recalling their efforts to protect her and to make her believe that their life under the Israeli occupation was an unchangeable fact. She had grown up convincing herself that children in other places played hide-and-seek amid rubble and piles of garbage. But she was nine when the great change came, too old not to remember the life before it, which had suddenly come to an end without anyone ever explaining why.
All the pain, hatred, and resentment she had tried so long to suppress boiled up in her during the war, and that was when she decided to do something. The staff at the hospital had been advised that all wounded soldiers were prisoners of war: upon their discharge they would go into the custody of the Israel Defense Forces.
It began with a soldier she was caring for, a young Jordanian of Palestinian origin. With eyes he could barely manage to keep open, he implored her to help him escape from the hospital. Fatima didnât have to think twice. Since the young man had returned to Palestine to fight for the Palestinian people, she felt that the least she could do was to help him get home. She gave him some clothes that belonged to a fellow hospital worker, and the young soldier quickly disappeared.
The next step was a natural consequence of the first. If she had helped him, she could help others, too.
And so she went to work, destroying medical records, burning uniforms, and obtaining civilian clothes for her patients. The military authority, perplexed, tried to figure out what had become of these soldiers. There was a great deal of confusion. Fatimaâs operation, however, was short-lived. The hospital administration had
And yet as time passed, she had tried to put aside those rancorous feelings and to concentrate on her own life. Whenever she was studying, she would make an effort to withdraw herself from the sounds of her house, which was too small for her large family, from the neighborâs constant screaming at his wife, from the stench of garbage left to rot in the sun. Fatima hated her neighborhood in Jerusalem. She hated the soldiers, with their smug looks and their fingers always on their triggers. She had studied diligently and worked long hours to become a nurse, and she had finally moved to Nablus, two hundred kilometers from Jerusalem.
She would make her way down the bright, coldly lit halls of the hospital in Nablus with an assured step, wearing military trousers, gym shoes, a white T-shirt, and white coat. It wasnât long before her dedication earned her a promotion to head nurse.
Every morning she walked to work through the Arab Quarter of Nablus, her kaffiyeh wrapped around her neck, nodding an occasional greeting before slipping into the labyrinth of narrow streets in the Old City. No one who saw her could have imagined that this inconspicuous woman, with such a reassuring, goodnatured appearance, would soon become the first Palestinian woman to organize and attempt to carry out a terrorist attack.
She had already been dividing her time between her nursing and her political involvement. At the hospital, she had met Yasir Arafat, with whom she was to form a close friendship in the future.
During the Six Daysâ War, wounded women and children from the cities, along with a stream of young soldiersâ mangled bodies, were brought to the hospital.
Many of them suffered without complaint; perhaps they unconsciously accepted theirs as a tragic destiny that kept repeating itself again and again, a game in which they were pawns moved about by more powerful forces. As she disinfected, treated, and stitched those lacerated bodies, she told herself that no reasons could ever justify so much anguish.
She felt as though it were 1948 all over again. Fatima could see her parents once more, recalling their efforts to protect her and to make her believe that their life under the Israeli occupation was an unchangeable fact. She had grown up convincing herself that children in other places played hide-and-seek amid rubble and piles of garbage. But she was nine when the great change came, too old not to remember the life before it, which had suddenly come to an end without anyone ever explaining why.
All the pain, hatred, and resentment she had tried so long to suppress boiled up in her during the war, and that was when she decided to do something. The staff at the hospital had been advised that all wounded soldiers were prisoners of war: upon their discharge they would go into the custody of the Israel Defense Forces.
It began with a soldier she was caring for, a young Jordanian of Palestinian origin. With eyes he could barely manage to keep open, he implored her to help him escape from the hospital. Fatima didnât have to think twice. Since the young man had returned to Palestine to fight for the Palestinian people, she felt that the least she could do was to help him get home. She gave him some clothes that belonged to a fellow hospital worker, and the young soldier quickly disappeared.
The next step was a natural consequence of the first. If she had helped him, she could help others, too.
And so she went to work, destroying medical records, burning uniforms, and obtaining civilian clothes for her patients. The military authority, perplexed, tried to figure out what had become of these soldiers. There was a great deal of confusion. Fatimaâs operation, however, was short-lived. The hospital administration had
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