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already begun to suspect her when some Arab soldiers were captured while attempting to escape from the hospital. Even though none of them gave Fatima’s name, guilt nevertheless fell on her. The administration didn’t have her arrested, but she was fired on the spot.
    Fatima, however, felt neither worried nor guilty. On the contrary, the episode convinced her that she should move from collusion to action. Now that Jerusalem was completely under Israeli control, the resentment of the city’s Arab inhabitants had grown exponentially. What Fatima felt was an almost physical need to do something concrete for the cause she believed in, something that would leave a mark. She considered words and speeches to be important, but she was convinced that alone they were insufficient to change reality.
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    A few days after she was fired from the hospital, Fatima returned to her family’s house in East Jerusalem. It was there that she found the person she was looking for, a young man with a neatly trimmed beard and short, bristly hair. Continuing to pick out her vegetables, she gradually got closer to him, met his eye, and gave him an unequivocal smile. “Hello,” she said. “My name’s Fatima.”
    â€œHi, Fatima. Pleased to meet you. I’m Maher,” the youth replied, not in the least bit surprised at her boldness. He smiled as if they had known each other all their lives, but continued to dart glances in all directions. As the leader of a small resistance group answering to the PLO, Maher was aware of and responsible for any political activities in the neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
    Before Fatima could explain the reason for her approach, the young man interrupted: “I’ve heard about what happened to you. You were fired because you tried to save some Arab fighters.”
    Fatima nodded.
    With a knowing smile, he said, “You are very brave.”
    Fatima looked at him without a word. In a way, it was up to him to steer the course of their conversation. “At the moment,” he said, stroking his beard and smiling, friendly but discreet, “we need people like you. This war is not over yet.”
    Fatima understood what he was proposing, and it was exactly what she wanted to do. She felt that she had a mission to fulfill, a purpose whose accomplishment would make her life worthy of being lived. She no longer wanted to treat bodies wounded in battle; she wanted to prevent them from being wounded. She wanted to strike at the enemy’s heart.
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    Fatima never asked herself, neither before nor after the attack, whether intentionally planning the deaths of the people, many of them Israeli soldiers crowded inside a movie theater, was an effective means of promoting the liberation of her people. The only thing that counted for her was avenging the profound injustice to which her people was subjected.
    She spent a long time planning the attack with Maher and five other men, all between the ages of twenty and twenty-six. Safe inside the walls of the Old City, they had daily meetings over a period of several weeks, gathering on the roof of a different house each evening, with one of them acting as a lookout. At first their plan was to print and distribute flyers, but Fatima persuaded them that such a course of action was ineffectual and probably would just get them arrested. Without batting an eye, she told her comrades, “The only language they understand is violence. It’s the only message we can send that is capable of making them see that we exist and that this struggle will continue.”
    â€œBut, Fatima, what you’re saying goes way beyond our usual activity. We—all of us here—we are not soldiers. We distribute flyers.” The speaker was a young man whom Fatima, the only woman in the group, had intimidated with her confidence.
    â€œPropaganda hasn’t worked,” she replied. “We’ve put out propaganda for years, and here we