When Ala Sanaqra heard that he was on a list of wanted Palestinian fighters being offered an amnesty by Israel, he was surprised. As a commander of 42 other Fatah fighters, he was not expecting to be pardoned. Cautiously he accepted, hoping to resume a normal life after five tough years as a fugitive.
There was a snag, however. His younger brother Ahmed, 22, was not included on the list proposed by Israel as part of its efforts to build stronger ties with the Palestinian Authority. Now Ala says that if the Israelis come for Ahmed, he will have to forego his truce and fight them again.
“If they try to assassinate my brother, do you think I’ll stand by and watch?” the skinny 27-year-old told The Times yesterday from his home in Balata refugee camp outside the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Outside, the narrow streets have the air of an open-air mausoleum plastered with posters of hundreds of martyrs - gunmen and civilians killed in the endless conflict with Israel. The Sanaqra house is covered with posters of Ala’s 16-year-old brother, Ibrahim, shot dead last year when he ran to help Ahmed, who had been shot and wounded in an Israeli incursion.
Having sampled a first, intoxicating taste of normality, Ala is now desperate for the amnesty to work out and for the tentative peace talks that continued yesterday in Jericho to bear fruit. He has had enough of hardship and, since his pardon, has resumed the business studies he abandoned five years ago to fight.
“It’s very tough to be a fugitive,” he said. He and his fellow fighters in the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades were lucky to sleep for four hours a night, forever on the move to avoid Israeli raids. To avoid airstrikes on their homes they slept on cardboard sheets on the streets, taking turns to keep watch.
Two years ago he said that the Israeli army, searching for him, came to his house and arrested his father and uncle, telling the family to leave the building. It was rigged with dynamite and the family was told that if Ala did not emerge from hiding, it would be demolished. Ala refused to give up and the house was destroyed with everything inside.
“There were times when we became so desperate we almost gave up. We said, ‘Let’s see what will happen, maybe we’ll be better off dead’,” said Ala. The worst moment was when Ahmed was shot and wounded in front of him, and he was unable to help.
Ahmed has been shot on 11 different occasions, receiving 36 wounds. But they kept going, with the support of prayer, family and the community of this crumbling shanty town.
When Israel offered the amnesty deal last month, Ala was nervous but he accepted, giving up his assault rifle and spending a week sleeping at a Palestinian security forces base. For the next three months, under the terms of the agreement, he has to stay in his neighbourhood. For the first time in years, he has slept for more than a few hours at a stretch and can stay at his rebuilt family home.
“It feels great; I hope this feeling will continue but I’m sure it won’t last forever,” he said, allowing himself a hopeful smile. “I don’t think it will hold and the Israelis will come back. But I have a little hope.”
If it lasts long enough, he plans to ask the girl he loves to marry him and perhaps find a job after graduating. Palestinian officials said that the amnesty deal has proven so successful that as many as 300 members of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, Fatah’s main armed faction, have asked to sign up, leaving only a handful refusing the deal. Israeli officials have, however, voiced concern that not all of them have surrendered their weapons.
If the peace talks break down, though, Ala does not feel bound by the pledge he signed not to attack Israeli forces. “Nothing can stop me resisting, but I hope today’s meeting will bring something positive,” he said.
In the meantime, he still looks over his shoulder all the time. And his family is unable to celebrate because his kid brother is still on the run. “When the amnesty came along, my parents were very happy and very sad, because I was on it and my brother was not. It’s not easy,” he said.
Then the kitchen door opened and a rail-thin boy walked into the room.
“This is Ahmed,” Ala said. His brother, summoned for a furtive home visit, lifted up his shirt to show a spider’s web of scars. His wasted arms were blotched with horrific bullet wounds, the back of his skull nicked by shrapnel. Half of his fingers had been shot off. He looked like a mangled 14-year-old. Ahmed, who joined the brigades at 16, said that he once dreamt of being a gymnast, but he is too debilitated to do so now.
“He should be in hospital, but he is on the run,” said Ala.
Ahmed has no intention of signing a pledge unless Israeli forces leave the West Bank completely.
“They killed my brother and they tried to kill me more than once. They can’t be trusted. Every time they talk about a truce they come and attack us again,” he said.
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