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A wave of heat rose from the hood of the Jeep, hot as a stove, as I waited for the border guards to check my papers. The air was choked with diesel fumes. Even provided with priority clearance via the Jeep’s diplomatic plates, the wait between the zig-zagged concrete barriers at the Erez crossing had been interminable.
The helmeted IDF soldier walked slowly back to the car window.
“You’re determined to go through,” he said. “By yourself.”
“Yes.”
He looked to the left, into the closely-packed buildings of Gaza in the distance past the buffer zone, shimmering in the heat. “No escort.”
“That’s correct.”
He shrugged. “Your funeral.” And passed the stamped passport to me.
I rolled the vehicle slowly forward. A metal gate drew back. And I drove into the Gaza Strip.
For the first ten minutes, the Jeep’s presence aroused only idle curiosity in the refugee settlement. After a short while, I saw spotters: men on rooftops, standing on the street corners with radios. A black 4x4 began to shadow me, running parallel to my course a block across.
A slow, creeping sense of fear worked its way between my tensed shoulders. Gaza was by far the greatest challenge in Angie’s plan, and the most dangerous. I’d decided not to risk anyone else by coming alone. But that felt increasingly like a very bad idea.
The Jeep dipped into potholes, suspension squeaking. The GPS on the dashboard was next to useless: the streets on the map had no names, and I couldn’t read the few street signs that existed. Instead I consulted a hand-drawn map, sent via fax, navigating by counted intersections.
I made a wrong turn, started back. The black truck waited at the end of the street, idling. Tinted windows. I reversed out, headed forward. The truck was only a few meters away now.
The buildings crowded above me. I could see dusty curtains twitch behind apartment windows as I moved slowly through the city.
I wanted desperately to slam the Jeep into a turn and race back toward the buffer zone at full speed. Get on a jet and fly away. Leave this all behind me. Find an island somewhere and disappear.
I took a breath. Recalled Angelina’s face, and her calm, loyal certainty that only I could do this. Her death, and the unfinished dreams she had left behind. Gripped the hot steering wheel harder. And drove on.
Finally, the hand-drawn map and GPS display somewhat synchronized. I thought the building on my right was the same one shown in the fax.
I looked back. The black truck was at the end of the road, idling. I took a breath. Locked the Jeep. Dashed across the road, feeling a thousand eyes on me.
My knuckles beat a tattoo on the wooden blue door to the house. No answer.
I looked to the left. The truck had started to roll slowly down the street toward me.
I knocked again, harder. Nothing.
The truck was 15 meters away now.
The door hinges rattled with my fist. With a squeal, the door came open a few inches, and I pushed my way through, without looking at who had opened it. My spine was crawling with fear.
“Apologies,” I gasped. I slid my back against the wall. “I didn’t feel safe on the street.” I looked down. A small, hunched old man in a white thawb looked up quizzically. “Dr. Hawas?”
“Yes. Mr. Henriksen?”
“Yes.” I looked around. I was in a tiny courtyard. Stairs lead up to a small house; on the right, an archway led to a narrow alley. I dropped my voice into command tone. “Do you know who is outside, in the truck?”
Hawas peeked out of the gunslit of the courtyard window, turning his twisted head carefully. “No. They could be Hamas. Maybe Islamic Jihad. Perhaps someone else. Better not to find out.” He gestured towards the archway. “Here, here. It is safer to walk anyway.”
“Wait.” I took a breath. “First, tell me what you are doing.”
“I am taking you to Khaled Azziz,” the small man said. “Leader of the Gaza Strip Political Bureau. I have arranged for the meeting, as you asked.”
“Good. Alright. Yalla.“ I followed him through the archway and into the alley, which emerged into another street.
At the end of the block, the rubble of a collapsed building dominated the street, a jumbled pile of concrete and rusted rebar. The bent little old man hobbled forward, leading me to a surviving stairwell in the street, down and under the collapsed structure, through a dark tunnel framed in collapsed wedges of concrete, bright beams of light penetrating through the depths.
“Incredible that this didn’t bring down other buildings,” I said quietly. I winced in the darkness, recalling too late that the doctor had been trapped in rubble like this a decade ago after Operation Cast Lead, spine crushed under collapsed concrete, leaving him with a permanent, hunchback-like twist to his back.
He was silent for a time. We ducked under a toppled concrete column, splashed through a culvert of stinking stagnant water. “A “precision strike”,” he said finally. “Israel brings down our buildings, and sends us 100 trucks of concrete and rebar a day. It doesn’t make sense. Little does, here.”
We emerged into sunlight on another street and turned to the right. I was already completely lost, deeply aware of how much I was dependant on this humble little man. Dr. Hawas was a medical doctor who had worked all his life to relieve suffering and gain peace; he was the first contact that Professor Weisz had provided me in Gaza.
I looked up, trying to locate any landmark I could recognize. I didn’t see the black 4x4 anywhere. “I thought that Hamas had its headquarters by the hospital.”
“No, no,” he shook his head. “That was only during the last attack. And not all the leadership, even then. Now they are much more distributed. Harder to hit.”
“Azziz has changed his location many times,” Hawas added. “Better to avoid airstrikes, targeted assassinations. It’s said that the president never sleeps in the same bed two nights in a row.”
We diverted around a security checkpoint on one street, taking another set of turns. Five more minutes of walking brought us to a small, two story office block with three tan SUVs parked on the corner. Hawas led me across the street to a metal door, knocked twice.
The man inside the door wore the standard Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigade uniform: black fatigues, sneakers, dark green vest, a black balaclava, and a loaded AK-47. He gestured up the stairway, closing the door behind us.
My back began to crawl again. I followed Hawas up the stairway and through a narrow hallway with a red carpet. At the end of the hall, another armed guard waited. He held out a hand, gesturing for us to stop, turning to speak through a door for a moment. It opened from within, and we were guided inside.
Khaled Azziz sat in a small, functional office, three mobile phones and a small stack of papers on his desk. A giant green Hamas flag was pinned to the wall behind him. Two armed men stood just inside the door.
Aziz was a handsome man. A square boxer’s head with piercing eyes took me in, and did not waver as I approached his desk.
“As-salaam ‘alaykum, Minister.”
He rose, shaking my hand. “As-salaam ‘alaykum, Mr. Henriksen. You speak Arabic?”
“I try. Imperfectly. My card.” I presented the contact card I had been provided by the Embassy.
“Thank you.” Azziz presented his own, in the same vibrant green as the flag behind him. “Tea?”
“Please.” A man moved from the annex of the office, delivering hot sweet tea in small, perfect white china teacups.
Hawas, Azziz and I sat quietly in the office, sipping tea for a long moment. A fly buzzed endlessly against a window overlooking the street as a fan slowly whirled overhead, stirring the thick, heated air.
Finally, Azziz broke the silence.
“I’m glad to see that you arrived in Gaza safely, Mr. Henriksen. The Erez crossing can be extremely challenging, even for diplomats.”
“I did, thank you. I would say that my crossing was much easier than the experience most Palestinians must endure every day.”
He nodded. “And you are currently residing in –”
“Tel Aviv.”
“Then I especially appreciate you making the trip.” He set his teacup down. “Believe it or not, Mr. Henriksen, I very much admire your purpose here. As I do Dr. Hawas.” He inclined his head, the black and white chequered keffiyeh around his bull-thick neck bunching under his military jacket. “We desire peace. But you understand that we will never capitulate to the Zionists. This is our land, from the river to the sea.”
“I agree,” I said carefully. “It is your land. And before that, it was Egyptian, Jewish, Roman, British, Ottoman, and the territory of a dozen other empires. As it has been through most of its history, it will be now.” My voice dropped. “It will be shared.”
He blinked. For the first time in my experience, I saw an actual war being fought by someone under my control: three generations of hate slamming into an irresistible force.
“How would this be achieved?” he said finally.
I felt a stir behind me: the two armed men at the back of the office moving in shock at the minister’s words. I turned my head. “You agree with him, of course. You are both cautiously optimistic at the prospect of peace. Please bring in the guard outside, so that I might share this news.” They opened the door; the guard swivelled, confused, but joined his comrades after a moment.
I turned back to the minister. “There will be a merger, of sorts. Built from a series of binational agreements. As a first step, Hamas will recognize the right of Israel to exist and formalize its military into a defensive force, rather than a posture of attack. At the same time, Israel will increase aid and humanitarian funding, and reset cross-border access to 2007 levels. There will be much more to come.”
“If I came to the cabinet with this proposal...” Azziz gestured. “I would be ousted immediately. Probably tortured and killed as a Zionist collaborator.”
I nodded. “You probably would be. Which is why you’ll bring these five members of the cabinet to our next meeting.” I passed over a slip of paper. “You won’t tell them anything about the plan proposed here, only that they are meeting a diplomatic envoy. I’ll talk them around.”
“Very well.” Azziz’s eyes darted; not towards the three armed men at the back of the room, but at the window to the left of the office.
I stood up slowly and took a careful half-step forward, tilting to look through the glass. Across the street below, a black 4x4 was sitting, waiting.
My heart began to race. I turned to face Azziz. “Is there something you are withholding from me?”
Azziz ‘s handsome face twisted, his eyes darting desperately. “Yes,” he blurted.
“What is it?”
A trickle of sweat worked its way from Azziz ‘s temple towards his salt-and-pepper beard. “There is –” His mouth opened, gasped as he tried to marshal his strength, failed. “The men outside. In the truck. They will take you hostage as soon as you step outside.”
I felt a chill. Kept my voice calm. “For the purpose of?”
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