***
After speaking with the lieutenant Eldad went to the bathroom in the empty house in part to see if he could look military-clean for the Commander. He enjoyed learning and vaguely remembered that the two had met at a meeting of the Consultancy in Tel Aviv. And now he was back in the city, hoping to get a new company to lead in the Alexandroni Brigade, the third brigade of the Hagana. It had a reputation for being thorough in getting villages occupied after the military cleansing.
After saluting and then a handshake, Eldad spoke, “Reporting in, sir.”
The Commander looked at him and began to nod. “I remember meeting you at one of our meetings, and learning of your experiences. We can use you. One of our company commanders took a sniper round and didn’t make it.”
“I’ll be happy to try to fill his shoes, sir.”
“Our mission right now is to liberate the villages of the coastal plain. Some are free of Arab “terrorists” now, you know, the Palestinians. We are proceeding north from Tel Aviv and plan to complete the takeover of sixty-four villages before we reach Haifa. We have a special place in mind for your company.”
“And where is that, sir?”
“It’s a village fairly large, right in our way, that we need to cleanse. Not far from Haifa. Beautiful place I understand, just below the mountains, orange groves, fishing, nice beaches and harbor.”
“Sounds idyllic, sir.”
“Just one problem. Hagana negotiated a peace treaty with the village elders some months ago. Then on May fifteenth, five days ago, our intelligence officers offered them terms of surrender. They rejected the offer. Said they feared expulsion. They were right, as we know. But instead of a peaceful exit, they will leave by the means we have at our disposal.”
“Our plans are for a night assault on May twenty-second, just two days away. Your predecessor had the scheme of attack all drawn up and ready to go when he was killed in another operation. So we would like you to take over. You’ll need to study up on the area and assault plans. We don’t think there will be much resistance since we are not aware of any Arab military personnel.”
“I’m already excited, sir.”
“Here are the battle plans for you to study,” the Commander said, handing Eldad a black binder. Rehearse them tonight. We’ll have transportation ready for all of you at twenty-two hundred on May twenty-second.”
“Yes sir!” Eldad snapped into salute. As he brought his arm down he realized he didn’t know which village. “What is the name of the place, sir?”
“Tantura.”
Chapter 42
The large meeting room in Tel Aviv filled with young Jewish men who had come through the militia process with enough training to be called soldiers. Their new Captain, Eldad, had the confidence of a seasoned commander. British-trained in Europe and now with experience cleansing villages like the Castle, he had the reputation of dispatching local heroes. They gathered the morning of May twenty-first to learn the plans for the next attack.
Eldad strode in after all the three hundred plus troops had gathered and they all stood up at attention. “At ease. Please sit down.” He began pointing out Tantura on a large map taped to the wall, its proximity to Haifa and the sea. “It’s a scenic spot and will one day be a center for fishing and relaxation. But now we need to cleanse it of the Palestinian Arabs who populate the village, many of them snipers and terrorists. They hate us and want to keep the land the UN has given us. We tried to negotiate a peaceful transfer for them to another area, but they refused. So we have to make the enemy leave before they make trouble. They’ll attack us so we’ll have to defend ourselves.
“Here’s the plan: We leave here in lorries tomorrow night the twenty-second of May at twenty-two hundred hours, well after Sabbath sundown. That will give us plenty of time to drive north to Tantura. I had wanted us to send in a van with a loudspeaker to warn the villagers about midnight to leave, but that is not going to happen. At zero-three hundred on the twenty-third after surrounding the village on three sides, we attack. We always leave an open gate for people to evacuate the area. Your platoon leaders, the lieutenants, will lead you in groups to almost surround the village in preparation for the assault.”
One soldier in the front row asked, “Do we blow up the homes with our TNT?”
“Yes if it’s necessary to get the terrorists out. But use bullhorns, and of course, use your rifles. Force them to leave or shoot them. Burn the house if you want.
“What about snipers?” another one inquired.
“Shoot the terrorists. If they surrender, we’ll march them down to the beach and then decide what to do.”
***
It preyed on his mind for several days after the meeting nearly a week ago on May fifteenth with the town elders, the Muslim mukhtar and several Jewish intelligence officers. The Israelis had offered terms of surrender to Adnan and the others. The council promptly rejected the sinister proposal. They would never leave voluntarily.
That meant they might be forced to leave. Adnan knew the village had no defense. A few men known to have guns could act as snipers, but beyond that Tantura had no defense against a well-armed militia. He had not told his household, but kept the news of the meeting to himself. He didn’t want to frighten them, and yet they needed to prepare for the worst. The prospect of this place of tranquility disappearing kept him awake at night. How could he not share his anxiety with his family? They needed to know. They must decide what they would do if forced out.
Adnan called his family and guests together at the conclusion of breakfast and told them of the offer of surrender and decision of the council.
“That means war,” Khalid said. “I’ll be prepared to defend us if they come. Several of us in Tantura have rifles to use as snipers.”
“We may slow them down, but the experience of so many villages now is that we have no force great enough to stop the militias.”
Everyone sat in shocked silence. Finally Hava asked her father, “What can we do?”
“For one thing, our guests should probably leave today for their own safety.” He turned to Valerie and Caleb for their response.
“I’m not leaving,” Caleb insisted, looking at Sabria.
“Nor I,” Valerie said. “I find it hard to believe what my people are doing to you all. If I can be of any help . . . ” she paused to control her rising emotion, “I want to be with you whatever happens.”
“We appreciate that and will try to protect you as family. For all of us,” Adnan suggested, “we need to decide what to wear and what to take in a crisis. Some kind of bag or backpack containing emergency supplies, food, a few clothes, and whatever valuables we can’t leave behind. And money.”
“Are you suggesting we will become refugees?” Sabria’s mother asked.
“I don’t know what else to call it if we are ‘cleansed’ as they say.”
Hava persisted. “If we become refugees, where will we go?”
“I don’t know,” Adnan replied. “North to Lebanon to get away, or south to Gaza and protection by the Egyptians in charge there. Maybe to somewhere in the west bank area now under Jordan’s control. We’d have to make that judgment based on the best information on refugee camps being developed by the UN. I understand there will be one in Bethlehem. And we do have distant cousins in Fureidis as a possibility. ”
The idea of being forced to leave their home and land shook Sabria’s parents to their core. Hava wept quietly as everyone else rose from the table. Khalid put his arm around her and Sabria and her younger siblings surrounded their mother. Adnan hated to be the bearer of bad news. He laid his hand on his daughter’s shoulder and prayed aloud that famous passage, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.”
Chapter 43
The trucks containing the Alexandroni Brigade soldiers stopped one kilometer short of Tantura. The May night of the twenty-third at zero-two hundred illumi
nated a bit by the plethora of stars and a quarter moon in the western sky seemed peaceful to Eldad, the calm before the storm. They marched silently to Tantura Village, over three hundred soldiers, where he instructed the lieutenants to surround the village except for an escape route on the north. They then dispersed silently leading their platoons to the periphery including a block of the sea lest any Arab terrorists escape on fishing boats.
As commander for the operation, Eldad moved to the eastern side and the slope up toward the mountains. He saw in the moonlight, several large homes surrounded by orange groves at a bit of elevation, and decided to take care of several of them. From there he would also have a panorama of the entire operation. His troops would easily see the flare he would fire to signal its beginning.
For reasons he couldn’t understand, the scene in Valerie’s kitchen came flooding back, the slip of paper with her name and phone number. The mystery remained and as his confusion had lifted, the pieces of the puzzle began to come together. Valerie’s emotional response to his own birth date must have meant something very special to her. Twenty-eight years ago he was born. Where was she at that time? Did she know about him then? Were they somehow related? Could she be . . . no he couldn’t think about that now when he was about to signal the beginning of the attack.
***
Sabria slept fitfully for the first hours of the night. She lay awake thinking and then dreaming alternately, turning to one side and then back. It seemed like a long night, wondering what might happen to her family and her home. Even Caleb and Valerie, at risk with the rest of them, had elected to stay. Amazing. They could easily get out anytime.
She thought of Eldad, wondering what he had done after leaving Valerie’s home. He projected toughness and seemed to revel in it, perhaps because of his unhappy life where fighting became as natural as breathing. But inside, both she and Valerie had detected a hurting boy.
Sabria had just drifted off to sleep again when she heard a soft “whoosh” sound, and looking out the window, the sky lit up red. She ran to the window in a moment hearing the crackle of gunfire and then after a few moments some explosions lit up the sky followed in a fraction of a second by the sound of bombs. The pictures of Haifa raced through her mind, but this was quiet Tantura. Soon explosions all over the village, gunfire, homes starting to burn. She ran downstairs only to hear gunfire coming from the front of the house and then bullets holes appeared in the walls and windows shattered. Sabria looked out to see a man with a rifle shooting at the house, his short frame illuminated by the lighted veranda still glowing. She could make out a familiar face, angry, square jaw . . .
Sabria screamed “Eldad, stop!” and ran out the front door toward him waving her arms frantically. Eldad stopped firing and stood staring straight ahead.
She raced toward him. In another second, he recognized her.
“Sabria! What are you doing here in this Arab village? Get out of my way!”
“No!” She grabbed his weapon by the barrel holding it away from her. Just then she heard a crack sound, this time from an upper window of their home. Eldad cried out and grabbed his thigh where blood gushed onto the ground. He dropped his rifle, swaying back and forth and then fell.
Sabria looked up to the window momentarily and saw her father, Khalid, a shadowy image leaving the window with his rifle.
Other soldiers appeared firing into the home. Sabria watched in horror as her family along with Caleb and Valarie ran out onto the veranda, so far no one had been hit. Flames from the kitchen followed, she assumed fed by an exploded propane tank.
She turned back to Eldad as Valerie ran towards them, shrieked her recognition as his mother and knelt beside him. She put hand pressure on his upper thigh that through a torn uniform gushed blood. Conscious and moaning Eldad raised his head to look at the two women with his headlamp shining on them. He stared at them and put his head down again.
Without speaking, Sabria used her long scarf to wrap the wound tightly, which seemed to stop the bleeding. She looked up to see armed soldiers surrounding her family. Another came out of the door with her father, Khalid, hands behind him, prodded by another soldier. Leaving Valerie with Eldad, Sabria ran to her father to discover his hands behind his back trapped in handcuffs. He had no wounds visible. They must have identified him as the sniper. He said nothing but looked at Sabria shaking his head as two soldiers pushed her aside and taking him by the arm disappeared through the orange grove toward Jamal’s home.
She joined her family standing in a circle, guarded by several soldiers, in front of their burning home. Everyone got out including the children, but only three people had their pack or bag. They stood silently watching as fire consumed their home of so many years and so much joy. Sabria looked in horror from one to another of her family and Caleb. It seemed unreal.
She gazed back at Valerie kneeling over Eldad, and one of his men looking like he didn’t know what to do. Then back to Caleb and her family. Adnan looked about ready to collapse. Everyone numb and speechless at what had happened. Suddenly two of the soldiers grabbed Caleb by the arm, shouted something in Hebrew and led him away, following Khalid’s captors. Caleb looked back at Sabria, shaking his head and said nothing. The bleakness of their situation hit her, and the tears began. Her father and her close friend both taken away, her home gone, family destitute in a flash of guns and fire. And the irony—their assailant being helped by her friend Valerie, a kind Jew loving a cruel one. Sabria sank to the ground in despair.
Valerie on her knees wept loudly. “My son, my son. Oh how I wish I had not left you! That I could have those years over again. I love you, I love you.” Her tears flowed onto Eldad’s neck. “I’m so sorry.” She sighed. “Look what has become of you. It’s my fault.”
Eldad looked at her, eyebrows raised and mouth still grimacing with pain. He shook his head slowly. “Mother? You must be my mother that left me as a newborn baby. But you rescued me at Qatamon. I have nearly killed you and your friends. And now I am dying for my crimes.”
“No, my son. You mustn’t die. You can still do something good. Call off your soldiers from further destroying these people. They are good people, not terrorists. I know them.”
He shook his head. “It’s too late. The damage has been done already.”
“Is there nothing you can do?”
“I don’t know.” He looked to the soldier standing by with a bewildered expression on his face. “Get me on a stretcher and take me to the beach.”
Valerie followed the soldiers carrying her son.
***
The family, in total shock, most of them with nothing but the clothes they wore, stood in the dark illumined only by the light of the fire still burning in the rubble of what was a few minutes ago their beloved home. Adnan sat down awkwardly on the bit of grass left. He looked totally exhausted to Sabria. She felt weak and dizzy herself, hopeless at what had happened, and their predicament. They had done nothing to deserve this cruelty and destruction. Fortunately no one had yet been killed. But what now? Where could they go?
Just then Rana and Ilias with their small children came up the slope out of the trees shaking their heads. She was in tears. “They have taken Jamal. Then we saw Khalid also, walking handcuffed between two soldiers just like they treated our son.”
“They arrested Caleb also! We don’t know what they are going to do with them,” Sabria cried out, hands outstretched. “It is so unjust. My father did wound their Captain who had shot many times randomly into our home and caused the fire. You can see, there is little left. All of us have nowhere to go.”
“I’m so sorry,” Ilias replied. “We just encountered several families running to escape, but everywhere they tried to get out of the village, the soldiers blocked them. It looks like we are trapped with no way to get out.”
One soldier’s radio beeped, he held it to his ear for a couple of moments before putting it back on his belt. Motioning to his several comrades he issued his command to the families. “We’r
e going down to the beach.”
Sabria ran to her grandfather. “They are telling us to walk through the village to the beach. Can you make it?” She reached down to help him stand while her mother Hava assisted with his other arm.
“I think so,” Adnan sighed. “But your friend, Caleb. They can’t arrest him as an American for doing nothing.”
“But they did. I suppose they didn’t know. I hope he tells them.”
“He will, Sabria. I think God will protect him.”
“What about us?”
“Only He knows.”
***
Prodded onward by their two guards, the family slowly descended through the village. People moved in small groups toward the beach holding white shirt flags of surrender as they passed by demolished and burning homes. Bodies and wounded people lay outside their homes. The moaning and cries for help stabbed Sabria’s heart. She tried to stop and turned to an older woman, but one of the riflemen behind her prodded her forward. Passing the local mosque, Sabria saw three men with their hands on their heads facing a wall. Two of them, friends from secondary school. Three of the militia opened fire. The Arab men crumpled to the ground at the shouts of triumph. Sabria nearly vomited. She stopped again this time watching her own grandfather being shoved forward and stumbling as he had stopped, head shaking.
Several soldiers ran frantically down the streets to escape the occasional sniper fire, themselves shooting randomly at the few remaining houses. The scene surreal, the attack totally out of control. Sabria watched in disbelief. Can this really be happening? How would any of them survive? What do they plan to do with everyone at the beach?
And Valerie, what will happen to her? Sabria wondered. She had stayed with Eldad for several minutes, and then followed him being carried down into town on a stretcher. Do they know she is not Arab? Is she passing as Jewish to save her own skin? That’s not like the Valerie I know. Sabria thought of her helping so many Arab families in the past. But where did she go? It looks like she’s under the control of the Zionist forces now. But then, so are we.
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