Hava knelt beside her husband Khalid. Judith gathered her own and her sister’s children also around Khalid. They appeared pale and stared silently at their father or uncle lying on the ground. One of them asked, “Is he dead?”
Sabria grabbed Caleb’s hand and turned uphill to check on Adnan. The old man sat on the slope weeping. She kneeled and put her arms around him for several moments. Caleb put his hand on Adnan’s shaking shoulder and squatted down.
At that moment, Valerie appeared, breathless, tear-streaked dirt on her face. Sabria rose to embrace her silently. The crowd of mostly women and children began to move pressing the family together. Sabria looked up, releasing Valerie, and saw a line of soldiers advancing. One of them spotted Khalid, knocked several women over in his hurry to apprehend him. Leveling his rifle, he ordered Khalid to get to his feet and march down the hill toward the men being herded toward the fishing pier.
Sabria rushed downhill, grabbed the soldier’s shirt and spun him around. He fired his gun into the air, shook loose of Sabria and leveled his gun on Khalid who did not run. Rather, he put his hands up in the air as they moved away. Sabria watched him go. She had the sense she would never see her father again.
The crowd of women and children as well as a few older men began to move slowly up the slope as the line of soldiers pushed them toward the town square. Several of the militia picked out a few of the able-bodied older men, announcing that they needed several to dig graves on the beach, and bury the dead. Sabria thought of Jamal and his group, as well as those men shot while trying to escape. Families would have no chance to honor them in death. No way to say goodbye. Their bodies would be dumped in a mass grave on the beach like so much refuse. Husbands, fathers, young men like Jamal with so much to live for.
In addition she had seen several bodies lying in front of their destroyed homes when earlier they walked to the beach. Then there was Eldad. Why was he shot by his own lieutenant? What would they do with his body?
Sabria and Caleb helped Adnan to his feet. He seemed weak, walking uphill, short of breath as they moved with the insistence of the Jewish terrorists. She thought yes they were terrorists, striking fear and committing murder on an innocent population. How could they do this if they were God’s chosen people? But she knew many Jewish young people and they were not like that. Then she thought of Valerie, a dear Jewish mother who had just lost her son, walking silently beside her.
Heading to the town square, Sabria looked at her friend. “Do you want to talk about what happened to Eldad?”
“I’m still shaking inside. If your father had not stopped him we might all be dead. Khalid saved us all.”
“I don’t understand why Eldad shot the officer who executed Jamal and the others, Valerie.”
“It all happened so fast. After we had stopped the bleeding from his thigh in front of your house, he began to acknowledge the gravity of what he had done. He also finally realized he was my son. It touched my heart that at last we had come together. He wanted to stop the carnage but said it was too late to stop the attack.”
“What happened to him on the stretcher near the beach. I saw him on the radio waving his arm?”
“His men carried him there. When he saw the brutal executions of Jamal and others, he tried to get the lieutenant in charge to stop, by radio, but to no avail. Madness. In his final act of desperation to stop the executions, Eldad shot his own junior officer. Then another officer killed . . . my son.” Valerie couldn’t continue.
Sabria placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder as they moved into the town square stepping over rocks and debris, some clothing and an occasional body not yet taken away. She was becoming numb to the sight of her fellow townsmen dead, mostly men, but also several women and two children.
Valerie wiped a tear from her cheek. “I wanted him to live. He had begun to grasp that killing Arabs and driving them out was wrong. He tried to stop the slaughter and it cost him his life. I wished I could take his place in death. He was my son. We had so little time together.”
***
Khalid walked at the back of a group of men he estimated at over one hundred in number and ranging in age from teens to early 50’s. He had nothing in his hands and no pack with his belongings. Forced at gunpoint to leave his family, he wondered when he would see them again. Then he saw Ilias and gradually worked his way up to him in the group of prisoners. He had become just that, walking away from all he had ever known, from his family, from his home—prodded by guards. He had not heard the word prison, but somehow knew that would be their destination. He had heard of the camps where forced hard labor became the modus operandi. For the crime of being Arab.
Catching up to Ilias, Khalid saw a dejected man, walking with head down.
He patted his shoulder and Ilias jumped, turning with a sneer. “It’s just me, Khalid.” Ilias face registered surprise, eyes wide and began to shake his head. “I saw you walk to the beach with several guys and heard the shots. Couldn’t see over the men around me, so I assumed you were killed along with the rest of the bunch. It’s so good to see you alive. I could wish I had died instead of Jamal.”
“I’m so sorry about Jamal," Khalid said. "He gave his life for his people. They have intelligence about who resisted the Zionist cleansing of Arabs in other places. I suspect that is why they came to your house to arrest him.”
“He was my only son. I counted on him to take over the citrus grove. But he’s gone now.”
“You can be proud of him, Ilias.”
“I am.”
Khalid sighed as he walked close to his friend. “Now there is nothing left to go back for. They blew up our home as they took me away. And dear Hava and the kids, who knows where they are and what will happen to them. They were fine when I had to leave them with a rifle pointed at me,” Khalid continued. He turned around to try to see them on the slope, raised his hand to shade the sun and felt a rifle butt crashing into his ribs. Refusing to acknowledge pain, he resumed walking as if nothing had happened. The soldiers surrounded the large group of women and children, with a few old men as well. Adnan sat on the ground looking discouraged and exhausted. “I suspect they will be deported somewhere. We’ll have to find them eventually—when we escape.”
“What happened to the American?”
“I don’t know. But they did take Caleb out of this group that we’re in and I think they’ll let him go. Shooting an American could result in an international problem. The Jews need friends right now. I last saw Caleb squatting down talking to Adnan.”
Suddenly two soldiers each struck the two men in the back with the butt of their rifles in the otherwise silent and seething group of prisoners.
Khalid understood the non-verbal message about prisoners not talking.
Chapter 47
Standing in the hot sun in the village square, Sabria felt faint. The stench of death pervaded the air. She saw Adnan walking slowly toward a bench crowded with people. One young woman got up to offer her place to sit and Adnan sat down. He didn’t look well.
Sabria gazed toward their home but could see nothing up the hill that resembled the house. The orange groves looked peaceful. Suddenly shots rang out. Three young women had broken out of the guarded perimeter and ran to escape. One of them fell and didn’t move. The other two stopped, hands up and returned at gunpoint. Sabria had heard of the soldiers using rape as an instrument of warfare. She shuddered and stayed close to Caleb.
A jug of water appeared. People passed it from one to the other. An officer made his way through the multitude of women and children to Caleb who stood head above the others.
“I understand you are from the United States,” he said smiling and extending his hand.
His English sounded American with a German accent, and he appeared to be friendly to Caleb who refused the handshake. “Yes, I’m from Texas, studying at the Technion.”
“Would you like to join us for a beer? We’d like to explain this to you so you don’t get the wrong idea. My fel
low lieutenants would like to see that you get back home safely, at least to the University.”
“Safely?” Caleb glared at the officer shaking his head slowly. “You talk about explanations and safety after what I’ve seen you do? You can talk and explain, but your actions tell me your intentions, mass executions, taking people’s homes and land at an awful cost of innocent lives.”
“I understand you are upset. These people, these Arabs are terrorists, resisting what the United Nations has given to us. They have snipers that shoot at us. We can do no less than defend ourselves. And that’s what we are doing, defending our land. It belongs to us. These people can go to the area they belong in, the part of the land allotted to them by the UN resolution. We are just helping them to understand that they need to transfer to other places. They can go wherever they want. We don’t care where they go. They just don’t belong here anymore.”
Caleb red in the face, squinted at the young officer. “What would you do if armed soldiers came to your home, fired at your family members, blew up your home and forced you to leave?”
“I don’t want to argue with you here. Will you come and join us so we can explain the whole plan to you?”
Caleb didn’t want to identify Sabria and her family and make more trouble for them. He motioned to the officer to come a ways away so they could talk quietly. When they broke out away from the crowd into the open, Caleb stopped and scrutinized the lieutenant’s face. Inside his heart raced and he felt himself trembling with anger. He moved close, a hands breadth from his face, and spat out his words. “I belong here . . . with some wonderful people whom I have come to love. You murderers can do whatever you want to me . . . but I will not come!” Caleb turned abruptly and made his way back to the assembled Arab women. He almost expected to feel a bullet, but none came. What would they do to a defiant American? They had to choose between eliminating a spokesman for the Arab cause, and letting him go home and tell what he saw. He would do that. The American people needed to know the price these militias extracted in blood.
***
The sun turned red illuminating the clouds in shades of pink turning to scarlet over the azure sea. Sabria loved the sunsets over Tantura. She took a deep breath and waited for Adnan to catch up to the rest of the group. He looked tired, and his steps had become a shuffle.
The events of the day had culminated in the mass of people still in the village being forced out into the surrounding countryside. Not being allowed to return to their own homes or what was left of them. The soldiers evicted people from the homes still standing. The entire population of Tantura now adrift. Nowhere to go as night began. Trucks appeared driven by soldiers and some people boarded them. Few residents had much to carry, some food or clothing but most with nothing. Adnan and his family had hurried out of their home with the gunfire of Eldad. Only Judith and Hava had brought the packs they had put together. Those included some food items for the children.
The people had no direction. No leadership. Sabria’s grandfather appeared exhausted and no longer able to function as a community leader. They gradually dispersed in different directions. The lorries crammed with people headed east up the hills to some unknown destination. She heard someone mention Jenin and that it would be safe being in Arab-allotted territory. But Sabria noted several soldier-drivers wore yarmulkes on their heads and she didn’t trust them. They continued walking and had turned toward the south through their own orange grove instead of walking uphill.
Adnan hobbled and tried to keep up with the family, Valerie, and Caleb. “Let’s stop and sit down,” Sabria said as she helped her grandfather to the ground on a small road between the trees.
They looked to him. “First, let’s pray.” The old man raised his head. “Oh God, your son had nowhere to lay his head on this land. And now we are the same. We have lost everything but our lives. We don’t know where to go, what to do. But you do, and you care about us. So lead us through this valley of death and be with us as we go. Guide us that we may yet bring honor to you as your son did in his trials. Amen.”
The group sat quietly on the ground waiting for Adnan to speak. He began slowly, tentatively, looking at the sky. “There is no rain coming, there is soft grass among the trees and it’s not cold. So we can be thankful for that. I would suggest that each of us find a place to sleep, and spend the night here in this fruit grove. In the morning we can decide where to go.”
***
The night passed slowly. Sabria turned from side to side trying to find a comfortable spot. In the starlit night she saw several of her family get up at various times. The children didn’t move and slept soundly every time she looked at them. Finally the eastern sky lightened and the adults stirred. Judith and Hava looked into their packs, finding the packages of food they had brought, grapes and some yoghurt, honey, biscuits and naan with humus. Soon the children awoke and ate ravenously while the adults consumed the limited meal sparingly. The group included the children of Judith and Rana as well as Sabria’s two younger siblings, eight in all. The adults, Hava, Judith, Rana, herself, and the two men, Adnan and Caleb. With little food and an unknown journey by foot ahead, and with her weakened grandfather, how would fourteen people survive, Sabria wondered.
Sabria looked to Adnan to put all this in some kind of perspective. What had been the cause of this massacre when they thought they were safe? Why? What did they expect the population to do who had nowhere to go? Did they care? Could the Zionists cleanse the land of all Arabs who had lived in it for centuries? If not, who would be allowed to stay in their homes? Sabria wanted to understand from her grandfather’s wisdom of many years and a lifetime of exposure to Arab and Jewish officials. But of immediate importance, where can they go to find a place that is safe and would provide shelter?
Adnan looked a bit revived. She wondered how he slept on the grass. As a farmer, he had frequently catnapped in the orange grove under his beloved trees. She put some of her questions into words.
He began slowly. “Yes, it is true we thought we had an agreement that we would not harbor resistance fighters and in turn they would let us remain in Tantura. I don’t know why they changed except that our agreement involved the Jewish intelligence officers. The militias, I think the Hagana itself, decided otherwise. So the two groups apparently had differing ideas.”
“If they wanted our village and planned to evict all of us, where do they expect us to go?” Judith asked.
“They have no plan except to ‘transfer’ us to somewhere else out of the territory allotted to them by the UN resolution. They don’t know where. They don’t seem to care what happens to us. So we are on our own to find someplace to live.”
Chapter 48
Possibly you don’t remember, but I have some distant cousins in Fureidis,” Adnan reminded his family under the orange trees. “The name of the village means ‘little Paradise.’ Their community lies southeast of us, just ten or so kilometers. The Hagana on their sweep north from Tel Aviv to Haifa has to my knowledge, agreed to spare it.”
“Right,” Judith said with a smirk. “Just like they spared us.”
“Possibly, but I would still propose that we head there. We have no other options now. We can’t stay here in the open.”
“They are hospitable and would probably take us in as they are able. It would be temporary, but would be a shelter and food would be available. I hate to become a beggar, but for the sake of you all including the children, I will beg. Ilias, Khalid, and Jamal would want this for all of us.”
A restless stir, a ray of hope, even excitement bubbled up in Sabria. “Let’s go! It’s a beautiful town, and would be a place of rest and peace—assuming the militias don’t change their mind.”
The group remained silent, thinking. Valerie coughed putting her hand up to cover it. All eyes turned to her. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Yesterday reminded me of Dickens’ ‘best of times and the worst of times.’ I found my son and he found me as his mother he never knew. And he change
d at the last, trying desperately to stop the carnage of his soldiers gone crazy. But he paid the ultimate price as Jamal did for you all.”
Valerie paused, closed her eyes and then began again slowly. “It is the worst of times for you. My heart aches for you in your displacement. I want to offer you my home in Qatamon. But that area has also been taken over, expelling Arab families. You are welcome to come but it may not be safe for however long you would be able to stay. But I’m here, and I’ve become one of you.”
“But you can go home, Valerie,” Sabria replied. “There is no point in your becoming a refugee like us. I think you should.”
Adnan nodded. “We will need to find some place to live, if temporarily. We would be glad to have you with us and share whatever we find, but it is not necessary for you. So you go, with our blessing and thanks. Because of you and your son, Khalid my son-in-law lives, even if a prisoner.”
Valerie rose, hugged Adnan and the rest of the family as well as Caleb. With tears in her eyes, unable to speak, she turned and walked toward the east and home.
***
With the business part of the phone conversation finished, Caleb’s father in Texas wanted to learn what his associate Chester in New York, thought of the new state of Israel, and whether he had heard of anything further like what Caleb had reported.
“Oh sure. There have been articles in the New York Times about what is going on. I have kept one, the edition of April 9, 1948, from Jerusalem. Have it here on my desk. I had no idea before then.” He reached across the desk for the paper. “It’s headlined, ‘200 Arabs Killed, Stronghold Taken.’ It’s a bloody war over there, Jews against Arabs. It explains the takeover of the Arab village Deir Yassin. Of the two hundred people killed, half were women and children.”
“Does our government know about this?”
“I know they do. I have read that our State Department had a plan they wanted to propose to the UN for an equal partition of land and a five-year trusteeship with international forces to keep the sides apart when the British left. It would replace the unequal partition idea and might have prevented much of the fighting. But Truman overruled them when he recognized Israel last week. So the bloodshed goes on.”
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