The night was long as sat around a table in the light of candles. Nearly half of Gaza was without electricity after the brutal bombing of the power station.
‘We can’t watch the TV without electricity. Our batteries are almost flat, I don’t know how long more they will last.’
‘Did you hear the shelling last night?’ asked Slimane.
‘Yes, it must have been terrifying for those in that district.’
‘You’d be surprised, it is three generations we have lived with such attacks, people are very stoic.’
‘Do you think they will attack?’
‘I don’t know, but you’d stay inside for the moment. I think it may get more dangerous.’
‘It’ll take months to get power back to normal.’
‘We don’t have any water either.’
‘It’s normal the water is pumped, so no electricity, no water!’
‘We heard that the bridges on the main road were hit. I don’t know how we’re going to get back!’
‘Two others were also hit.’
‘Why did they take the Israeli corporal?’
‘It was revenge for all the Palestinians killed.’
‘They've been dropping leaflets telling people to avoid areas that are targeted.
During the night Israeli tanks and infantry pushed into the south of Gaza near to Rafah as air strikes continued near to the Khan Younis refugee camp and the Islamic University in Gaza City. On the northern border Israeli ground forces were massed ready to move. Elsewhere the Israeli attack continued with large troop movements, artillery barrages and air strikes, there was little resistance from the Palestinian forces armed with mere peashooters, home made rockets made in makeshift workshops.
The next morning the small generator was started and they switched on the TV to an Israeli channel that announced an operation against a terrorist organisation, arresting Hamas ministers and lawmakers in the West Bank, at least seven ministers and twenty parliamentarians were arrested on raids in several towns.
They zapped to CNN news that announced the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza had been closed. They saw crowds of Palestinians stranded on the Egyptian side of the border, held behind the gates that led to the terminal, under the hot sun and surrounded by Egyptian police. Certain of them had been waiting for two weeks to be let into Gaza and deaths had been reported.
Much of Gaza woke up stunned by the attacks, life came to a standstill with the destruction of key bridges and infrastructure with all moving vehicles being targeted by missiles fired from Israeli helicopters and F16s. The previous day batteries and candles, flour, food and water had been sold out in expectation of a long siege.
Later that morning tanks moved into northern Gaza, in the largest military operation since Israel had quit Gaza in 2005, tanks and armoured bulldozers took up positions near to the Jabaliya refugee camp and heavy shelling was reported in the south around Dahaniyeh airport. The Israeli government claimed it was retaliating for the firing of home-made rockets at villages near to the Gaza border.
The Palestinian forces armed with automatic weapons and rocket propelled grenades took up positions, ready to face the Israelis invaders with their sophisticated missiles and ultra-modern tanks.
They laughed nervously when CNN reported the White House was keeping up its pressure on Hamas, demanding that the Palestinian government cease it aggression.
‘Palestinian forces are threatening to overrun Israel!’ Saad laughed, then added bitterly, ‘They’ll turn this into another Iraq? If they saw the bodies piled up in the morgues every morning they would think differently.’
Every now and then they heard the roar of low flying F16s, rattling windows and making the glasses on their table tremble, they froze in silence expecting the worse. Slimane told them, ‘don’t worry it’s when you don’t hear them you should start to pray! The sonic booms of the Israeli jets were so powerful, windows were often broken.
‘Will the other Arab states help?’ asked Laura.
The Palestinians roared with laughter.
‘I worked in Iraq,’ said one of Slimane’s cousins, ‘but with the killings I was forced to leave, now it is as if it’s followed me! Why? Because of America and Israel, not because of Saddam.’
The generator was switch off during the day to save petrol and without the TV little news leaked through to the small group who had taken refuge in the restaurant. Rumours were rife, there was talk of a surprise attack from Syria or Egypt like in 1973. Bashir Assad was rumoured to be preparing to moving forces to take back the Golan Heights, confident of having the backing of his new ally Iran. Others talked of the Hezbollah attacking Israeli forces on the border with the Lebanon.
That same night Israel aircraft caused panic by bombing Beirut International Airport and the threat of a generalised war was becoming possible very quickly. The Israeli air force had responded after the Hezbollah had attacked Israeli troops near to the border between the two countries and had taken prisoners.
It was extremely urgent they get out quick before they ended up dead or as hostages, but for the moment there was little alternative but to wait, hoping that they would be missed.
A corner of the restaurant had been transformed into a makeshift sleeping area for the stranded travellers with a few worn mattresses. O’Connelly had just settled down to try to sleep when his cellphone vibrated, it was Benny Weinfeld.
‘Pat, where are you?’
‘Still here in Gaza, near the sea,’ he said in a low voice to avoid disturbing the others.
‘Things are not looking good. How many are you?’
‘Three or four.’
‘Foreigners?’
‘Three.’
‘Forget the others if they’re Palestinians!’
‘Okay.’
‘We can pick you up from the sea, we’ll send a boat.’
‘A boat?’
‘Yes, an inflatable, a fast Zodiac.’
‘It’ll bring you over to our side of the border, its only six or seven kilometres.’
‘What do we do?’
‘I’ll call you back with instructions. We’ll get a fix from your cellphone. Don’t switch it off, don’t say anything to anybody just be ready.’
‘Okay, how long?’
‘I’m not sure, maybe an hour or so,’ he said and hung up.
He shook Collins to tell him to be ready, they would be soon be pulled out, he shook his head saying he had no intention of leaving Gaza, he was in the right place at the right time for a reporter.
‘Up to you, if you want to die, we’ll see your body be dragged through the streets from a car bumper.’
‘I’ll take the risk,’ he said though he didn’t sound very convincing.
‘Can you trust Slimane?’
‘Absolutely.’
‘Can he drive us to a pick up point?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘What about the others, I mean his family, what will they do?’
‘We’ll just tell them we’re going to the UN in centre of Gaza City.’
‘Okay.’
The phone rang about thirty minutes later.
‘Are you ready?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many?’
‘Two.’
‘Okay, we’ve got a fix on you, take the coast road about a kilometre north, no lights, repeat no lights, when you get there we’ll call you back.’
They got together their bags and a rucksack containing Assad’s work and after a quick thanks to Slimane’s family made their way to the Toyota parked outside. Suddenly they heard shouting and shots, they piled into the SUV, Collins with them. They saw the headlights of a vehicle moving towards them and Slimane put his foot on the pedal screeching away along the coast road, his lights out. The night was dark, they could just make out the road ahead of them, only a few flashes on the horizon to the east lit up the surrounding followed by the muffled rumble of explosions as they anxiously looked behind them.
The cellphone ran
g. It was not Benny.
‘Continue one hundred metres more, then stop, keep your lights off, and keep talking.’
‘We’re being followed!’
‘Do as I say, we’ll look after the rest!’
They moved ahead rapidly.
‘Stop! Get down and make your way to the waters edge, its about thirty metres from the road.’
They stopped. Slimane pulled out O’Connelly and Laura’s bags and turned towards the beach. A dark figure emerged and beckoned them to hurry.
Slimane waved and climbed back into the Toyota, suddenly there was a screeching of tyres as two SUVs appeared out of the darkness and firing broke out. They heard the frantic revving of the Toyota’s motor and more shots rang out with men running towards them from the SUVs. A hand pulled Laura and O’Connelly followed into the dark. Turning he saw Slimane slumped over the wheel of the SUV and Collins doubled over on his knees.
O’Connelly felt a sharp sting in his thigh, he felt no pain, then his leg collapsed under him and he fell onto the sand. Collins had been hit in the chest, he was not had time to put on his flak jacket.
Suddenly a beam of light appeared from the sky and there was a whoosh as a helicopter fired a rocket, one of the newly arrived SUVs exploded in a ball of fire. Heavy firing from the helicopter sent their attackers running for cover.
Some moments later they were roaring away in to the waves, the boat bucking like a wild horse as the hit the waves at sixty or seventy kilometres an hour, swinging out to sea in an elliptical northward direction. Laura was lying flat on the floor next to Collins who was unconscious, O’Connelly desperately hung onto a cord. Lifting his head could make out the form of three commandos holding their weapons at the ready scrutinising the horizon, a fourth was at the wheel leaning over the dim screen of a GPS and speaking Hebrew rapidly into a microphone fixed onto his helmet. The noise of the powerful motor and the sea submerged any noise from the shore that had disappeared behind them.
Less than five minutes later the Zodiac turned towards the shore, to one left side they the bright lights of roads and buildings, to the right the lights ended abruptly in total darkness. They beach and were helped up towards a waiting helicopter, a medical team attended to O’Connelly’s wound and put Collins on a stretcher. A few minutes latter they took off in the direction of the Ashdod general hospital.
O’Connelly had been hit by a bullet that had passed through his thigh, a couple of day’s hospitalisation and he would be back on his feet. Collins had not been so lucky, but he would survive, a bullet was lodged in his chest just avoiding his lungs, he would need at least a couple of weeks or more care, he would have his story. There was no news of Slimane or Saad.
The next morning Laura arrived in O’Connelly room, where he was watching the development of events in the Lebanon on the TV news. The IDF was carrying out round the clock sorties against Hezbollah targets as Katushka rockets rained down on Israeli border districts to the south the Lebanon. Sheikh Nasrallah accused the Lebanese Prime Minister of hampering Hezbollah's efforts in resisting the Israeli attacks.
Laura though very shaken by the events was already back on form and had already started sifting through Assad’s papers. As she talked excitedly, jumping to and from the previous day’s rescue operation and Assad’s papers, Benny Weinfeld poked his head around the door to the room.
‘So how are our heroes?’ he said coming in with a broad smile holding a bouquet of flowers he gave to Laura.
‘A lot better, glad to be back in civilization, even if it’s in the middle of a war!’ said O’Connelly.
‘Good. The doctors tell me your friend Collins should be fine. So are you going to tell me how you got into such a jam?’
‘The Temple papers!’ said Laura pointing to her treasure trove.
At first glance the young Druze archaeologist Assad had carried out extensive verifications of the measurements of the underground cisterns carried out by the Palestinian Survey Fund more than one hundred years before confirming the precision of the investigations carried out by the engineers of Queen Victoria’s army.
It remained to be seen whether de Lussac’s had plagiarised Assad’s sifting and comparing the documents O’Connelly had acquired from Jean-Louis Claudel and those he had risked his life for in Gaza. A time taking task as many documents were written in Arabic and Hebrew. Whatever the result the translation of de Lussac’s theory was no longer of any importance and in view of the accusations that hung over him in Cambodia the document that he had bequeathed to the State Library of Israel would be left to gather dust in some basement storeroom in Jerusalem until it was long forgotten, a curiosity amongst so many others as to the lost Temple of the Jews.
O’Connelly’s immediate plan was to return to Paris with Laura and escape the war between Israel and the Hezbollah that was growing by the hour. As he meditated the events of the previous days he received a strange message from Jean-Louis Claudel in Phnom Penh, informing him that de Lussac was being held by the police in Cambodia in Siem Reap, he had been arrested three days after his return on a series of charges that went from trafficking in archaeological works to unlawful sexual with under aged girls. It was difficult to unravel the story but it seemed that de Lussac had become entangled with Claudel’s unsavoury friends, who had used his guest house as a meeting place and as a maison de passe with the presence of young Cambodian girls. It seemed that the friends were part a smuggling ring trafficking Cambodian antiquities. When the police had raided the guest house de Lussac had been found in a compromising situation and had been pulled in with all those present.
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The Legacy of Solomon Page 77