closed the door and sat back down in front of Abed. ‘There are those who would sell our lives just for a permit to escape this prison.’
He poured himself some more tea and filled Abed’s glass. ‘We leave Gaza tonight,’ he said without a hint of drama.
Abed did not show his surprise. While he had considered many ways in which the council might employ him, he had never thought they might get him out of Gaza. It seemed far too great an effort to go to for such a small fish. He immediately began to imagine where he might go and what it would be like outside of the Strip. His imagination was limited since he knew so little about the world. Instead of excitement at the prospect, he found himself feeling nervous, but he was not clear exactly why. Maybe it was the passage through the perimeter, which was notoriously dangerous since many more had died than had succeeded. But it was better than staying in Gaza and he could not have hoped for more under the circumstances. Then another thought entered his head, the true source of his concern.
‘There is one thing I must ask,’ Abed said.
‘My rank is not above yours, Abed. I can tell you everything I know, which is not much more than I’ve already told you.’
‘It is not information. I must see my mother.’
‘Ah. That has already been taken care of. I told you the sheiks think of everything. We leave as soon as it is dark and go to Rafah where you will have time to see your mother.’
‘Back to Rafah? Is that wise?’
‘We must. That is the way we will leave Gaza.’
‘The Rafah tunnels into Egypt?’ Abed asked. The tunnels were legendary, though their location was as secret as the cells. In design they were much like the famous tunnels dug by inmates of the World War Two prisoner of war camps, and they were used to smuggle contraband into Gaza, including weapons and explosives or the ingredients to make them. The IDF would on occasion discover one and destroy it, but another was soon dug to replace it. Rafah was the obvious place for a tunnel because it bordered Egypt, although that did not necessarily mean it was safe to arrive in that country either. The Egyptians were no friends to the Palestinians and were quite capable of handing them over to the Israelis if they were caught in their country without the proper permits. However, it was far less of a risk than escaping into Israeli territory where one had to run the gauntlet of dozens of checkpoints to get to Jordan, Syria or Lebanon.
‘Concern was also my first thought,’ Ibrahim said. ‘We will find out tonight.’
Ibrahim grinned and Abed finally smiled for the first time in a long while.
‘We are going to have an adventure,’ Ibrahim said. ‘I don’t know for sure, but I believe it is true. We are destined for glory, my new friend.’ Ibrahim offered up his glass and the two men toasted the adventure and their new friendship.
That night Hasim came to the apartment and led Abed and Ibrahim to a car parked a block away. Hasim said goodbye and left. Abed and Ibrahim climbed into the back. Two men were seated in the front, the passenger holding an AK47. Not a word was spoken as they drove through the city and down on to the beach road. They turned south past Hotel Row, the Riviera of Gaza, except that now most of the hotels were empty, some even burned down since the intifada by the fundamentalists as punishment for serving alcohol. Several miles further on they headed inland from the beach to avoid the Israeli settlement of Gosh Ghativ and stopped several hundred yards short of the Salah ed-Din road, the main highway that ran the length of Gaza, right through the centre from north to south. The highway was not safe to drive on at night - the IDF would shoot at any vehicle that moved along it during darkness.
The passenger signalled Abed and Ibrahim to get out. The driver remained and as Abed and Ibrahim followed the passenger off the road and into a ditch, the driver turned the car around and headed back the way they had come.The passenger waited silently for a moment, checking there was no movement anywhere about them, then moved off for several hundred yards across rugged, open terrain, stopping to listen every now and then, until