One man's terrorist, another's freedom fighter

Posted: Wednesday, January 23, 2008 11:13 AM
Filed Under: Tel Aviv, Israel

Although Alaa was the leader, Ahmed was the one Israel most wanted dead. I often asked Alaa why his younger brother had so many bodyguards, and Alaa would only smile mysteriously. But one day he confirmed Israel's claims: that Ahmed blew up an Israeli officer, and was the bomb-maker behind other suicide bombers.

Samir Bazbaz / NBC News

The last photo of Ahmed Sanakreh, right, with NBC’s Martin Fletcher, center, and his older brother, Alaa, left, taken in his home in December 2007. He was killed by Israeli Army forces on Jan. 18.

Alaa, Ahmed and their friend Nasser abu Aziz were my de facto guides to the Palestinian side of the second Intifada (uprising). They were terrorists to the Israelis, freedom fighters to their neighbors, and sources to me.

I quizzed them often about the latest developments. My NBC colleagues and I met them in their safe houses, hid with them in the alleys, sat in their home with their parents, and listened as their mother cried that she did not want her boys to die.

I wrote about my relationship with this band of gunmen in my book, "Breaking News," which comes out in New York on March 4. Now I'll have to update it.

Cat with nine lives    
Ahmed was the cat with nine lives. He prowled the dusty alleys of the refugee camp by night and slept by day. Nine separate times the Israelis shot him. He had more than thirty bullet holes in his body. He was shot in the head, the jaw, the chest, the back, the stomach, both legs, both arms and one hand. Once he was left for dead, buried under tons of concrete rubble when the Israelis bulldozed the Palestinian headquarters in Nablus. After two days of digging, Alaa and Nasser found him, barely alive. Two fingers were shot off.

Once we were in his parent’s living room, sipping sweet tea, when Ahmed stumbled in, supported by his bodyguards, with four bullets in the stomach. Alaa had stolen him from the hospital minutes before Israelis soldiers raided the place, hunting Ahmed. 

Jeff Riggins / NBC News

Alaa Sanakreh helps his younger brother, Ahmed, after he was shot four times in the stomach in April 2007.

But Ahmed's luck ran out after shooting number nine on Jan. 18. Alaa phoned him, as usual, at night to make sure he was OK. "I'm fine, I'm with my friends," said Ahmed. He was sleeping in one of his usual safe houses, with three bodyguards.

At 5 a.m., Alaa's phone woke him. It was Ahmed again. "He said, ‘I'm wounded, they've surrounded the house,’" Alaa told us at the funeral. "I said to him, ‘Listen to me, you must surrender!’ But he said, ‘I can't, they will kill me.’ And then the phone went dead."

A neighbor of the house where Ahmed was killed said that all four Palestinians in the safe house were wounded. Three were arrested. She said that the soldiers went into Ahmed's room, where he was lying on the ground. They spoke to him and then, she said, they killed him. The Israeli Army says he was killed in a shootout.

 No way out
Either way, Ahmed always knew he would die in the end. Alaa, the commander of the al-Aksa Martyrs Brigades in the refugee camp, had already accepted Israel's offer of an amnesty before his brother was killed.

He is now a member of the Palestinian security forces with a salary of $400 a month, and is also a student at Nablus University. For two years Alaa had been telling me that he had had enough, that he just wanted to live at home, get married and study. Since he was a boy he wanted to be an engineer, but he is studying sports. "There's too much tension for me to study hard," he said. "Sport is the easy option."

Ahmed wanted to stop fighting too, but the Israelis wouldn't give him an amnesty. He made the bombs and sent the suicide bombers. There can be no peace with people like him: that's Israel's logic.

Now that his brother is dead, Alaa is devastated, but helpless. He gave up his gun months ago. "Arafat built us up," he said, "but Abu Mazen destroyed us," (referring to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas). 

Jeff Riggins / NBC News

Ahmed Sanakreh takes a rest on a bed after being shot in the stomach four times while his brother Alaa (standing on far right) and a body guard look on.

Yesterday’s men
Alaa, Ahmed and their friend, Nasser, are yesterday's men. They served a purpose when the Palestinians needed a deniable hit team to fight the Israelis. But now the Palestinian leaders have destroyed the militias on the West Bank, their own as well as Hamas, and are building up their official security services as a first step towards peace talks with Israel. About 80 former al-Aksa fighters in Nablus are now policemen.

We left Ahmed's mother, Jamileh, wailing by the graves of Ahmed and his even younger brother, Ibrahim, who was shot dead by Israeli soldiers a year ago. "Bury me here," she cried, "next to them. My darling," she called to Ibrahim, "your brother has come to you, he is only sick, look after him. I don't believe it. This is my home now, I want to be next to Ibrahim and Ahmed. I will sleep here with you tonight."

A neighbor, whose son was also killed, said, "Israel took my home in Jaffa, now they come and kill us here, and they say WE are the terrorists."

I thought, yes, but Ahmed sent the suicide bombers, he made the bombs. What else would you call him? It's confusing when you get too close to the story. My own children use the same buses and go to the same clubs that Ahmed and his men wanted to blow up. Alaa, Nasser abu Aziz and the late Ahmed Sanakreh were abandoned by their own leaders, sad young men, fighting for their land, hung out to dry. Knowing both sides so well makes it hard, painful, to witness this tragedy without end. 

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