Zakaria Zubeidi is one of the six Palestinian prisoners who on 6 September tunneled their way out of Gilboa a notorious high-security Israeli prison. He was recaptured a few days later. The large bruises on his face told a harrowing story of a daring escape and a violent arrest. However his story neither begins nor ends there.
Twenty years ago following what has been etched in the collective Palestinian memory as the “Jenin Massacre” I was introduced to the Zubeidi family in the Jenin refugee camp which was almost entirely erased by the Israeli army during and after the fighting. Despite my repeated attempts the Israeli army prevented me from reaching Jenin which was kept under siege by the army for months following the most violent episode of the whole Second Palestinian Uprising (2000-2005).
I could not speak to Zakaria Zubeidi directly. Unlike his brother Taha he survived the 2002 massacre and subsequently rose through the ranks of Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades the armed wing of the Fatah movement to become its leader. He thus topped the list of Israel’s most wanted Palestinians.
Most communication was with his sister Kauthar who told us in detail about the events that preceded that fateful military siege. She was only 20 years old at the time. Despite her grief she spoke proudly about her mother who was killed by an Israeli sniper only weeks before the invasion of the camp; and about her brother Taha the leader of Al-Quds Brigades the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad movement in Jenin at the time; and of Zakaria who was now on a mission to avenge his mother brother best friends and neighbors.
“Taha was killed by a sniper. After he was killed [the Israelis] fired shells at him which completely burned his body. This was in the Damaj neighborhood” Kauthar told us. “The Shebab [young men] gathered together what remained of him and put him in a house. Since that day the house has been known as ‘The Home of the Hero’.”
Kauthar also told me about her mother Samira 51 “who spent her life going from one prison to another” to visit her husband and her sons. Samira was loved and respected by all the fighters in the camp. Her children were the heroes that all the youngsters wanted to emulate. Her death was particularly shocking.
“She was hit with two bullets in the heart” explained Kauthar. “Once she turned around she was hit in the back. Blood poured out of her nose and mouth. I did not know what else to do but to scream.”
Zakaria immediately went underground. The young fighter was feeling aggrieved at what had befallen his beloved Jenin family mother and brother who had planned to be married the week after he was killed. Zakaria was also feeling betrayed by his Fatah “brothers” who continued to collaborate openly with Israel despite the mounting tragedies in the occupied West Bank; and by the Israeli left that abandoned the Zubeidi family despite promises of solidarity and camaraderie.
“Every week 20-30 Israelis would come [to Jenin] to do theatre” said Zakaria in an interview with the Times magazine. This was a reference to the “Arna’s House” theatre which involved Zakaria and other Jenin youngsters and was established by Arna Mer-Khamis an Israeli woman who was married to a Palestinian. “We opened our home and you demolished it… We fed them. And afterward not one of them picked up the phone. That is when we saw the real face of the left in Israel.”
Of the five children who participated in the theatre only Zakaria survived. The rest joined various armed groups to fight the Israeli occupation and were all killed.
Zakaria Zubeidi was born in 1976 under Israeli occupation so has never experienced life as a free man. At 13 he was shot by Israeli soldiers for throwing stones. At 14 he was arrested for the first time. At 17 he joined the Palestinian Authority security forces believing like many Palestinians at the time that the PA “army” was established to protect Palestinians and secure their freedom. Disillusioned he left the PA less than a year later.
He only committed himself to armed struggle in 2001 as a way of achieving freedom for his people months after the start of the Second Intifada. One of his childhood friends was one of the first to be killed by Israeli soldiers. In 2002 Zakaria joined Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades around the time that his mother Samira and his brother Taha were killed.
The first uprising in 2002 in particular was a decisive year for the Fatah movement which was practically but unofficially divided into two groups: one that believed that armed struggle should remain a strategy for liberation; and another that advocated political dialogue and a peace process. Many members of the first group were killed arrested or marginalized including Fatah’s popular leader Marwan Barghouti who was arrested in April 2002 and is still in an Israeli prison. Members of the second group grew rich and corrupt. Their “peace process” failed to deliver the coveted freedom and they refused to consider other strategies fearing the loss of their privileges.
Zakaria like thousands of Fatah members and fighters was caught up in this ongoing dilemma. He wanted to carry on with the struggle as if PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s leadership was ready to risk it all for the sake of Palestine while remaining committed to the Fatah movement in the hope that perhaps someday it would reclaim the mantle of Palestinian resistance.
The trajectory of Zakaria Zubeidi’s life has been a testament to this confusion. He was not only imprisoned by the Israelis but also by the PA. Sometimes he spoke highly of Abbas only to later disown all of the treacherous Palestinian leadership. He surrendered his gun several times only to retrieve it with the same determination as before.
Although Zakaria is now back in prison his story and his war are unfinished. Scores of young fighters are now roaming the streets of the Jenin refugee camp vowing to carry on with the armed struggle. Zakaria Zubeidi is thus not just an individual but also a reflection of a whole generation of Palestinians in the West Bank who have to choose between a painful but real struggle for freedom and political compromises. The latter in Zakaria’s own words “have achieved nothing.”
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “These Chains Will Be Broken: Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC).
