If special forces came in Palestinian cars to pick me up, they risked being stopped by feda’iyeen and exposed by their accents. If security agents in IDF uniforms pretended to kidnap me, somebody might spot me jumping into the jeep. And even if it worked, how many times could we get away with that ruse?
Finally the Shin Bet came up with a more creative way for us to meet.
Ofer Military Base, a couple of miles south of Ramallah, was one of Israel’s highest-security facilities. The place was crammed with secrets and wrapped in security. The Shin Bet local offices were there.
“Okay,” Loai told me. “From now on, we’re going to meet at Ofer. All you have to do is break in.”
We both laughed. And then I realized he was serious.
“If you’re caught,” he explained, “it will look to everyone like you were trying to infiltrate a major military installation to plan an attack.”
“If I’m caught?”
The plan was troubling. And late one night when the time came to put it into action, I felt like an actor on opening night—about to step onto a set he had never seen before, dressed in a costume he had never worn before, with no script and no rehearsal.
I didn’t know that the Shin Bet had positioned their own agents in the two guard towers flanking the spot in the outer perimeter that I was supposed to breach. Nor did I know that more armed security agents equipped with night-vision gear were stationed along my route to protect me in the unlikely event that somebody might be following.
I just kept thinking, What if I make a mistake?
I parked my car out of sight. Loai had instructed me to wear dark clothes, not to carry a flashlight, and to bring a pair of bolt cutters. I took a deep breath.
Heading into the hills, I could see the twinkle of the base lights in the distance. For a while, a pack of stray dogs barked at my heels as I followed the rise and fall of the rugged terrain. That was okay, as long as they didn’t draw any unwelcome attention.
Finally I came to the outer fence and called Loai.
“From the corner, count seven stanchions,” he said. “Then wait for my sign and start cutting.”
I cut through what had become the old fence after a new one had been built about twenty feet inside at the start of the Second Intifada.
I had been warned about the guard pigs (yes, I said guard pigs), but I didn’t encounter them, so it didn’t matter. The area between the outer and inner perimeters formed a run that, at any other military base in the world, would be patrolled by German shepherds or other highly trained attack dogs. Ironically, the kosher-conscious Israelis used pigs. It’s true.
It was thought that the presence of pigs and the threat of possible contact with them would serve as a psychological deterrent to any prospective terrorist who was a devout Muslim. Islam forbids contact with pigs as vehemently as does Orthodox Judaism. Perhaps even more so.
I never saw pigs guarding a settlement, but Loai told me later that they did sentry duty at Ofer Military Base.
I found a small door in the inner fence that had been left unlocked. I went through, and there I was, with guard towers rising up on either side like the devil’s horns, inside one of the most secure military installations in Israel.
“Keep your head down,” Loai said into my ear, “and wait for a sign.”
There were bushes all around me. After a few moments, several of them started moving. Turns out, some of them were actually the agents who were usually present in our meetings, but now they were carrying heavy machine guns and wearing IDF camouflage uniforms with branches sticking out all over. I could tell they were having fun playing commando—just one more dress-up role in a repertoire that ranged from terrorists and feda’iyeen to old men and the occasional woman.
“How are you doing?” they asked me, as if we had just sat down together in a coffeehouse. “Is everything okay?”
“Everything is okay.”
“Have you got anything?”
Sometimes I brought them recording devices or other evidence or intelligence, but I was empty-handed this time.
It started to rain, and we ran up and over a hill to an area where two jeeps waited. Three of the men jumped into the first jeep, and I jumped in the back. The others stayed with the second jeep to secure my return. I felt sorry for the guys we left behind because it was raining pretty hard. But they still seemed to be enjoying themselves.
After meeting with Loai, his boss, and the guards for a few hours, I left the same way I had come—pleased with myself, even though the trek back was long, wet, and cold.
This became our standard way of meeting. It was perfectly choreographed and executed flawlessly every time. I didn’t have to cut the fence again, but I always carried the cutters, just in case.
After my “escape” from the highly visible IDF raid, I continued to keep tabs on my father to make sure he was okay and see if there was anything he needed. Every once in a while, I stopped by the USAID office, but since we had suspended most of our work, what little I needed to do I was able to finish from my computer at home. At night, I hung out with wanted people and gathered intelligence. And late at night, once or twice a month, I infiltrated a top secret military installation to attend a meeting.
In my spare time, I continued to hang out with my Christian friends to talk about the love of Jesus. Actually, it was a lot more than talk. Even though I was still just a follower of the Teacher, I felt as if I was experiencing God’s love and protection every day, and it seemed to be extending to the members of my family as well.
One afternoon, special forces troops were searching the City Inn for fugitives and came up empty, so they decided to take a break at a nearby house. This was common practice. The IDF didn’t need orders or authorization. When things were relatively quiet, their special forces soldiers simply commandeered somebody’s house in order to grab a few hours of rest and maybe get something to eat. Sometimes during heavy fighting, they even broke into local homes and used the occupants as human shields—much like the feda’iyeen often did.
On this particular day, they chose the house in which my father was hiding. The Shin Bet didn’t know this was happening. None of us did. The fact that soldiers picked that particular house on that particular day was something no one could have predicted or prevented. And when they arrived, my father “happened” to be in the basement.
“Could you please not bring the dogs in here?” the woman who lived there asked the soldiers. “I have little children.”
Her husband was terrified that the troops would find Hassan Yousef and arrest them for harboring a fugitive. So he tried to act normal and unafraid. He told his seven-year-old daughter to go and shake hands with the commander. The commander was charmed by the little girl and figured she and her parents were just a regular family who had nothing to do with terrorists. He asked the woman politely if his men could rest for a little while upstairs, and she said that would be fine. About twenty-five Israeli soldiers stayed in that house for more than eight hours, unaware that my father was literally right beneath them.
I could not explain away the sense of supernatural protection and intervention. It was real to me. When Ahmad al-Faransi (who had once asked me for explosives to give to his suicide bombers) called me from the middle of Ramallah and asked if I could pick him up and drive him home, I told him I was in the area and would be there in a few minutes. When I arrived, he climbed into the car, and we started driving.