To tell a wartime story of dying is nothing special. In war, people die. People are killed, purposefully or accidentally. There are long explanations and short ones. Bombs are used, rockets, booby traps, hand grenades. Bodies are perforated and torn to pieces, burned and maimed. People die in their sleep, in combat, with loaded weapons, with empty hands.
Why report on the death of a single human being, if innumerable others died on both sides? About guilt and innocence, this story from the latest war in Gaza does not say anything. Nevertheless, the death of a single person must be told, for only then it becomes comprehensible just how incomprehensible dying is, as incomprehensible as it is monstrous.
The Palestinian Muhammad Shurab is still searching for reasons for the death of his sons. Searching for an error. For something that could have given him a hint. But there was nothing. Why on earth did his sons have to die? And why during a ceasefire?
The 63 year-old is sitting on the roof terrace of his house in the city of Khan Younis with a glass of orange juice and telling of the16th of January 2009, on which he lost both his sons, even though rescuewas so close. He tells it slowly, the whole story, as if he could comprehend it better this way. He says, "I never had problems with Israelis. Never." Again and again he repeatsthis sentence. He holds it out before him like a protective shield, as if the peaceable history of his encounters with people from the other side should have warded off all that befellhim during the war in the Gaza Strip.
Only four hundred meters from the Israeli border his second home is situated, in the countryside, near the village of Al Foukhari, an idyll surrounded with grapefruit trees. Here is where Muhammad Shurab retreats from Sunday to Thursday, before he returns to the city, every Friday, always along the muddy dirt path which merges into the paved main street, past the little supermarket, until he arrives a few kilometers further down the road in Khan Younis, the quiet city in the Southern Gaza strip where he spends the weekend with his family. Muhammad and his brother Ibrahim share the house with their children and the frail grandmother, who is resting on the ground floor on a sofa.
"I never had problems there," says Muhammad, "not during the occupation of Gaza, and not afterwards." He smiles when he talks about the earlier visits of the Israeli soldiers. How they searched his home several times, which stood like a border stone on this fault linebetween Palestinians and Israelis, who however always left him alone.Muhammad saw this as an acknowledgement of his impartiality, perhaps as a seal of approval. Also because of this he is now searching for reasons:because he still believes that reasons are needed to kill someone. Because he does not want to believe what so many others believe: that the other side must be an enemy. Because he does not share the hatred that fuels the war in the Middle East. And because he wants to keep hatred out of his story of January 16.
Again and again, Muhammad Shurab goes over the order of events of this day, draws paths and streets on a sheet of paper, prints out satellite photos from Google Earth, protects his records with plastic sheet protectors.Everything has to be orderly. How else should he counter the disorder that destroyed his life that Friday, January 16?
At noon, towards 12 o'clock,he and his sons, 28-year-old Kassab and 18-year-old Ibrahim, had entered the red Land Rover and started from the countryside towards the city, as always, says Muhammad. Laboriously,he moves his wounded arm across the table and points at the dot on the map, at which the story began. The daily ceasefire was supposed to last from 10am to 2pm, as determined by the Israeli army, so that civilians could move about, for example to go shopping. Muhammad Shurab knew that there were Israeli army units nearby. He had seen tanks passing by. From the terrace of his country home he had a clear view. "I could see the bombardments," he says, and draws a semi circle on his site plan,"in Rafah…" he draws a dot in the South, for the border town, "in Gaza…" he draws another dot for Gaza City at the opposite end. "I could see everything."
Muhammad describes the war like someone who believed himself to be safe, on a remote outpost which could not be hit by violence. All these years, the Israelis had known about his home, and they had never found fault with anything. Why should he do anything differently than on all the other Fridays? Why not trust the Israelis? They had promised this ceasefire, and Muhammad Shurab was without fear.
He chose the time of departure thoughtfully. 12 o' clock was supposed to be the especially safe middle of the ceasefire. Normally, Mohammad says, he would drive this route on his own. It was a coincidence that on this day his two sons accompanied him. The TV set in his house in the countryside did not work. "Kassab wanted to repair it." Kassab, the elder brother, had a degree in architecture from Gaza University. Ibrahim, the younger, accompanied him. On Wednesday, January 14, the two had visited their father, adjusted the satellite dish and afterwards watched TV. When they entered the car on Friday to return to town, the father sat in the driver's seat, Kassab next to him and Ibrahim behind.
There is a witness for the moment the father left home with his sons: 39 year-old Amr Amira al Amour confirms the time. "I could see Muhammad's red jeep, as he was slowly driving along the path." Saying so, Amr stands on the roof of his house, which is situated between Muhammad Shurab's country home and the main street, and here he was also on January 16. Amr wears a sweat shirt with the Israel Airport Authority logo, a little washed out. It has been a long time since a person like Amr, a Bedouin from Gaza, was permitted to work in Israel. He says, "Mohammad's red jeep drove so slowly that even a donkey could have overtaken him."
The first shots were fired shortly after twelve o' clock. They hit the father.
Muhammad Shurab took the usual route; at the end of the cactus-lined road he turned onto the main street. "It was a clear day," he says, "it was sunny." This is important to him. He would not have driven if it had been misty. "In the village of Al Foukhary, there was no fighting. Everything was quiet." Muhammad Shurab drove slowly, the roundabout at Saleem Square was already only a few hundred meters away. In front of him, to the left, next to the road leading westward, he saw two Israeli tanks. "I stopped," he says, "and I waved." He waves now, just as if he had to submit proof of every detail. How many times has he acted out this scene again in his imagination? If this intersection destroyed the lives of his sons, should he not have noticed something? "Everything was ok," he says, the soldiers in the tank could see him, him and his two unarmed sons.
They could have warned him, stopped him, forced him to take the other turn, the way north. But the soldiers in the tank did not stir. Thus, Muhammad Shurab drove on, slowly, straight ahead, leaving the tanks behind him. He madeanother two hundred and fifty meters, approximately. Then hell broke loose. "Suddenly we were shot at, from this house at a distance of forty meters," he says, "they didn't warn us." One of the first bullets hit Muhammad Shurab in his left upper arm. "I screamed at the boys: down!" The gunfire was endless.Muhammad Shurab was no longer able to control the car. He crashed into a wall by the roadside.
The Land Rover is a silent witness. The car stands at Bilal al-Khady's garage in the city of Khan Younis.The mechanic shows the shrapnelhe has gathered from the perforatedcar with the license plate 3-3776-93; from the motor, the roof, the doors, the back seat. Twenty-two bullet holes in the windshield alone, most of them on the driver's side, at head level.
Muhammad Shurab loved his sons. When he talks about them, his eyes glisten.He arises and goes down the stairs to the ground floor, the diversion seems to do him good. He wants to show something, goes to the living room and produces Kassab's drawings from behind the door: plans of the young architect, drafts of houses and landscapes, utopias of a new Gaza strip, of a land without war. Muhammad Shurab shows a photo of his son Ibrahim, who had enrolled at the university only a few months before; he wanted to study economics, like his father.
"When we lay on the floor," he says, "they kept on shooting. Lower." They could not stay in the car. They had to get out. Slowly, making clear that there was no danger comingfrom them. "Kassab was the first to get out," says the father, "he opened the door and stood erect, entirely without fear. He was shot right away."
With his hand, Muhammad Shurab marks a diagonal line in front of his own upper body, in order to describe the seven bullets that penetrated his son's chest diagonally. "Kassab walked a few more steps. Then he was hit again and fell to the ground." The father is silent for a moment, then he adds: "he no longer moved."
Where was the mistake that could explain why his son was killed? Every question Muhammad Shurab has since been directing towards himself draws another one, because he finds no answer. Why was there shooting during the ceasefire? Why in broad daylight? Why on an open road in a tiny village? Why hadn't anyone seen that his son was unarmed? That he was standing erect, erect as only the son of a Palestinian who trusted Israeli soldiers could?
"Then Ibrahim also got out," says Muhammad Shurab, his other son also left the car, "the right rear door he left open. They shot at him." Ibrahim fell to the ground but still tried to calm Muhammad.Ibrahim said, "Don't worry, father, it's not so bad. They hit my leg, underneath the knee." This is what the father remembers. He sits bent over the table, adding only this one sentence: "Warm blood was running down my fingers across my arm; one of my sons was dead and the other wounded."
Captain Benjamin Rutland, a spokesman of the Israeli army, cannot comment on the story of Muhammad Shurab. "We are in the process of an extensive probe of the general performance of the Israel Defense Forces and some individual cases during the Gaza Offensive," Rutland explains. The question of why Muhammad Shurab was shot at, Rutland is not permitted to answer, as long as investigations are under way. Likewise, he leaves open the question as to why the ceasefire was not kept on that Friday, January 16, in the village of Al Foukhary. Perhaps there are explanations for the shots at the car of Muhammad Shurab, perhaps there are reasons for the death of Kassab Shurab, perhaps Captain Rutland knows them, but he is silent. From this, nothing can be concluded. No intention. No motive. No guilt.
For the perspective of the Israeli soldiers in the village of Al Foukhary, there is a single witness, a Palestinian who is bilingual. He does not live in the building from whence the shooting came, but next door to it. Somewhat awkwardly, he sits in his chair. He feels uncomfortable remembering January 16. It is with his own role that he is uncomfortable. He did not choose it. It scares him to know something that could be used against the Israeli army. To disclose something the Israelis could use against him scares him even more.
On Thursday, January 15, thus begins the neighbor's story, Israeli soldiers appeared at his home. They shot through the door of his house and wounded him in the arm. Indeed, a hole gapes in the right sleeve of his jacket. He was taken hostage for two days; he and nine other people had to stay in a room on the ground floor. The door remained open, says the neighbor; an Israeli soldier was sitting on a chair, with a gun in his lap, in order to watch over the hostages. The wound in his arm was tended to by the Israeli soldiers.
The neighbor says his Hebrew was good enough in order to strike up a conversation with the soldiers. Good enough in order to arrange who would be allowed to go the toilet or to the kitchen. There was nothing to eat, only to drink. His Hebrew, says the neighbor, was sufficient in order to understand the radio communications of the soldiers. The radio operator was standing outside, right in front of the open window. While he could not see him, he clearly heard the voices of different soldiers, who talked to the commander by radio. In the conversation that took place on Friday at noon, a voice said, "A car is coming. What shall we do?" Another voice answered: "Shoot!"
Is he certain? Yes. No warning? No warning. Afterwards, says the neighbor, the first voice answeredagain, "Done!" He did not suspectthat the word "Done!" referred to Muhammad Shurab.
Captain Rutland cannot comment on the events of January 16. Whatever exonerating explanations there may be, reasons for the shots at Muhammad Shurab and his sons, he cannot talk about it until the internal investigations of the army have been completed. Perhaps the soldiers acted upon orders, as the fearful neighbor relates. Perhaps not. Perhaps they were young soldiers who saw the car coming towards them. Perhaps they were inexperienced, and that is why they shot. Perhaps they were older soldiers. Perhaps they were experienced, and that is why they shot. Perhaps they were mistakes made out of tiredness or fear. Perhaps the Palestinian organization Hamas had violated the ceasefire elsewhere that day. Perhaps the soldiers had been attacked. Perhaps they had lost friends.
That would perhaps explain the first shot, the bullet that hit Muhammad's left arm. Perhaps it was another error to shoot Kassab, the son, who had left the car, standing. And perhaps this way it can be explained why the second son, Ibrahim, was hit in his leg.
At 1:30 the uncle called an ambulance – and was put off.
But the story has a second part. The father was still lying in the street with his wounded son Ibrahim, about forty meters away from the building with the soldiers. "They were human beings, the Israelis," says Muhammad Shurab, he always talks about "Israelis." Not once during all the meetings, in the conversations extending over hours, never does he use the word "Jews." the Israelis, he says, they were close, he could see them.
"Ibrahim begged for help," relates Muhammad Shurab, "but the soldiers shouted at him: stop whining, otherwise we'll shoot you." Ibrahim tried to call an ambulance on his cell phone, 1-0-1, but, remembers the father, a soldier screamed, "If you use your cell phone, we'll shoot you!" Half an hour perhaps they lay in the street, a few meters apart. Towards 1 o'clock, Ibrahim's cell phone suddenly rang. Even though it had been forbidden to him, the wounded boy accepted the call: his Uncle Ibrahim, Muhammad's brother, innocently inquired what time they would get home.
Now that he himself has become a witness to the events, Ibrahim, who has listened wordlessly to the memories of his brother Muhammad, relates his part of the story. It was approximately 1:30 on this January 16, when he began to try to save his brother Muhammad and the latter's son. He alerted the emergency hotline of the outpatient clinic in Khan Younis and the rescue service of the Red Crescent. Unable to bear staying at home, he set out for the parking lot, where the ambulances stood. He wanted to be there when the ambulance went on its way. He would not have to wait long, he thought; the Red Crescent is a partner organizationof the International Red Cross and thus has the best contacts in order to obtain a permit from the Israelis to evacuate the wounded.
Anne Sophie Bonefeld of the International Red Cross in Jerusalem cannot say anything about concrete cases. This is the official policy of her organization; Bonefeld is the media contact person. When did the Red Cross receive the emergency call to evacuate Muhammad and Ibrahim Shurab? She cannot say. Bonefeld explains the normal procedure during a war which hardly permitted normal procedures. She says, "Generally, we received calls due to rather diverse emergencies: families asked to be evacuated from certain areas and needed safe conduct.Or there were emergency calls in order to save wounded people." The Red Crescent called the International Red Cross and asked for protection, and the Red Cross contacted the Israeli authorities in order to obtain a permit. Bonefeld says, "All we could do then was to wait for the green light." How long could that take? "Sometimes hours. Sometimes days."
At 2pm the father began to pray. His son did not stop bleeding.
Muhammad Shurab, who lay on the street with his wounded son, had no clue of these complications. All he knew was that his son needed help. He called out in Hebrew, "Please, soldier, call an ambulance!" He stares into the void, he still tells the story questioningly, as if in repetition he could at some point find an explanation. Could it be true that these human beings did not see the suffering? For this is what they were after all, human beings, those soldiers who stood in front of the two-storey building by the iron gate. Towards 2 pm, Muhammad began to pray. His son had in the meantime crawled closer to him. He lay between his legs. "Father, please," Ibrahim said, "call for help." Again and again the boy repeated this sentence, remembers the father.
"The first voice then asked once more," says the witness in the neighboring house, "Shall we help?" The answer was "No, they should help themselves." How much time passed between the shots and this question? "Not much."
"For this offensive, a humanitarian coordination bureau was specially established," says Captain Rutland of the Israeli army. "Of course we generally always made an effort to grant the ambulances access to areas where somebody had to be rescued. But when there was fighting in these areas we could not authorize access."
Weren't soldiers also obliged to help the wounded, independently of the Red Cross? "Certainly. Our soldiers and paramedics have of course been trained in such a way that they will rescue and treat casualties. But if there are skirmishes, their foremost duty is to defend themselves." Whether there were skirmishes in the surroundings of the village of Al Foukhary on Friday, January 16, Captain Rutland is not authorized to say.
Nobody in the village knows about fighting on this day. Not Muhammad Shurab. Not Ibrahim, his brother. Not Amer Amira al Amour, the first witness. The East, the Khouza area, had been embattled, but in the village of Al Foukhary it remained calm. This cannot be independently verified. The International Red Cross cannot comment, either.
At 2:30, Ibrahim, the uncle of the wounded boy, still did not have a confirmation from the Red Cross that an ambulance would leave. An hour had passed since the first distress call. On his own, with a local ambulance driver, Ibrahim now tried to evacuate his brother and his nephew. They got as far as the roundabout, only a few hundred meters away from Muhammad and Ibrahim. The tanks were still there. Just one more turn, and the ambulance would have reached its goal. But because the driver did not get permission, he did not dare to approach the wounded men. In war, even an ambulance vehicle is no guarantee not to be shot at.
Anne Sophie Bonefeld from the International Red Cross says that fear is understandable in such cases."Many drivers of the Red Crescent have risked their lives." Again and again, rescue attempts had to be abandoned because suddenly, there was shooting. Without a permit from the Israeli authorities no paramedic could dare to help a person in need.
Nobody can tell why the permit was so long in coming. Every half hour, says Ibrahim, the uncle, he called the Red Crescent. Every half hour he was told it was in progress.
Towards 5pm the uncle was informed that there was no more hope for an ambulance. Still, no permission had been given, and the Red Crescent no longer expected that it would arrive now, after dark.
Ibrahim called his brother Muhammad and said that there was nothing more for him to do and that Muhammad was now on his own, alone with the Israeli soldiers."There were about four of them," Muhammad Shurab remembers, "they stood by the garden gate." His son was still responsive.When it got dark and cold, the father pulled the boy into the car, in order to warm him. He looked atthe soldiers in front of the house. What were they doing all this time?
From a hole in the wall on the first floor one can seethe little street well. The hole was knocked into the wall at the height of the floor from inside so that one can shoot at the street lying down. On the floor in front of the hole, cigarette butts are still lying in the sand, the remainders of cigarettes of the brands Kent und Next.
The owners of the house did not smoke. They had fled before January 16. Whether there was shooting from here, from the improvised firing hole, cannot be said with certainty. Up on the roof terrace, another hole was knocked into the wall, somewhat larger. In front of it lie green, sand-filled plastic sacks. All that can be said with certainty is that vision was unencumbered from here. That from here one could see whether or not the man with the bleeding son in his arms was armed.
Perhaps the soldiers were simply bored. Why else would they have vandalized the office with all the books in the first floor? Why else would they have cut off the ties in the wardrobe of the bedroom? The bisected ties are still hanging lined up in the wardrobe. And why else would they have left graffiti on the white wall next to the kitchen? "Kahane was right," is written there in Hebrew, in memory of Rabbi Meir Kahane, who dreamt of a Greater Israel and wanted to force every Arab to give up his land.
In the evening the father was on the phone with the BBC;afterwards his son died.
It was a little after 5pm on that Friday, January 16. Ibrahim, the uncle, was waiting with the drivers in the lounge of the hospital, when one of the paramedics had an idea. "He suggested to me," says the uncle, "to pass on Muhammad's cell phone number to the media, so that they could perhaps achieve something." From then on, Muhammad Shurab answered the phone whenever it rang. "I didn't care whether the Israeli soldiers were going to shoot me," he says. During these hours, Muhammad Shurab spoke with reporters from Al Jazeera, Al Arabia, BBC. He can no longer name them all, so many journalists got in touch with him. To every caller the father reported what had happened and where he was lying and that his son Ibrahim was still bleeding. Hour after hour passed, night creptinto the village, and strangers became ear witnesses of an inconceivable fate in a Palestinian Somewhere.
"It grew colder," says Muhammad Shurab, "I rubbed Ibrahim's back, in order to keep him warm." He demonstrates it to us once more, again and again the same hand movement. "I said, please, soldier, give us a blanket. At least a blanket. The night is so cold." Ibrahim, the son, grew quieter. Ibrahim no longer spoke much, asking only, "Were you content with me, father?" Again and again the father asked back, "Are you still conscious, son?"
Towards midnight, remembers the father, his son was lying so still that nothing was to be heard from him any more, not even the sound of breathing. "I felt his forehead," says Muhammad Shurab, "it was still warm. I felt his pulse. But it was gone."
For half a day, Muhammad Shurab had lain in the street with his son, then Ibrahim bled to death. Half a day, during which no one came to their aid. Perhaps there were reasons, good ones or bad ones, for firing at the car. Perhaps there were reasons, good ones or bad ones, for the shots at Kassab, for the shots at Ibrahim. It may have been intentional or an error. There was war in Gaza. And in war, people die. But any time after the shooting, Ibrahim Shurab could have been saved.
Some time that night, remembers Muhammad Shurab, the soldiers came out of the house and passed by him. Twice, says Muhammad, they passed him in march formation, as if he and his dead sons were parts of the scenery. "They had two paramedics," says Muhammad Shurab.
"I was desperate," he says, "when at some point, Tom called." The exact time he does not remember. "It was late."
32 year-old Tom Mehager from the organization Physicians for Human Rights remembers. It was 1am, when he heard, through the call of a woman friend in Gaza, about Muhammad Shurab. Tom Mehager immediately dialed the number he had received, and Muhammad Shurab answered, but at this point his son already wasn't alive anymore. "We talked the whole night," recollects Tom Mehager in his office in Tel Aviv. He could no longer help, only console."We talked and cried." Again and again he put down the receiver and then called Muhammad again. In the pauses between conversations, he tried to call the Israeli coordination bureau for rescue efforts. "My contact there was a guy named Barak. Again and again I explained to him that a wounded man was still lying there, Muhammad, who was cold and bleeding. And that they had to send an ambulance. Barak claimed there were problems with safe access." Tom Mehager shakes his head. "After all, during every phone call, I could hear the silence of the night around him."
The next day at noon an ambulance came and recovered the dead.
When Muhammad Shurab talks about this night, about the hours Ibrahim lay dead in his arms, he mainly talks about Tom, this young Israeli from Tel Aviv, the caring listener from the other side, the human being who has the same citizenship as the soldiers who killed his sons. And nothing about it seems strange to Muhammad Shurab. This humanity, this is what he expects from his neighbors. This is what he deems them capable of, Israelis and Palestinians alike. How would the day have evolved if Muhammad Shurab had not had this confidence? Or if the soldiers on the other side had had this very confidence? Would it all have ended differently?
Muhammad Shurab and Tom Mehager talked with each other until 7:30 in the morning. It was already light when they said goodbye. The battery in Muhammad Shurab's cell phone was empty. Another five hours passed until an ambulance arrived. It was Saturday, January 17, 2009, 12:30 midday, when Muhammad Shurab was taken to the European Hospital in Khan Younis with the dead bodies of his two sons. He had waited for help for an entire day.
The ambulance turned left at the roundabout. At the intersection, at which Muhammad Shurab had stood the day before in his red jeep, the driver took the northbound street. That is where the hospital was situated. The drive took four minutes.
Translation: Barbara Ann Schmutzler
Copyright: DIE ZEIT
