Lost on the way to the City of Jonah

HUSEIN MASHNI

There are some experiences you never share with anyone for fear that

your mother will find out. This is one of them.

Since Mom lives in another state and rarely gets to Southern

California, I’ll venture to share this experience, since it happened

about a month ago, and I’ve pretty much gotten over it.

It was a Sunday night. I had been in the West Bank that day to

visit my dad and relatives there. I came home to Gaza in time for the

night church service where I lead the choir. After church, I ate at

Broasted Chicken -- the closest thing to American food in Gaza -- and

started heading south toward my new home in Khan Younis. (Khan Younis

means City of Jonah, as it is believed by some that Jonah jumped on a

ship from its port when he ran from the call of God.) To get to Khan

Younis, I have to go through the Deir Al Balah -- Monastery of the

Palms -- refugee camp and the Abu Holie Israeli checkpoint, which

divides the Gaza Strip.

As usual, when I go to Deir Al Balah, I got lost, and as usual, I

stopped to asked some people for directions. This night, I asked two

young men on the side of the road. The one who spoke with me seemed

more intrigued by my accent than helping me find the way to Khan

Younis. He told me he wanted to get a friend across the street, who

also wanted to go to Khan Younis, to go with me. I said, “Fine.”

Two more young men came and stood by my van. There were four now.

The tallest one asked me where I was from. I told him in Arabic that

I was from Gaza but that I was going to Khan Younis. He reached out

and wrapped his right hand around my left wrist. The other young men

watched. I tried to answer their questions as best I could without

sounding nervous about the tight grip on my wrist.

It appeared that they didn’t believe my answers and that they were

suspicious of my presence in their camp. The one who held my wrist

asked to see my passport. I wasn’t sure how an American passport

would be received in these parts. Up in the north, Gaza City, I never

had any problems. But I wasn’t sure about how it would be received

here.

I told them that my passport was from outside, meaning another

country. With the hatred for America, the fury over the Abu Ghraib

prison pictures and the recent beheading of an American, I wasn’t

sure I wanted to let them know I was American.

As the questioning became harder and the grip tighter, I finally

just sped away in my car. The young men followed waving their arms in

the air and yelling. At the end of the street I hit a huge sand bank.

I knew if they wanted to catch me, this would be the place to do it.

So, I turned around and went back to the downtown area. When I

reached downtown, a car pulled up to my right and young men started

jumping out and running toward me.

“Close in on him,” they yelled. “Don’t let him out.”

When I was 100% sure that I was the “him” they were referring to,

I sped up as fast as I could through the narrow, unpaved road between

trucks, cars, donkey carts and pedestrians.

I sped as fast as I could to the Beach Road, which connects the

northern and southern Gaza Strip. I was driving more than 100 mph,

over the speed bumps, but the young men caught up to me. At one

point, they pulled up in front of me and stopped their car and

started getting out. I swerved around them. Thank God there was no

oncoming traffic.

Then I felt the bullets -- one, two, and I wasn’t sure how many

more -- hitting the van. I called a friend, who urged me to get back

to Gaza City quickly and go to his house. I was on my way.

When we neared the Israeli settlement of Netzarim, the young men

stopped chasing me. Any shooting near the heavily fortified

settlement would start an all-out firefight.

I sped back to Gaza City and met with friends from my church. They

prayed with me and comforted me. The next morning, I saw that the van

had been shot 14 times. Three times the bullets penetrated the metal,

the other bullets just chipped the van’s white paint.

With the help of some friends, we pieced together what happened.

The young men from whom I asked directions belonged to a powerful,

well-known political group that will remain unnamed. When I spoke

with broken Arabic, they were suspicious of me. When I sped away,

they were certain that I was -- are you ready? -- a stray Israeli

settler. Within minutes word had reached far and wide within the camp

that there was a stray Israeli settler in the camp. They later told

me that they felt they had a treasure in their hand. They wanted so

bad to either kill me or capture me.

All the bullet marks were by the gas tank. I’m not sure if they

were trying to blow up the van or just to get the gas to leak out to

where the van would stop and they could catch me and hold me hostage.

One bullet through the driver’s side window could have killed me, but

they seemed more interested in hitting the gas tank.

I went to the camp a few days later with some friends from my

church. We spoke with the young men who shot at me. I knew most of

them. They apologized and explained that it was just a potentially

fatal case of mistaken identity.

I’ve run through these scenes so many times in my mind trying to

understand whose fault it all was. Was I wrong to run off? Were they

wrong to suspect me? Who is to blame? There are so many questions

that will never be answered. There are so many “what-ifs.”

But there is one thing that became blaringly clear to me a few

days afterward. In spite of all the gun shots, bullets and fury that

was aimed at me, I was completely unhurt.

The van has some bullet holes in it. But whatever their intentions

were -- to blow up the van or whatever -- nothing happened.

There’s a popular church song that I always liked to sing: “Fear

not for I am with you. When you pass through the water I’ll be there

and through the ‘flame.’ You will not, no way, be drowned. You will

not, no way, be burned. For I am with you.”

I will never sing it the same way again.

* HUSEIN MASHNI is a former Daily Pilot education reporter who

became a Christian missionary in the Middle East. His articles appear

in Forum on occasion.