Moussa never made the fateful journey, but others have-roughly 20 over the past two years. A talk with him provides a rare glimpse into the secretive world of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), whose bombing campaign bedevils talks between Israelis and Palestinians. In Gaza last week, suicide bombers from Hamas and Islamic Jihad killed seven Israelis and an American tourist, bringing new pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin to break off talks. Yasir Arafat threatened his toughest crackdown yet within the areas of Gaza under his control, and a military court sentenced two militants to 15 years and life in prison-one Of them for training Palestinians for suicide missions.
How does a person become a human bomb? Moussa was drawn in by charismatic activists in a mosque in Bureij refugee camp. Classes on politics and religion eventually gave way to lectures on martyrdom. “They have strong powers of persuasion,” he says. “You can’t say no.” After Moussa’s family moved from Bureij to Gaza City last year, the boy kept returning to the old mosque. His father grew suspicious, and in February took him to Arafat’s investigators. In long interrogations that included what he calls “light beatings,” Moussa confessed. The leaders of his Hamas cell were arrested, and the boy was released to his family.
Some of the training is ghoulish. “In each cemetery there are empty graves, ready for the dead,” a senior Palestinian intelligence officer told NEWSWEEK. “They put two or three people together in the grave and cover it, as if they were really dead. After two or three minutes they let them out. Then they determine who is the strongest among them, and later they put the chosen one in the grave by himself. They tell him to recite a special part of the Koran that explains how the angels come and ask what you’ve done in your life. Then they get him out. They leave him for two days and nights by himself He sees nobody, nothing; he’s totally alone, just reading the Koran. Then they study him and see if he’s ready. They tell him: ‘Now you are great, you are holy, you are ready to go to heaven’.”
Harnas leaders believe that suicide bombings against Israeli targets are sanctioned by God. “It’s the highest form of courage,” says Sayed Abu Musamah, editor in chief of the Hamas newspaper Al-Watan. “We love life, but life has no meaning if they want to make us slaves.” Officials of Arafat’s Palestinian Authority complain that Israel has stalled on further withdrawal from occupied lands and that foreign donors have failed to support the second-best strategy for blunting the militants’ message economic development. And now Israeli and American pressure has prompted Arafat to resort to military tribunals to confront the extremists, leaving human-rights campaigners aghast.
Moussa Ziyada is keeping his nose clean. Back in school, he gets good grades and loves to play soccer. He still prays regularly and goes to a mosque, although not the same one as before, and hopes to become a doctor someday. He’s “a little scared” that Hamas might attack him because he “left the path.” But his engaging smile seems to indicate that, until now, he’s weathered the pressure of militants, interrogators and the media. At least one of his dreams remains unchanged. “I’ll be happy when all of the Jews leave our land,” he says. But he no longer believes that blowing himself to bits is the best way to accomplish that.
