Once an Arafat Man: A Once Moment: "Deadly Surprise"

Periodically I will be publishing some excerpts from the book that will hopefully provide a little detail and information to the many people who have expressed interest in the content of how the "Once" story will be told. Please note that some excerpts may seem "intense" as I retell some very descriptive situations in my life. In context, these violent tellings only reinforce the saving grace of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thank you...

Deadly Surprise

The growling of the IDF engines grew louder. My heartbeat began to pound. I positioned myself for steady action as I peered through my scope. The enemy convoy reached the edge of the village. I picked out my closest target. I trained the weapon on his head … and ever so carefully squeezed the Simonov’s trigger.

At nearly the same moment, my comrades in the village began firing from their hiding places. The firefight exploded all at once. The noise was deafening. The Israeli infantry at that time had no flak jackets, so we were able to wound or kill them right away. All hell broke loose that morning in al-Karameh.

Of course, we began taking our own casualties, too. Every Fatah fighter knew this would happen. None of us counted on surviving this day, in fact. We were fully prepared to die. We might never see the moon again, but we would regain our honor. That was in fact the meaning of this village’s name, Karameh. It was the Arabic word for “honor” or “dignity.”

The street battle raged on at full force, while I kept picking off targets from the hillside. Minutes passed, perhaps even a full hour. There was no subtlety to our approach; we were going with every thrust we had to inflict mortal damage on the Jews. Then a massive bomb blast shook the entire valley. Our troops had blown up the Allenby Bridge, cutting off the escape route if the IDF tried to pull back. The Israelis were now trapped on our side of the Jordan—the east side—and would have to fight to the death. Only a miracle of Joshua-sized proportion would save them now.

A few minutes later, my commander shouted at me with alarm in his voice. “Do you hear that? Helicopter gunships are coming!” I had been too focused on my targets to notice. “Get off this hill!” he ordered. “If you stay here, they’ll blow you to bits from the air! Get down into the village with everybody else!”

I scrambled down the hill to join my comrades in the fight. There the conflict grew increasingly close-range. You hardly had room to use a weapon. It became a hand-to-hand brawl with fists, knives and even rocks. We put our karate and judo training to use immediately. The two sides were so intermingled that their helicopter gunners couldn’t sort us out. At this point, I was fighting on sheer instinct. There was no time to think or strategize. I simply kept bashing the nearest IDF soldier before he could bash me.

I could tell the enemy was bewildered at our bravery. They had expected us to act more like classic guerrilla fighters, feinting and withdrawing. Instead, here we were in a no-holds-barred fracas. Guys were screaming, blood was splashing, the wounded were moaning, and all of us were jumping over an increasing number of dead bodies to keep up the attack. I glanced down at several cuts on my arm but paid little attention. The kick of adrenalin was too strong to worry about it.

We Fatah fighters were in fact more agile than the IDF, since we carried less gear than they did and could therefore run faster. We also had our bayonets already fixed on our weapons and ready to use, while the Israelis were still fumbling to get theirs off their belts and attached. At times they literally ran into our knives.

Whenever they tried to regroup behind one of their tanks, a suicide bomber would leap down from a rooftop with a thunderous explosion of nails and other metal bits. Blood spattered and body parts flew through the air.

Once in a while throughout the afternoon, there would be a short lull in the fighting when the Israelis barricaded themselves in a house. We would quickly set up in the house across the street, where we would then open fire again. We stormed building after building.

This excerpt is from the forthcoming book "Once An Arafat Man" arriving on shelves September 15, 2008 published by Tyndale House.