Prisoner Mahmoud Issa was arrested in mid-1993, and was subjected to horrific torture and a trial that ended with him being punished with three life sentences and 49 years in prison (Shutterstock)
We misunderstand the prisoners' narratives if we consider them only a literary work. It is more than that, no doubt; It is a message from that person hidden behind the walls, conveying his testimony, dreams, political analyzes and prophecy for the future.
The author of the novel Today has been in prison for 35 years, 12 of which he spent in solitary confinement underground. Thus, he did not witness with his own eyes the post-Oslo Palestinian reality, but its echoes reached him, and he recorded in the novel - which we are stopping at today - his opinion at this juncture. What he took on the Palestinian cause years after the Oslo Accords, as he considered it “seven lean days,” and made the end of his work open to say; We are not at the end, so are we today, after October 7, closer to the end?!
Today we are talking about the Jerusalemite prisoner Mahmoud Issa, who has been languishing in his dark cell since 1993, and about his novel “The Story of Saber,” which he wrote years after his arrest.
In 1998, the occupation authorities discovered that he had managed to form a military group in Jerusalem, to which he was sending his orders from inside the prison, and that this group had killed a settler, so he was returned to isolation again.
But before we stop at Saber, about whom the story is told, we should stop at the first Saber, who wrote it and carried his muffled voice, his vision of life, and his hopes for the future. Prisoner Mahmoud Issa was once the focus of events and the subject of news broadcasts that young people did not hear. His activity marked a milestone in the establishment of the Hamas movement, which leads the struggle today. The operations he supervised led to this unprecedented step by Israel to deport about 415 Palestinian Islamic leaders. To Marj al-Zuhur in southern Lebanon, to live for several years without a home to protect them, free or old.
Mahmoud Issa was in pain from his first day. He was one of the first founders of the military wing of the Hamas movement, and his position, as a son and resident of Jerusalem, was sensitive and influential. At the beginning of the nineties of the last century, he established what he called “Unit 101” in the Al-Qassam Brigades, which took upon itself a specific goal, which was to liberate prisoners by capturing soldiers. Zionists.
In December 1992, Issa and his unit captured a Zionist soldier named Nissim Toledano, and stipulated for his release that Israel release Sheikh Ahmed Yassin from its prisons, but the occupation authorities refused, and the result was the killing of the captured soldier in what Israel considered the most dangerous capture operation in the history of the Zionist entity.
Following this operation, Israel - in its madness - launched a fierce campaign against the Hamas and Jihad movements, arrested thousands of Palestinians, and deported, as we mentioned, 415 of the mujahideen to Marj al-Zuhur in southern Lebanon.
Six months after that date, Mahmoud Issa was arrested in mid-1993. He was subjected to horrific torture and a trial that ended with him being punished with three life sentences and 49 years in prison. Because the occupation authority classified him as one of its most dangerous prisoners, it placed him in an underground solitary confinement cell, at intermittent intervals. A total of about 12 years, and it took about 5 years before he was allowed the first family visit, and in other periods of his imprisonment he shared a room with another “dangerous” prisoner, Sheikh Jamal Abu Al-Hija, who in 2002 led an epic battle to defend the “Jenin” camp against... The Israeli occupation, and neither man was allowed to see anyone else.
In fact, Mahmoud Issa was dangerous and influential even from inside his prison. When he came out of isolation, he dug a tunnel with his colleagues to escape from prison, but the occupation discovered him before carrying out the operation, so he was returned to solitary confinement and sentenced to an additional six years.
In 1998, the occupation authorities discovered that he had managed to form a military group in Jerusalem, to which he was sending his orders from inside the prison, and that this group had killed a settler, so he was sent back to isolation, and when this prisoner was cut off from the means of jihad by hand, he resorted to the pen, so he wrote Several books are a novel and a theorization of the Islamic resistance movement, the most important of which is his book: “Resistance between theory and practice.”
For all this, it was natural for the occupation authorities to refuse to include his release in the Shalit deal, but here is Hamas, with its insistence today that the “all for all” deal revives hope for his release along with other forgotten heroes.
Saber's story!
So what about Saber's story?
This novel does not fail its reader in searching for an interpretation of its symbols. Saber, the poor orphaned young man born on the day of the setback of 1967, is a symbol of the Palestinian people, and he is dutiful to his mother despite his poverty, in a symbol of loyalty to the land, the homeland, and the cause. As for the mother, “Palestine,” despite her love for him, she presents him to jihad and teaches him. That “martyrdom” will be a victory he achieves if he does not achieve victory on earth, and the martyr inherits the land of heaven.
The details that the story narrates are similar to the diaries of the Palestinian reality. Saber is expelled by the occupation from his home and land, and he becomes a refugee in a camp, where the doors of life and livelihood are closed to him, unless he does something to get rid of the usurping occupier. However, the events record the historical event that was new at that time. From the depths of despair and surrender to defeat, young Islamic groups emerged within the Palestinian territories, leading an uprising in 1987, in which Saber and many young people of his generation participated. When they arrested him, he defied the soldier and refused to obey the order to close his mouth. He even resisted the soldier, overpowering him and beating him when he tried to assault him.
While suffering the pain of the attack on him, Saber remembers the principles that his mother raised him with, and the courage and resistance that she instilled in him. He feels happy, as she taught him early on that he is the son of a martyr, and that he must follow in his father’s footsteps, and that the camp is not his home, as his home is there “under occupation” surrounded by him. Fig, olive, almond, pomegranate, and lemon trees.
With the outbreak of the Intifada, the activities of these young Islamic groups crystallize more and more. The Islamic Resistance Movement “Hamas” is founded, and Saber finds himself and his dreams in its activities. When the “Temple Mount Trustees” group is active in attempts to control and occupy Al-Aqsa Mosque, he finds himself there resisting, and mixed up. His blood was shed with the blood of a sheikh on the stairs of the mosque, a clear symbol of the continuation of the struggle.
"Saber" is arrested and tortured several times at the hands of the Israeli occupation, but his resolve does not waver. When the Palestinian Authority is established following the Oslo Accords signed in December 1993 (six months after the arrest of Mahmoud Issa), Saber discovers that tonight is like yesterday, and that he is still waiting. Visitors of dawn and tortured in prisons. He calls those seven years that he lived (until writing the novel) “the lean seven,” and he decides to give his back to this experience, continuing the path of resistance, which he sees as the only path leading to victory.
The novel ends with an open ending, as if the writer is saying, “The days are among us,” and “Everyone does their own thing.” The final scene also reveals that the young man and his companions are not distracted by a false sparkle from the authentic path.
In that scene, the writer says:
Saber and his companions returned to their den and continued their jihad.
Days passed, and events changed, and the “hoopoe” kept coming and going to them.
One day he came to them in a bundle giving good tidings:
Hamas won, victory approached, good news spread.
Then he quickly returned to his brow, bowed his head for a moment, then sighed, shook his head, and said:
Do you think "Westerners" will leave this group behind? No, my brother, you will find before Ibn Salul a thousand Abu Lahab, putting down thorns and cutting ties
It is truly a victory, but in order for it to be complete, it must be followed by a thousand victories, a thousand truths, and a thousand redemptions.
Only then do good tidings appear with their lights, adornment and splendor.
Then, Jerusalem will return to us, pure and purified, and Palestine, all of Palestine, will return to us. Then we will defeat the greedy, the enemies of God and man.