Attorney Mohammed Assaf would take his son and two nephews to school in Nablus every morning. Last week they encountered clashes by Joseph’s Tomb. When Assaf left his car; a soldier in a speeding jeep opened the door and shot him
At the entrance to the well-kept family compound, an SUV stands in the carport, wrapped in black like an installation by Christo. The new car might be covered as protection from the sun and dust, or as a sign of mourning. The vehicle under the black fabric is the gray Hyundai Tucson that belonged to attorney Mohammed Assaf. He drove to his death last week in that vehicle, which he was still paying off. It was the car in which, every morning, he took his young son to kindergarten and his two nephews to high school in Nablus. Then he would continue to the offices of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, a Palestinian Authority agency where he worked as a legal adviser.
Next to the covered car is Assaf’s home, an ornate, stylish stone structure, its facade painted blue. Fruit trees grow in the yard. Adjacent to the blue dwelling is the house of his elderly parents, who have lost their loved one, their only child who attended university, the pride of the family.
Assaf had been working hard on his master’s thesis at the law faculty of An-Najah National University, in Nablus, for some months. His topic was the rights of Palestinians who own land on the Israeli side of the separation barrier. One of his brothers shows us the chapter headings he had written in hand over several pages, a few days before a soldier opened the door of a speeding jeep on a Nablus street and shot Assaf to death.
This is a home in a state of shock. In their parents’ living room, Mohammed’s two bereaved brothers occasionally break into silent tears. The three little ones, newly orphaned, borne in the adults’ arms, don’t understand what happened to their father. The mourning parents, Maryam, 62, and Hasan, 70, and the new widow, Sara Knaan, 30, are closeted in their rooms and decline to meet guests.
All it takes is a split-second of rage, compounded perhaps by a sense of overlordship, a disregard for life and a craving for revenge felt by a hot-tempered soldier in an armored jeep at which youngsters threw stones that endangered no one – and a family is forever shattered. A photograph of their loved one, wearing the black cap and gown of a university graduate, from the diploma-awarding ceremony at An-Najah, hangs on the parents’ living room wall. There are other photos from the ceremony. One shows Rami Hamdallah, at the time the university’s president, and later the Palestinian prime minister, awarding Mohammed his degree 10 years ago. The life that then graced this village son was cut down in its prime last week.
Kafr Laqif is a special village. Verdant ficus and eucalyptus trees shade the streets and the handsome homes; it all seems green and tranquil. And the rare fact is that hardly anyone from this village has been killed: one person was killed in 1967, one in the first intifada and now the village jurist. Around 1,500 people live here, most of whom work in the many nearby settlements and a few in Israel. The village’s proximity to the separation fence also brings settlers and perhaps other Israelis here for shopping and car repairs. The settlement of Karnei Shomron (“horns of Samaria”) looms across the way, also Ma’aleh Shomron (“heights of Samaria”) and Ginot Shomron (“gardens of Samaria”). No fewer than three road signs in Hebrew and Arabic lead to the village from the main road – another rarity, as road signs to Palestinian villages are almost nonexistent in the West Bank.
Mohammed Assaf was 34. His brother Firas, 40, receives us grimly. The eldest brother, Fadi, 43, quickly joins us. The deceased left behind three children: five-year-old Hasan, Maryam who is two and a half, and year-old Amin. Every morning around 8 A.M., Mohammed set out for Nablus in his SUV, which is not yet a year old. On the way, he dropped off Hasan at the private, highly regarded Glimmers of Hope kindergarten. Then he went on to the vocational high school attended by his 17-year-old nephews: Yamen, who is Firas’ son, and Hasan, who is Fadi’s son. In the afternoon, he drove them back to the village. Last Wednesday, April 13, they set out as usual, but Mohammed didn’t make it home.
During the night, young Palestinians set the site of Joseph’s Tomb ablaze. The army arrived in the morning. Joseph’s Tomb is a few hundred meters from his nephews’ high school. When the army invades Nablus, young people take to the streets and pelt the troops with stones and Molotov cocktails. At about 9 A.M., the military convoy made its way out of the city. Around 10, armored vehicles led by an armored bulldozer careened through the streets on the way out of Nablus.
Shortly after 9, Fadi got a phone call from an acquaintance at the metalworks place where he works, in Ginot Shomron: Your brother was shot and wounded in Nablus. He immediately called his son, who was supposed to be with his uncle, but got no reply. His son was in fact dumbstruck at having seen his uncle shot to death before his eyes minutes earlier. A friend answered the phone instead and confirmed that Mohammed was dead. The other brother, Firas, who works in a textile plant in the Israeli-owned industrial zone of Barkan, received a call from his son, Hasan, who also witnessed Mohammed’s killing.
Yamen, a tall, strapping 12th grader studying automotive mechanics, stands in a corner of the room, holding his fatherless cousin Maryam, and recounts what happened. They were on the way to school when they suddenly encountered clashes between Palestinians and Israeli troops. Dozens of young people were throwing stones at the military convoy. They blocked the road with burnt tires and stones. Mohammed parked and the three got out of the car. They had already dropped off Hasan at his kindergarten. According to Yamen, his uncle started to film the confrontation with his phone; according to a different account, he joined in the stone throwing. In any event, only 5 to 7 minutes elapsed between the time Mohammed Assaf stepped out of the car and the instant in which he was shot and killed.
Attorney Assaf had attended dozens of demonstrations as part of his job, but this time he happened upon it, his family stresses. A former Palestinian minister, Walid Assad, who headed the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, paid his condolences while we were there. He also pointed out that his distant relative came across the event completely by chance, and not as part of his work for the PA.
Video footage shows one of the army jeeps hurtling by, amid a volley of stones. Suddently, as it speeds past, its door opens and the soldier sitting next to the driver opens fire. He fired three rounds, Yamen says. In any case, it’s certainly impossible to take aim when traveling at that speed.
Haaretz asked the IDF Spokesperson’s Office whether the use of live ammunition during high-speed travel, when there is no mortal danger, meets the criteria of the army’s rules of engagement. The office responded: “A Military Police investigation has been launched into the event. At its conclusion, the findings will be provided to the office of the military advocate general for review.”
One of the bullets struck Assaf in the heart. He collapsed onto the road, blood spurting from his mouth. His two nephews rushed to him, but there was nothing they could do. The bullet apparently exploded within his body and wreaked devastation. The soldiers continued on their way as though nothing had happened. They didn’t even slow down. A Palestinian ambulance was summoned to the scene. The paramedics tried to resuscitate Assaf, but he was declared dead on arrival at Rafadiya Hospital in the city.
Just then, Murad Shtewi, one of the leaders of Kafr Kadum’s relentless struggle against the army’s longtime blockage of the access road to the village, was traveling with his driver from Nablus to Ramallah. Shtewi is also the director general of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, where Assaf worked. Hearing the news, he asked the chauffeur to pull over. He couldn’t believe his ears. Never, he says, had he ever imagined that his excellent legal adviser would die so young.
“They stole his soul too early,” Shtewi says. Only after seeing the video of the attempts to revive Assaf did he grasp that he was truly dead. A report by an Israeli news site stirred outrage here: “Our forces have killed a person in Nablus. The terrorist was critically wounded in disturbances near Joseph’s Tomb and died of his wounds after being evacuated in critical condition.” Their Mohammed, an advocate of nonviolent struggle, was labeled a “terrorist.”
How are the parents? Fadi bursts into tears; Firas joins in. “They haven’t yet digested this tragedy. May God help them.” They broke the news gradually. Initially, they told them that Mohammed had suffered minor injuries, then that they were serious, until finally they told them the truth. Yamen, the nephew, relates that on the drive that morning, his uncle’s last journey, which lasted 45 minutes, they sat quietly in the car. They rode in silence.
