A Boy and His Bomb

Copyright (C) 2004 Robert S. Rosson, MD. All Rights Reserved.

Israeli Soldiers Thwart a Boy’s Suicide Bomb Attempt.
-- Headline: New York Times; 3/25/2004

I leave the cluttered garage and walk down the narrow garbage–strewn alley.  I am wearing a red sweater and faded blue jeans.  My teachers have tightly wrapped a gray vest loaded with explosives, nails and ball-bearings around my chest under the sweater. The detonator cord runs down my right sleeve to the trigger button in my hand. My mission is to blow up a crowded bus in Jerusalem.  I was given money for my bus fare. “Is it also for my last meal?” I wonder.

I had left my small house in Nablus two hours before, trying to act as if I were going to school as usual.  My name is Hussam; I am sixteen years old.  I said goodbye to my parents and my three sisters.  My father used to work on construction jobs in Jerusalem, but is not allowed to go there since “the trouble” began three years ago. I am not a very good student and skip classes often.

My real education has been in the religious school I have attended since I was four.  I go there for two hours every day except Friday.  I have been taught to hate all Jews, especially Israelis.  My teachers say that Israel must be destroyed in order for Palestinians to reclaim their homeland.   

I was told that I could best help my people by becoming a suicide bomber.  I would become a martyr and would go to heaven where I would be given seventy-two virgins.  I do not quite know what that means but I guess it has something to do with sex.

I was also told that my family would receive a large sum of money if my mission were successful.  This troubles me since I have seen the homes of other suicide bombers destroyed and their occupants killed by Israeli gunships.

As I approach the Israeli checkpoint, I begin to sweat and my heart beats furiously.  Images come to my mind of burned out buses, blood and body parts scattered everywhere, children and adults screaming in fear and pain, and the insistent ringing of unanswered cell phones. But of course they are just Jews.  Then I realize that some of the blood and body parts will be mine.  “What am I doing?” I ask myself, “How can I go through with this?”

Suddenly four Israeli soldiers appear, guns pointed at me.  “Stop where you are and raise your hands above your head!” one shouts at me in Arabic.  They retreat behind a concrete barrier, guns still aimed at my head.

“Don’t shoot me!” I scream, “I won’t set off the bomb.” They tell me to take off the sweater slowly and carefully.  I do so, revealing the gray vest. A small robot approaches with a scissors.  I cut off the cumbersome vest with some difficulty and let it fall to the ground.  On command I strip to my undershorts.

The soldiers take me to the barrier and cover me with an oversized army shirt.  They detonate the bomb under a concrete canister.

“Thank God!” I cry, “I am saved. I don’t want to die!  I just want to go home.  They shouldn’t send young boys to kill innocent people!”

“You damned FOOL!” the Israeli soldier snarls, “They shouldn’t send ANYONE to kill innocent people!”

Published originally in YJHM April 11, 2004