THE FUTURE OF HAMAS AND THE LEGACY OF AN UNREPENTANT TERRORIST
A peek into the hate filled mind of one of the terrorists released by Israel in exchange for Gilad Shalit.
GAZA — No, he feels no remorse, says Abd al-Hadi Rafa Ghanim sitting on his family’s sofa in the Nusseirat refugee camp on the Gaza Strip. ‘I killed 17 enemy soldiers in a war. Why should I feel remorse?’
On July 6, 1989, after wresting the steering wheel from the driver of a bus on the Tel Aviv- Jerusalem line, Ghanim drove the vehicle into a ravine. He survived only by chance in what is considered the first attempted suicide attack in Israel.
Sixteen people were killed, some of them burned alive. Ghanim, a member of the Islamic Jihad terrorist group, was treated in an Israeli hospital and condemned to 16 life sentences, which works out to at least 1,200 years.
But now, after 21 years in prison, he’s free. Ghanim is one of the 1,027 prisoners exchanged for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, who was taken hostage by Hamas. He was one of the first 400 to be released, on Oct. 18, 2010.
Ghanim, now grey-haired, does not like to speak about his past. He remains impassive when one reads him the list of names of his victims. Kinneret Cohen, a 14-year-old girl, for example – was she an enemy soldier? ‘She would have been an enemy soldier within a few years, and would have murdered Palestinian children,’ Ghanim counters calmly. What about 73-year-old Jaacov Schapira? ‘He would have done military service at some point.’
For Ghanim, there’s no such thing as an Israeli civilian. He appears to view himself as a hero, and indeed was treated as such by countless Palestinians who came by to congratulate him after he was freed.
The mass murderer is, however, moved as he introduces his son, Thar, who was born shortly after the attack and – until his father’s release – only knew him from what he was told and the photographs in the living room.
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