A transcript of the online conversations between Rahum and Muna, obtained by NEWSWEEK, is testimony to the depth of hatred many Palestinians feel for Israelis after the killing of nearly 400 of their brethren. Muna, the 25-year-old seductress who appeared in court last week for the first time since her arrest in January, hardly fits the profile of a terrorist. She comes from a middle-class home in the West Bank, has a degree in psychology and worked as a journalist. But after covering funerals for dozens of Palestinians killed in clashes with Israelis, Muna wanted revenge. “Seeing mothers crying all the time gave her the idea,” said her mother, Samira. Her plan to lure an Israeli boy to Jerusalem and abduct him with the help of two friends would spread the pain: one more mother would suffer, this time on the Israeli side.
Muna grew up in a suburb of Ramallah in the West Bank and was active in Fatah, the PLO faction of Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat. But in cyberspace, she posed as Sali, an Israeli from Morocco. Beginning last October, she engaged several Israeli men in conversation, usually from a terminal at Al-Abed Internet cafe in Ramallah.
In many ways, Rahum was the perfect victim. At 16, he thought more about girls then about the fighting that raged in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, though he lived just north of Gaza in the town of Ashkelon. Rahum was an Internet aficionado and spent so many hours after school surfing the net that his father, Shalom Rahum, worried about him. “I walked into his room one day. He didn’t notice me. He was deep into a chat with a 31-year-old woman,” Shalom said. He cautioned his son against speaking to unsuitable women. But for Rahum, finding Sali seemed a stroke of luck; meeting her became a passion. By mid-January, the two had set their first rendezvous. The day before the meeting, according to one high-school friend, he told his classmates: “If I’m not in school tomorrow, be happy for me.”
That morning Rahum left home at 7, telling his parents he was heading to school. With his hair smartly gelled he boarded a bus to Jerusalem. There, at the station, he recognized Muna from the description in her message the night before: “I am 169 cm [tall],” she had written him, “black hair [in a] bob, hazel eyes.” The two boarded a taxi for an address in northern Jerusalem where Muna had left her Ford Escort, then made their way north, toward Ramallah, where the two Fatah men were waiting. Rahum, who had been to Jerusalem only once, probably didn’t realize that he and Muna had crossed into Palestinian territory. She had told him they would spend the day at her friend’s apartment. Instead, she stopped at a prearranged meeting point, where a Fatah friend, Hassan al-Qadi, pointed a Kalashnikov at Rahum’s head, according to the indictment. The rest of the story, related in Muna’s police confession, comes in chilling snapshots: Rahum’s refusing to leave the car, Qadi’s tugging at him, Rahum’s clinging to the steering wheel, Qadi’s pumping his body with bullets.
Rahum’s parents worried all evening, reported his absence to police, then heard on the news the next day that a young man’s body had been discovered in Ramallah. His sister, Louisa, went to Rahum’s computer, opened a chat file and spotted the conversations. Logging on to Rahum’s account, Louisa sent messages into a cybervoid: “Is anyone there?” she wrote. Sali had logged out permanently, but police traced the online handle. Muna, who is charged with voluntary manslaughter, says she intended only to abduct the boy in order to call attention to Palestinian suffering. (Israeli authorities are still searching for Qadi.) In court last week, she complained to her brothers, “I haven’t seen the sun in 60 days.” The retort from Rahum’s father: “Neither has our son.”
