This is the man who knows Yahya Sinwar best in the world, even more than his wife," declared the head, placing his hand on his shoulder. Ronen felt himself blushing. They sat in the large discussion room, surrounded by the commanders of all the intelligence agencies during the periodic assessment meeting. The head asked Ronen to join the section dealing with the Gaza Strip and give a brief overview. Ronen got up and started the presentation. The first slide was a picture of Sinwar, with his slender face and gray hair and a hard look. His voice trembled a little with excitement in the first few sentences, but he immediately came to his senses. The presentation flowed well, he spoke confidently and demonstrated great knowledge. At the end, the head said to him, "Thank you, great presentation," and the other participants shook their heads and shook in agreement.
In the evening, when he returned home, he told Tali about the praise he had received. "That sounds great," she said. They sat down to eat a late dinner of leftovers and he poured them wine. He was interested in how her day went, and Tali said she had had difficult patients and felt drained. She was practicing clinical psychology at a mental health clinic and he looked at her fondly, wanting to make sure she was okay.
They had been living together for almost a year and he was thinking about getting married. "What did you tell them?" asked Tali. Because of secrecy, he couldn't tell her details, only answer in general. "That he's not planning a war anytime soon," he replied. Tali poured her some more wine and looked thoughtful. "How are you sure?" she asked. He looked at her surprised. "Because I know everything about him," he said, "there's nothing I don't know."
Ronen did not tell her that he knew when Sinwar was eating and when he was going to the bathroom and what medication he was taking; and what he says to his wife when they are alone in bed; what he does every moment of the day; With whom he meets and what they say in meetings and what instructions he gives.
Tali rolled spaghetti on her fork and thoughtfully asked, "How do you know what he has in his soul, what he holds in his heart?" Ronen got up from the table and cleared his plate to the sink. "Why did you get up, I haven't finished eating yet," she was offended. Ronen said he was tired and wanted to bathe and watch some football on TV before falling asleep. He was angry at her for doubting him, but he knew she had also had a hard day, and didn't want to get into an unnecessary fight now. In the shower, he continued to ponder what she had said to him, conjuring up Sinwar's image, imagining that he could hear his voice under the flood of water. She doesn't understand it, he said in his heart, she doesn't know how close I am to you.
Indeed, on the desk at work and on his secure computer were concentrated the finest intelligence materials imaginable about Sinwar. Very, very close. From human and electronic sources and those that are forbidden to talk about. Almost all the time a new crop arrived, and he read and watched and examined every piece of information with seven eyes and cross-referenced them. Sinwar's project manager has been for more than two years, and he has also learned everything in his file before him: about his childhood in the Khan Yunis refugee camp, the beginning of his activity in Hamas, and how he murdered suspected collaborators with his own hands in Gaza. When he took office, Ronen met with the service personnel who interrogated Sinwar at the time and with the guards who knew him during the 22 years he spent in prison, until he was released in the Shalit deal. A cruel man, he was told, was a murderer, other prisoners feared him. But also practical, it was possible to talk and summarize things with him. A serious man. They said he learned good Hebrew in prison. There are many other intelligence researchers who specialized in Hamas, but Ronen felt that he was personally closest to Sinwar. He became an undercover partner in his life and spent many hours a day with him more than with anyone else.
"What does he want?" they often asked Ronen in professional meetings, and he pondered for a moment and said, "Destroy us, but he knows it can't be done immediately. He understands that we are too strong. That's the long-term plan, and he knows it probably won't happen in his lifetime. They are getting stronger and want to make our lives as miserable as possible. But he also has two million people in Gaza for whom he has to take care of bread. He's just a level-headed person. I don't see him doing crazy things." Several times since taking office, Sinwar has been a candidate for immediate assassination and has been targeted. When they canceled the operation at the last minute, Ronen felt disappointed but also a hint of joy that he would not part with him.
In the middle of the summer, Hamas carried out an exercise to occupy an Israeli post and broadcast footage of it on their television. "What do you say?" the head asked, to which Ronen replied that Sinwar continued to talk moderately to his people and reassured them. "What's most important to him," Ronen explained, "is that the dollars continue to come from Qatar so that people's salaries can be paid." The head scratched his head and said, "Keep watching, I have a bad feeling."
In the weeks that followed, he did not leave his desk except for a few hours at night, when he asked the duty takers to wake him up if Yihya woke up. "Even when he goes to the bathroom?" they asked him, and Ronen said yes, they should call him and he would decide whether to come. Tali wanted them to go on vacation, and he rejected her again and again, because he didn't want to move away. He was 29 years old and had been in this system for 11 years, and for a moment his curiosity and sense of duty did not wane. Yahya was his man, and he couldn't leave him.
"How are you sure?" Ronen woke up in the middle of the night from a nightmare and the question echoed loudly in his mind. Tali slept peacefully beside him, her long hair scattered on the pillow. His shirt was wet with sweat. He put on his glasses and got up and went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. He knew he couldn't fall asleep and sat in the living room and turned on an Al Jazeera TV that showed a distant war in Sudan. Then he went to the balcony and looked at the silent street. A big moon stood in the sky and he remembered the dream from which he woke up: Yahya stood close to him and asked him nicely for the keys to Gaza. "I can't let you," he told him, and Yahya demanded them firmly. When he refused again, Yahya pulled them out of his hand with great force, his face terrifying with their hatred. So wake up. "What happened?" Tali murmured to him when he went back to bed, and he said, "Nothing, everything is fine. Just a bad dream." Early in the morning he rode his bike to the office, ten minutes from home. Yahya also got up and prayed. Then he had breakfast and drank tea. His guards came to take him to the bureau, where he began a series of meetings on electricity and sewage. Everything is fine, Ronen breathed a sigh of relief, everything is fine.
In preparation for Yom Kippur, they held a seminar marking the 50th anniversary of the war. They talked about the great intelligence failure and heard memories from one of the veterans who spoke about the complacency and smugness that existed at the time. A historian lectured them about a book he wrote about the Egyptian agent Ashraf Marwan and the controversy over whether he was a double agent. Between lectures there was a short break and light refreshments of burekas and sliced vegetables and juice. It is impossible to understand, they said around the table, how they fell into the trap and missed all the warning signs. Then one of the desk heads gave a presentation about the deception committed by the enemy in the pre-war period. "It's unbelievable that we ate it," they said to each other, bursting into bitter laughter.
Immediately before Sukkot, the head called him to the bureau. While he waited outside the door, he looked at the newspaper lying next to the secretary. In the main headline they wrote about prayers in Dizengoff Square and quarrels over a partition. "You can come in," the secretary told him. The head of the division was absorbed in the large monitor on his desk and smiled. Ronen stayed standing until he finished. "Come sit down, sit down, someone sent me something funny," the head said, his face serious, "Listen, I need your advice. The chief of staff asked if in my opinion it was possible to transfer most of the Gaza division to the West Bank. There are hot warnings and chaos there that are being made by those from the hills and they need reinforcements. I'm undecided about that. Does your man have any plans for the holiday? Is he plotting something?" Ronen was about to reply, but suddenly hesitated at him. "Give me a few minutes," he asked the head, "I want to check something." The head said, "Okay, but hurry up, we're waiting for an answer from me. Everyone else has already told me that as far as they're concerned, it's okay."
Ronen hurried to his office and entered the computer. He reread the material that had arrived in recent days and also new material that came in this morning. Sinwar spoke about civilian matters and said several times that he didn't want a flare-up now. It's perfectly clear, Ronen told himself, there's no room for hesitation. Still, something about it seemed strange to him.
He put on his headphones and Sinwar spoke into his ears. He recites, he thought, it doesn't sound natural. That's what he wants us to think. He leaned back and felt his heart beat rapidly. What will I say to the head. He left the office and took the elevator to the office. The secretary said the head was busy meeting a lot of people. Ronen said he had to go in, who promised him an answer, but the secretary said there was no way to disturb him now, and immediately afterwards he went to the chief of staff for a discussion. "Write to him," she said. Ronen stood in front of the door and thought about whether to go inside anyway and interrupt or give up. What can I tell him, he thought, that Sinwar doesn't sound natural? After all, we draw from the most reliable sources in the world. Irritability overtook him, a kind of anxiety. You can't fall apart like that, scolded himself. Stay rational. An intelligence assessment cannot rely on gut feelings and dull heart feelings.
He returned to the office and wrote to the head in the internal mail, "In my opinion, there is no concern of unusual events during the next week. All sources show that he doesn't want war now," he said. He left the office around 7pm because he felt unfocused. At dinner he drank more wine than usual. "What do you have?" asked Tali, and he said, "I hope I didn't make a mistake." She wanted to understand more, but Ronen said he couldn't share it with her. He drank another glass of wine and lay down in bed early. As he fell into twilight, he saw Sinwar's face in front of him. You're not working on me, are you? He murmured almost pleadingly.
Despite his misgivings, the holiday flowed peacefully. On the eve of the holiday, they went to Tali's parents on the kibbutz. Her family received him very nicely, like one of their own. Her younger sister served as an operations NCO on the Gaza border and told funny stories about life at the base. After that, on Chol Hamoed, Ronen went to the office every morning as usual. Sinwar also came to work and took care of boring tasks related to transportation and agriculture. Everything seemed normal and natural, and Ronen thought, lucky I didn't make a fool of myself. He decided to propose marriage to Tali on Simchat Torah. That's it, it's time. He took a free morning to buy her a ring and made reservations at an expensive chef's restaurant. The night before the incident, he had trouble falling asleep because of his excitement. What if you disagree, or evade, how embarrassing it would be. At a quarter to seven in the morning, Tali shook him on the shoulder and woke him up.
He smiled at her and straightened up to hug her. "Look," she handed him her mobile phone, and he read about a large terrorist infiltration from the Gaza border and shooting in communities. "I hope my sister isn't there," she said, trying to reach her by phone. Immediately afterwards they called from the office who would arrive immediately. He raced on his bike and Sinwar's voice kept rolling through his head. It was theater, he suddenly realized, an impersonator spoke to me, an actor, not Sinwar at all, and his blood froze in terror.
(The story is a figment of the author's imagination and any connection between it and reality is purely coincidental)
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