Cat And Mouse in the Casbah

The children sound the alarm. "Soldiers!" cries a 13-year-old girl, peeking out the window of the dank second-story apartment. As she hides a framed picture of a "martyred" relative, wrapped in the outlawed Palestinian flag, three young men dash out the back door and flee down the narrow alleyway. When the Israeli soldiers hurl a stone through the open window, two middle-aged women cower on the bed, rocking back and forth in terror. "God help us," pleads Umm Hamada, 45, desperately rubbing her hands together.

But the soldiers strike next door, ransacking the home of Rehab Abu Asab, 50. One of...

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