The Trials of Christian Believers under the Rule of the Palestinian Authority

On TV you've seen the results of the terrorists' bombs in the streets of Israel. What you don't hear about are the Muslims on the West Bank who are coming to faith in Jesus, against all odds and in the face of extreme opposition from their fellow Muslims.

On Saturday morning, at our weekly service at the Narkis Street Congregation, we heard the testimony of Mahmoud, one of a small number of Muslims who have in recent months come to faith in the Jewish Messiah, Yeshua or Jesus. Mahmoud is a Muslim from a small village in the northern part of Samaria.

In his early forties and the father of eight children, Mahmoud accepted Jesus as his Lord about two years ago. This resulted in warnings from Palestinian Authority police, and finally arrest. Mahmoud was asked to sign a document in which he renounced his Christian beliefs and to make a statement on PA television to that effect. He steadfastly refused to comply, and so began a horror story of unbelievable dimensions.

Mahmoud was severely beaten by the Palestinian police and security forces. Over and over he was asked by his jailors to give up his non-Muslim beliefs. However, he steadfastly refused.

He then was transferred to another prison where the interrogators and methods of torture were more "professional." Being moved from Jericho to Ramallah, and finally to a prison in Nablus, he was beaten across the back of the head until he was senseless, and whipped across the face with telephone cables whose ends had been peeled back to expose the numerous inner wires. The whippings around the eyes resulted in the loss of eighty percent of his vision in one eye. Finally, in exasperation, Mahmoud's inquisitors threw him, bleeding, into a totally dark cell in the basement of a prison. There he remained for seven months.

While Mahmoud was suffering for his faith, other Muslim disciples of Jesus were undergoing similar experiences in the Palestinian autonomy. When, in an attempt to stop the homicide bombings, the Israeli army invaded the West Bank in an operation known as Defensive Shield, most known West Bank believers of Muslim background already had been imprisoned by the Palestinian Authority.

Isolated in his prison cell, and in poor health, Mahmoud did not lose hope. He continued to cry out to God. He even began to pray that Israel would invade the West Bank. When Israeli troops entered Nablus, the prison's jailors fled. Mahmoud and two or three other prisoners managed to pry loosed some of the stone blocks in the wall of their cell. They climbed up and out of their dungeon through the small hole they had made. Running toward the Israeli troops with their hands in the air, they escaped from their nightmare.

God answered Mahmoud prayers of seven months. When I heard him tell the story, it sounded to me like something from the book of Acts. Mahmoud related that when he reached the Israeli solders and safety, he was so overwhelmed that he kissed one of the Israeli tanks.

Mahmoud and his fellow escapees quickly learned that the Israeli troops were about to shell the Palestinian headquarters that housed, in its basements, the prison where they had been kept. "No," Mahmoud and the other Palestinians shouted, "there are many other prisoners locked in their cells in the building." "That can't be," the Israelis replied, "the PA has informed us that there are no personnel in the building." After further questioning of the escapees, the Israeli troops entered the building and brought out all the prisoners.

The Palestinian Authority had deceived the Israeli army liaison officers, apparently anticipating that the Israelis would destroy the building, burying scores of Palestinians inmates. Later, when the many bodies were pulled from the rubble of the building, the PA would have displayed them to the world media and claim that the Israeli army had committed atrocities during its military operation in the West Bank.

by Josa Bivin, juni 2002.

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