🔽🔴On 4/9/1997, the Qassam Brigades were set to carry out a triple operation that shook the streets of occupied Jerusalem at the hands of the men of Nablus, Abu Hanoud’s companions, and the students of Al-Sarkaji, who detonated three bags filled with Qassam explosives, killing 19 people and wounding dozens of others, turning Ben Yehuda Street into a cemetery.

Bashar Sawalha was a young man who loved his country, with a cheerful face and a soft heart. He memorized the Quran within a year, so he carried its verses in his chest and worked with them as a mujahid for years, pursuing collaborators and chasing soldiers with his bullets, until he was chosen and was one of the three martyrs, disguised as a woman.

Yousef Al-Shouli, the affectionate son at home, and the young man active in social and resistance work, excelled in his studies and was one of the knights of the Islamic Bloc at Birzeit University.

Khalil al-Sharif, the mastermind who supervised the details of the operation with Abu Hanoud, surprised him by insisting that he be the owner of the third bag. He drove the vehicle with Yousef and Bashar to the targeted street, and the three of them ascended together, but his identity remained unknown to the occupation for 26 days, after Khalil worked with his shrewdness to erase his fingerprints.

[Ak]