Zakaria Zubeidi - Early Life

Early Life

Zubeidi's father, Muhammad, had been an English teacher, but was prevented from teaching by the Israelis after he was convicted of Fatah membership in the late 1960s. He worked instead as a labourer in an Israeli iron foundry, did some private teaching on the side, and became a peace activist. The first Israeli Zubeidi had ever met was the soldier who came to take away his father for alleged membership of Fatah. His father died of cancer, leaving Zubeidi's mother Samira to raise their eight children alone.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, during the First Intifada, Israeli human rights activist Arna Mer-Khamis opened a children's theater in Jenin, "Arna's House", to encourage understanding between Israelis and Palestinians. Dozens of Israeli volunteers ran the events, and Samira, believing that peace was possible, offered the top floor of the family house for rehearsals. Zubeidi, then aged 12, his older brother Daoud, and four other boys around the same age formed the core of the troupe.

Zubeidi attended the UNRWA school in Jenin Refugee Camp, and by all accounts was a good student. In 1989, at age 13, he was shot in the leg as he threw stones at Israeli soldiers. He was hospitalised for six months and underwent four operations, but was left permanently affected, with one leg shorter than the other and a noticeable limp. At age 15, he was arrested for the first time (again for throwing stones) and jailed for six months. At that time he had become the representative of the other child prisoners to the governor. He dropped out of high school in his first year after being released. Soon after, he was arrested again for throwing Molotov cocktails and imprisoned for 4 and a half years. In prison, he learned Hebrew, and became politically active, joining Fatah.

On release after the 1993 Oslo Accords, he joined the Palestinian Authority's Palestinian Security Forces He became a sergeant, but left, disillusioned, after a year, complaining: "There were colleagues whom I had taught to read who were promoted to senior positions because of nepotism and corruption."

He went to work illegally in Israel, and for two years earned a good living as a contractor for home renovations in Tel Aviv and Haifa. He was eventually arrested in Afula and after being briefly imprisoned for working without a permit, deported back to Jenin. With his path to work in Israel blocked, Zubeidi turned to auto theft. In 1997, he was caught with a stolen car, and was given a fifteen-month sentence. He served the time, was released and returned to the camp. He became a truck driver in Jenin, transporting flour and olive oil, but in September 2000 lost his job when the West Bank was sealed off due to the Second Intifada.