Khalil al Safadi (Hamza)
Hamza’s real name was Khalil Al Safadi. He was born near Jericho in the small village of Nuweima. His father, Salam, raised goats. His mother, Fatima, worked as a housemaid for a wealthy couple in Jericho. Salam’s older brother, Yusuf, moved to New York and became a Yankees fan. Khalil had three brothers and one sister. At one time or another, they all worked on the farm with their father. Two brothers went on to raise goats. One left home for Saudi Arabia and never returned. His sister married a man from Jerusalem and moved there.
Khalil was a kind, intelligent boy who wanted to become a teacher. He attended elementary and high school in Jericho, where he was taught English, then enrolled at the Arab Academic College of Education based in Haifa. It is one of the oldest and most established institutions for training Arab educators in the country. His wealthy uncle Yusuf paid for his tuition. He was on the path to earning his degree, but there was a problem. He was lazy. He dropped out of college after two years and got a job as an inside sales representative for an International Tech Firm. They did not require a completed degree. He was fired after six months for sleeping on the job. Next came employment as an Administrative Assistant for a non-profit, where his flawless English came in handy. He soon got bored with the repetitive days and left after a few months. He spent a short time in hospitality at a large hotel in Jerusalem but lost his job when he accidentally misplaced a wealthy couple's luggage.
His resume was beginning to catch up with him. He worked in a warehouse, sorting goods, packaging, and driving a forklift. After five months, he accidentally crashed the forklift into a very valuable crate of wine and walked off the job, sure he was going to be fired anyway. He applied for a Class C license to drive commercial trucks but couldn’t pass the exam.
From there, he returned home to work on the family farm but couldn’t stand the hours his father expected of him. He couldn’t stand his father either, but that’s another story. He drifted from odd job to odd job in and around Jericho, then Ramallah, followed by Hebron. Nothing seemed to fit. And then he met Omar Awad, which turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. Awad was a former pickpocket turned amateur businessman. His business involved swindling people out of money in various ways. He was very creative. Khalil first learned the art of pickpocketing, at which he proved especially good. Next, he became a shoplifter of cheap jewelry at open-air markets, then moved on to expensive jewelry at malls and small shops. He found that he liked the ease with which he excelled at these minor cons. Plus, it was profitable. He earned more in a week than he ever did in a month in his other jobs.
Unfortunately, Awad was arrested. Luckily, the trail of crime did not lead back to Khalil, so Khalil was left with little option but to go out on his own. Which he did and found immediate success. He worked primarily in Jerusalem because it offered him access to more affluent shops and people. He developed multiple grifts, some involving nothing more than selling fake luxury watches and purses. He progressed to fencing foreign cars. Mercedes became his specialty. After spending years on the brink of financial ruin, he was earning hundreds of thousands of dollars. He bought a home in the upscale neighborhood of Yemin Moshe, just west of the Old City walls. At the time he couldn’t actually afford to live there, but the need to prove himself to everyone was strong. He told his friends he was a dealer in rare coins, which he knew something about as he had stolen them for years.
Life was good for Khalil. He married, then quickly divorced. He married again, then divorced again. He was better at making money than maintaining relationships. His third wife threatened to kill him, then disappeared without a trace. Rumors abounded that she didn’t actually leave but was stuffed into a footlocker and dropped off in the Mediterranean. Hamza denied it, of course. The police investigated the matter thoroughly, and though they had their doubts, there was no tangible evidence.
With most people who live outside the law, Khalil faced a reckoning. He was arrested in a citywide police sting targeting the car theft ring. Khalil was sentenced to seven years in prison at the notorious Moscovia Detention Center in West Jerusalem. All his accumulated wealth was confiscated by the state, leaving Khalil penniless. But not all was lost. While serving his time, he made friends with another inmate: a Russian Jew named Mikhail Rabinovich. Translated, Rabinovich means Rabbi, which Khalil thought humorous because Rabinovich’s father was, in fact, a Rabbi. They became fast friends in that they knew some of the same people on the outside. Khalil served only four years before being released. Rabinovich exited the prison system around the same time. Once outside, Rabinovich went back to his former life: Leader of a gang of thugs who committed crimes from robbery to arson. He never committed murder, however. He had his standards.
That changed for Rabinovich one day when he received a phone call from someone he had met before he was forced to leave Russia. The man’s name was Wolfgang Muller. Mr. Wolf had a simple request: pick up a man named Michael Shaw at Rachel’s Crossing and deliver him to another man near Hebron. Oh, and be sure to tell the man your name is Hamza. The assignment was passed along to Khalil.
But what was Khalil to do? He did as he was told.