Islam's Voice in Gaza

"The first generation had patience," says Sheik Ahmad Yasin, reclining on the floor of a chilly room in his house in the Gaza Strip as he talks about Palestinian frustrations under Israeli rule. "But this patience will not be repeated by the new generation," he adds, choosing his words with care lest he be arrested by the Israelis. Sheik Yasin, 51, is a spiritual leader of the Islamic fundamentalist movement in Gaza and thus a prime force behind the religious gale that has recently fanned the flames of unrest in the occupied territories.

Born in the Arab village of Al-Joura, Sheik Yasin has been paralyzed below the neck since age 15 as the result of an athletic accident. He resides with his wife and eleven children in a one-story house in Gaza City. Family members assist him in dressing and eating. Despite his handicap, he runs al-Mujama al- Islami, a community organization that builds mosques and sponsors cultural activities.

In 1984 Israeli authorities found an arms cache in the cellar of his mosque. Sheik Yasin and several dozen followers were charged with illegal possession of weapons and intent to destroy the state of Israel; though he was sentenced to 13 years in jail, he was freed ten months later in a mass exchange of Palestinian political prisoners for Israeli POWs in Lebanon.

Bundled in a faded blanket and offering his visitors oranges and tea, Sheik Yasin decries the nationalist ideology of the Palestine Liberation Organization and instead insists that Palestinian aspirations can be realized only by creating an Islamic state. "If God wants an Islamic solution, then God's wish will be implemented," declares the sheik. He professes to have abandoned violence, but he adds confidently, "Believing in God and in Islam means having the readiness to die."