Alnihayya

||M a r r y M e||

Everyone was focused on his words but the centre of my focus was still Zeyara. He was slouched comfortably in his chair, arms crossed, eyes gazing down at infinity while my eyes kept asking him, 'Why?'

"All of you, my trust worthy friends. Never mind our age difference." He chuckled lowly. "Khair the reason I called for a meeting today is because I want Alnihayya to attack first. I don't want to wait for them to find out about our hideout and take us by surprise. I want to launch a well planned attack on Israel--"

"But we cannot be the one to wage a war sir! We should rather try avoiding it." Maryam, the leader from Pakistan dejected.

"Sir I agree with Maryam! We don't kill, we defend." Aymur added and all the others acknowledged her with a nod except Zeyara.

"You girls, always so emotional." Baba shook his head. "Think with your brain, not your heart. Do you want them to massacre the Palestinians? Since Israel and USA rejected the evidence we provided, there has been an uproar around the world. All those protests have heated up. The Palestinians are rebelling even more than before. Many extremists have also realized that what they have been doing is wrong. They no longer want to be the puppets of the rich. What do you think the consequences are?"

Baba pressed a button on a tiny black remote in front of him on the table. The screen behind him lit up. He pressed it again and a complicated graphical table appeared on the screen with complex large numbers. "You see the increase in their army recruitment, ammunition budget and weapon purchases. What does that indicate?"

"They're preparing for a war." Miz'an gasped.

Baba nodded, "A nuclear war. Just imagine their army along with IS. The damage they can inflict is outrageous. I doubt any Palestinian will even survive. In the end the courts will dismiss it terming the bloodshed as a 'defense instinct.' Not only that, Alnihayya will be included as a world terrorist organisation. Which one would you prefer then? Attacking first or erasing Palestine completely along with being called a terrorist?"

There was complete silence in the room as the leaders glanced at each other distressed, contemplating baba's words and whispering in each other's ears.

"I'm in." Zeyara was the first one to say, gaining everyone's attention.

Baba smiled at him, before diverting his eyes to the others who were still deciding.

"If that means we save lives then count me in." Ali Ghedi from Somalia announced suddenly.

"Me too." Miz'an added.

"And me." Simayi Wang said.

Soon there was a wave of 'yes' and 'I'm in' in the room. Everyone had agreed to baba's plan. I was the only one who had not yet acknowledged them so they all stared at me expectantly.

All but Zeyara.
I gulped.

Ya hayyu Ya qayyum birehmatika astageeth.
(O living, O eternal in your mercy I seek refuge.)

"I-- I don't want people getting killed even if they are Israelis. Can I please know your plan? How many do you want to kill and how many do you want to save?"

Baba's lips twitched into a smile. "That's my girl. Humna can we please have the statistics and the initial briefing?"

"Yes sir." The robotic reply came from the screen before it began flickering with maps and different graphs.
"According to my calculations, if we wait for them to attack first then we will lose around a thousand men even if we win. The entire Palestinian population will be either killed, exiled or under continous threat. Alnihayya will be termed as a terrorist group, similar to AlQaeda. If we attack first however, we can save the civilians. We won't even have to kill the Israelis. Only their parliament will be dissolved and Palestine can get the occupied land back."