Resistance: My Life for Lebanon

In 1988, at the age of twenty, Souha Bechara attempted to assassinate General Lahad, chief of militia in charge of Israeli-occupied Southern Lebanon. Immediately apprehended, interrogated, and tortured for weeks, she was sent to Khiam, a prison and death camp regularly condemned by humanitarian organisations. After an intense Lebanese, European, and even Israeli campaign in her favour, she was finally released in 1998, after ten years of imprisonment. As the world continues to be rocked by violent conflicts in the Middle East, the story of a secular leftist rebel risking her life to rid her country of occupying forces will resonate with those looking to understand why young Palestinian girls blow themselves up in crowded Jerusalem markets. Rather than a dry political tome, this book offers a personal, humanised insight into today’s most complex and misunderstood social problem. With a closing chapter that clarifies, in the most personal terms, why the conflict in Israel and Palestine continues unabated, this is a memoir of resistance and oppression that will move and provoke readers across the political spectrum.