Zakaria Zubeidi

Zakaria Muhammad 'Abdelrahman Zubeidi (Arabic: زكريا محمد عبد الرحمن الزبيدي‎‎; other spellings include Zakariyah Zbeidi, Zacharia and Zubaidi) (born 1976) is a former Palestinian militant leader, who recently ended his years on Israel's most-wanted list by handing over his guns to the Palestinian National Authority and accepting Israeli amnesty. On 28 December 2011, however, Israel rescinded Zubeidi's pardon. He had been the Jenin chief of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, and alleged to be a chief strategist of suicide bombers by the Israeli government. However, in mid-2007, he renounced militancy and committed himself to cultural resistance through theater. He is considered a "symbol of the Intifada". Zubeidi is currently married with two children—a son, Muhammad, and a daughter.

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.

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