Israel Jihad in Tel Aviv

By Ariel Lilli Cohen

This is a journey to the outer fringes of the law, which started in 2014, before the war in Gaza. It’s the work of a group of friends, who became, in the space of a few months, one of Mossad’s best operative teams. 

"In Israel, no one really dies. In Israel no one really lives." 

Ariel Lilli Cohen was born on 6th December 1998 in Haifa (Israel) and is the third of three siblings. Her father Darius Cohen was a former Agent of Ha'Mossad and her mother Noha Avner is now a High Official on Shin Bet, the Israeli Security Agency. She was in the past a Lion Soldier of Magav, the Israeli Border Police in Jerusalem. They are a Jewish family. Ariel speaks fluently Hebrew, English, French, Arabic, Russian, Urdu and Italian. She also likes travelling and having fun like a girl of her age, but fighting against Islamic terrorism is her mission. Ariel becomes a soldier at the age of sixteen . After her sixteenth birthday, the Army enlists her thanks to her high EIQ (she scored 250). She has been since part of a special team called "Genius", with the task to solve problems in unconventional ways. Ariel is a "former" soldier of the Israeli Security Forces Special Unit (IDF).

She joined various "undercover" military actions, living many lives in one. To avoid going crazy and find herself again, she decided to write this book. To tell all her experiences, fears, hopes, loves, and untold truths, she chose the form of the novel. She started writing her story in 2014, before the last war in Gaza. This novel was published in Hebrew, English, Arabic, Russian, French and Italian. She cares about her Country and believes that Israeli people’s desire is to live in peace, but unfortunately they always have to defend themselves, not only from foreign enemies but from their own citizens, too.
 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ariel Lilli Cohen
• Release date: Dec 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9788827539439

Book preview

ISRAEL JIHAD

IN TEL AVIV

a novel by Ariel Lilli Cohen

Copyright © 2017 by Ariel Lilli Cohen

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

www.ariellillicohen.com

www.ariellillicohen.co.il

[e-mail]

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Printed in Israel –Tel Aviv 6332517 - December 2018

Israel Jihad in Tel Aviv

Edition ISBN: 9788827539439

Israel Jihad in Tel Aviv based on the Israeli series

Israel Jihad

a novel by Ariel Lilli Cohen

Second Edition

Index

Quote

Dedication

Preface

Prologue – Noora

Chapter 1 – Yael

Chapter 2 – Muhammad                 

Chapter 3 – Yossi Kadosh               

Chapter 4 – Yael – Avner                 

Chapter 5 – Taqwa             

Chapter 6 – Avner             

Chapter 7 – Happy birthday         

Chapter 8 – Resilience   

Chapter 9 – Sweet like salt             

Chapter 10 – My love       

Chapter 11 – Peace breaks out     

Chapter 12 – A rare pearl                 

Chapter 13 – Mainstream               

Chapter 14 – We are all americans

Chapter 15 – Thesetting sun

Chapter 16 – My first day                                   

Chapter 17 – Hadas – Aisha                             

Chapter 18 – Let’s play   

Chapter 19 – He who is without sin

Chapter 20 – Like a sheep amongst wolves               

Chapter 21 – Smell of freshness   

Chapter 22 – The end of the beginning     

Chapter 23 – Generation of phenomenon

Chapter 24 – The dawn of a new day

Chapter 25 – We are all european               

Chapter 26 – The good muslim                                                   

Chapter 27 –Nice to meet you, I am Monique       

Chapter 28 – I love you                     

Chapter 29 – The judas kiss           

Chapter 30 – The favourite son                                                   

Chapter 31 – The invisibles                             

Chapter 32 – The smell of sex       

Chapter 33 –Yael-Youssef                                                                             

Chapter 34 – Black gold 

Chapter 35 – Until There’s War There’s Hope

Chapter 36 – My friend is pakistani                                           

Chapter 37 – Two good girls                                                         

Chapter 38 – American embassy

Chapter 39 – Yamas                           

Chapter 40 – Immunodeficiency                 

Chapter 41 – Tel Aviv                         

Chapter 42 – Old friends                                   

Chapter 43 – Epilogue   

Ariel Lilli

Quote

In Israel, no one really dies.

In Israel no one really lives in.

Ariel Lilli Cohen

Dedication

This novel is dedicated to…

Hadar Cohen

(Or Yehuda 1997 – Jerusalem 2016)

Hadas Malka

(Ashdod 1994 – Jerusalem 2017)

Solomon Gavriyah

(Be’er Yaakov 1997 – Har Adar 2017)

Yael Yekutiel

(Givatavim 1997 – Jerusalem 2017)

Shir Hajaj

(Moshav Azaria 1995 – Jerusalem 2017)

Shira Tzur

(Haifa 1997 – Jerusalem 2017)

May our deceased and wounded heroes who sacrificed themselves to defend our freedom and security know the deepness of our gratitude.

Your sacrifice is to be remembered.

Ariel Lilli

Preface

"Jewish people have outlived through the centuries, Jewish people have suffered for all these centuries, but that made them stronger." Anne Frank

How I miss the bitter cold wind of Haifa in the first morning hours! How I miss Haifa!

To have a 164 IQ was a curse. My intelligence stole my youth. I could have done so many things: play volleyball, play piano, or be a model. Instead, here I am, on one of the most prestigious operational teams of the National Security Service.

Writing in black and white and expressing all my feelings wasn’t easy. I have lived many lives in one. To avoid going mad and find myself again, to tell all my experiences, fears, hopes, loves, and untold truths, I decided to write this book.

To live undercover for months, sometimes years, without a break, cutting off relationships with my real life, lying to my friends, family, and sometimes to myself, created a conflicting relationship with the identities I have in turn covered. This lifestyle changes the way you perceive real life.

One day, while I was playing pool in a club here in Montreal, a gentleman remarked how well I was playing for one so young. But age is not to be measured in years, but in mileage, and I have travelled many miles and am tired now. Tired of always having to play hard. Tired of lying. Tired of feeling frightened.

In a mission, you never know what might happen. Two months ago, Shani and I were almost killed. We were violently beaten up. With the taste of sweat and blood in my throat, I felt like my heart was beating out of my chest and, in my mind, I went through the reasons for joining the Israeli Secret Services. The terror I felt is still with me every time I note a stranger’s eyes resting on me. Why am I sacrificing my life? I recalled an episode of a few years ago when we were told that a Hamas terrorist cell had entered Israel and was about to target the Dizingoff Center with a bacteriologic attack. That time we managed to neutralise them just on time. A few hours later, I went back to the shopping mall to get an ice cream with my friends, Shani, Shlomit, Zoe, and Aviv. All those families and children would have died without our intervention. This is why I do this job, to defend my people and, ambitious as that may sound, to defend the world democracy.

Right now, as I allow my pen to put in writing my thoughts, I am sitting in a café in Richardson Street in Montreal, where I am due to meet a source. I hope everything will be fine this time. When will all this come to an end? So much work has been done and so much still to do! I remember Milan six months ago, San Diego, Buffalo, Tel Aviv, and Madrid three months ago, and last month in the record shop between Pitt Street and Circular Quay in Sydney.

I remember all the attacks I helped to neutralise with my team. I think of all those nameless and faceless stars, who only live in the indelible memory of those who met them, at the entrance of the agency headquarters in Tel Aviv. I think of all those agents who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty to also save your life.

Please make sure their deaths weren’t in vain. I wish for a world where my job would be unnecessary, a world without conflicts due to religious extremists.

As I write, my thoughts go to my colleagues in Jerusalem who are the last bastion of democracy, to the lions and lionesses of Magav, to Shira fighting every day, to Heli who left her operative service at the Damascus Gate after three long years. Thankful for the great privilege of protecting the people of Israel in the most sacred place of the world.

I think of Hadar and Hadas, who sacrificed their lives for Jerusalem and to Solomon who died in Har Adar. I think of his girlfriend, Betty, and his relatives. How many more people: mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, boyfriends, and girlfriends will have to be deprived of their dearest and left alone due to terrorist actions? I don’t feel like condemning just the perpetrator’s hands for these crimes.

My wrath, rage, and contempt are turned to those who arm those hands with their ideologies. Their speeches, bursting of hatred and resentment, fill like water in the desert.  The empty life of people brainwashed by an absurd extremist ideology. Now, they have blood on their hands. While they stay safe and warm in their houses, they send young men to die, after having raised them with blind hatred.

I feel I will end up, sooner or later, on that wall, a little star amongst many others. I will finally join my comrades, young guys in love with a life they could not live. At times, I really wish to be amongst them.

This job consumes your consciousness – you have to see and do things nobody would even dream of doing. Sooner or later I will also commit some imprudence, an error of judgment, a mistake that will costs me life – a life I feel is empty.

I hope this book will be enjoyable and good food for thought. I had to change a few names and camouflage some situations, which would otherwise threaten the State of Israel’s safety. My experiences have been translated in the form of a novel. I hope you’ll be able to read my message of hope and love between the lines.

This is a journey to the outer fringes of the law, which started in 2014, before the war in Gaza. It’s the work of a group of friends, who became, in the space of few months, one of Mossad’s best operative teams.

Ariel Lilli

Prologue – Noora

January 2014 - Hotel Kempinski, Geneva

Noora is sitting in the hotel bar. It may be due to the purple colour that seems to envelop everything around her, from the bar to the ceiling and chairs, or the light at dusk that gives the large lake in front of her an even more melancholy air, but Noora's mind seems lost in memories of what once was.

She feels something stirring in her stomach as she thinks of the wonderful years spent at Eton with people from all over the world and kids from the richest families, who were no better than she was, as she soon realised. Still, they were beautiful years. She even feels nostalgic about her teachers, most of whom she thought she hated at the time. And then her Master’s in Social Sciences at NYU. How she misses New York City! Especially the windy days when the air used to swirl in the avenues making it hard just to keep clothes on. She reminisces about the cold weather, that same cold making the air in Geneva so clear and the lake reflecting Quai de Mont Blanc’s thousands of lights. Almost everyone who was born in the Middle East hates that cold; they see it as wrong, unnatural. But Noora liked it: it made her want to be cuddled by someone who could warm her up.

How long has it been? Fifteen? Yes, it has been almost fifteen months since she left Qatar. This trip to Geneva is her first escape after staying for so long in a place that she doesn’t feel is home anymore. After all, that's what she should have expected when she agreed to become the third wife of the Emir of Qatar. Initially, she was flattered and excited about how many good things she could do with organisations such as UNICEF; to put what she studied into practice and help all those orphaned and disadvantaged children, but the day-to-day reality turned out to be much different – lots of worldly events, parties, dinners, but very little of a concrete nature. She became a UNICEF ambassador, but she knew quite well that it was theroyal family's immense wealth that made it possible and not her skills. The other two wives were much more comfortable in their role, but they were the Emir's cousins and belonged to the same family. She, on the other hand, was not. She was born in the UAE as the daughter of an ambassador and now she was a Sheika, so why did she want to run away so badly?

Noora's bout of nostalgia is interrupted when an elegant man reaches the bar; he doesn’t look very happy either but seems more disappointed than melancholy. He is very handsome and athletic, and there is a strange look in his eyes. Noora can’t keep staring at him and turns her eyes away, as her bodyguards are definitely watching her and who knows what they’ll report to the Emir? With a last peek at him, she notices a detail clashing somehow with the rest of his appearance. Instead of having a handkerchief in his jacket pocket, he has a badge with a name and a symbol that she doesn’t recognise.

A whiskey please, says the man sitting four seats down from Noora, who is no longer the barman's only customer. He stops lining up wine glasses and approaches the newcomer.

Any preference?

Glenlivet, if you have it.

The barman pours the man what he asked for, Here you go... Jamal, he says, pointing to the badge on his pocket.

Yeah, can you tell me how in the world a guy with two queens gets two chips, and then in the fifth hand the bank gives him the third queen?!

Noora is somewhat disoriented, trying to understand what they are talking about. Jamal's clear Middle Eastern accent piques her curiosity.

You should know, says the barman, poker is skill, but at least 60% of it is luck.

You're telling me, Jamal answers immediately, I do it for a living.

I've always wondered, can you really make a living playing poker tournaments?

That's what they're talking about, poker! And for some reason Noora feels a sense of past danger.

Of course, well, you have to be good but you can also make good money. The real problem is that you have to travel all the time.

Where are you from Jamal?

Noora is almost certain that Jamal's hesitation before answering the barman's question is due to the fact that he is looking at her and possibly sizing her up.

From Beirut, Lebanon, Jamal says, but he seems distracted, by her, Noora assumes.  Then he continues, I'll be leaving for Hong Kong tomorrow, and, if all goes well, I'll continue on to Tokyo, Honolulu and Vancouver.

Noora crosses her legs and lets her left Jimmy Choo drop off her heel and dangle from her toes. From the corner of her eye, she sees that her gesture catches Jamal's attention; she feels his eyes run up and down her body, and her heart begins to beat faster.

Wow, the barman's voice betrays a touch of envy, and where were you before coming to Geneva?

I was in New York City for two weeks for an important two million dollar tournament.

And did you win?

Without consciously deciding to, Noora fixes her gaze on Jamal for the first time and runs the tip of her tongue over her upper lip, as if her lipstick weren’t merely a colour but also a taste of ripe cherries. Then she stands up, picks up her clutch, and walks away. A figure in the shadow begins to move but is held back by someone else while Noora enters the bathroom in the hotel lobby.

Uh... I didn't make it to the finals, I only won two hundred thousand, Jamal answers, but it is as if a ghost is talking.

****

In the bathroom, Noora is sitting on the toilet, shaking. She is so hot she feels like someone is blowing hot air on her. Why had she done that? What was she thinking? What if the guards noticed? Now what can she do? She must calm down. And what if Jamal accepted her invitation and followed her? No, he can’t, she keeps repeating to herself, while her heartbeat shows no signs of slowing down. When she finally manages to slow her breath down, she gets up and opens the door, ready to recompose herself in front of the mirror. Jamal is there waiting for her. She begins to shake again, but then a part of herself she didn't even know existed takes over.

And how was New York? She hears herself saying with a hoarse voice that doesn’t seem like her own.

It was really windy, Jamal answers as he grabs her and pulls her to him. Noora loves the feeling of his hands on her back as she offers him her lips – a pleasure she realises she had not felt for way too long.

It is a long, deep kiss. Meanwhile, Jamal's hands lift up her light silk dress and begin to touch her, and she wants him to. Then, he breaks away from her to stare into her eyes, and Noora realises what struck her as strange about him: his eyes are different. One is a deep, dark green, and the other a streaky blue, like a cat eye. He turns her around and Noora knows what’s coming. She feels him bending down and taking off her underwear, then standing up and lifting up her dress. Noora rests her arms on the sink and opens her legs slightly, moaning as he enters her. Everything explodes in Noora's head; as soon as she recovers, he stops, bends forward and whispers in her ear, May I...,

She doesn’t even let him finish the sentence and replies, Do whatever you like.

****

The Emir gets back to the hotel a few minutes before midnight. He looks broody and tired. As soon as he enters his suite, he meets Faisal’s look, his personal adviser and friend – perhaps the only person he trusts completely.

My dear Faysal, it's all hopeless. I wonder why we ever bothered coming here. That stubborn Assad will never accept the Americans' demands, those dogs. I wouldn't either, then he stops because he realises Faysal is frowning – a face he only ever makes when something serious happens, and this time it must really be serious because instead of holding a large cigar in his hands as usual, he is holding a tablet.

Faysal, what's going on?

Your Highness, I have to show you something, but please sit down first.

The Emir sits down and Faysal gives him the iPad showing pictures of Noora's betrayal. The sovereign explodes in anger.

Dirty whore! I only married that bitch three months ago, he says, and look what she does the first time we leave Qatar! She gets fucked like a whore in the hotel toilet. I'll kill her with my own hands! He is about to get up, but Faysal's strong hand stops him.

There's something even worse, your Highness. The Emir looks up at Faysal in disbelief and dismay. The person, the dog, who committed this outrage is an Israeli agent. Everyone in the room expects another outburst, but the old Emir remains silent and, when he finally speaks, his voice is as cold as ice.

It's time. It's finally time. With Allah's help, not a single stone of the damned State of Israel will continue to exist. It's time to settle the score with history. Faysal, my friend, please summon up those from Hamas and call Khalid. I want him to come here immediately. And now get out, all of you!

The guards, who have remained silent, leave the room; when everyone is gone, on his way out Faysal whispers to him, And Noora, your Highness?

I'll see to her myself, replies the Emir with a glint in his eye.

Remember whose daughter she is, your Highness.

I won't kill her. Not now if that's what you want to know. Now go and call Khalid.

Chapter 1 – Yael

Too much light. These three words constantly echo in Yael’s mind while she waits with the rest of her family for Stern, the rabbi, to commence his ceremonial oration. Suprisingly, the memorial this year is not celebrated on Mount Herzel – the location typically devoted to military obsequies, but on the plain on top of Yad Vashem, the so-called Hill of Memory, which is solemnly decorated for the occasion. The stage, which the rabbi is about to go on, is located in front of a big brick and glass building where, every year, Yael comes with her schoolmates to honour the deceased of the State of Israel. Chairs have been organised in two large wings with a passage in the middle; the army general staff is seated on the right side, behind them there are two rows of men in civilian clothes, who are also soldiers, as Yael knows. Indeed, they are her father’s ex-colleagues and, without her knowing it yet, soon to become hers too. The left side is reserved to relatives, friends, and everyone who wishes to take part in the commemoration.

In the same way she feels the heat growing in her eighteen-year-old body covered by clothes slightly too heavy for such a warm day, but certainly appropriate for the occasion, Yael feels a physical sentiment of fraternity connecting her to all these people. As the gleaming sun increases that