And that denial had brought me here.

Jesus looked at me with those sad loving eyes and said, “You must choose.

Your time to choose is not yet finished, but it will finish soon.

And then your choice will be final.

Images flashed through my mind.

My life, every moment, every choice, every thought and deed and word.

I saw it all from his perspective.

I saw the times he had tried to reach me.

Dreams I had dismissed.

Encounters with Christians I had ignored.

Moments of doubt I had pushed away.

He had been pursuing me my entire life and I had run from him.

I saw the deaths I had caused through a different lens.

Not as casualties of war or collateral damage.

As people, individuals, each one loved by him.

each one a soul he had died for.

And I had cut short their lives without giving them a chance to find him.

The weight of it broke me.

Whatever I was in that place, it broke.

I collapsed though I had no knees to collapse on.

I cried out though I had no voice to cry with.

I wept though I had no eyes to produce tears.

And I begged.

I begged for forgiveness.

I begged for mercy.

I begged for another chance.

Jesus reached down and touched me.

The moment his hand made contact, everything changed.

The pain stopped.

The guilt lifted.

The darkness vanished.

I was surrounded by light and love and peace.

He said, “I died for you.

I died for all, even for you.

My blood covers every sin for those who truly repent, for those who believe, for those who accept.

He showed me more.

He showed me the truth about everything, about creation, about humanity, about God’s plan, about what was coming, about the urgency of the time we were living in.

He said, “Time is short.

My return is near.

Tell them.

Tell all of them.

Muslims, Jews, atheists, everyone.

Tell them that I am the way and the truth and the life.

Tell them that no one comes to the father except through me.

Tell them that religion cannot save them.

Works cannot save them.

Only faith in my sacrifice can save them.

He showed me people I knew, my family, my friends, other fighters.

All of them walking toward the same place I had been.

All of them deceived just as I had been deceived.

All of them thinking they were righteous when they were lost.

The grief overwhelmed me.

I thought of Aliyah, of Tariq and Leila and Omar.

They were on the same path I had been on.

They would end up here too if nothing changed.

I asked him though not with words what I should do, how I could help them, how I could save them.

He said, “You will return.

You will tell them what you have seen.

Many will not believe.

They will call you a liar.

They will threaten you.

They will hate you.

But some will believe.

And for those who believe, it will be worth everything you suffer.

” He told me more about how to find him.

About how simple it really was.

Not complex religious rules and requirements, just faith, just believing that he was who he said he was and that his death paid for sins and that he rose from the dead and was alive.

He said, “I do not want your religious rituals.

I want your heart.

I want relationship.

I want you to know me and love me and follow me.

That is all.

That is everything.

Then he looked at me with such love that I thought I would shatter from the force of it.

He said, “I am giving you mercy.

I am sending you back.

Do not waste this gift.

Do not waste this second chance.

Go and tell them.

Tell them all.

Time is running out.

The light intensified.

It became so bright I could not see anything else.

I felt myself being lifted, being pulled upward.

The opposite of the falling I had experienced before.

Everything spun and swirled.

I heard sounds muffled and distant at first, then growing clearer.

Voices, machines crying.

I felt pain again.

physical pain different from the pain in hell but still pain.

My chest hurt, my head hurt, everything hurt.

But it was the pain of life.

The pain of having a body again.

I became aware of weight, of lying on something, of air moving in and out of lungs, of a heart beating in my chest.

I tried to open my eyes.

The lids were so heavy, but I forced them open.

Bright lights, white ceiling, faces looking down at me.

A man in a white coat shouting in Arabic, nurses rushing around, machines beeping.

I was in a hospital.

I was alive.

Someone was crying.

A woman.

She grabbed my hand.

Aliyah, my wife, she was saying, “You’re awake.

Thank Allah.

You’re awake.

We thought you were dead.

You were dead.

” No pulse, nothing for several minutes.

But you’re alive.

You’re alive.

But I was not thinking about being alive.

I was thinking about what I had seen, about where I had been, about what Jesus had told me.

I was alive, but everything had changed.

Everything.

The hospital room was small and crowded.

Doctors and nurses moved around me, checking machines, taking my pulse, shining lights in my eyes.

They spoke in rapid Arabic.

Their voices filled with confusion and amazement.

I could not focus on them.

My mind was still in that other place, still seeing the faces of the damned, still hearing Jesus’s voice, still feeling the weight of what I had been shown.

Aliyah held my hand tightly.

She was crying and laughing at the same time.

Relief and joy and disbelief all mixed together on her face.

Behind her, I could see other people in the doorway.

My parents, my brothers, all staring at me like I was a ghost.

The doctor, an older man with gray in his beard, kept shaking his head.

He spoke to another doctor in low tones, but I could hear him.

He said, “There is no medical explanation.

He should be dead.

His companions are dead.

The explosion should have killed him instantly.

Even if it didn’t, he had no pulse for at least 4 minutes.

Brain damage should be severe.

” But look at him.

He’s conscious.

He’s alert.

His vitals are strong.

It’s impossible.

But I knew it was not impossible.

It was a miracle.

Jesus had sent me back just as he said he would.

The doctors eventually cleared most people out of the room.

They wanted to run tests.

They said they needed to understand what had happened.

Aliyah refused to leave.

She sat in a chair beside my bed, still holding my hand, still crying softly.

I looked at her, really looked at her, and I saw her differently now.

I saw her as Jesus saw her, a precious soul, a woman he loved and died for, a woman who was following the wrong path and did not know it.

I wanted to tell her everything right then about hell, about Jesus, about the truth.

But something stopped me.

Maybe it was wisdom from God.

Maybe it was fear.

Maybe both.

The words would not come.

Not yet.

A nurse came and gave me something for pain.

My body was starting to register the injuries.

Burns on my arms and chest, a deep cut on my forehead, bruised ribs, but nothing serious.

Nothing that would take long to heal.

Another miracle.

The medicine made me drowsy.

I drifted in and out of consciousness.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw hell again, saw the faces, heard the screaming, and I saw Jesus bathed in light, looking at me with those eyes full of love and sorrow.

Over the next few days, I became a wonder in the hospital.

Doctors came from other departments to examine me.

They could not explain my survival.

They could not explain my rapid recovery.

Some said it was luck.

Others said it was the will of Allah.

None of them knew the real reason.

Visitors came constantly.

Hamas commanders, fellow fighters, friends from the mosque.

They all wanted to see the man who had survived the impossible.

They all had the same interpretation.

Allah had spared me for a reason.

I was meant to continue the fight.

I was blessed.

I was protected.

I said little.

I nodded.

I thanked them for their concern.

But inside I was in turmoil.

I knew the truth.

Allah had not saved me.

Jesus had.

But how could I tell them that? How could I explain what I had seen? They would think I was crazy.

They would think the explosion had damaged my brain.

or worse they would think I had become an apostate and apostasy in Islam carries a death sentence.

So I stayed quiet.

I smiled when I was supposed to smile.

I said the right words when visitors came.

I prayed the five daily prayers when people could see me.

But it all felt empty now.

Like going through motions that had no meaning.

At night when I was alone, I would weep.

Silent tears that soaked my pillow.

I wept for the truth I now knew.

I wept for all the people in hell.

I wept for my family who did not know they were on the wrong path.

I wept for myself and the years I had wasted.

I wept for the people I had killed.

The guilt was overwhelming.

in hell.

I had seen some of the people who died because of my bombs.

But Jesus had shown me more.

He had shown me all of them.

Every single person.

And I carried that knowledge.

Now I was responsible for ending lives, for cutting short their chances to find Jesus, for sending them into eternity unprepared.

How do you live with that knowledge? How do you carry that weight? I learned later that Hassan and Bilal, the two men working with me in the workshop, had both died instantly in the explosion.

Their bodies had been torn apart.

They had funerals.

They were called martyrs.

People mourned them and praised their sacrifice.

But I knew where they were.

They were in that place, that place of fire and screaming and endless suffering.

And they would be there forever.

The thought made me sick.

I would lie in my hospital bed and think about them, about how they had believed they were serving God just as I had believed it.

And now they were paying for that belief for all eternity.

I wanted to do something to fix it to go back and warn them.

But I could not.

It was too late for them.

Just as it was too late for all those souls I had seen in hell.

But it was not too late for the living.

That is what Jesus had told me.

That is why he sent me back.

After 5 days, they released me from the hospital.

I was physically well enough to go home.

The doctors were still baffled, but they could find no reason to keep me.

They gave me pain medication and instructions to rest.

They scheduled follow-up appointments.

Then they sent me home.

Home to my cramped apartment, to my wife and children, to my life.

But I was not the same person who had left that apartment 5 days before.

Everything looked the same.

The same cracked walls, the same worn furniture, the same sounds and smells.

But I saw it all differently now.

My children ran to me when I walked in the door.

Tariq hugged my legs.

Leila grabbed my hand.

Little Omar jumped up and down with excitement.

They were so happy to see me, so innocent, so unaware of the danger they were in.

I looked at them and saw souls heading toward hell.

Not because they were bad children.

They were good children, sweet and loving and obedient.

But they were being raised in Islam.

They were being taught the same things I had been taught.

And those teachings led to the place I had been.

The thought was unbearable.

I picked up Omar and held him tight.

I kissed his head and breathed in his child’s smell, and I promised myself that I would find a way to save them somehow.

That night, after the children were asleep, Aliyah came and sat beside me.

We had not had a chance to really talk since the explosion.

She had been at the hospital every day, but always with other people around.

Now, it was just us.

She looked at me with concern in her eyes.

She said I seemed different, distant.

She asked if I was in pain, if I was traumatized by the explosion, if I needed to talk to someone.

I wanted to tell her everything.

The words were right there.

But fear held me back.

Fear of what she would think.

Fear of what she would do.

Fear of losing her and the children.

So I lied.

I said I was fine, just tired, just adjusting.

I would be back to normal soon.

But she did not look convinced.

She knew me too well.

She knew something had changed.

She just did not know what.

The next few weeks were the hardest of my life.

Harder than growing up in a war zone.

harder than making bombs in a dangerous workshop.

Harder than anything I had experienced before.

I was living a double life again.

But it was different from before.

Before I had been a loving father at home and a weapons maker at work.

Now I was pretending to be a devout Muslim while knowing in my heart that Islam was a lie.

I went through the motions.

I prayed five times a day when people could see me.

I went to the mosque on Fridays.

I fasted.

I read the Quran with my children.

I said the right words and made the right sounds.

But it was all hollow, empty, meaningless inside.

I was screaming.

I was dying.

I was suffocating under the weight of what I knew and could not say.

Hamas commanders came to visit me.

They wanted to know when I would return to work.

They needed my skills.

There were operations, planned, materials waiting.

I was valuable to them.

I made excuses.

I said I needed more time to recover.

That I was still having headaches.

That the doctors wanted me to rest.

They were patient at first.

They said to take my time, but I could see the patients wearing thin.

They expected loyalty, commitment, and they were not seeing it from me.

At night, when everyone else was asleep, I would take my phone and hide in the bathroom.

I would search the internet for information about Jesus, about Christianity, about the claims he had made.

I read testimonies from other Muslims who had converted.

I read their stories of visions and dreams and encounters.

I read about the differences between Islam and Christianity.

I read about grace and salvation and redemption.

Everything I read confirmed what I had experienced.

Jesus was who he said he was, the son of God, the savior, the only way to heaven.

But how could I accept this? How could I turn my back on everything I had believed on my family, my community, my entire identity? Yet, how could I not accept it? I had been to hell.

I had seen the truth.

I knew what was waiting for those who rejected Jesus.

How could I stay quiet knowing that? I was torn in half.

Part of me wanted to shout the truth from the rooftops to tell everyone, to warn them, to beg them to listen.

But another part of me was terrified because I knew what happened to apostates in Gaza.

I knew what happened to Muslims who converted to Christianity.

They were killed sometimes by their own families.

It was not just possible.

It was expected.

It was required by Islamic law.

If I came out as a Christian, I would be signing my death warrant and probably alias and the children’s too because families were held responsible for apostates.

They were shamed, dishonored, sometimes attacked.

I could not do that to them.

I could not put them in danger.

But I could not keep pretending either.

The internal conflict was tearing me apart.

Then something happened that changed everything.

I was at the hospital for a followup appointment.

The doctor examined me and declared that I was healing remarkably well.

He said it was truly amazing.

Then he left to get some paperwork.

I was alone in the examination room waiting.

I looked around idly at the medical posters on the walls, the anatomy charts, the health warnings.

Then I noticed the nurse who was preparing to take my blood pressure.

She was young, maybe 25.

She wore a headscarf like most women in Gaza.

She was efficient and professional.

Nothing about her stood out.

But as she wrapped the blood pressure cuff around my arm, I noticed something.

A small bracelet on her wrist.

Just a thin chain with a tiny pendant.

The pendant was shaped like a fish.

My heart started beating faster.

I knew what that symbol meant.

I had read about it in my secret searches.

The fish was an ancient Christian symbol, one of the first symbols believers used to identify each other during times of persecution.

Was it possible? Could this woman be a Christian here in Gaza? She pumped the cuff and watched the gauge.

She wrote down the numbers on a chart.

She started to unwrap the cuff.

I spoke quietly, barely above a whisper.

I said, “That symbol you wear, I know what it means.

” She froze.

Her eyes went wide.

For a moment, she looked terrified.

Then she glanced at the door to make sure no one was there.

She leaned close and spoke in a voice so low I could barely hear her.

She said, “Be careful, brother.

Walls have ears.

” I said, “I need to talk to someone.

I need help, please.

” She studied my face for a long moment.

Whatever she saw there must have convinced her.

She nodded slightly.

Then she wrote something on a small piece of paper and pressed it into my hand.

As she finished removing the cuff, she said in a normal voice, “Your blood pressure is good.

The doctor will be back soon.

” Then she left.

I looked at the paper in my hand.

It had a phone number on it.

Nothing else, just a number.

My hands were shaking as I put the paper in my pocket.

That night, I waited until everyone was asleep.

Then I went into the bathroom again with my phone.

I entered the number into an encrypted messaging app I had downloaded for this purpose.

I typed a simple message.

I need to meet believers.

I need to know the truth.

Please help me.

I stared at the message for a long time before I hit send.

Once I did this, there was no going back.

This was real.

This was dangerous.

This was choosing a path that could end with my death.

But I thought about hell, about the faces there, about Jesus’s command to tell others, about my children being led down the same path I had been on.

I had send for several minutes.

Nothing happened.

I thought maybe it was a wrong number.

Maybe the nurse had made a mistake.

Maybe I had misunderstood the situation.

Then a message came back.

Who are you? How did you get this number? I typed.

A nurse at the hospital gave it to me.

I saw her bracelet.

I need to talk to believers.

I’m serious.

Another long pause.

Then you could be anyone.

You could be Hamas trying to find us.

Why should we trust you? I thought about what to say.

Then I typed, I am the bomb maker who survived the explosion in Shajaya two weeks ago.

You probably heard about it.

Two died, one lived.

That was me.

I lived because Jesus sent me back.

I saw hell.

I saw him.

I need to know more.

I need help.

This pause was even longer.

I waited, barely breathing.

My heart pounded so hard I thought it would wake someone.

Finally, tomorrow, 3 pm, there is a market near Alsha Hospital.

Go to the fruit stand in the northeast corner.

Buy apples.

Someone will approach you.

I typed back.

How will I know them? The response.

They will know you.

Come alone.

Tell no one.

If you are not alone, they will not show.

If you bring danger, may God forgive you.

I typed I understand.

I will be alone.

Thank you.

One more message came.

If you are a genuine brother, welcome.

We have been praying for you.

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