This deeply moving letter written by Fayez Kanafani (10 years old at the time) shortly after his father, Ghassan Kanafani was assassinated by Mossad in Beirut on 8 July 1972. To my father, Ghassan Kanafani When I was small, my father used to take me to Al-Muharrer, seat me on his own chair and ask me to draw some pictures. When he moved to Al-Anwar, I used to accompany him there too. Then he moved to Al-Hadaf and took me, along with my sister Laila, to meet his colleagues there. My father was a good man. He bought me all I wanted and I still love him, although he is dead. I found Arabic difficult but he taught me lots of things. As a result, I could read all the articles written about him. I liked having such a father because he was very intelligent and people loved him. When we were in Denmark, Laila and I used to miss him very much and asked my mother to take us back to him. When we returned we used to see him working in the garden every Sunday, planting flowers with gentle hands. Sometimes we worked together and when it got hot we used to take our shirts off. After work, he would often teach me how to use the small rifle he had bought me. I liked to watch television with him. When I grow up I want to be like my father and will fight to return to Palestine, my father’s homeland, the land he and Umm Sa’ad used to tell me so much about. From now on, I will help my mother and sister a lot so that they won’t miss him too much. But we will never forget him, or Lamees who died with him and whom we all loved very much — Lamees who was always kind and never lost her temper. Fayez Ghassan Kanafani -Photo: Ghassan with his children Fayez and Laila
