The Yom Kippur War, which Khaled Ansari also identifies as the October War, is recalled as the beginning of his sustained life as a fighter. In his account to Lin, returning home in time for the war leads from defeat and flight to training and years of combat; the memory also sits beside the later family losses that shape Khaled’s grief and his conflict with Lin over hatred and forgiveness.

A return to war

Khaled places the war after his father’s death in an Israeli prison. At the time, Khaled was in New York with a Jewish student he loved; he later blamed himself for being with her on the night his father died. He returned home just in time for the conflict, describing his side as having been badly beaten. That personal sequence makes the war more than a historical marker in his account: it follows intimate loss and precedes the years of fighting that become central to his identity.

From defeat to years of fighting

After the defeat, Khaled made his way to Tunis, where he received training, and began fighting. He continued through a succession of operations and conflict zones, eventually reaching Beirut. His history extended well beyond the Yom Kippur War: he trained with Palestinian guerrilla units in Tunisia, Libya, and Syria, and fought for nine years. The war is therefore recalled as an entry into a much longer course of armed struggle, rather than as a complete account of his military experience.

Shatila and the war’s personal aftermath

Khaled’s account of the war leads into the later story of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the stand at Shatila. His family and many former neighbours were among the refugees there. Under a truce, the fighters left the camps with their weapons; after their departure, the Phalange entered and killed the people left behind. Khaled’s parents, sisters, extended family, and other loved ones were killed, and he did not know where their bodies had been taken. This later massacre is distinct from the Yom Kippur War, but it is essential to understanding the losses that deepen the significance of his recollection.

What the memory reveals

Khaled’s story connects a personal bereavement, the return to fighting, and the destruction of his family across successive stages of conflict. By the time he tells it to Lin, he remains devoted in words to Palestinian statehood, while the suffering he has endured and the suffering he inflicts have displaced other causes in his life. Their disagreement over his hatred is rooted partly in this history: Lin urges him not to hold himself responsible for his father’s death or for what others did, while Khaled insists on the force of his own guilt. The remembered war thus helps explain both Khaled’s path into militancy and the emotional ground on which he and Lin argue.