JENIN, West Bank - It's one of the stranger friendships struck up across the Israeli-Palestinian chasm — between a Tel Aviv paralegal who once believed all Arabs should be expelled from Israel, and a militant from a West Bank refugee camp.

Tali Fahima, 28, said she was drawn by curiosity about the gunman's unmitigated hatred for Israel, and ended up offering to serve as her Palestinian friend's "human shield" against the army she once served in.

Zakariye Zubeydi, 29, whose band of gunmen is responsible for the deaths of several Israelis in roadside shootings, at first thought Fahima was "a little crazy," but came to appreciate what he said was her courage.

Their platonic friendship was viewed with suspicion by both peoples.

Many in the Jenin camp, where Fahima spent several weeks shadowing Zubeydi, thought that at best, she was a naive adventurer.

Israel's Shin Bet security service accuses her of collaborating with a fugitive militant and with illegal arms possession, allegations she dismisses as "absurd." She is currently under court-ordered house arrest in a friend's tiny attic apartment in Tel Aviv, after a week of Shin Bet questioning.

Fahima and Zubeydi came from backgrounds so different that they should never have met. In the latest round of fighting, friendships between Israelis and Palestinians have become increasingly rare. Contact is limited since neither is allowed into the other's territory without special permits.

Fahima was born into a family with hawkish beliefs, and she thought Arabs are not to be trusted and should be expelled from Israel. In 2003, she voted for hardline Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites).

Zubeydi took up arms during the current round of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, and swore revenge after his mother, Samira, was killed during an Israeli incursion into the

Jenin camp in March 2002. Zubeydi, whose face is scarred from homemade gunpowder blasts, is the local leader of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a gang with ties to Yasser Arafat (news - web sites)'s Fatah (news - web sites) movement.

Their relationship began several months ago when Fahima saw Zubeydi being interviewed on television. He was defending his group's decision not to participate in a cease-fire with Israel.

"I wanted to understand why," said Fahima, who wears thick-rimmed glasses and sports a pony tail. "Why does he not want peace? Why does he want to kill Israelis?"

She called Zubeydi and bombarded him with questions for four hours. The next day, she did it again. Days and weeks went by as the odd couple exchanged views, sometimes heatedly over the telephone, communicating in Hebrew, which Zubeydi learned while working in Israel.

"The girl talks too much," Zubeydi said, laughing and bouncing his one-year-old son on his knee.

The phone calls were not enough. "I needed to see things for myself," said Fahima. "I needed to see Jenin camp, to see the occupation, to feel it."

Several months into their friendship, Zubeydi's phone rang. It was Fahima, and she was at the entrance of Jenin.

Their first meeting was a tense one. Neither completely trusted the other. Zubeydi, a wanted man, was concerned the army would use Fahima to get close to him. Fahima, an Israeli on her own in one of the roughest refugee camps in the West Bank, was scared for her life.

"But none of that lasted long," said Fahima. "Very soon I realized that the monster Palestinians I had been taught to hate were not monsters after all." Fahima stayed for a while, then returned to Tel Aviv.

Several months into their friendship, Israeli troops raided the Jenin camp to arrest Zubeydi, wounding him in an exchange of fire.

That day, Fahima decided to go public about her friendship and call on the army to let Zubeydi live.

Her pleas were ignored, but not her behavior. She was fired from her job as a paralegal. Her parents banished her from their lives. Her sisters stopped talking to her. She was, in the eyes of many Israelis, a traitor.

Alone, without a job, she gave up her Tel Aviv apartment and moved to Jenin. She offered at one point to be Zubeydi's "human shield" against the military, but then decided to teach kids in the camp. She found a building and started renovating it as an after-school center for kids.

But last month, Israeli troops entered the camp in search of Fahima — she was violating Israeli law by being in a Palestinian area. To spare her Palestinian friends, she said she turned herself in to the authorities.

Israeli security officials arrested Fahima as she emerged from the camp and kept her in custody for seven days. Throughout her detention, she said she was allowed to shower only once and forced to sleep in a filthy cell that was lit with powerful neon bulbs 24 hours a day.

On Sunday, she was released and put under house arrest while she awaits an Israeli court decision on whether to indict her.

Fahima, speaking in the Tel Aviv attic, said she has no regrets. "If I had a choice, I would do it all over again," she said.

Zubeydi, who has shown no remorse over the deaths he's responsible for, said he respected his Israeli friend. "One thing is for sure, she's an adventurous young woman with a lot of courage."