Anatomy of a Rocket Attack -- Fired by Israelis from a US Made Apache Helicopter

THE ANATOMY OF A ROCKET
ATTACK - Tobas. 3 Sept 02

In her second dispatch to
SQUALL from the West Bank,
Ewa Jasiewicz reveals the
reality behind a rocket attack
on a car north of Nablus.....

Within an hour of arriving in Askar
refugee camp, Nablus, freshly trained
in International Solidarity Movement
tactics and politics, Carley - a San
Fransisco-based social justice activist
and temporary organiser at the camp
- informs me that a few people have
been requested to go to Tobas, north
of Nablus, to show solidarity and
gather info on the recent IDF rocket
attack on 4 children and a suspected
Al Aqsa* leader. Myself and Japanese
video journalist and general cool dude
Endo, agree to go along with Ahmad,
a spiky-haired, boisterous 20-year-old
who knows everything about
everything it seems. We trek to the
nearest village for almost 2 hours
along limestone dust roads, up and
over the odd IDF bulldozed mound of
rock.

When we reach the first village before
Tobas we manage to catch a
Sheroot. Five local guys who know
the Sheroot driver come along with
us, just for the ride. We listen to all
the latest Arabic pop classics, every
single one about a 'Ha-bibi..Ha-bibi' -
My darling, my love.

They smoke, drink plastic cups of
sugarpop with us, open the sliding
door, lean up and out, open shirts
flapping in the air-rush. They're cool.
They're all about 15/16. The Sheroot
driver takes us straight to the spot
where the car was hit. I saw it on TV
last night, a smoking incinerated
wreck surrounded by shocked kids
dividing their attention between the
car and the cameras. It should be
shocking but it's not. I think I'm
getting desensitised and that's really
really bad. Five people were blown to
bits here less than 24-hours ago, but
I'm looking at it and thinking, I saw
this on CNN last night. CNN clipped my
shock.

Getting a straight story out of people
here is really hard. I ask 4 different
men and get 4 different answers
regarding how old the victims were,
where they were, when the attack
occurred and how many rockets were
fired. The language barrier is also a
serious obstacle to getting accurate
information, as is local people's trust
in rumours and the misinformation
regularly churned out by the Israeli
state and Palestinian Authority.

But anyway, here are the details,
cross-referenced with TV research
that I managed to get: 1) The attack
happened at 5pm.

2) 2-3 missiles were fired from an
apache helicopter.

3) The intended victim of the attack
was the leader of Al Aqsa* One 26
year-old (according to MSN) or a
33-year-old (according to local
people) - the leader of Al Aqsa.
Originally an Al Aqsa organiser
according to Israeli news, then a
leader according to local people, and
now - shown on ArabYNet - that he
wasn't wanted at all and wasn't the
leader of Al Aqsa after all. This is also
supported by the Israeli state itself
which announced this morning that
nobody killed was wanted.

Others killed: one 6-year-old girl, two
15-year-old boys and one 16 year-old
and one 10-year-old. The two
youngest children were related to the
adult killed (the 6 and 10 year-old)
and were both inside the car - say
some locals and MSN, but the
translator for the father of one of the
dead children tells me that his son
(aged 14) and niece (6) were both
walking down the street when they
were killed.

10 people were injured - there is no
dispute about this figure. One boy
was thrown 30 feet. He was propelled
by a piece of exploding rocket,
impacting and embedding itself in his
stomach.

Two nearby houses suffered internal
and external damage from exploding
debris and alleged gunshots - the use
of guns is unconfirmed. My estimation
is that shards of exploding car
created the mini flecks on the walls of
both houses. And one rocket or
probably a piece of rocket was
responsible for smashing the balcony
of a house, shattering the windows, a
coffee table in the living room and
damaging furniture. No one injured
inside from that. There is video and
photographic evidence of this (see
picture - by the way. I'm a
technology philistine and am just
getting my head around the digital
camera which was lent to me - it's
worth 250 quid!!!! Yikes. Left it in a
cab the first day I got it, but the
cabbie called another cabbie who was
taking us to Gaza and I got it back.
Lucky or what?) Locals pointed out
the serial number on the missile as
American, suggesting it was
manufactured in the US. I couldn't
detect anything that would allude to
where it was made whatsoever. But,
it's no secret that US weapons are
sold, if not donated, to the Israeli
Army in huge quantities.

I talk to a paramedic who was at the
scene. We are talking about the man
who was killed. He points to a near-by
tree. 'There were brains in that tree'
he says, 'the brain was divided, all of
his body was divided, into small
pieces. We collect the pieces'.

We drink tea in a nearby shrapnel hit
home. We talk politics - what else in
this place?? The headmaster of a
nearby school seems a bit miffed
when I ask him whether he likes
Arafat. 'Of course!!? We are all
Arafat, I am Arafat, he is Arafat (I
must let it be known that myself and
Endo are sitting in a living room with 9
other men! and a kid in the doorway),
he is Arafat (points to kid) we are all
Arafat'. oops.

You can never really tell who's with
the PA (Palestinian Authority - people
don't really call it the Palestinian
National Authority, although you will
find that term bandied about, because
there is no recognised Palestinian
nation state) as a solution to the
troubles or not. Best to tread careful.
I bring up the fact that after the first
Intifada loads of really excellent
grassroots connected organisers and
activists, fighters, were passed over
for places in the PA in favour of old
PLO leaders residing in Tunis. It's
pretty notorious the way that the old
Chiefs, Arafat included, have
repressed Palestinian insurrections
when they have erupted. A clear
example is the revolt of 1969 in
Tel-Al-Zatar, Lebanon (home of 29%
of Lebanese industry), which saw
thousands of refugees and workers
(14,000 were living in camps in the
region) take up arms, occupy the
factories and announce their
collective intention to transform
Tel-Al-Zatar into 'a no-go zone safe
from the Lebanese army and the
state. Palestinian, Syrian and
Lebanese workers participated in
Kalashnikov battles with the Lebanese
police.

When they called for reinforcements
from the PLO, the Fatah leadership
dismissed the revolt as a distraction
from fighting 'the real enemy - Israel',
answering: "Al Naba'a and Salaf and
Harash are not similar to Aga, Haifa,
and Jerusalem which are occupied."
The uprising was turned into a
massacre and the region a graveyard
for militants and their families. In
September 1970 the PLO signed an
agreement with the ruling Hashemite
regime in Jordan under which it agreed
to withdraw its forces. The remaining
fighters and refugees unprotected,
this signalled a green light to the
Hashemite army to massacre the
30,000 remaining insurgent Fayedheen
(freedom fighters with Fatah - of
which there was a relatively small
amount left in Amman) and ordinary
Palestinian refugees. This mass
slaughter came to be known as Black
September.

Anyway. I just mention the Tunis
leadership call-back after the first
Intifada to the Headmaster. He agrees
with me, "but what shall we do?", he
says, hands up in a shrug. 'I don't
know', I say after a long time.

All the theories you imbibe at political
meetings here and there which are all
very valid - the need for a global
intifada (intifada means insurrection,
uprising) etc etc seem a million miles
away. Practically, in the prison we're
in, all roads lead to deadlock. Last
night on the Israeli news, a crimson
mouthed, voluminous haired
newsreader talked of Denmark drawing
up a peace plan for the region. A full
and thorough restructuring of the PA
security force by September 2003
with full independence by June 2005 -
after which the settler issue will be
tackled. It looks like peace will be,
predictably, an American peace, with
the restructuring of the PA security
forces a euphemism for a
reinforcement of the police-military
apparatus geared towards flushing out
militants and radicals - mainly Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine
activists, Marxist-Leninist, and "some
of the worlds most renowned terrorist
instructors" according to
http://www.specialoperations.com's terror
group rundown. They shot Israeli
tourism minister Zaevi 40 days after
their leader Abu Ali Mustafa was split
in two by an IDF guided missile. And
they got away with it. Just last night
in a reprisal attack for the killing of
the 4 children and man in Tobas, a
PFLP 20-year-old activist managed to
get into a settlement with an Uzi and
shoot two people dead. The
settlement is guarded by a massive
army base, situated right by its gate.
But the guy got in, loaded up and
went for it. They are renowned and
feared for their capacity to launch
attacks with almost invisible stealth
and utter unpredictability. In January
1994, Bill Clinton signed an executive
order prohibiting transactions with the
group due to their 'potential for
disrupting the Middle East peace
process', a sure sign of the group's
efficacy in defying the dictates of
both the Israeli, Palestinian and US
states. As was the entrapment
operation executed by the PA itself
against Ahmad Saadat, lured by the
PA into engaging in talks about
launching attacks against the Israeli
army. He was invited to a top hotel in
Israel which was promptly surrounded
by PA troops, invaded and he was
arrested.

The headmaster asks me if we want
to go and see the mothers of the
dead children. They are all in one
house, grieving. No. I tell him. The
last thing you'd want to see if you'd
lost you children is some muppet
journalists sticking a camera in you
face. We drink our tea, say our Mas
Salaams and leave. Our sherrot driver
takes us - and the five local lads -
down to a religious building. We don't
really understand where we are. One
of the yoofs gestures at the place
and laughs, 'Allah Akhbar!'. I still don't
really get it. We walk in and see
about 50 or so men sitting on white
plastic chairs, lining the walls and set
in two rows in the centre. Many of
the men are old with heavily lined
faces and wear the traditional white
cloth head-dresses. I'm the only
female inside. I've never ever felt so
out of place. I sit down on a plastic
chair up against the wall. I'm looking
at them, they're looking at me.

The young guys are pretty relaxed,
sitting wide-legged, talking quietly
and excitedly amongst themselves.
Where am I? It's like some sort of
waiting room, a big white waiting
room. A man comes round with an
ornate metal jug of strong gritty
coffee. I get a lick, a small small lick
in a small ceramic cup which I down
and pass on to the next person. Endo
taps me on the shoulder. 'I go to
interview the father, he's sitting over
there, can you ask questions?'. It
then dawns on me. We are in the
men's equivalent of the women's
grieving room. Men come in, take
others sitting down by the hands and
kiss them five or six times from cheek
to cheek, and hold the backs of their
necks, hug. I agree to talk to him. We
have a dark skinned south Asian
looking translator. He ends up doing
all the talking. The father is too
distressed. He's about 33, has heavy
stubble, green eyes and is just sitting
in a plastic chair, wiping his eyes now
and again, wiping his face. His eyes
stare forwards. He's probably still in
shock. I ask where the child was
when the rockets hit. The translator
explains: "The boy, he was 14 years
old, and he had gone out to buy
trousers for school. So he was walking
down to his home, along the streets,
carrying his new trousers. He wanted
to show them to his parents". "And
where was he hit?."

"In the eyes and mouth". I nod, the
camera keeps rolling. "He was with his
cousin, she had a new school bag,
she was carrying her school bag - she
was 6 years old. Her father is over
there". He points to another
distraught man, flanked by silent
friends. He's also staring frontwards.
We pretty much end the interview
there. The fathers are too distressed
to talk and it seems really
inappropriate to even be here.

Endo gets up and gives the father a
half-hug, says "Mas Salaam, Shukran
Jazeelan" - peace be upon you, thank
you very much. The father doesn't
really respond, he's just numb.
Walking out is like walking through
fire.

___________________

*The Al 'Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an
offshoot group originally started by
combatants in the first Intifada
(1987-1993) who'd fought in Fatah,
the main faction of the PLO. I was
surprised to be told last night that Al
Aqsa are actually Secular sharing their
name with the most famous Mosque in
this region is just a reference that
banks on its popularity and cultural
significance, and/or also in response
to the outrage felt by everybody
when Sharon entered the sacred
Mosque on September 29, sparking
the second Intifada.