A militant from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
Posted on 07/01/2006 8:10:41 PM PDT by familyop
Palestinian militants preparing for an expected Israeli armoured assault on Gaza have vowed to deploy suicide bombers against advancing tanks and armoured personnel carriers.
Militant leaders are activating volunteers who have lain dormant because security measures make it all but impossible for Palestinian bombers to attack Israel from fenced-off Gaza. Only a handful of suicide bombers have emerged from Gaza, including a British national who exploded a bomb outside a bar in Tel Aviv in April 2003, killing three.
A militant from the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades
But in the warren of streets just off the main north-south road through Gaza, a squad of young men once willing to die as "human bombs" are now preparing to die as human anti-tank mines.
"We had a queue of volunteers so long we could not use them," said a leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, who goes by his nom de guerre, Abu Jendal. "Now we are planning to attack tanks with our bodies. It is an effective means of resistance."
The suicide corps is from Gaza's second biggest city, Khan Younis, where, Israeli intelligence believes, Corporal Gilad Shalit, the soldier kidnapped last weekend, is being held by an alliance of Palestinian groups. Cpl Shalit, himself a tank gunner, was captured on Sunday morning in a well-planned raid that killed two other Israeli soldiers and humiliated an army used to enjoying total military supremacy in the conflict with the Palestinians. Yesterday, it emerged that he had been treated by a Palestinian doctor for three wounds sustained in the raid.
Abu Jendal is al-Aqsa's commander in Khan Younis and, though he says he knows nothing of the whereabouts of Cpl Shalit, mobile phones and radios used by him and his associates buzz with reports from fellow militants.
Unstrapping his pistol and throwing it on a pile of camouflaged uniforms in an upstairs room in Khan Younis, he recalled dispatching a woman who blew herself up at a border checkpoint between Israel and Gaza in 2004, killing four. Suicide belts and improvised rocket-propelled grenades were close at hand, he said.
Three times, he said, he had escaped Israeli assassination attempts, including an airstrike this year on an al-Aqsa's "control room". "I stepped out to get a glass of tea," he said. "Then the missiles hit. I was saved by tea."
But while militants such as Abu Jendal have been buoyed by their success in last -Sunday's raid into Israel, few have any illusions about the battle that they assume is just days, if not hours, away.
"We are not fools," he said. "We know they are strong. But they know that if they leave their tanks they will be shot. So we will strike the weak points of tank on foot, wearing suicide belts, and with explosives buried in the sand, to force them out."
Their favoured battlefield will be the twisting alleyways of refugee camps across Gaza, where Israeli tanks have little room for manoeuvre. Until yesterday, however, those tanks remained stationed at either end of Gaza, awaiting orders to roll in, as rumours abounded that Egyptian mediators had made a breakthrough and that Cpl Shalit was to be freed.
Middle East factfile
But then those holding him announced the terms of any deal - including the release of women and children and 1,000 other Arab prisoners.
Israel, which has vowed not to barter for Cpl Shalit's release, dismissed the offer, raising expectations that it would begin its armoured push at the end of the Jewish Sabbath yesterday evening.
Even before the land campaign, Gazans have been feeling the pinch from -Israel's air and artillery assault. A missile strike on Gaza's power station has proved a critical blow on a territory where electricity is key to basic needs.
While Gaza can get by -without air-conditioning, it cannot live without water, which is supplied from wells that rely on electric pumps.
Fuel to run emergency generators is also running low, as Israel imposes a total blockade on Gaza. It has refused to allow the Red Cross to deliver emergency shipments of fuel and medical supplies.
While Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, has repeatedly stated this week that his government has "no interest to harm the Palestinian people", few in Gaza see what military benefit Israel derives from inflicting power shortages or ear-splitting sonic booms upon them.
But for Mr Olmert, a leader without strong army credentials, those considerations are outweighed by the need to appear tough and to end the barrage of home-made missiles launched at southern Israeli towns.
Nor are they the principal worry of Abu Jendal.
"It's not easy choosing a suicide bomber," he said. "We don't want those who are angry or desperate but those who are convinced of the principle of sacrificing themselves. If I just followed the emotions of young men, I would be sending in dozens. We want an effective result."
There's the canard about "women and children" in prisons again, but no mention of the thousands of Israeli women and children actually targeted and murdered over the past few years by the generic Arab (mythical "Palestinian") terrorists.
But unintentionally, the whole propaganda rant tells us that the generic Arab invanders in Israel aren't really very concerned about their children or their "infrastructure."
so when a Palestinian approaches a Merkava and is taken down, the world should know why. These people have a diabolical heart.
Mr Bush ? See ?????? Walls apparently DO work.
On the lighter side, I wonder what the human anti tank mines are going to do when the term "Co-axial machinegun" is explained to them by hard reality?
Has a suicide bomber ever stopped a tank?
No. It takes a shaped charge to burn through the armor. Usually the kamakazi just messes up the paint job, leaves a red film on the finish to hose off later.
These people have a diabolical heart
They have no heart. They are not human.
OH YES! During the start of Korean War Counter-Offensive
the North Koreans used soldiers who place Anti-Tank Mines
on their chests and ran from structures along the roads
into the sides of our tanks. It worked!
The original suicide bomber. The Hamas will start to use
IED within the next couple of days. IED are their only defense against tanks.
Ah, the Saint Pancake maneuver. This should be interesting.
Dumpster Baby spoke the truth.
In that case, this sounds like a win-win situation.
Wonder if the Palis know that their "martyrs" will wash off with a little soap and water?
Shhhh don't ruin their surprise.
Can their religious advisers be convinced to get them ALL to lie down in front of the tanks, so the world can be cured of their disease once and for all.
Maybe it would be best if their religious advisers set the example for them, for a change, and led the way instead of just telling them what an honor it is while they preserve themselves.
I hadn't heard that about the North Koreans. I guess we'll find out how the Pali Pink Mist Brigade fared when we turn on the news tomorrow morning.
If the Palis were just stupid I might feel a little sorry for them. But stupid AND vicious rules out my sympathy.
An Israeli Merkava 
The tanks we were using in Korea were outmatched by the opposition in WW2, much less the Soviet advances during and after the war.
FYI, that tactic didn't work against the Soviet T-72s in Afghanistan (except, again, if someone managed to blow off a track). It hasn't worked against M1s in Iraq, and I really, really doubt that it'll work against the Merkava Mk 4s that the Israelis have specifically built for urban warfare and this kind of fighting.
Flays are only useful against conventional buried mines and some magnetic mines. IED are wire/radio/cell phones
controlled and off set to the road.
But you are right if the suicide bomber comes head on.
(Should be neat to watch ---! Had a cat caught up one winter morning in the fan blades of a D-8 on a job site
I was on. UGH!)
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