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."
Dunno but there's a picture floating around of where a suicide bomber tried to take out a Bradley and left a stain on the Bradley
On top of which, the largest load a man could carry and still run at a tank, unless formed into a shaped charge and aimed accurately, won't do much of anything.
The car bombs with which the terrorists are targeting our forces in Iraq are of the 100kg-plus class. That's over 220lbs, more than your average human is going to be able to carry for any distance, let alone run.
Looks like Israel will have to send in infantry to protect its tanks, shoot anyone approaching a tank.
You beat me to it. Exactly right. We cannot so simply write terrorists off as "not human". They are very much human, who have chosen evil ideologies over goodness.
Heck, they could have even chose ambivalent and still been OK. But no, they chose evil.
Oh, PLEASE do!
A mine sweeper. The chains spin around and beet the ground detonating any mine it drives over.
Thanks, I have never seen one before. It looks wicked.
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