"As the Shawakha brothers rushed to protect their home from intruders, they
had no clue they were unwitting participants in an Israeli army exercise that
would leave one of them dead. "I saw two men dressed in ordinary clothes near the entrance," said Akram, a cement factory
worker who was taking the first shift on guard duty to keep an eye on the
family's 10 sheep and their car from would-be thieves.
"One of them said: 'Don't worry, we know
everyone in Rammun.' We insisted on seeing their identity papers, and they put
their hands in their pockets and pulled out their guns, not to threaten us, but
with the intention of shooting." Gunfire erupted and a confused melee
ensued. The three brothers suffered bullet wounds although they managed to throw
blows of their own as they fought. The story was picked up by the Israeli media, which soon discovered that
the two "intruders" were in fact soldiers participating in a training exercise
by the "Dudevan" military unit, which specialises in infiltrating Palestinian
areas disguised as Arabs. "When you control people under military occupation for so long, you're
starting to play games. Individual soldiers play games at checkpoints with
people, and the big army plays games with villages."" (thanks Basim)
