ccording to a teacher in Yerushalayim's Bais Yaakov Seminary
(Chadash), it was the thunder that did it. She heard the following
story from her sister, who heard it from her brother-in-law, who is
serving in
Jenin:
We were devastated by the deaths of our thirteen buddies. Although
there was a sharp thirst for vengeance among the troops, our morale
was low. Frankly, we were filled with trepidation at the thought of
entering those infernal alleyways again and risk getting blown to
pieces by an explosive charge buried in the ground or concealed
behind a wall.
Aware of our state of mind, our commanders tried to intimidate the
terrorists to give themselves up by announcing over a bullhorn in
Arabic that unless they came out with their hands up, we would call
in an airstrike and a squadron of F-16s would swoop down from the sky
and reduce the camp-and everyone in it-to rubble.
The ruse seemed kind of ridiculous to us at the time. The terrorists
knew as well as we did that we would not call in the air force and
risk killing 'innocent' civilians. It was, frankly, kind of
embarrasing to even have to go through this whole show. Everyone knew
it had no hope of working.
A few minutes later, we were making some final preparations before we
mounted another attack against the camp when suddenly an
ear-shattering explosion went off seemingly right over our heads. All
of us
instinctively hit the dirt and braced ourselves for the shock waves
that always follow the detonation of an explosive charge.
But there were none. I looked up just in time to see another flash in
the sky before the next boom cracked through the valley. It was just
thunder. I heard someone near me laugh out loud. We picked ourselves
up and shamefacedly looked down at our mud-covered clothes. Talk
about nerves on edge.
The next thing I knew, I heard people screaming in Arabic inside the
camp. We looked on with amazement as dozens of bedraggled fighters
crawled out of their hiding places with their arms raised high in
the air. At first we thought it was another one of their dirty
tricks-pretend they're giving themselves up, and then blow themselves
up on us when they got within range.
But no, it was for real. Our Bedouin tracker yelled at them to lift
up their shirts to see if they had anything strapped to their bodies.
They didn 't. Then he told them to lie face down in the mud and not
to move a finger. And they did. Something didn't make sense. We were
still suspecting a trick.