Barracuda 945 Read Online Free PDF Page A

of the Jerusalem Road, between the wide commercial street and the dividing line between the zones of H-1 and H-2.
    They were starting to position themselves upstream of the search parties in the Haarat Al-Sheik area, right on the edge of the Old City. They were yelling and taunting the armed troops, and at 9:40, the first stones were thrown, initially just a few stray missiles. But by ten the stones were streaming through the air in a lethal hail of resentment. As the minutes wore on, the stones were growing larger, fist-sized rocks, mingled with slabs of concrete picked up from the ruins of buildings.
    The gangs of youths were now combining into a full-scale mob, bent on humiliating the Israeli troops. They had of course no conception of the strength and depth of the IDF troops, and they ran forward hurling rocks and screaming abuse.
    The Paratroopers immediately raced forward and began firing rubber bullets into the crowd, which had now swung right to face the oncoming Israeli battalion. The Paratroopers instantly raised the stakes, hurling a volley of CS gas grenades, which reduced the front line of the rock throwers to a retreating, eye-streaming confusion. But it increased the tension, as others ran forward to replace their comrades.
    Again and again, the Paratroopers fired rubber bullets into the crowd. And now there were adults joining the youths, the entire scenario becoming more frenzied and vociferous by the minute. Then, suddenly, the rocks were accompanied by Molotov cocktails, which landed right at the feet of the Israelis, and blasted fire, straight at them. But through it all, the search teams kept going, beating down doors, demanding access, ransacking small businesses.
    They were covered by the fire and fearsome reputation of their Paratroopers, but the conflict was now beginning to look serious. At 10:15 the troops fired three more volleys of rubber bullets, and several Arab youths, hurling rocks in the middle of the melee, hit the ground. Their colleagues, not knowing whether they were dead or just stunned, thronged forward to pick them up. The Paratroopers instantly unleashed CS gas grenades straight into the middle of the Arab rescue parties.
    There was a brief pause, but in that time, the Israel searchersstarted to swarm through an old workshop in a notorious area just to the north of the crossroads at Bab Al-Zawiye. Moments went by, while the Palestinian mob was in temporary disarray, and then the Israelis came bursting out of the workshop calling up transport to confiscate one of the biggest caches of weapons and bomb-making materials they had ever seen, all hidden in the workshop and in a neighboring shed.
    As a dozen Arabs trudged out with their hands high, folded across their heads, a group of Israeli Paratroopers rushed forward to carry out the arrests and to remove the bomb makers to military custody. So far, even under heavy attack, the IDF personnel had exercised rigid discipline.
    But even as the first Arab prisoners were loaded onto trucks, the first real-live bullets were being fired. Not by the Israelis, but by Palestinian snipers, now ensconced on wasteland on the Haarat Al-Sheik. They were firing from various vantage points, on the edge of Haarat Al-Sheik, east of the crossroads with the sun behind them.
    The Israeli Paratroopers, now crouching and running forward, hurled gas grenades into the wasteland and opened up a fusillade of covering fire while the searching troops raced for the safety of the only open building—the workshop where the arms and bomb-making materials were stored.
    The Paratroopers, having temporarily silenced the snipers, headed for the same cover, and quite suddenly the building was full of Israeli troops, all massing in the stairwell, attempting to reach firing positions on the top two floors of the four-story building.
    Immediately the air was filled with machine-gun fire, then the blast of real hand grenades as more Israeli paratroopers came up to clear the