Fields Of Fire

(4 of 4)

To try to deal with this, Israel is constantly refining its rules of engagement. It reviewed its tactics in the 1996 violence thoroughly. In Gilo, Colonel Aviv sent highly visible tanks to shoot at gunmen in Beit Jalla in order to boost residents' morale. But tanks are at their best firing over longer ranges and could take out an entire family if their aim is slightly off. Aviv moved in detachments of large-caliber machine-guns and grenade guns that do the job with less likelihood of a big and costly mistake. Still, as recently as last Friday, Israeli tanks were firing regularly at armed Palestinians, a sign also of the fact that the battle zone is becoming more lethal every week.

With Adil Salman's sons, the tanks made no mistake. Salman picks through the destruction of the old stone house near Nablus where his sons Nahid and Sami died last month. Adil is 67. He stoops shakily to pick through the rubble around the shallow indentation in the ground, a yard across, where the tank shell landed. Rearranging his white kaffiyeh with one hand, he reaches out for a piece of silvery metal. It is a foot long with 10 parallel grooves near one end, part of the shell that killed his sons. Nahid and Sami Salman were Tanzim gunmen. They went to this building on the edge of the village of Kafr Khalil to shoot at the side of the main road into Nablus. The tank's return fire was a direct hit. Adil straightens up and leans against the remains of the doorway. "We are fighting them with stones and old guns. They are fighting with planes, tanks and missiles," he says. "But whatever power they have, we will win, with God's help." As he speaks, the old man notices that where his hand rests on the stone wall, there is a long, splattered bloodstain. He stares at it and is quiet.