Extract from "Riot in Nablus"

The following is an extract from the short story "Riot in Nablus", all the ammunition fired by the IDF in this extract is non lethal unless specifically stated otherwise, I hope you find it interesting, please let me know what you think:


Peanut and I had moved into a system with him throwing the explosive pellets to me and then catching the empties again and again and again. To the South the stone throwers had been forced to retreat around a curb in order to escape from Ofir who had exited the driver’s side and was firing rubber pellets of his own. In spite of this, missiles continued to rain down from above. There was the sound of glass smashing and rocks and slabs of concrete falling everywhere, remarkably none of us were hit. The battle continued, I hit no one, although not for lack of trying. Their position on the roof was ideal to get at us; all of the roofs on the street were connected to each other and flat allowing easy movement up and down the street and away where we couldn't see them. I had fired a couple of canisters at them but to such little effect that Ofir decided to allow Peanut to fire off a gas grenade.

Finally his chance had arrived, after begging Ofir since our arrival at the street he had been granted permission to fire. Ofir ordered Peanut to fire at a specific window in a nearby building, Peanut had never been able to hit anything with his grenades. I watched him pop the round into his M203 grenade launcher and slide it home. He raised the weapon, closed his left eye and exhaled before firing. I turned towards the relevant window and saw a hole appear in the closed slats. Gas began to seep out slowly from the window. Gas fired in the open caused no real problems to anyone, for even a light wind will disperse it quickly, but when fired into a closed space it condensed into a filmy substance that rested on top of everything in there and would remain as an irritant to the skin and until the room was well ventillated the air inside would be so thick with gas that it would be physically impossible to spend anytime in it. We knew from our own experiences having been subjected to large doses of it by our commanders during training

The shot was incredible but the effect miniscule, our enemies were on the roof not in the buildings and missiles still rained down upon us from above. When I looked down the small incline we had driven up I saw, to my horror, a barricade of flaming tyres blocking our retreat. Our stocks of non-lethal ammunition were running precariously low as were our water bottles, this game was becoming serious. I was shaken from my reverie by the sound of five rapid fire gunshots coming from very nearby, fired in fact by Bull at a nearby wall. With this temporary excursion from the rules of the game the missiles stopped as everyone ran for cover.

Then I heard a huge bang, it had not been an explosion, more like something very heavy had hit us, Bull reversed. Not easy to do, due to all of the debris on the ground but our rugged vehicle managed it and as we moved we saw a washing machine fall from the roof of our armoured car. We all looked at each other in shock for a moment; not quite believing that they had resorted to throwing kitchen appliances at us! During the lull that followed I saw from the back of the vehicle a fat man gesticulating at us wildly, arms flapping as if he were attempting flight. It was clear that he had something to say and meant no harm. I pushed the door open and he shouted over to us, Peanut translated that he was talking about his house and then we realised that he was not talking to us but was shouting up at the roof above.

Bull reversed until he was close enough for us to hear properly what he was saying, Peanut listened and translated. I was getting impatient, “what is he saying”? I begged of him, “the washing machine, it’s his” he said. The stone throwers had taken over his house and had spent the day throwing his possessions at us from his roof. All he could do was stand a safe distance away and watch as these kids destroyed his home in the name of Palestinian freedom. When he saw the washing machine thrown from the roof he had refused to wait any longer and, braving our assaults had begun screaming up at the stone throwers to leave.

After mutual recriminations the man stormed into his house only to run out again coughing with his eyes streaming water. It was the gas, which we had fired into his house that affected him. He recovered after a couple of minutes and began again to shout up to the people on the roof, ignoring us the entire time. The scene continued and we began to hear more and more from the roof. Arabic curses began to rain down as thickly as the stones, glass, pipes and kitchen utensils had before. Eventually there was silence and the man walked away. We braced ourselves for a resumption of hostilities when, without warning a door down the street away from us opened and seven youths walked out looking at the ground. They varied in age from early adolescence to late teens. A couple wore scarves over their faces.

We watched them walk away in silence, perhaps not really believing that it was possible for it all to end so innocuously. One of them threw a glance at me and I looked back, he then returned his gaze to the ground as he followed his friends down the hill, past the flaming barricade and to another junction where we watched them move into another house and begin all over again with a different squad.

Meanwhile our street was left in silence, a rubble strewn road serving as the only evidence that anything had happened there at all. Ofir and I stepped out of the armoured car and watched as civilians began to scuttle around again, now that the road was clear. I looked away from the houses and noticed that the makeshift barricade had burned itself out. I had never thought about whether or not there was a Palestinian equivalent of football hooligans, I had assumed that everyone throwing stones against us was doing so out of an ideological hatred of Israel or the occupation.

Again I looked around at the surreal scene, at the debris on the street and I wondered if any of it had really happened at all. I knew that my previous ideas about the conflict between us and the Palestinians had changed, although I was not sure how. It was as though real life had suddenly entered into my brain and played around with all of the notions of Zionism and fighting that had been stored there and on the way out it had paused and gripped something, hard, wrenching it away and replacing it with something else that I couldn't yet fathom. It wasn't that I liked my term in the army any less or that I was less willing to follow my orders, more a recognition of the hopelessness of the common man, soldier, stone thrower or civilian to do anything to change the situation that we were all caught up in. All of my dreams about making a difference had disappeared, replaced by the realisation that all I was really doing was perpetuating the same bullshit that had started before I was born and will continue long after I left the army.

Peanut called to me and I left the street for the safety of the car, I sat there with my friends talking about what had happened and joking about our near misses as well as marvelling at how they had managed to get a washing machine up to the roof. Eventually it began to get dark and it became time to leave the city, thoughts of a hot shower passed through my mind as my eyelids closed of their own accord.

something important

When you are as serious a person as me it is necessary to have something that you can do that allows you to forget the mundane horror that is your life, thankfully there is something out there that allows all of us to do this without a problem.

FAMILY GUY is the programme about absolutely fuck all that allows us to laugh our way into a weary state of complete escapism.

The adventures of Stewie, Peter, Lois, Brian, Chris and the ugly chick have given me hours and hours of embarrassing comedy.

Among the best moments are the fights between Peter and the chicken which break out with no reference to any of the rest of the episode and are epic in their proportions, the one that sees the two of them eventually make up, go out for dinner and then argue over who pays the bill is my personal favourite.

Then there's the Star Wars episode, which although being only 45 mins long and costing £9.99 at Tescos is ludicrously overpriced the "Blueharvest" episode is still very funny and mainly because of how faithful they are to the original Star Wars script rather than how much they deviate from it. The casting is also funny with the old paedophile playing Obi wan Kenobi and Meg as the creature in the garbage disposal.

Yeah, so that's right, even though eight of the ten people who regularly read this blog watch it already and the othe two being my parents I still feel that weriting down my love for family guy is the right move!