The curious incident of the dog in the nighttime

[Violet_Crumble]

by Gideon Levy
December 16, 2005

You go to sleep securely in your home. At 1 A.M. you wake up in horror to the sound of a voice on the loudspeaker calling you to go out into the street immediately. After the soldiers instruct you to return home, suddenly a frightening dog enters your apartment, grabs your child, who is sitting on his bed in shock, bites him hard in his leg and drags him down the 20 steps that lead from the second-floor apartment to the street.

Can you imagine the nightmare in which the Kassam family found itself last week in the Jenin refugee camp? It's very doubtful. The members of the family didn't believe it either. Their 12-year-old son, Mohammed, who suffers from epilepsy, shouted with fear, until he fainted. His mother grabbed him by the head, so he wouldn't hit himself on the stairs. His father ran downstairs, helpless, pleading with the soldiers. All the children in the house were shouting in fear. Imagine.

Apparently it was "an operational mishap." Maybe the dog, a fighter in the Oketz trained dogs unit of the Israel Defense Forces, overstepped the bounds. Maybe it was a mistaken address. It was certainly an "exceptional case," not "human error," but "canine error." The dog entered the wrong apartment and grabbed the wrong person. It happens to the best of dogs. But anyone who, in the dead of night, sics a dog on a peaceful apartment where children are asleep for the night, cannot plead innocence afterward. In the Jenin refugee camp, they recall that this wasn't the first time. About two years ago, an IDF dog grabbed another child here, a cancer patient, and dragged him outside in its jaws, too, leaving him wounded and bleeding. The dog was searching for a wanted man, Bassam al-Saadi.

Mohammed Kassam lies in the hospital, writhing in pain. The nurse removes the bandage from his leg. His left thigh is covered with wounds. One on the inner part of the thigh, near the crotch, is particularly deep. This is where the dog's teeth pierced him. Last night, Mohammed fell asleep for the first time since the incident. During the previous four nights he hadn't slept a wink; he had nightmares about the dog.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=9342

[lvx35]

1. This sort of thing smashes illusions

that this stuff is anything other than barbarity and rule of the savages. Dogs tearing the flesh of children, the core of the bravery and honor that this stuff hides behind.

[bananas]

2. dogs can detect epilipetic seizures before they occur

that dog probably save the kids life.
:sarcasm: (i think)