posted on January 26, 2004 08:52:42 PM new
Israeli soldiers stationed in the tense West Bank city of Hebron have recently been battling an enemy they define as more scary then Palestinian militants: enormous rats.
The rats, lured by piles of garbage in Hebron's streets, have become so daring they have even infiltrated military barracks and bitten at least two heavily armed combat soldiers - one in the ear and the other on the lip, the Israeli newspaper Maariv reported.
The rodents have grown so large that soldiers are calling them the Hebrew equivalent of "[b]crats[.b]" due to their increasing similarity to the stray cats, Maariv reported.
The army declined to comment on the reported injuries to soldiers. It released a statement saying it is dealing with the problem with pesticides and traps, and that it is trying to coordinate garbage collection with the Palestinian Authority.
"In the past few weeks the rats have been more frightening then the terrorists," one unidentified soldier quoted by Maariv said.
-----------------------
President Bush has recently said much the same thing -- that lately the 'crats are a bigger problem than the terrorists.
