NABLUS, September 10 (IslamOnline.net) - With the beginning of the new school year in the occupied Palestinian territories, Palestinian students are busy filling their bags with books and stationery. But slingshots, catapults and paint bottles are also high on their list.

Faced with daunting challenges to reach their schools, starting from the West Bank separation wall to trigger-happy Israeli soldiers, Palestinian students do it their way in resisting the Israeli occupation.

“My colleagues and I used slingshots to hunt birds. When the occupation forces penetrated our city, we thought of making use of them in chasing them,” Ahmad Saleh told IslamOnline.net.

Describing a slingshot that he holds in his hand, Ahmad adds, “It is a V-shaped simple wooden tool covered at both ends with a piece of robust and flexible rubber and has a piece of leather wherein a stone is to be thrown to the farthest possible distance."

Slingshots are not a new method used by Palestinian children to resist the Israeli occupation. It has been known since the first Intifada (1987-1993).

By time, children introduced some modifications to it that made it more accurate in hitting targets.

After throwing a tiny stone with his slingshot, Ahmad added, “My locals call me a clever hunter, as I used to go back home with a variety of birds.”

“I have become a good sniper of Israeli jeeps, as once I managed to break the front-lights of a military vehicle. I also caused a lot of confusion to soldiers walking in the streets of the town,” he boasted.

Ahmad is not the only youngster to use slingshots, as tens of others tend to use them.

Hunting operations are often accompanied by some resistance to the occupation, according to Ahmad.

Tools used by youngsters in Nablus are not confined to slingshots. Catapults are also widely used, according to Abdel Hamid, 18.

“A catapult is so sophisticated given that it can hurl a 500-gram stone at a high speed,” Abdel Hamid told IOL.

On the structure of a catapult, Abdel Hamid says, “It consists of two lines; the length of each amounts to 20-30 cm. Both lines are linked with a rectangular piece of cloth, wherein the piece of stone to be thrown, is put.”

Catapults are used by both youngsters and youths to throw stones on Israeli vehicles that penetrate Palestinian towns and villages.

Road accidents of Israeli military vehicles are also on the rise thanks to the pain bottles used by the Palestinian students.

They throw their multi-color bottles at Israeli jeeps while roaming the streets of Palestinian towns.

“The bottles are broken against the windscreen of vehicles, blurring the eyesight of the drivers and forcing them to swerve and sometimes to turn over,” Walid Abdullah, 18, told IOL.

Abdullah said a lot of youngsters have learned how to make slingshots themselves.