"The wounding of two women on Sunday by "Israel's" top secret guided anti-tank missile has added new misery to a family that has had more than its fair share of hardships induced by the "Israeli" occupation".

"Zakhia Sweidan, 65, nearly lost her daughter, Lamia Khamas, 37, and her granddaughter, Maryam Fahda, 3, when they were wounded by shrapnel from an exploding missile which hit a neighboring house in the front line village of Qabrikha".

"Both victims were recuperating Monday in the Hammoud hospital in Sidon.

It was not the first calamity to befall Zakhia’s family. Her son, Abbas, was snatched by "Israeli" troops 13 years ago from the outskirts of the village and has remained in a prison in "Israel" ever since. Qassem, her other son, was killed by an "Israeli" shell while he was walking back from school in the early 1980s.

"At the time of the missile attack on Sunday, most residents of Qabrikha were tending their tobacco crops. While some toiled in the fields, others threaded the fresh green leaves together in the shade of their homes".

"At 12.15pm, an abandoned house on the edge of the village was struck without warning by a guided missile. The missile blasted a 3-meter diameter hole in the outside wall, and punched another hole in the wall beyond before smashing into a third wall and setting a room on fire".

"By crouching beside the final point of impact amid the still-smoldering debris of the house Monday morning and lining up the two gaping holes made by the missile, it was possible to determine from where the rocket was fired. Lurking guiltily in the center of the imaginary sight, on a hilltop 5 kilometers to the east, was the "Israeli"-manned outpost at Taibeh".

"The "Israeli" Army claimed that the missile was fired at a house containing “terrorists.” Whether there were any armed men in the house at the time of the attack remains unclear. Abundantly clear, however, were the shattered windows and blood-splattered concrete floor of Zakhia’s house, just 10 meters away from where the missile exploded.

"Lamia, who had been sorting tobacco leaves at the time of the attack, was seriously wounded in the head and still has a piece of shrapnel wedged in her skull. Maryam was tottering by on her way to see Zakhia when the missile exploded. She was wounded in her right leg.

Zeinab Khamas, Maryam’s mother, lost her voice from screaming at the sight of her daughter’s blood-soaked leg.

“I picked up my daughter and kept falling over as I ran away from the explosion,” she said.

Despite the seriousness of her injuries, Lamia was conscious and in good spirits. “We’re just grateful to be alive,” she said.

"In Qabrikha, Zakhia was back to her chore of threading tobacco leaves, seemingly oblivious of her daughter’s bloodstains on the ground beside her.

“We get blows over and over from the "Israelis" and it’s wearing us down,” she sighed.

"The missile fragments collected by The Daily Star from inside the house Monday indicated that it was the same type of weapon that has been used on five previous occasions in the south.

"The missile is believed to be the NT Dandy anti-tank rocket, also known as Long Spike, a still classified weapon designed and manufactured by "Israel's" state-owned armaments company Rafael.

"The Dandy, launchable from the ground or from helicopter gunships, is the largest of three new anti-tank missiles developed by Rafael".

"The other two are the shoulder-fired Gill, with a range of 2.5 kilometers, and the medium range Spike, which can hit targets up to 4 kilometers away.

"The Daily Star revealed in August last year that the "Israelis" had been testing the Dandy in south Lebanon since at least February 1998. At the time, Rafael denied the existence of the Spike and Dandy, although the company was known to be attempting to sell ­ unsuccessfully as it turned out ­ the latter missile to the Polish government.

"The Spike, believed to be the same as the Dandy but smaller, has since been declassified and, along with the Gill, is the pride of Rafael’s arsenal.

“An innovative and revolutionary concept led Rafael to develop the ‘Spike family’ systems, based on state-of-the-art electro-optic and fiber-optic technologies,” gushes a Rafael publicity leaflet.

"The leaflet also said that the missile’s diverse capabilities “present a considerable growth potential for expanding the battlefield uses of the Spike family well beyond anti-tank roles.”

Rafael’s sales team have been busy marketing the missiles in the past week to potential European customers at the Paris Air Show".

"Not many tanks have been destroyed since the Spike “family” first emerged in south Lebanon at least 16 months ago, but the "Israelis" have succeeded in killing one civilian and wounding four others while field-testing their “innovative and revolutionary” missiles ­ a statistic that was probably omitted from Rafael’s publicity brochure in Paris".