I sit on the floor of Amed Taha’s apartment, a small room above a health-clinic in the West Bank. The simple shelter of a roof and adjoining walls provides respite from the heat and stench of the sun cooked market below. My skins is caked in mud, sweat and the motor oil from my jeep. The vehicle broke down outside of town and Mr. Taha, a friend from Xbox Live, was kind enough to pick me up.

As Mr. Taha offers me a bowl of water I notice the scratches, some over a foot long, that run down his sleeveless arms. He wears them with a certain pride, like an artist wears paint surreptitiously dappled on her jeans or ratty white t-shirt.

The room is painted beige, but you would only know this if someone told you. Walls are plastered from floor to ceiling with SEGA propaganda: Streets of Rage posters, Sonic the Hedgehog plushies. In the corner, the source of Mr. Taha’s scars: Chu-Chu’s, or as they’re known in America, mice.

Six-months into a combustible, but ultimately futile stalemate over the southern tip of Israel, Hamas has called for all members, both local and global, to halt air attacks – and begin assaults with Chu-Chu Rockets.

The movement, codenamed “Dream Blast,” is the brainchild of Mr. Taha.

“What do rockets do for us?” asks Taha, answering himself. “Hurt. Kill. Bring shame. So I say repurpose these atrocious devices. We stuff them with cute little miceys.”

“Where violent strikes flounder, adorable mice prosper.”

Taha says that the controversial strategy might yet surprise its Western critics, specifically New York Time’s editorialist Andrew Friedman who panned it as “Bush league,” a pun on minor league baseball and former American President George Bush’s militaristic belly flops.

“Early ground reports estimate Israeli retaliatory attacks, when in response to Chu-Chu Rockets, have plummeted almost 85%.” says Taha.

A week later, I meet with Asaf Stavi, an Israeli military consultant for tea at his luxurious office in Tel Aviv.

“At first we were so happy,” say Stavi. “The Chu-Chus, they are so cuddleable. We thought, maybe we shall send them Chu-Chus back? And so we did.”

Stavi tenses up. His fingers go rigid. I worry he’ll crush his tiny ceramic tea cup.

“But then they, they get so competitive. The Hamas take our mice for their rockets. So we counter with cats. Then Hamas put cats in rockets. Mice are dying, cats are multiplying. It is living nightmare. Makes me miss life-ruining weapons of yesteryear.”

That night, my New York based editor asks me to catch the next plane back to the States. Tensions are, yet again, heating up.

I hang up the phone. On my windowsill, I spot a Chu-Chu. The creature, so precious and likable by day, looks grotesque in the shadow of night. This isn’t a mouse; it’s a rat.