Nidal Fat'hi Rabah Farahat

Nidal Fat'hi Rabah Farahat (Arabic: نضال فتحي رباح فرحات) (April 8, 1971 - February 16, 2003) was the creator of the Qassam rocket, a homemade weapon produced by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

Farahat was a devout Muslim who spent a lot of time at the mosque in the Shijaha neighborhood of Gaza City, his hometown. During the First Intifada, he took part in the Palestinian resistance movement and had some connections to Hamas.

After the Intifada, Farahat was arrested following the death of senior Hamas militant Imad Aqel, who was married to one of his sisters, killed while hiding in his house. After spending 3 years in Israeli detention, he returned to Gaza.

At the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, in 2000, Farahat officially joined the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades and soon became an active member in the organisation, planning and carrying out numerous operations including mortar attacks on Jewish settlements in the Gaza strip. In 2001, Farahat, after several months of work, produced the first prototype for the Qassam rocket and presented it to Ezzedeen-al-qassam brigades leaders Salah Shahade and Adnan al-Ghoul. Together with al-Ghoul, Farahat then worked on developing a better version of the Qassam, which took the name of "Qassam 2" rocket and was extensively used from 2002 by Hamas militants to attack nearby Israeli settlements and towns. Up to the beginning of 2005, the Qassam rockets were responsible for the death of 6 Israelis, all but one in the Israeli town of Sderot near the Gaza Strip, from which several hundreds of rockets were fired over a period of 3 years.

Farahat worked also as a bombmaker who supplied Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades militants with explosive devices and homemade rocket launchers like the Al-Bana and the Batar. He also worked, under the direction of Salama Hamad, on the conception of a drone that could fly over settlements and bomb them. On february 16 2003, Farahat was working along with other militants around newly acquired parts of the drone when one of them, booby-trapped, exploded. The device killed Farahat and 5 other militants.

The youngest brother of Nidal Farahat, Mohammed, died on March 7, 2002, when he attacked a military academy in the Israeli settlement of Azmona, killing 5 young settlers. Farwad Farahat, another of his brothers, was killed in an IDF aistrike on his car south of Gaza City on his way to launch rockets at Israel in 2005. His three other brothers are alive, with one in prison since 1992 and the two others, Wessam Farahat and Momen Farahat still living in the Gaza Strip where they assume high-ranking functions in the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades. The latter sustained serious injuries to a hand while fighting against Israeli soldiers during an incursion in Gaza City in 2003. Finally, Nidal's mother, Maryam Farahat, nicknamed Um Nidal, was elected in the Palestinian parliament dominated by Hamas following the January 26, 2006 Palestinian legislative election.