Nidal Fat'hi Rabah Farahat

Nidal Fat’hi Rabah Farahat' (Arabic: نضال فتحي رباح فرحات‎‎, Nɩƌál Fɑthí Rɑbáh Fɑrɑhát) (8 April 1971 – 16 February 2003) created the Qassam rocket, a homemade weapon produced by the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades.

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 three 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 organization, planning and carrying out numerous terrorist 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 Izz ad-Din 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, the "Qassam 2". Hamas militants used the Qassam 2 extensively after 2002 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 three years.

Farahat also worked as a bombmaker, supplying 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 Israeli towns and cities and bomb them. On 16 February 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.

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