Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and
Gaza
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/oct2006/isra-o24.shtml
By Jean Shaoul
24 October 2006
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Israel has admitted using phosphorous bombs during the war against
Lebanon last summer, just days after being accused by an Italian
television documentary programme of using dense inert metal
missiles, which are highly carcinogenic, against the Palestinians
in Gaza in July and August.
After previously claiming that phosphorous bombs were only used to
mark targets, Israeli cabinet minister, Jacob Edery, has now
confirmed that the Israeli army made use of phosphorous shells
during the war against Hezbollah in attacks against military
targets in open ground.
Phosphorus weapons cause chemical burns and the Red Cross and human
rights groups argue they should be treated as chemical weapons. The
use of chemical weapons against civilians or against military
targets in civilian areas is outlawed by the Geneva Conventions.
The US has insisted that Saddam Hussein be tried for using chemical
weapons against civilians.
The Lebanese government had accused Israel of using banned weapons,
including phosphorus incendiary bombs and vacuum bombs during the
recent war. Doctors in hospitals in southern Lebanon had said they
suspected some of the burns they were seeing were caused by
phosphorous bombs.
Israel dropped more than a million cluster bombs on south Lebanon
in the last few days before the ceasefire that have resulted in at
least three deaths a day, mainly of women and children, and which
have rendered the area almost uninhabitable.
Israels reversal of its previous claim that its weapons used in
Lebanon did not contravene international conventions can only
strengthen the claims by Palestinian doctors that Israel has used
experimental heavy metal weapons against the people of Gaza.
The Italian state televisions satellite channel, RAI News 24,
which last year documented the US militarys use of white
phosphorus against civilians during attacks on Fallujah, followed
up reports from Gaza of inexplicably serious injuries.
Doctors had appealed for help in identifying the cause of these
strange injuries that were small, often invisible to X-rays, and
cuts provoked by intense heat in the lower limbs. They observed an
unusually large number of wounded that had had to have one or both
of their legs amputated just below the genitals due to burns. Dr.
Habas al-Wahid, head of the emergency centre at the Shuhada al-Aqsa
hospital, told the journalists that the legs of the injured were
sliced from their bodies as if a saw was used to cut through the
bone.
Dozens of victims had completely burned bodies and shrapnel type
injuries that X-ray machines had been unable to detect. Doctors
said they had removed microscopic particles of carbounium and
tungsten, a highly carcinogenic substance, from wounds. Dr. Juma
Saka, of Shifa hospital in Gaza City, said that doctors had found
small entry wounds on the bodies of the dead and wounded, and a
powder on the victims bodies and in their internal organs. The
powder was like microscopic shrapnel, and this is likely what
caused the injuries, Saka said.
In many cases, doctors found that their patients, after initially
appearing to recover, suddenly died after one or two days. We
dont know what it means, new weapons or something added to a
previous weapon, said Saied Joudda, the deputy director at the
Kamal Odwan hospital in Beit Lahiya.
These injuries were first seen in July after Israel launched a
massive military offensive against Gaza at the end of June,
ostensibly to find Corporal Gilad Shalit, who had been seized by
Palestinian militants, and to put an end to the firing of Qassem
rockets into Israel. The six-week-long war against a largely
defenceless people destroyed roads, bridges, homes, water treatment
and electricity plants, killed at least 286 Palestinians and
injured 4,200, according to Gazas emergency services estimate.
Overshadowed by Israels barbaric war against Lebanon, it received
little publicity in the worlds press.
Most of the deaths and injuries were caused by Israeli drones,
unmanned light planes that dropped weapons using precise
remote-controlled devices against pre-established targets.
The programme reported that the doctors in Gaza had compiled
extensive documentary evidence of the injuries. Dr. Mouawia, a
cardio-vascular surgeon and director general of emergency services
in Gaza, explained, In the main hospitals of Gaza, such as the
Shifa Hospital, our medical colleagues have treated wounds that
present small holes, especially at the legs; in some other cases,
within the body itself metallic fragments of various dimensions
have been found, which are actually larger than the small
wounds.
Personally I have collected in a CD the documentation relative to
86 cases that I am ready to show in Italy or anywhere else so that
people can know what has happened here in the past months, when the
public opinion was directed especially at the war in Lebanon, he
continued.
In our opinion, Israel has also used chemical weapons, such as
numerous cases demonstrate, documented cases, with persons having
extremely serious burns to their internal organs in the absence of
external wounds.
In the Gazan hospitals, Dr. Mouawia added, the doctors are
facing a situation that is truly difficult, worsened by the state
of siege that we in the Gaza Strip are forced to live under. It is
like an open-air prison: many of those wounded have died due to the
seriousness of the wounds provoked by these weapons that are
different from the traditional ones up to this moment used by the
Israeli aviation. He said that no new cases had been recorded
since August.
After lengthy research and analysis of the samples of metals found
in the victims bodies and examining the unusual wounds, the
programmes reporters believed that the most likely cause of these
injuries were missiles very similar to the US made Dense Inert
Metal Explosive (DIME).
According to the military magazine Defence Tech, DIME is a
carbon-encased missile that shatters on impact into minuscule
splinters, at the same time setting off an explosive that shoots
blades of energy-charged, heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA) powder,
such as cobalt and nickel or iron, with a carbon fibre casing. It
turns to dust on impact, as it loses inertia very quickly due to
air resistance, burning and destroying through a very precise
angulation everything within a four-meter range, as opposed to the
shrapnel which results from the fragmentation of a metal
casing.
The designation of the metal as inert is due to the metals
non-involvement in the blast, rather than the metal being
chemically or biologically inert.
This technology is one of a new range of low collateral damage or
LCD weapons designed to minimise the damage to nearby property, by
confining its increased lethal effects to a restricted space. So it
is ideal for densely populated areas and helping the warfighter
to prevent the loss of public support, according to its
enthusiastic proponents.
The television programme did not address the question as to whether
the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) developed this weapon themselves
or had been supplied by the US to test the weapons, using the
Palestinians as guinea pigs.
When questioned by the journalists, a spokesman for the IDF stated,
Israel uses no weapons that are not legal under international
law. But since DIME is new, international law has not passed
judgment on its legality.
The IDF evidently refused to talk to the Italian reporters
officially since they only cited Yitzhak Ben-Israel, major-general
in the Israel air force, a former head of the armys
weapons-development program. He did not deny it was a DIME-type
weapon, stating instead that One of the ideas is to allow those
targeted to be hit without causing damage to bystanders or other
persons.
He told the reporters this is a technology that allows the
striking of very small targets.
In other words, DIME would be the perfect weapon for Israels
programme of targeted assassinations of Palestinian opponents of
the ongoing suppression and humiliation of the Palestinian
people.
But the huge ratio of dead to injured in Gazas densely populated
cities suggests that supposedly low lethality weaponsthat
provide increased lethality within a narrow zonemay have precisely
the opposite effect.
Tungsten, the main material that would stray outside of the target
zone, is also said to be highly carcinogenic and harmful to the
environment. According to New Scientist magazine, John Kalinichs
team at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute in
Maryland said that in a study designed to simulate shrapnel
injuries, pellets of weapons-grade tungsten alloy were implanted in
92 rats. Within five months all the animals developed a rare cancer
called rhabdomyosarcoma.
The carcinogenic effects of HMTA have been studied by the US Armed
Forces since at least 2000 (along with depleted uranium). These
alloys were found to cause neoplastic transformations of human
osteoblast cells.
Dr. Mark Witten, a cancer researcher from the University of
Arizona, said he was concerned about the possible links between
tungsten and leukaemia. My opinion is that there needs to be much
more research on the health effects of tungsten before the military
increases its usage, he said.
Carmela Vaccaio, a doctor at University of Parma, examined samples
sent by the Italian reporters from the Gaza Strip and found a very
high concentration of carbon, as well as copper, aluminium and
tungsten, which she considered to be unusual materials. In her
report she concluded, These findings could be in line with the
hypothesis that the weapon in question is DIME.
To add to their suffering, the Palestinian survivors of this new
weaponry can expect to fall victim to cancer.
Later, in a statement issued after the programme, the IDF denied
the use of DIME weapons, adding that Due to operational reasons,
the IDF cannot specify the types and use of weapons in its
possession.