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<font size=3><a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/brooks07062004.html" eudora="autourl">http://www.counterpunch.org/brooks07062004.html<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=4><b> July 5,
2004 CounterPunch.org<br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>How Israel
"Disperses" Demonstrations<br><br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5 color="#990000">Chemical
Warfare on the West Bank?<br><br>
</b></font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=5>By JAMES
BROOKS<br><br>
</font><font size=3>"On June 10th, 2004, the two clinics in
Al-Zawiya treated 130 patients for gas inhalation. The patients were
children, women, old people and young men. Dr. Abu Madi related that
there was a high number of cases of [tetany], spasm in legs and hands,
connected to the nervous system. Pupils were dilated...Other symptoms
included shock, semi-consciousness, hyperventilation, irritation and
sweating." (1)<br><br>
Thus reads a report by medical units serving the West Bank village of
Al-Zawiya, where nonviolent resistance to Israel's impending wall has
been extraordinarily resolute. According to the medical report (procured
by the International Middle East Media Center - IMEMC), "the gas
used against the protestors is not tear gas but possibly a nerve
gas."<br><br>
The following day, Israel's 'Peace Bloc', Gush Shalom, began a press
release with the following quote from Al-Zawiya: "What the army used
here yesterday was not tear gas. We know what tear gas is, what it feels
like. That was something totally different.... When we were still a long
way off from where the bulldozers were working, they started shooting
things like this one (holding up a dark green metal tube with the
inscription "Hand and rifle grenade no.400" - in English).
Black smoke came out. Anyone who breathed it lost consciousness
immediately, more than a hundred people. They remained unconscious for
nearly 24 hours. One is still unconscious, at Rapidiya Hospital in
Nablus. They had high fever and their muscles became rigid. Some needed
urgent blood transfusion. Now, is this a way of dispersing a
demonstration, or is it chemical warfare?" (2)<br><br>
The incident in Al-Zawiya appears to be the tenth attack by Israeli
soldiers using an "unknown gas" against Palestinian civilians
since early 2001. We have photographs of the canisters. We have film of
victims suffering in the hospital. We have interviews with Palestinian
and European doctors who have treated the victims. And we presumably have
hundreds, perhaps thousands, of survivors. But we know nothing of their
fate. Despite the evidence, we have not inquired.<br><br>
Though it is a state secret, Israel's development of chemical and
biological weapons has been known and analyzed for decades. From the
typhoid poisoning of Palestinian wells and water supplies in 1948 (3,4)
to the conversion of F-16s into nerve gas 'crop dusters' in 1998 (5),
Israel has always demonstrated a strong interest in developing CBW agents
and methods for their dispersal.<br><br>
In 1992 an El Al 747 flying nerve gas ingredients from the US to Israel
crashed into an Amsterdam apartment building. (6) According to Salman
Abu-Sitta, president of the Palestine Land Society, the respected Dutch
daily NRC Handelsblad followed up the crash with an in-depth
investigation of the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR),
Israel's CBW complex in Nes Ziona. The paper reportedly found
"strong links" with several US CBW and medical research
centers, "close cooperation between IIBR and the British-American
biological warfare programme", and "extensive collaboration on
BW research with Germany and Holland." (7)<br><br>
At IIBR, doctors publish world-class research in acetylcholine, the
mother lode of nerve gas design. The Nes Ziona complex is reputed to have
invented an "undetectable" poison-needle gun for
"clean" assassinations. (8) In September 1997, two days after
Jordan's King Hussein told Israeli PM Netanyahu that Hamas was seeking
negotiations, Mossad agents in Jordan attempted to kill Hamas leader
Khaled Misha'al with a lethal dose of fentanyl. (9)<br><br>
For years, rumors persisted that Israel was using or testing unknown
chemical agents on Palestinian civilians. The rumors began to reveal
their substance February 12, 2001, when Israel began a six-week campaign
of "novel gas" attacks in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. By
chance, American filmmaker James Longley arrived in Khan Younis, Gaza in
the middle of the first attack. That afternoon he began filming the
victims. His award-winning film, Gaza Strip, documents the naked reality
of Israel's chemical weaponry_the canisters, the doctors, the
eyewitnesses, and the hideous suffering of the victims, many of whom
remained hospitalized for days or weeks. (10)<br><br>
The February 12 gassing of neighborhoods in Khan Younis presaged the
attacks that followed. When the gas canisters landed, they began to
billow clouds of either white or black, sooty smoke. The gas was
non-irritating and initially odorless, changing to a sweet, minty
fragrance after a few minutes. One victim recalled, "the smell was
good. You want to breathe more. You feel good when you inhale it."
The smoke often shifted to a "rainbow" of changing colors. (11)
(12)<br><br>
>From five to thirty minutes after breathing the gas, victims began to
feel sick and have difficulty breathing. A searing pain began to wrench
their gut, followed by vomiting, sometimes of blood, then complete
hysteria and extremely violent convulsions. Many victims suffered a
relentless syndrome for days or weeks afterward, alternating between
convulsions and periods of conscious, twitching, vomiting agony.
Palestinians agreed: "This is like nothing we've ever seen
before." (13)<br><br>
Forty people were admitted to Al-Nasser Hospital "in an odd state of
hysteria and nervous breakdown", suffering from "fainting and
spasms." Sixteen gas patients had to be transferred to the intensive
care unit. Doctors "reported the Israeli use of gas that appeared to
cause convulsions." (14)<br><br>
At the Gharbi refugee camp, thirty-two people "were treated for
serious injuries" following exposure to the gas. Dr. Salakh Shami at
Al-Amal Hospital reported the hospital receiving "about 130 patients
suffering from gas inhalation from February 12." (15)<br><br>
Bewildered medical personnel had "never seen anything..like the gas
at Tufa." Victims were "jumping up and down, left and
right..thrashing limbs around", suffering "convulsions..a kind
of hysteria. They were all shaking." Others were already
unconscious. An hour or two later, they would come to. And the
convulsions and the vomiting and disorientation and pain would
return.(16)<br><br>
The following day, February 13, Israeli forces again deployed the strange
new gas canisters in Khan Younis. Over forty new gas victims,
"including a number of children..from 1 to 5 years-old",
arrived at Al-Nasser Hospital and the hospital of the Palestinian Red
Crescent Society. (17)<br><br>
The news began to trickle out. "Palestinian security services have
accused the Israeli army of using nerve gas during a gunbattle
yesterday", reported AFX News Limited, noting "the army has
strongly denied the charges." (18) The Voice of Palestine reported
that "specialists believe that this is an internationally banned
nerve gas." Those who inhaled the gas "suffered a nervous
breakdown and vomited blood." (19)<br><br>
The next day, Deutsche Presse-Agentur quoted Dr. Yasser Sheikh Ali from
Al-Nasser Hospital: "Israel has been using a powerful type of tear
gas against the Palestinians that causes convulsions and spasms."
According to DPA, more than 80 Palestinians...reported that Israeli
soldiers had used the white smoky gas, but Israel denied doing so."
(20)<br><br>
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) reported that on February
15 three more canisters of the poison gas were fired at houses in the
Khan Younis camp, and "another 11 Palestinian civilians, mostly
children, suffered from suffocation and spasms due to gas
inhalation." (21) British journalist Graham Usher wrote that Khan
Younis civilians were "incapacitated" by "a 'new' form of
toxic gas." (22)<br><br>
PA President Yasser Arafat publicly "accused Israel of using poison
gas." The IDF issued a second denial. Israeli Communications
Minister Ben-Eliezer called reports of gas casualties in Khan Younis
"incorrect and false." Senior PA minister Nabil Shaath said
that a sample of the gas would be sent to "an international center
for analysis." (23) The results, if any, were never
divulged.<br><br>
On February 18, Israeli soldiers near the Neve Dekalim settlement
reportedly fired four poison gas canisters at Palestinian houses in Khan
Younis. Later that afternoon, more canisters were fired, forcing
Palestinians to flee their homes. PCHR reported that "41 Palestinian
civilians, mostly children and women, suffered from suffocation and
spasms." (24) By PCHR's count, 238 Palestinians were affected by
poison gas attacks between February 12 and February 20. Twenty-seven of
the victims were still hospitalized on the 22nd. (25)<br><br>
On March 2, an unknown gas was used against civilians in the West Bank
town of Al-Bireh. Israeli soldiers reportedly fired "canisters of a
highly effective black gas similar to the one used in Khan Yunis three
weeks ago." (26)<br><br>
Twenty-four days later, Israeli forces east of Gaza City used a gas that
"left symptoms different from those of the..gas used first.. in Khan
Yunis starting from February 12..", although several similarities
also appeared. In this attack the onset of abdominal pain seemed to be
delayed. (27)<br><br>
On March 30, medical professionals in Nablus reported Israeli soldiers
using the new poison gas against Palestinian demonstrators.
(28)<br><br>
British journalist Jonathan Cook reported a March gas attack on the
schoolyard of Al-Khader village, near Bethlehem. Thirteen year-old Sliman
Salah was playing when a gas canister landed next to him,
"enveloping him in a cloud of gas described by witnesses as an
unfamiliar, yellow colour." Large doses of anti-convulsants were
required to control the boy's seizures and maintain consciousness. His
symptoms "were finally brought under control five days after his
exposure to the gas. But Salah's father says the boy is still suffering
from stomach pains, vomiting, dizziness and breathing problems."
(29)<br><br>
In its March, 2003 special report, Israel's Secret Weapon, BBC Television
reviewed this series of gas attacks, noting, "The Israeli army has
used new unidentified weapons. In February 2001 a new gas was used in
Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with
severe convulsions....Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons
treaties and still refuses to say what the new gas was."
(30)<br><br>
In my amateur analysis of the reported comments of victims, eyewitnesses
and medical professionals regarding this series of attacks, I identified
thirty-three distinct symptoms attributed to the unidentified gas. All
but three of these symptoms appear to be typical of nerve gas poisoning.
(31) Tareg Bey, a chemical warfare expert at the University of
California-Irvine, told the Chicago Reader that the symptoms described to
him "all fit really well to nerve gas", though he was puzzled
by the reported fragrance and skin rashes. (32)<br><br>
In an October 9, 2003 article, Jennifer Loewenstein and Angela Gaff
asked, "What gas is Israel using?" They reported the story of
Mukhles Burgal, a Palestinian prisoner caught in a brutal attack inside
Israel's Ashkelon prison. The "guards forced their way into the
crowded cell, spraying two canisters of some type of gas. Some of the 14
prisoners passed out...The effects of the gas were severe muscle spasms
and an overwhelming sensation of not being able to breathe."
(33)<br><br>
Two days later, Palestine Monitor reported that Israeli forces in Rafah
were allegedly "firing gas grenades containing a black gas believed
to be adamatite [adamsite?]- the use of which is forbidden according to
international law. Medical authorities urged people to avoid the gas at
all costs, as it not only causes difficulty in breathing but seriously
affects the nervous system." (34) For some reason, PCHR's press
release from the same day, an apparent source of these reports, is no
longer available. (35) On the 14th, eyewitness Laura Gordon wrote,
"The army used some kind of nerve gas for the first time in Rafah,
leaving people in convulsions for days." (36)<br><br>
Following the recent gas attack in Al-Zawiya, town officials reportedly
told Al Ayyam newspaper, "the Israeli occupation troops were using
an illegal substance that caused nerve spasms and that several cases had
been transferred to Nablus hospitals." (37)<br><br>
The PA's International Press Center reported that "official and
public sources in..Al-Zawya..asserted that those who have inhaled the
tear gas IOF troops fired at them four days ago are still suffering from
the effects of the gas...a number of those citizens have already had
amnesias or partial memory loss, in addition to cramps...in addition to
strange cramps every three hours... those who inhaled the gas are still
suffering severe pains in the joints and nausea for four days now.
Eyewitnesses recalled that the Israeli soldiers were keen on picking the
empty tear gas canisters.." Journalists told IPC "that the gas
was in different colors they have never seen coming out of a tear gas
canister before, and that some gases had an unrecalled smell."
(38)<br><br>
According to IMEMC, "..tens of demonstrators who inhaled this gas
had partial memory loss. Dr. Bassam Abu Madi told IMEMC that the some of
those who inhaled the gas had severe choking and some contraction in
their feet and arm muscles. Eyewitnesses said the gas has a strange smell
and a reddish-brownish color." [corrected copy] In a follow up
story, IMEMC concluded that "protesters were attacked with gas that
is not like the tear gas. Those who inhaled the gas suffered some memory
loss while others had other symptoms of a nerve gas. Yet this was not
medically confirmed for lack of laboratories to inspect the gas canisters
collected from the scene." (39)<br><br>
Al Jazeera reported the opinion of Awni Khatib, a professor of chemistry
at Hebron University; "the new symptoms-particularly the violent
convulsions experienced by some Palestinian protesters outside the
village of Sawiya [Zawiya], southwest of Nablus-suggest..that the Israeli
army may be using a new class of chemicals that lie somewhere between
normal tear gas and chemical weapons." (40)<br><br>
Israel's repeated use of highly toxic unknown chemicals against
Palestinian civilians is now an open secret. We can expect these attacks
to continue until a concerted effort is made to determine the facts and
hold Israel accountable. So far, the international human rights community
has steadfastly ignored the mounting evidence.<br><br>
When will professional investigators begin to retrieve and test the gas
canisters? Why has no one but James Longley bothered to document
interviews with victims, doctors, and other eyewitnesses? In a world in
which one country's mere possession of chemical weapons can be an excuse
for international retribution, how another country's use of chemical
weapons against civilians be dismissed as a "regrettably
excessive" tactic of crowd control?<br><br>
Our silence is poisoning Palestine.<br><br>
<br>
James Brooks is a writer and webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in
Palestine/Israel. He can be reached at:jamiedb@att.biz<br><br>
1. One Israeli, one Palestinian arrested and 40 wounded in anti-wall
protest, International Middle East Media Center, 6/14/2004<br><br>
2. Sharon Praised While Wall Construction Continues, Gush Shalom,
6/11/2004<br><br>
3. The Jews of Iraq, by Naeim Giladi, The Link, April-May, 1998, American
Middle East Update<br><br>
4. Traces of poison, by Salman Abu-Sitta, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 27 Feb.
- 5 March 2003<br><br>
5. Israeli WMD - Israel's Weapons of Mass Destruction, by Neil Sammonds,
ZNet, 10/11/2002<br><br>
6. ibid.<br><br>
7. Traces of poison, by Salman Abu-Sitta, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 27 Feb.
- 5 March 2003<br><br>
8. Israel's Anti-Civilian Weapons by John F. Mahoney, January -March
2001<br><br>
9. Diplomatic Struggle Follows Bungled Assassination Attempt in Jordan,
New York Times, October 15, 1997<br><br>
10. Gaza Strip, James Longley, producer 2001<br><br>
11. The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary Investigation, James
Brooks, Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel, January 8,
2003<br><br>
12. Selected Interviews Gaza Strip by James Longley<br><br>
13. ibid.<br><br>
14. Israelis Kill 14-year-old, Assassinate Arafat Bodyguard, IANA
Radionet, Islamic Assembly of North America, February 13, 2001<br><br>
15. Israeli Army Fires Highly Toxic Quantities of Tear Gas at Civilians
in Khan Yunis, Gaza, Palestine Monitor, February 15, 2001<br><br>
16. Selected Interviews Gaza Strip by James Longley<br><br>
17. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli
Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Feb. 8 -
14, 2001<br><br>
18. AFX News Limited, AFX European Focus, February 13, 2001<br><br>
19. Selected Interviews Gaza Strip by James Longley<br><br>
20. ibid.<br><br>
21. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli
Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, February
15 - 21, 2001<br><br>
22. Unprepared for the worst, by Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly Online,
Feb. 15 - 21, 2001<br><br>
23. Arafat accuses Israel of using poison gas, CNN Asia, February 16,
2001<br><br>
24. PCHR Weekly Report, Feb. 15 - 21, 2001<br><br>
25. ibid.<br><br>
26. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli
Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 1
- 7, 2001 (contains typographical error incorrectly listing incident as
occurring "Friday, February 22")<br><br>
27. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli
Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 22
- 29, 2001<br><br>
28. Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli
Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 29
- April 4, 2001<br><br>
29. Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas?, by Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly
On-line, 5 - 11 April 2001<br><br>
30. Israel's Secret Weapon, transcript, BBC, March 17, 2003<br><br>
31. Gas Attack/What Was It?/News Bites, by Michael Miner, Chicago Reader,
August 23, 2002 Reader Archive--Article: 2002/020823/HOTTYPE<br><br>
32. Symptoms - The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary
Investigation, by James Brooks, VTJP<br><br>
33. What gas is Israel using?, by Jennifer Loewenstein and Angela Gaff,
Electronic Intifada, 10/9/2003<br><br>
34. UPDATE: Israeli invasion of Gaza refugee camps leave 7 dead and 65
injured meanwhile strict lock down of Palestinian territories continues,
Palestine Monitor, 10/11/2003<br><br>
35. PCHR press release index 2003<br><br>
36. Eyewitness account of the invasion of Rafah, by Laura Gordon,
International Middle East Media Center, 10/14/2003<br><br>
37. "This damned, racist wall", by Omar Karmi, Palestine
Report, 6/16/2004<br><br>
38. Israeli Sources: IOF Uses Chemical Weapons Against Palestinian
Demonstrators, International Press Center, 6/13/2004 [erroneously refers
to Gush Shalom as "Peace Now"]<br><br>
39. Nonviolence Protestors managed to halt the construction,
International Middle East Media Center, 6/16/2004<br><br>
40. Palestinian resistance leaders killed, Al Jazeera, June 26,
2004<br><br>
<br>
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