Israel - The new Chemical Brothers

Lebanon is investigating reports from doctors that Israel has used weapons in its 15-day-old bombardment that have caused wounds they have never seen before. "We are sending off samples tomorrow, but we have no confirmation yet that illegal weapons have been used," Health Minister Mohammed Khalife told Reuters.

The Lebanese dead are charred in a way local doctors, who have lived through years of civil war and Israeli occupation, say they have not seen before.

The Israeli army said it had used only conventional weapons and ammunition in attacks aimed at Hizbollah guerrillas and nothing contravening international law.

It would be interesting to see the results, but would anyone condemn this? This is not the first time alleged chemical weapons have been used by Israel:

Allegations that Israeli forces have used chemical and biological weapons date back to the War of 1948. During that time wells and water supplies were poisoned by Israeli Army to kill Palestinians and drive them out of the area.

The following article is extracted from http://www.vtjp.org

In March 2003, the BBC presented Israel’s Secret Weapon, an investigation of Israel's development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The BBC reported: “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.”

This report explores the reported development and deployment of chemical weapons by the government of Israel since 1974, paying particular attention to incidents since 2001 in which unidentified poison gas(es) and other chemicals were used against civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories. The documentation includes photos, videos, interviews, and reports by human rights organizations, the world press and independent researchers. http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf


1974: US General tells Senate Armed Forces Committee that Israel’s chemical weapons program is operational.

July 1, 1982: Soviet TASS carries reports from Beirut that Israel is using chemical weapons including BZ nerve gas.

July 5, 1982: Soviet Union accuses US of providing Israel ‘barbarous’ weapons, including chemical weapons, that Israel uses in invasion of Lebanon.

December 4, 1988: PFLP accuses the Israeli Army of using a new chemical weapon against Palestinians…causing various wounds and “organic complications”, cites doctors treating victims in Tobay and Tamoun.

March – April, 1988: Former mayor of Nablus reports: “Fleets of helicopters fly over Nablus at night dropping a dense, green toxic gas over the city..” Doctors at Ittihad Hospital report several deaths and severe lung injuries from the unidentified asphyxiating chemical, “totally distinct from tear gas..” UNRWA doctors report symptoms not normally connected with tear gas. UNRWA seeks information on contents of the gas...to provide antidote...especially for the most vulnerable groups…pregnant women, the very young and elderly..”

January - February, 1989: Israeli officials including Binyamin Netanyahu partially admit possession of a chemical weapons program.

February 6, 1989: League of Arab States' Committee of Seven condemns use of chemical weapons against Palestinians.

1990: US Defense Intelligence Agency states Israel maintains chemical testing facility possibly in Negev desert.

July, 1990: Israeli Minister of Science: If Iraq uses chemical weapons Israel will retaliate "with the same merchandise."

October 4, 1992: El Al 747 cargo plane en route from New York to Israel crashes into Amsterdam apartment building, carrying three of the four chemicals needed to make sarin nerve gas. Hundreds of Dutch citizens suffer lingering health problems following exposure.

October 30, 1996: Rebels in Papua New Guinea accuse Israel of providing government forces with “chemical bombs” dropped by helicopters, causing skin irritation and burning.
1997: Israeli government decides not to submit 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention to Knesset for ratification.

September 25, 1997: Israeli Mossad agents attempt to poison Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal with fentanyl in Amman, Jordan. Meshaal is administered an antidote in exchange for Jordan’s release of captured Mossad agents.

1998: CBW center in Nes Ziona (Israel Institute for Biological Research, IIBR) drops plans to expand its facilities due to local pressure over environmental and safety hazards associated with the complex.

August, 1998: Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot publishes exposé calling IIBR “metropolitan Tel Aviv's most severe environmental hazard”, raises questions regarding IIBR secrecy.

August 19, 1998: British Foreign Report: In recent years, four IIBR workers killed and 25 injured in accidents, one of which forced evacuation of the surrounding area.

September 23, 1998: Israelis living near IIBR file an appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court to prevent the expansion of the institute.

October 4, 1998: Sunday Times of London: Israeli F-16’s capable of deploying chemical and biological weapons produced at IIBR. The Times quotes a biologist who once held a senior post in Israeli intelligence: "There is hardly a single known or unknown form of chemical or biological weapon...which is not manufactured at the institute [IIBR]."

November 15, 1998: The Sunday Times reports Israel (using South African research) is developing an "ethno bomb": "In developing their "ethno-bomb", Israeli scientists are trying to exploit medical advances by identifying distinctive a gene carried by some Arabs, then create a genetically modified bacterium or virus... The scientists are trying to engineer deadly micro-organisms that attack only those bearing the distinctive genes."

April 2, 1999: United Kingdom partially lifts ban against Israeli nuclear and CBW scientists.
October 29, 2000: Israeli occupation troops shoot gas canisters into schoolyard and classrooms at T'ku, near Bethlehem. Over 24 children suffer from gas inhalation and require hospitalization. Gas “differs from the standard tear-gas used around the world in dispersing demonstrations.” Spokesman for the Palestinian Health Ministry says it is “a semi-poisonous gas that leaves strong after effects, including spasmodic reactions, nervous reactions as well as strong abdominal pains..”

February 12, 2001 - Khan Younis, Gaza Strip: Israel begins a six-week campaign of “novel gas” attacks in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Troops lob gas canisters into streets, courtyards, and houses of Khan Younis city and Gharbi refugee camp.

Fifty people admitted to Al-Nasser Hospital “in an odd state of hysteria and nervous breakdown..fainting and spasms.” Sixteen have to be transferred to the intensive care unit. Doctors “reported the Israeli use of gas that appeared to cause convulsions.”

At the Gharbi refugee camp, thirty-two people “were treated for serious injuries” following exposure to the gas. Dr. Salakh Shami, Al-Amal Hospital reports hospital received “about 130 patients suffering from gas inhalation..”

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 “with convulsions..a kind of hysteria. They were all shaking.” Vicitms would fall unconscious, then ‘come to’ hours later to face convulsions, vomiting, disorientation and pain.

February 13, 2001: 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 Palestine Red Crescent Society.
American filmmaker James Longley arrived in Khan Younis in the middle of a gas attack. That afternoon he began filming the victims. His award-winning film “Gaza Strip” provided the best documentation to date of an Israeli posion gas attack.

AFX News Limited: “Palestinian security services have accused the Israeli army of using nerve gas during a gunbattle yesterday….the army has strongly denied the charges.”

The Voice of Palestine: “Specialists believe that this is an internationally banned nerve gas.” Those who inhaled the gas “suffered a nervous breakdown and vomited blood.”

February 18, 2001: Israeli forces fired several “poison gas” canisters into the Khan Younis refugee camp. Palestinian civilians, mostly children and women, suffered from suffocation and spasms due to inhaling the gas.

238 Palestinians affected by poison gas attacks between February 12 and February 20. Twenty-seven of the victims still hospitalized as of February 22 - Palestinian Centre for Human Rights

The Palestine Ministry of Health reported: “55 children were exposed to toxic gas thrown by the Israeli forces at citizens in Khan Younis” during February 2001.

James Longley: “One boy, who had inhaled a large amount of the gas in question, suffered in the hospital for an entire month with recurrent convulsions.”

March 2, 2001: Israeli forces operating in the West Bank village of Al-Bireh fired “a highly effective black gas similar to the one used in Khan Yunis three weeks ago. Among the wounded were four medical personnel of the Palestinian Medical Relief Committees.”

March 26, 2001: After Israeli forces operating east of Gaza City fired “new” orange gas, with “a nice-smell and delicious taste upon inhalation. Then the inhaler feels tired throughout the body, their muscles loosen, and they suffer from breathing difficulties. The gas also leaves red signs on the skin, causing agitation. Some hours later, the inhaler suffers severe abdominal pains.” Three Palestinian civilians were evacuated to Shifa’ hospital in Gaza City after inhaling the gas.
March 30, 2001: Medical sources in the West Bank city of Nablus reported Israeli occupation forces using “a highly effective gas with unfamiliar symptoms, similar to that used first in Khan Yunis on February 12, 2001.”

April 5, 2001: 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. Large doses of anticonvulsants 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.”

October 9, 2003: American freelance journalists report the story of Mukhles Burgal, a Palestinian prisoner at 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.”

October 11, 2003: Palestine Monitor: Israeli forces in Rafah, Gaza Strip “firing gas grenades containing a black gas...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.”

October 14, 2003: Eyewitness American Laura Gordon: “The army used some kind of nerve gas for the first time in Rafah, leaving people in convulsions for days.”

June 10, 2004 - Anti-wall demonstrators gassed at Az Zawiyah, West Bank: Report by Gush Shalom, Israel's 'Peace Bloc' - “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..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..They had high fever and their muscles became rigid. Some needed urgent blood transfusion.”

May 20, 2004: “Israeli forces use chemical-contaminated ammo, which makes the skin of the victim fall once touched,” Dr. Mohamed El-Hashim, Qalqiliya. Israeli soldiers fired one bullet at Mazen Yassin, leader of Qalqilya's Hamas military wing, left him bleeding in the street and prevented civilians and ambulances from approaching. “A white-colored substance appeared on the lips of the deceased, a..thing I've never saw before...The skin was falling out upon touching any part of the body.”

June 22, 2004: Dozens of Palestinians injured by a reportedly new brand of “tear gas” that leaves serious symptoms many hours, even days, after inhalation. According to Bassam Abu Madhi, head of Salfit Health Department, the gases used by the Israeli police against demonstrators caused “serious involuntary convulsions. This shows that the gases have a certain effect on the central nervous system.” Other symptoms caused by the new gases include extended blurred vision, enlarged eye pupil, serious mental confusion and stomach pains.”

June 26, 2004: Al Aqsa Brigades operative describes “the intentional poisoning of the seven operatives” killed in Nablus, June 26. “We prepared our guns to fight, but soldiers hurled dozens of gas and smoke bombs inside the room we sheltered in.” Medical sources in Nablus report that the seven killed inside the hideout died as a result of inhaling an unidentified gas. A few gun shots were found in the hands and legs, but “none could have led to their death.” A woman nearby fainted after inhaling the gases.