Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza

By Jean Shaoul
24 October 2006Israel 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.

Israel’s 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 television’s satellite channel, RAI News 24, which last year documented the US military’s 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 don’t 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 Gaza’s emergency services’ estimate. Overshadowed by Israel’s barbaric war against Lebanon, it received little publicity in the world’s 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 programme’s 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 metal’s 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 army’s 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 Israel’s 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 Gaza’s densely populated cities suggests that supposedly “low lethality” weapons—that provide increased lethality within a narrow zone—may 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 Kalinich’s 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.”

(c)WsWs

Damn dacht ik al...

Israel mag echt TEVEEL van de wereld/nato/vn

al staat het niet officieel vastgelegd iedereen weet dat Israel allang in bezit is van atoomwapens...maar het staat niet op de kaart van het int. atoomagentschap.

Remoreit dispranadi flotibale etta n
abinet olcutabek iture nesbemorg!!

Comprend ??

Toxic waste dumping in Ivory Coast
By Barry Mason
24 October 2006In September eight people died and over 80,000 had to seek medical treatment for symptoms including vomiting, nosebleeds and breathing difficulties in Abidjan, the main city of the West African country of Ivory Coast. The cause of the deaths and medical problems was the dumping of toxic waste at around 14 sites around the city.

The toxic waste, over 500 metric tonnes, had been brought from Europe by an old tanker, the Probo Koala. The Greek owned ship registered in Panama was on hire to the Dutch oil trading company Trafigura Beheer BV.

Salif Oudrawogol explained to the New York Times how the foul smell of rotten eggs, garlic and petroleum hit him when he was woken by his son gasping for air. “The smell was so bad we were afraid ... it burned our noses and eyes.” A BBC report quoted one resident, “I am ill, I was intoxicated in my neighbourhood, Akouedo ... I am asthmatic and I passed out.”

There were protests in Abidjan over the deaths and illness caused by the toxic waste. The cabinet of Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny resigned as a result of the health emergency, though Banny has quickly formed a new cabinet containing most of the previous ministers. The environment and transport ministers—held to account by the protesters—were replaced. At one point the protesters had dragged the then transport minister, Innocent Anaky Kobenan, from his car and beat him. They also set fire to the house of the port director Marcel Gossio.

The waste from the ship had been brought in the hold of the Probo Koala along with a shipment of petroleum that was delivered to Nigeria. After offloading the petroleum the ship put into Abidjan in mid-August. Once there the waste was transferred to tanker lorries that—under the cover of night—dispersed the foul substance at 14 different dump sites around the city. Many sites were near fields growing food or near water supplies.

According to an article in the September 18 International Der Spiegel, a company called Tommy carried out the tankering of the waste. The company, which was only set up in July this year, was awarded the contract to dump the waste by a company called Puma Energy. According to the Der Spiegel article both the Dutch Trafigura company and members of the family of the Ivorian president, Laurent Gbagbo, hold shares in Puma Energy. Local newspapers came under pressure and two journalists were arrested after investigating what they described as the “Ivorian Chernobyl.”

The ship had set sail for Africa from Europe to deliver the petroleum to Nigeria together with the toxic waste, after initially attempting to dispose of the waste in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam Port Services (APS) had been commissioned to treat and dispose of the liquid waste from the ship that had been described as “waste water.” The waste was pumped into APS facilities where the strong stench led to local residents contacting the police. APS analysed the waste and found it to contain mercaptan, a sulphur containing hydrocarbon, found in some types of crude oil and as a product of decaying vegetable matter. It is highly pungent and toxic.

Because of the nature of the waste, it would have cost $250,000 to treat and the ship would have also incurred costs because the treatment would have delayed its arrival for its next contract. Trafigura management, rather than paying to treat the toxic waste, decided to sail on to the port of Paldiski in Estonia, with the toxic waste in the hold. Once at Paldiski the ship took on the cargo of petroleum for delivery to Nigeria and then on to Abidjan where it unloaded the toxic waste.

The ship then returned to the Estonian port of Paldiski, where the environmental group Greenpeace blockaded it to provoke the authorities into taking action. The Estonian government has now impounded the ship on suspicion of it releasing similar toxins to those dumped in Abidjan into the Baltic Sea. The Ivory Coast government has also requested the ship be held.

Under international regulations drawn up in the Basel Convention relating to the transport of hazardous waste, the ship should not have been allowed to leave Amsterdam where the ship had tried to have the waste removed for treatment. However, because of cost the waste was pumped back on board.

Hamburg-based toxicity expert Andreas Bernstorff said that port authorities in Amsterdam “should have forced the Probo Koala to go to the incinerator located nearby in Rotterdam.... Following the convention the port authorities ... should not have allowed the Probo Koala to continue its route as if nothing wrong had happened.”

The Basel convention was set up to prevent toxic and noxious waste from industrialised countries being dumped in undeveloped countries. The agreement came into being following the 1988 dumping of toxic waste in Koko in Nigeria by an Italian company.

An agreement was signed in 1989 and was finally adopted in 1995. However, there is disagreement over interpretation of the text of the agreement and some countries have failed to sign up, weakening the convention. As might be expected, the United States, the biggest producer of hazardous waste per capita, has not ratified the agreement. But the European Union is a signatory and so the dumping of waste by the Dutch company in Abidjan should not have been permitted.

The US-based Basel Action Network (BAN), set up to monitor the impact of trade in toxic materials, stated in a September 26 report: “[T]he recent dumping scandal in Cote D’Ivoire is but one example of what appears to be an alarming resurgence of a waste trade epidemic ... seaports in Asia and Africa are daily being inundated with container loads of hazardous electronic waste as old computers, monitors, phones and other cast-off electronic devices from rich developed countries [are] dumped or sent to primitive recycling operations that endanger workers and the local environment.”

BAN coordinator Jim Puckett stated, “Unfortunately, if it’s easy to poison the poor for profit, unscrupulous operators and businesses will do it.”

(c)WsWS

de watteuh?

vervolg Wapens gebruik Israel

/!\ Niet voor zwakgestellige /!\

Thermobaric systems 1

Thermobaric systems 2

Evaluatie - niet lezen als je net gegeten hebt

Deze wapens zouden ZEKER verbannen moeten worden - ze zijn onbetrouwbaar - het gebruik van deze in compacte - burgerbevolkings gebieden is UITERST onverantwoord als je het begrip nog kunt gebruiken - de brandstof heeft een eigen letaliteit dwz ook als het projectiel niet detoneerd blijft er een uiterst groot risico van slachtoffers door inhalering, absorbsie via zacht epitheel (mond, keel, long) en huid.

Ben het met je eens, klinkt raar maar doe dan maar gewoon conventionele wapens...maakt het allemaal wat simpeleren en gelijk...

Vindt dat het a) niet als druk middel gebruikt mag worden en b) zeer zeker niet ingezet mag worden..

[class] Geen schokkende beelden

/!\ Grafische voorstelling - zeer realistisch /!\

FEA explosie

1. projectiel

2. projectiel explodeerd met brandstof wolk

3. wolk daald neer en wordt ontstoken

volgende link alleen volgen als je wapensystemen wilt bestuderen - ik ben geen wapenfreak of bommenfanaat - for your information only

Overzicht enkele systemen

En waarom mag Israel te veel? Omdat het de lievertjes zijn van de Amerikanen!

Das echt te kort door de bocht 'mij'

ja daar heb je wel gelijk in, maar het is wel zeker een groot onderdeel van de reden...

Ik plaats gewoon wat berichten - de politiek is wel duidelijk - ik licht gewoon even toe.

Verder is het slaken van kreten als.. de israeliërs mogen alles etc net zo simpel als alle Duitsers drinken bier..

Als je begrijpt welk soort berichten ik plaats zou ik het leuk vinden als je meedoet.. pak een bericht en we hakken er eens over op in..

is een bericht ongezond voor de maag.. noteer dat even zodat we geen meldingen ontvangen van brakende gasten op WMR

Top idee Heraux dan heb ik er een voor je zo.

Hak graag samen met je!

@heraux

Ik kan de bron niet vinden maar ik weet uit zeer betrouwbare bron dat op het NATO Defence College te Rome bepaalde internationele problemen aanbod komen...Een vond ik zeer interessant

Er wordt 'geoefend' met het idee dat landen als bijvoorbeeld turkije niet meer bestaan en zich voor 100% gaan settelen in Europa..De verhoudingen zullen dan niet meer kloppen..Waarom oefenen ze hiermee. Het is bekend dat de watervoorziening in die streken dalen (zelfs sterk dalen). Zonder water is er geen bestaan, dat is algemeen bekend. Het gestoorde is dat allang is onderzocht hoeveel het kost om dit te voorkomen..iets van 100 of 200 miljoen euro om volgende waterbronnen/centrales te bouwen in die streek...niemand is tot nu toe op het idee gekomen omdat te gaan uitvoeren.

ps. ik kan het fout hebben, moet nog bron zien te vinden...

jaja, niet onbekend idee - ik weet dat er desktanks zijn die specifieke scenarios doordenken om ze voor te zijn - toch heb ik nog geen denktank uit de school horen klapperen over het klimaat - bv: stel dat er geen olie meer is

@heraux

Dat is ook al een bekend verhaal. Olie = Macht ze moeten er niet aan denken dat die macht er niet meer is.

Het is toch al jaren bekend van alternatieve brandstoffen maar het wordt tegengehouden zowel door politiek (vanwege belasting) als door de oliemaatschappijen..waarvan dus bekend is dat Shell al heeeeeeel lang aan het ontwikkelen is 'voor het geval dat'.

Ja, het probleem is ook dat de industrie ontzettend afhankelijk is van olie als grondstof..

Er zijn niet veel goede alternatieven voor Olie door zijn veelzijdige opbrengst, halfproducten en bewerkings eigenschappen.

@heraux

Ik weet het niet hoor...ergens zegt mij iets dat die technieken en kennis er allang is maar nog niet gebruikt wordt..Elke (olie)maatschappij weet dat het een x opraakt...

shell oa investeerd zeer veel in nieuwe ontwikkelingen..niet zonder reden lijkt mij

ja, de H-moter was er al in 1972 - geblokkeerd - verdwenen - geruisloos en weer verschenen.. hoera !

The Ground Truth:
the cruel fate of Iraq war veterans

By Clare Hurley
25 October 2006



(C)WsWs

@heraux DAMN wat een goed artikel heb je weer gevonden!!! Goed leesvoer, zeker ook voor andere die nog niet veel weten van de gevolgen..

Israël gebruikte mogelijk munitie met uranium in Libanon

Uitgegeven: 28 oktober 2006 13:37
Laatst gewijzigd: 28 oktober 2006 21:51
LONDEN - Het Israëlische leger heeft bij de strijd in Libanon in juli en augustus mogelijk munitie met uranium gebruikt. Wetenschappers die grond uit bomkraters in Libanon hebben onderzocht, hebben een hoog stralingsniveau aangetroffen in het materiaal. Dat meldde de Britse krant The Independent zaterdag.

De grondmonsters zijn genomen in Khiam en at-Tiri, plaatsen die tijdens de ruim vier weken durende strijd door het Israëlische leger zijn gebombardeerd. Bij onderzoek in een Brits laboratorium in Oxfordshire is de verhoogde straling gemeten, aldus een Britse stralingsdeskundige Chris Bellamy van het European Committee on Radiation Risk (ECRR).

Het Britse Ministerie van Defensie heeft de concentratie van uraniumisotopen in de monsters bevestigd, meldde The Independent.

meer ...

hypothese - hypothese - hypothese - hypothese -

stel ik combineer DIME met een FAE systeem ?

dus, ik heb een cylinder met FAE brandstof en daarvoor zit een cylinder met DIME particles - de FAE Torpedeerd deze particles in een radius gepast voor een specifieke strategie.

DIT IS DUS EEN DIRTY BOM - WAARVOOR DE VS BANG IS - WAARVOOR DE VK BANG IS - WAARTEGEN WE INTENSIEVE RECHTS-ONDERMIJNING GOEDKEUREN OM HET TE KUNNEN VOORKOMEN - EN WIE GEBRUIKT HET?

Dit is een LONG-TERM impact wapen dat ziekte verspreid over een zeer-lange periode - het kan zelfs de heroshima effecten voorbij streven omdat.

Explosie kracht beperkt blijft tot explosie wolk - partikelen niet op grote schaal verspeid worden - neerslag zeer diep wordt in gespoeld bij regen.
De mix van het gebruikte brandstof en de micro-keramiek of DIME poeder een synergetisch effect heeft op de gezondheid van IEDEREEN - onbepaald vijand of bewoner.

hypothese - hypothese - hypothese - hypothese -