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Hans Blix to Nes Ziona: by James Brooks
Some of the victims were demonstrators.
Some were children in their homes, trying to get away from the gas
seeping under the door. Some were old men walking down the street. One
of the victims was a thirteen year-old boy, playing in a schoolyard when
a gas canister enveloped him in a cloud of poisonous smoke.(1) Like many
of the others, he suffered recurring severe convulsions for days.
Ambulance drivers responding to one of the
gas attacks found people on the street jumping around, thrashing their
limbs in uncontrollable spasms. The victims seemed unaware of their
actions and surroundings. One driver said, "If they had anything in
their hand - a woman carrying her child might throw him down without
realizing it. She'd just drop him and start clawing at herself from the
gas." Many adults were required to restrain each violently
convulsing victim.(2)
These attacks with an unknown poison gas
were reported in a prestigious regional newspaper by respected
journalists.(3-4) They appeared on European wire services, and on at
least one US military Web site.(5-8) They were repeatedly documented by
an award-winning human rights organization affiliated with the UN.(9-13)
Graphic film documentation of the victims' suffering is available on VHS
and DVD.(14) Three days after the attacks began, the leader of the
targeted people publicly alleged the use of "poison gas"
against civilians and demanded that it stop. Yet the attacks broadened
in scope and continued for the next six weeks, until they ceased as
mysteriously as they had begun.(15)
These facts are all in plain sight. But
chances are you've never heard about this chemical warfare against
innocent civilians. It was not the work of Saddam Hussein, or the
Russians, or terrorists, at least as the term is generally understood.
It didn't occur in the 1980s, and it didn't require the satellite data
and battle planning that the US military provided Iraq for its chemical
warfare against Iran.
These poison gas attacks were perpetrated
just two years ago, by Israeli troops against civilians in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories. Although they are documented by a small
mountain of detailed and consistent open-source information, they remain
a silent, ignored, seemingly untouchable story. At least eight separate
attacks were reported from February 12 through March 30, 2001, first in
the Gaza Strip and later in the West Bank. Several hundred civilians are
reported to have suffered from exposure to the gas. Many required
prolonged hospitalization. Six weeks after the initial attacks, a doctor
caring for victims at Ali Nasser Hospital in Gaza said, "We still
have 10 cases who we would like to send abroad for treatment."(16)
The poison gas canisters were unfamiliar,
marked only with a few numerals and Hebrew letters. The smoking gas they
released was non-irritating and initially odorless. After a few minutes
a sweet, minty fragrance would emerge. One victim recalled that
"the smell was good. You want to breathe more. You feel good when
you inhale it." The smoke often spewed in a "rainbow" of
changing colors, ending in a steady billow of black soot.
From five to thirty minutes after
breathing the gas, victims began to feel sick and have difficulty
breathing. A searing pain would begin 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, cycling between convulsions and periods of
conscious, twitching, vomiting agony. Palestinians agreed: "This is
like nothing we've ever seen before."(17)
Eyewitness reports identify thirty-three
distinct symptoms induced by the gas. All but three are typical of nerve
gas poisoning.(18) Tareg Bey, a chemical warfare expert at the
University of California-Irvine, told the Chicago Reader that the
symptoms "all fit really well to nerve gas", though he was
puzzled by the reported fragrance and skin rashes.(19) The gas, which
caused no recorded fatalities, may have been a novel "nerve
agent" developed in Israel's CBW laboratories at Nes Ziona, where
they've been making nerve gases, and many other things, for decades.(20)
Were these gas attacks an
"experiment"? What has become of the victims? Who made the
decision to conduct this criminal and inhuman campaign? These and many
other questions about Israel's willingness to use chemical weapons
demand answers. The silence about these attacks must end. Failure to
investigate them and bring their perpetrators to justice is a violation
of the Geneva Accords. America cannot make a case for war over potential
chemical weapons in Iraq, yet turn a blind eye to the actual chemical
warfare conducted by its "staunchest ally."
(1) Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas? By
Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 5-11 April 2001, Issue
No.528, http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/528/re3.htm
(2) Selected Interviews recorded for the
documentary film Gaza Strip by James Longley, transcripts, http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf
(3) Unprepared for the worst, by Graham
Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Feb. 15-21, 2001, Issue No. 521 http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/521/re1.htm
(4) Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas? By
Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 5-11 April 2001, Issue
No.528, http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/528/re3.htm
(5) BBC Monitoring Middle East -
Political, February 13, 2001
(6) Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 14,
2001, BC Cycle, 00:45 CET
(7) AFX News Limited, AFX European Focus,
February 13, 2001
(8) Protests of U.S. and U.K. Air Strikes,
Fort Bragg Web site, Feb 19, 2001 http://www.bragg.army.mil/sid/wwwthreat/CountriesGHI/iraq.htm
(9) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
Weekly Report, Feb. 8-14, 2001, http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/15-02-2001.htm
(10) PCHR Weekly Report, February 15-21,
2001, http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/22-02-2001.htm
(11) PCHR Weekly Report, March 1-7, 2001, http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/07-03-2001.htm
(12) PCHR Weekly Report, March 22-29,
2001, http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/29-03-2001.htm
(13) PCHR Weekly Report, March 29-April 4,
2001, http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/05-04-2001.htm
(14) Gaza Strip, a documentary by James
Longley, February, 2002, http://www.littleredbutton.com/gaza
(15) The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A
Preliminary Investigation, James Brooks, Media Monitors Network,
January 8, 2003, http://www.mediamonitors.net/jamesbrooks2.html
(16) Selected Interviews recorded for the
documentary film Gaza Strip by James Longley, transcripts, http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf
(17) ibid.
(18) Symptoms - The Israeli Poison Gas
Attacks: A Preliminary Investigation, James Brooks, http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.jamiedb/Symptoms.htm
(19) Gas Attack/What Was It?/News Bites,
Michael Milner, Chicago Reader, August 23, 2002 Reader
Archive--Article: 2002/020823/HOTTYPE
(20) Israel and Chemical/Biological
Weapons: History, Deterrence, and Arms Control, Avner Cohen, The
Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Fall-Winter), pp. 27-53 http://www.puaf.umd.edu/CISSM/Scholars/Cohen.pdf
For additional references, see:
The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary Investigation, James Brooks http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.jamiedb/The_Israeli_Poison_Gas_Attacks_Project.htm
James Brooks of Worcester, Vermont, is an independent researcher and former business owner whose articles have been published by Vermont newspapers, Antiwar.com, Media Monitors Network, Dissident Voice and several other sites. Currently Mr. Brooks serves as webmaster for Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel (www.vtjp.org) and publishes News Links, a free once-daily e-mail digest of in-depth Middle East news and commentary. To subscribe, contact jamiedb@attglobal.net |
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