Gaza doctors say patients suffering mystery injuries after Israeli attacks

[grizmaster]

Looks like Israel used some experimental and most likely US made weapon.

Makes you wonder why the US would be working on an obviously illegal chemichal warfare weapon.

more stomach turning details at the link

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1924675,00.html

Doctors said that, unlike traditional combat injuries, there was no large shrapnel found in the bodies and there appeared to be a "dusting" on damaged internal organs.

"Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured," said Jumaa Saqa'a, a doctor at the Shifa hospital, in Gaza City. "We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on their internal organs."

It is not clear whether the injuries come from a new weapon. The Israeli military declined to detail the weapons in its arsenal, but denied reports that the injuries came from a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (Dime), an experimental weapon.

In Gaza, Dr Saqa'a said the small pieces of shrapnel found in patients' bodies did not show up under x-ray. "We are used to seeing shrapnel penetrate the body making localised damage. Now we didn't see shrapnel, but we found the destruction," he said.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

1. Why would this weapon...

...be obviously illegal?

[grizmaster]

3. sounds like the white phosphorus weapons

that the US used on civilians in Fallujah. They're legal whe they're used for "illumunation", but are considered illegal chemical weapons when used on civilians.

This stuff sounds even worse and has no secondary cover use like white phosphorus.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

23. This sounds weird, though.

Especially the descriptions of these horrifically weird wounds involving strange globules of metal on the internal organs. That doesn't sound like white phosphorous.

[The Stranger]

6. Its illegality isn't obvious to you?

[grizmaster]

9. It is to me

here's a bit on white phosphorus

http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/11/17/white.phosphorous/index.html

U.S. military officials confirmed Wednesday that its troops used white phosphorus during an offensive to rid Falluja of insurgents last November, but the officials denied an Italian documentary allegation that the weapon was aimed at civilians.

The documentary, on Italy's state-run RAI24 television news channel, showed what it claimed were badly burned victims.

A protocol to an accord on conventional weapons that came into force in 1983 forbids the use of incendiary weapons against civilians, Reuters reported.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

22. No, it isn't.

I'm sorry, but I was asking a legitimate question, not trying to be sarcastic. If there's a relevant statute please send a link. I'm aware of the prohibition on use of various types of chemical & incendiary weapons on civilians, but I'm not sure how this fits into that scheme.

[The Stranger]

27. Call me crazy, but something tells me this isn't legal.

[katinmn]

10. It hasn't been "officially" tested yet, therefore it can't be banned.

[grizmaster]

13. that's the same BS excuse bush uses with the new torture law

He wanted the Geneva Convention standard of banning effects rather than methods. That way you can keep coming up with new methods that produce the same effect and claim the method isn't banned.

Kinda like the athletes and steroids. Always one step ahead of the "rules" and always flipping the finger at the intent of the ban.

[hedgehog]

2. Without judging the accuracy of these reports,

one of the charges that went largely unexamined during Israel's incursion in to Lebanon is that Israel's tactics were dictated by a Pentagon using this as a real life war game to try out new methods. Can anyone say Guernica?

[grizmaster]

4. It sounds like the reports are backed up

in the article it points out that samples were made available to independent international press.

from the article...

"Tissue samples from patients in Gaza were given to journalists from the Italian television channel RAI. In a documentary shown last week, the channel said the injuries appeared similar to the effects of Dime. An Italian laboratory that analysed the samples reportedly said its results were compatible with the hypothesis that a Dime weapon was involved.

"The weapon is new and in the US it is still in the early stages of development. It has a carbon-fibre casing and contains fine tungsten particles rather than ordinary metal shrapnel. It causes a very powerful blast, but with a much more limited radius than other explosives.

"However, the Israeli military denies the use of Dime weapons."

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

24. If that's true...

...then Rummy & whoever designed the simulations have some 'splaining to do because Israel's tactics were wholly counterproductive to their military agenda.

[malaise]

5. Genocide appears to be business as usual these

days.

[grizmaster]

7. I don't know if genocide is the right word

but "war crime" definitely fits the bill

[katinmn]

8. Bastards! The US has been experimenting with these types of weapons

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/story.cfm?c_id=2&ObjectID=10393282
Israel bombs cause wounds 'never seen before'
1.00pm Thursday July 27, 2006
BEIRUT - Lebanon is investigating reports from doctors that Israel has used weapons in its 15-day-old bombardment of southern Lebanon 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 Israeli army said it had used only conventional weapons and ammunition in attacks aimed at Hizbollah guerrillas and nothing contravening international law.

Blackened bodies have been showing up at hospitals in southern Lebanon two weeks into the war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas that has seen at least 418 people, mostly civilians, killed in Lebanon and at least 42 Israelis.

Killed by Israeli air raids, 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.


Details of US microwave-weapon tests revealed
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18725095.600


U.S. Broadcast Exclusive: Star Wars in Iraq: Is the U.S. Using New Experimental Tactical High Energy Laser Weapons in Iraq?
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/07/25/1442252

Microwave E-Bomb



http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/772894.html
Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip
Weapon in testing phase

According to the U.S.-based website Defense-Tech, "the result is an incredibly destructive blast in a small area" and "the destructive power of the mixture causes far more damage than pure explosive." It adds that "the impact of the micro-shrapnel seems to cause a similar but more powerful effect than a shockwave."

The weapon is supposed to still be in the testing phase and has not been used on the battlefield.

The Italian reporters sent samples of the particles found in wounds of injured in the Gaza Strip to a laboratory at the University of Parma. Dr. Carmela Vaccaio said that in analyzing the samples, she found "a very high concentration of carbon and the presence of unusual materials," such as copper, aluminum and tungsten. Dr. Vaccaio says these findings "could be in line with the hypothesis" that the weapon in question is DIME.

On the matter of DIME, Ben-Israel told the Italian reporters that "this is a technology that allows the striking of very small targets."

The report says that the weapon is not banned by international law, especially since it has not been officially tested.

It is believed that the weapon is highly carcinogenic and harmful to the environment.

The non-governmental organization Physicians for Human Rights has written to Defense Minister Amir Peretz requesting explanations for the aforementioned injuries to Palestinians. Amos Gilad, a senior adviser to the minister, is supposed to meet with the group on the matter in the near future.

[grizmaster]

11. So they used them in Lebanon as well as Gaza

not that that is any surprise.

and this has got to be the most pitiful excuse ever

"The report says that the weapon is not banned by international law, especially since it has not been officially tested."

[katinmn]

12. and Iraq.

[grizmaster]

14. I haven't seen anything about DIME weapons in Iraq

do you have any links?

[katinmn]

18. Not direct ones. But the US admits testing them in 2004-05

and there are indications of the same types of injuries in Iraq (especially Fallujah).

The US created and supplied DIME, that is certain. Why wouldn't they use it on Iraqis??

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/dime.htm
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=28232

[grizmaster]

19. It's not that they WOULDN'T use DIME on Iraqis

I've just seen no evidence that they have there.

All the chem weapon injuries and deaths in Fallujah that I saw evidence of were from white phosphorus. The type of injury is very different in appearance. White phosphorus will melt flesh off the bones and leave clothes intact in many cases. This DIME weapon is leaving small shrapnel opeings and burning organs from the inside out.

[katinmn]

20. And our tax dollars support the work of these monsters

:puke:

[whistle]

15. Israel using DIME weapons...caution graphic photos....

<snip>
Israel accused of using 'Dime' bombs
Friday 13 October 2006, 11:52 Makka Time, 8:52 GMT

Doctors found entery wounds on the bodies of wounded and dead

A team of Italian journalists investigating Israeli weapons is claiming that an experimental weapon has been used against the Palestinians in recent months.

The weapon is believed to have caused more than 300 serious injuries leading to 62 amputations and 200 deaths between the months of June and July, doctors told Aljazeera.

It is widely believed the weapon is similar to the one tested by the US military and called Dime (Dense Inert Metal Explosive). It causes a powerful blast within a small radius.

Haaretz newspaper reported that the evidence in the Rai24 news investigation was based on witness accounts from doctors in the Gaza Strip, as well as tests carried out in an Italian laboratory.

"The investigative team is the same one that exposed the use by US forces in Iraq of phosphorous bombs, against Iraqi rebels in Falluja," the Haaretz newspaper reported.

Yitzhak Ben-Israel, major-general in the Israel air force, formerly head of the army's weapons-development programme, was also quoted in Haaretz as telling the Italian journalists: "One of the ideas is to allow those targeted to be hit without causing damage to bystanders or other persons."
<More>
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/B79DF070-B20C-47A7-A204-08297E5FC1B2.htm


<snip>
DIME "Dense Inert Metal Explosive": New Generation of Deadly Weapons
Gaza: Inexplicable Wounds and New Weapons
By Flaviano Masella and Maurizio Torrealta
October 12, 2006

Reported by the Italian medica team, there are indications that similar weapons were used by Israeli forces against Lebanese Civilians.

<More>
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=MAS20061012&articleId=3469

[grizmaster]

17. Same Italian lab that exposed the white phosphorus use by US

I'd be watching over my shoulder if I worked at that lab.

that global research link has some potent stuff

this caught my eye. "low lethality" my ass.


"It is a carbon shell that when it goes off breaks into small splinters. At the same time, there is the explosion of a charge which shoots a blade of tungsten dust charged with energy which burns and destroys everything in the radius of four meters with a really precise slant.

"This technology is part of a new kind of "low lethality" weapons which downside collateral damages and restrain lethal effects"

[Benhurst]

16. Gosh, it's hard to believe BushAmerica would take part in war crimes. NT

[grizmaster]

21. really, what a shocker

:sarcasm:

[Solo_in_MD]

25. I suggest the last paragraph of the article is the best position to take

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which monitors weapons used in conflicts, said it had heard reports of similar injuries from Gaza and was collecting information on the case. "We haven't come to any sort of conclusion about what kind of weapon it was," said Bernard Barrett, an ICRC spokesman.

There were a lot of strange reports including corpses that shrunk by 50% etc. Claim of mysterious burns which were clearly not WP (despite earlier claims they were), microwaves, chemical, and even radiation. My position is as it was then, lets get some real evidence, and there still really isn't much. Several things are making this harder

- Muslim Burial customs
- Secondary explosions/Local contaminants
- Lack of timely scientific investigation

Until there is something concrete on the table, discussions of war crimes etc is nothing more than inflammatory hyperbole that may well cause more issues than lead to the truth coming out, whatever it may be.

[Karenina]

26. Gives new meaning to

"Dropping a dime on them" or "spinning on a dime..."

[eyl]

28. ISTR

a similiar report coming up here (maybe someone with the search function can find it) and we concluded the doctor in question (the same Saqa'a mentioned here) wasn't very reliable as a source.

[Englander]

29. Yes, the good doctor is part of the *scheme*, isn't he?

Him & the actors playing victims, & the viciously anti-Israel Guardian, & the Italian tv channel
RAI & the Italian lab who anaysised the so-called tissue samples, & the blatantly biased ICRC who
refuse to condemn this eg of hatemongering anti-Israel propaganda, &tc, &tc, &tc.....

/satire

[eyl]

30. Whatever n/t