Further Horrific Stories from Gaza in today's Irish Times

international | anti-war / imperialism | news report

Saturday January 24, 2009 20:50

by Justin Morahan

"New weapons were tested on population"

There is mounting evidence that Israel used the Gaza assault as a testing ground for new horrific weapons, according to Lara Marlowe in today's Irish Times.
Doctors in the Shifa Hospital recount tales of injuries caused by white phosphorus and DIME bombs

According to this evidence, these new horrific weapons were used by Israeli Defence Forces in Gaza confounding doctors' attempts to save the wounded, she says.

In Gaza's Shifa Hospital two doctors told the reporter that, during the Gaza assault, Israel has not only used white phosphorus but also a new mysterious weapon called Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME) which was invented through Israeli-American co-operation.

The white phosphorus left Mahmoud Al Jamal with his right ear congealed, his fingers and part of his chest eaten away by burns.

Two civilians told the reporter that Israeli drones, remotely piloted and firing missiles, killed four of their number, a mother, a pregnant sister-in-law, and two of their friends.

Mahmoud had been walking at dawn when he felt his body burning, fell down and asked a companion for help. The companion was dead. Then he lost consciousness but his brother told him that smoke poured from his body in the ambulance on the way to hospital.

Dr Abu Shabaan was even more concerned however by evidence of new, mysterious weapons:

“We’ve seen many, many cases of amputation – like a cauterised wound, with no bleeding, " Marlowe quotes him as saying.

“Some have minor chest injuries, but the X-rays show nothing and they die suddenly, without explanation.”

Palestinian and foreign doctors who have treated the war-wounded at Shifa suspect the injuries may be caused by Dense Inert Metal Explosive, also known as Focus Lethality Munition, a weapon invented through Israeli-American cooperation.

Dr Sobhi Skaik, a member of the Royal College of Surgeons in Edinburgh and the head of the surgery department at Shifa said they found computer chips, magnetic pieces and transistors in wounds. With only a minute pin-point puncture to the abdomen and chest visible, there was huge damage to internal organs. "One patient had his liver burned black, as if it had been grilled., he said.

(DIME bombs were reportedly used also in 2006 in Gaza.)

Besides the story of the weaponry used, Marlowe recounts many other horror stories from the three week offensive, among them: the story of Ahmad and Halima Radwan, a couple who had refused to leave their new home with their son's family, believing that the Israelis would not harm them because they were old. The Israelis shelled the house on 6 January. Ahmad, wounded in the head, walked out with a white flag and begged the Israelis to allow the Red Crescent to rescue Halima who was buried alive in her kitchen.

"The Isarelis said No. Halima lived for four days under the debris of her house, which the Israelis then dynamited".

"They knew she was there and they saw her because they searched the house before they dynamited it" said her son, Maher. When Maher searched the house after the cease fire he found Hebrew writings by the Israeli soldiers amid the ruins but only Halima's legs, shoulder and head crushed by concrete.