Gaza's Facts on the Ground

Gaza's Facts on the Ground

Jaisal Noor
The Indypendent
Fri, 06 Feb 2009 13:14 UTC

Amnesty International released a report Nov. 5 stating that a five-and-a-half-month ceasefire between Israel and Hamas "has brought enormous improvements in the quality of life in Sderot and other Israeli villages near Gaza." However, it warned that a spate of Israeli and Palestinian attacks and counter-attacks in the previous 24 hours could "once again put the civilian populations of Gaza and southern Israel in the line of fire."

Seven weeks later, Israel launched a massive military offensive into Gaza that shocked much of the world while gaining widespread support inside the Jewish state.

The Gaza offensive took 13 Israeli lives, including three civilians. Meanwhile more than 1,300 Palestinian lives were lost, more than half of which were civilians, including at least 400 children. At least 5,000 were injured. The price tag for the reconstruction of 21,000 homes, schools, hospitals, mosques and other infrastructure destroyed is estimated at more than $2 billion. The conflict destroyed half of Gaza's agricultural industry, which provided a quarter of its food.

Gaza is the most crowded place on earth; it holds 1.5 million people, half of whom are children under 15. The majority of Gazans are the descendants of Palestinians who were forced to flee during the founding of Israel in 1948. Eighty percent of Gazans subsist on less than $2 a day and depend on the United Nations for basic survival. Israel has imposed a 19-month-long blockade, stopping food, fuel and medical supplies from reaching Gaza despite U.N. pleas that the restrictions be lifted.

Israel stands accused of firing on and killing civilians waving white flags, those it ordered to flee their homes and on aid workers. Israel has also been accused of refusing to let the injured get medical care by impeding and firing on ambulances. A coalition of nine Israeli human rights groups called for an investigation into whether Israel committed war crimes, protesting the "wanton use of lethal force" against Palestinian civilians. The U.N.'s special rapporteur to Palestine said Israel could be in violation of the U.N. Charter, the Geneva Conventions, international law and international humanitarian law. The Israeli explanation for high civilian casualties is that Hamas fighters concealed themselves within the civilian population.

Amnesty International accused Israel of using white phosphorus "in densely populated residential neighborhoods, [which] is inherently indiscriminate," adding, "Its repeated use in this manner ... is a war crime." Israel has also been accused of using cluster bombs in densely populated areas, as well as using experimental weapons that are illegal under international law, including dense inert metal explosives (DIME) and GPS-guided mortars. A former U.S. Department of Defense official, now with Human Rights Watch, stated, "Experimenting has a different meaning for Americans. We think animal experimenting, but [its use was] indeed a field test." Israel has dismissed all accusations of using illegal weapons and promised to protect its soldiers from prosecution.

It is difficult to say how many Israeli soldiers and reservists refused to take part in the fighting as the Israeli military was sending military resisters quietly home rather than jailing them and risking puncturing an aura of shared national purpose. One military resister who went public with his opposition was Yitzchak Ben Mocha, who refused to fight in Gaza because, "It's not a war of defense. ... You can't separate the war in Gaza from the fact that the Palestinian nation is under occupation for more than 40 years."

A Different Path Forward

According to the Israeli group Peace Now, Israel has escalated settlement expansion by 57 percent over the past year. The scope of the Israeli government's complicity came into focus Jan. 30. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz revealed that a secret database developed by the Israeli military confirms that many settlements are built on private Palestinian land and considered illegal under Israeli law. According to Haaretz, "in the vast majority of the settlements - about 75 percent - construction, sometimes on a large scale, has been carried out without the appropriate permits or contrary to the permits that were issued. The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents."

It has been reported that President Barack Obama may start indirect low-level talks with Hamas, similar to those that the Carter administration held with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in the late 1970s. In 1982, Israel responded to the PLO's willingness to negotiate by invading Lebanon, where the PLO was based, in a war that killed as many as 25,000 people. Twenty-seven years later the PLO's Fatah party has been reduced to the role of collaborating in the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, and in spite of 16 years of negotiations it has been unable to stop Israeli expansion onto Palestinian lands.

It has been argued that the objective of Israel's assault on Gaza was to knock out Hamas because it opposes the Israeli annexation of the West Bank and Jerusalem. According to a leading Israeli expert on the conflict Avi Shlaim, the "definition of terror is the use of violence against civilians for political purposes." So while Hamas is a terrorist organization, "by the same token, Israel is practicing state terror, because it is using violence on a massive scale against Palestinian civilians for political purposes."

An internationally-backed peace agreement has been on the table for more than 30 years: the creation of a Palestinian state in Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank. With Hamas now indicating it is willing to negotiate along these lines, the main obstacle to peace remains the U.S.-backed Israeli occupation, which only the U.S. public has the power to end.

Comment: Another - if not the most important - obstacle, is the psychopathic Zionist dream of the creation of Eretz Israel, as promised by Yahweh: a land that spans from the Red Sea to the Euphrates (approximately), populated by Jews only.

Israel's New War Ethic Illustrated - Part Two

US and Israel targeting DNA in Gaza? Part 2: The DIME bomb, yet another genotoxic weapon

Online Journal
Wed, 06 Dec 2006 12:00 UTC
James Brooks

"Horrific" wounds in Gaza may be warfare of the future

In early July, shortly after the beginning of Israel's bloody military siege of the Gaza Strip, reports began to appear that Israeli forces were using a new weapon that inflicted strange and untreatable wounds,and significantly increased the death tolls of Israel's attacks. [1] [2]

Italian investigators have reported evidence that theunidentified Israeli weapon is probably Dense Inert Metal Explosives, or DIME,a so-called LCD ("low collateral damage") weapon developed by the United States Air Force. [3]

DIME bombs blast a superheated "micro-shrapnel" of powdered heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA). Studies indicate that HMTA embedded in the body disrupts biochemistry and rapidly causes cancer. Like depleted uranium(DU), HMTA is genotoxic -- it is capable of inflicting genetic mutations. [4-10]

Publicly slated for deployment in 2008, [right on schedule] DIME bombs are small but unusually powerful. Their carbon fiber casings make "more of the blast energy . . . available as blast as opposed to being absorbed in [a] steel case". The carbon reportedly breaks into "thousands of harmless fibers" to prevent unintended casualties from casing shrapnel. [11]

The 'footprint' of the DIME blast is much smaller than a conventional bomb's, because gravity and air resistance quickly drag the dense,finely powdered "micro-shrapnel" to the ground. The blast radius is reportedly as small as 25 feet. [12] [13]

DIME is part of the Air Force's Focused Lethality Munitions(FLM) program, which is expected to "allow" the targeting of "terrorists"wherever they are, even in places "previously off limits to the warfighter." [14]

The ideal of FLM is to reliably kill every human within the blast zone -- one way or another. It is 'total war' on a 50-foot circle, within which deaths are not admitted as collateral, but purchased as insurance.

Israel's new weapon "slices" off its victims' legs, leaving"signs of heat and burns near the point of the amputation." It's "as if a saw was used to cut through the bone," according to Dr. Habas al-Wahid, head of the emergency room at Gaza's Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital. [15]

Viewing photographs of the living and dead Palestinian victims of this device, many of whom are children, we notice patches of darkened but unburned skin, possibly where metal powder was driven into and/or through the skin by blast force. A child's torso is peppered with holes, some of which, judging from doctors' reports, probably tunnel through to exit wounds in the back. The skin and muscle of one victim is ripped into a blood-encrusted pulp, as if blasted at close range with tiny bird shot. Some of the corpses are unrecognizable. Most of the recent photos of "strange" wounds from Gaza appear to be consistent with what is known about DIME weapons. [16]

The area of a DIME blast should be treated with caution until it has been decontaminated (assuming this is possible). Depending on the local HMTA concentration, soil in the blast area may remain barren for an indefinite period of time, or it may grow plants internally contaminated with HMTA. [17] [18]

The "who knew?" charade

In the scientific literature on tungsten and its alloys, the toxicity of HMTA stands apart. This formula (roughly nine parts tungsten and one part nickel and cobalt or iron) damages DNA even when powders of the metals are simply mixed together. [4] [5] [9]

Implanting four tiny bits of weapons-grade HMTA in lab mice induced terminal cancer in 100 percent of the subjects. A powdered HMTA recipe was tumor-generating and capable of "genotoxic effects." At least one experiment found parallels in the way DU and HMTA attack DNA. The results of another suggested that HMTA may pass its genetic damage down to the next generation. [8] [5] [9] [10]

HMTA may be much more carcinogenic than DU when it is embedded in the body -- as intended. "Tumors developed rapidly" in rats implanted with pellets of HMTA, but researchers "did not observe tumor formation in the DU-implanted rats."

Multiple syndromes of heavy metal poisoning have also been attributed to this alloy, including polycythemia, which can be induced by cobalt overdose. Because HMTA contains far too little cobalt to cause the disease by itself, researchers suspected a synergistic effect among or between the metals. [8]

In a 2005 article reviewing the "status of health concerns"about depleted uranium and "surrogate metals" such as HMTA, three scientists at the Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI) wrote that "medical and political controversies surrounding the use of DU" had spurred "a search for substitute metals in armor-penetrating munitions." [19]

"[N]ew alloys of tungsten/nickel/cobalt and tungsten/nickel/iron . . . rival DU in armor-penetrating performance," and are"among the leading candidates to replace DU in selected munitions." Some of this ordnance "has already been deployed, although on a relatively small scale."

The article then reviews the science detailing the alarming health risks of HMTA, much of it conducted by the authors, whom we thank for their work. It then attempts to explain how the military's favorite "surrogate metal" turned out to be almost as genotoxic as DU, and probably more carcinogenic:

"In many ways the development of substitutes for DU in munitions has followed a pattern similar to that for DU deployment, in that incomplete toxicological information was available prior to their release . . .it was assumed that many years of industrial use of tungsten and alloys such as tungsten carbide . . . meant they could be used as safely in armaments."

We infer that it was reasonable for the military to deploy DU weapons, because the toxicological information was "incomplete." It's a strange scientific rigor that requires us to know exactly how a known poison works before we stop giving it to people.

The cold fact is that there never was a scientifically valid reason to "assume" that depleted uranium could be used "safely in armaments."Quite the opposite; as we shall see in part three, the Army realized more than60 years ago that finely powdered uranium products could make extremely potent antipersonnel weapons. [20]

We currently have "incomplete toxicological information"about HMTA, but for more than 15 years we have had clear warnings about the health risks of combining these metals. US weapons scientists should have known as early as 1992 that mixing cobalt with tungsten could greatly increase the resulting alloy's cancer potential. [21] [22]

It is hardly news that nickel is carcinogenic and genotoxic,and specialists have long noted that heavy metal alloys tend to unpredictably amplify the toxicities of their component metals. With this kind of "incomplete"information at hand, could military scientists have reasonably "assumed" that nickel would be a "safe" addition to HMTA?

Concerns have been voiced about tungsten sport ammunition for several years. Tungsten alloy bullets, some also containing nickel and cobalt (for superior hardness), were found to pose potential environmental hazards in several studies. A probable link between industrial tungsten and leukemia has been identified. Compared to these findings, however, the toxicity of HMTA may be of a different order. [17] [18]

The "who knew?" apologia offered by the AFRRI researchers asks us to assume that the scientists who developed DIME weapons proceeded in sheer ignorance of the existing science. They were so incompetent that they merely "assumed" that they could use any tungsten alloy.

Does this implausibility jibe with the rest of the picture?A multi-billion dollar military weapons program is stung by the "controversies"surrounding its toxic DU weapons, and is under pressure to produce an expedient alternative. Would this program's scientists have been allowed to be so cavalier about consulting the literature? Would the replacement metal be chosen on blind faith, without bothering to conduct even simple studies of its potential health impacts?

Logically, we must conclude that the military developed HMTA in the knowledge that it could have significant carcinogenic and genotoxic effects. Did they "assume" that saying "tungsten is safer than DU" would take care of the matter?

Perhaps relatively non-toxic tungsten carbide, famed for its hardness and cutting ability, would not have sufficed for the purposes of the DIME bomb. Focused Lethality Munitions like DIME must kill all of their victims. Slicing off their arms and legs is not enough.

The last installment of this article will trace the roots of HMTA in depleted uranium and decades of US warfare with poisonous, DNA-damaging powders. Then we will return to Gaza to consider the damage done, and the damage to come, if the war makers have their way.

References

1) Israel accused of using 'Dime' bombs, AlJazeera, 10/13/2006

2) Israel used chemical weapons in Lebanon and Gaza, Jean Shaoul, wsws.org, 10/24/2006

3) Italian TV:Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip, Ha'aretz, 10/12/2006

4) Abstract: Potential late health effects of depleted uranium and tungsten used in armor-piercing munitions: comparison of neoplastic transformation and genotoxicity with the known carcinogen nickel, Miller, AC, et al, PubMed,11/26/2006

5) Neoplastic transformation of human osteoblast cells to the tumorigenic phenotype by heavy metal-tungsten alloy particles: induction of genotoxic effects, Miller, AC, etal, Carcinogenesis, Vol. 22, No. 1, 115-125, January 2001, OxfordUniversity Press

6) Abstract: Carcinogenic Potential of Depleted Uranium and Tungsten Alloys, Alexandra CMiller, Ph. D., Department Of Defense, Armed Forces Radiobiology Research Institute (AFRRI)

7) Depleted uranium-catalyzed oxidative DNA damage: absence of significant alpha particle decay, Miller, AC, et al, Journal of Inorganic Biochemistry, Issue 91, 2002pp. 246- 252

8) Embedded Weapons-Grade Tungsten Alloy Shrapnel Rapidly Induces Metastatic High-Grade Rhabdomyosarcomas in F344 Rats, Kalinich et al, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 113, Number 6, June 2005

9) Abstract: Effect of the militarily-relevant heavy metals, depleted uranium and heavy metal tungsten-alloy on gene expression in human liver carcinoma cells (HepG2),Miller, AC, et al, SpringerLink/Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry, 1/1/2004

10) Preconceptional paternal exposure to radiation or heavy metals like cadmium can induce cancer in unexposed offspring, Alexandra C. Miller, Rafael Rivas, Robert J. Merlot and Paul, Carcinogenesis 5: Environmental and Endogenous Carcinogens/Proc AmerAssoc Cancer Res, Volume 47, 2006

11) Air Force seeks a bomb with less bang, Greg Jaffe, The Wall Street Journal/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 4/11/2006

12) Cancer Worries for New U.S. Bombs, DefenseTech.org, 5/20/2006

13) DenseInert Metal Explosive (DIME), GlobalSecurity.org, 10/18/2006

14) USAFUnfunded Priority List (UPL), SAF/FMB POC, FY 2007, February 2006, Page 54

15) Italian TV: Israel used new weapon prototype in Gaza Strip, Ha'aretz, 10/19/2006

16) Effects of Israel's New Weapon, Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel

17) Possible Health And Environmental Impacts Of Tungsten In Lead Replacement Shot, PaulHarrison and Karen Bradley, MRC Institute for Environment and Health 2005

18) TungstenEffects on Soil Environments, Nikolay Strigul, et al, UMass, Annual International Conference on Soil, Sediments and Water, 10/18/2004

19) Status of Health Concerns about Military Use of Depleted Uranium and Surrogate Metals in Armor-Penetrating Munitions, D.E. McClain, A.C. Miller, and J.F.Kalinich, NATO, 2005

20) Memorandum to: Brigadier General L. R. Groves From: Drs. Conant, Compton, and Urey,Midfully.org/War Department, United States Engineer Office, Manhattan District,Oak Ridge Tennessee, 10/30/1943

21) Abstract:Comparative study of the acute lung toxicity of pure cobalt powder and cobalt-tungsten carbide mixture in rats, Lasfargues G., et al, Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology, 1992

22) Evaluation of the role of reactive oxygen species in the interactive toxicity of carbide-cobaltmixtures on macrophages in culture, D. Lison and R. Lauwerys,SpringerLink//Archives of Toxicology, 6/1/1993

Original

child amputations DNA mutations chemical weapons DIME Dense Inert Metal Explosives HMTA Heavy Metal Tungsten Alloy UNRWA ,