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VIDEO of Palestinian victims of Israeli poison gas attack
The below sites many sources including the BBC, a French physician on the scene in Gaza, testimony from American filmographer James B. Longley, and articles from Jonathon Cook writing for Al-Ahram (weekly.ahram.org.eg) and James Brooks for palestinechronicle.com.
The gassing of Palestinians is corroborated by the below video and testimony from a French physician (Dr. Helen Bruzau) and an American filmographer (James B. Longley).
According to James B. Longley those affected reeled in excruciating, unending agony for days, some as long as a month.
This was not reported in the US media which, if it were Arabs doing this to Israelis, you can just imagine the reaction.
French Physician on the scene describes the symptoms:
"The people we saw in the hospital, were mainly young people, exhibiting neurological manifestations: with hypertonic and choreoathetotic crisis in their limbs, spasms causing the body to stiffen, or worse: to go rigid in an arc position. This was followed by episodes of muscle relaxation: Nearly complete paralysis of the limbs, with hypertonia and also digestive pains like cramps and colics, and behavioral distresses; periods of extreme excitation, that kind of trouble."
-Dr. Helen Bruzau
Medecins Sans Frontieres
"As I made my way through the wards of Amal and Nasser Hospitals that day and for many days afterward, I observed many patients that had been brought to the hospitals suffering from these symptoms [from tear gas laced with poison gas]. Room after room, women, children, men. Some were vomiting. Some alternated between a coma-like state and violent convulsions, their entire bodies twisting and arching, members of their families struggling to hold them down on the beds. On and on, for days. One boy, who had inhaled a large amount of the gas in question, suffered in the hospital for an entire month with recurrent convulsions. It is difficult to describe the sensation of sitting in a room for hours and days with people suffering so terribly, and knowing that this was done by human beings."
"The incident went largely unreported. No articles were written in major US newspapers. Fox News and 60 Minutes did not produce special reports. The story gradually grew old and fell through the cracks. Out of sight and out of mind – and who would believe that the Israeli military would do such a thing to civilians in a refugee camp? Olivier Rafowicz, an Israeli Army spokesman, was furious that I even dared to ask him about the gas when I interviewed him in Tel Aviv on April 10, and he repeated the same angry denials. I did not tell him what I had witnessed and filmed. I make these transcripts available in order to set the record straight. I filmed many other interviews with patients, doctors, etc., but the accounts tend to vary only in the details."
-James B. Longley
212-898-0472
james@littleredbutton.com
This was of course totally ignored by our media. Now imagine the reaction if Arabs had done this to Israelis.
Transcript of BBC documentary
00.33.21
Olenka Frenkiel
The Israeli army has used new unidentified weapons. In February 2001 a new gas was used in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with severe convulsions.
00.33.41
Voiceover
The Israelis say this is tear gas. But this is not tear gas. We have never seen this gas before. We need some medicine for treatment. But it must be the right medicine.
00.33.56
Aston
Dr MOHAMMED SALAMA
Director, Palestinian Health Ministry We asked, what kind of gas? But nobody verified for us the type of gas to give the antidote at that moment. Also we don't know how to check, how to examine, how to send this. We are in occupied area. We are surrounded. It is impossible to send these samples to international lab to test.
00.34.27
Olenka Frenkiel
Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons treaties and still refuses to say what the new gas was.
An article by James Brooks follows:
Part I
Part II
![gas_1222.JPG"]()
WASHINGTON (PC) - Just six days after the landslide election of Ariel Sharon, February 12, 2001 was a violent day in occupied Palestine. In the war-ravaged neighborhoods of Khan Younis, in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) launched a barrage of collective punishment after soldiers were shot at by Palestinian gunmen. Machinegun fire and tank shells rained down on the refugee camps, a fusillade that lasted long into the night. The next morning would find an estimated 300 Palestinians newly homeless. (1)
In occupied Palestine, where neighborhoods can become high-tech, made-in-America shooting galleries in the blink of an eye, it might have been just another day of occupation. But the Israeli army chose that afternoon to introduce a new and mysterious gas weapon to a defenseless population. To ensure its delivery, the soldiers fired the gas canisters into the streets, courtyards, and houses of the Khan Younis and Gharbi refugee camps.(2)
The people of Khan Younis are utterly familiar with teargas; their neighborhood has long been known as one of the most heavily teargassed areas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). But no-one in Khan Younis had seen these strange canisters before, or their seemingly harmless multicolored smoke.
The smoking gas had no immediate effect. There was none of the instant irritation to the eyes and breathing passages caused by all forms of teargas. And, at first, the gas had no odor. "It's harmless - this gas is nothing!", yelled a few teenagers, taunting Israeli soldiers. "Throw more!" The soldiers complied.(3)
After a few minutes, the gas started to smell. "Like mint," several people said. One resident later recalled that, "the smell was good. You want to breathe more. You feel good when you inhale it." A girl reported that "its taste was like sugar. The smell was sweet.” (4)
"First, the smoke was white, then yellow, then black," a teenage victim recalled later. Another victim said that the smoke changed colors "like a rainbow." But mostly the smoke was black, and very sooty. When the gas canisters landed on homes, black smoke billowed so thickly that neighbors rushed to the scene, believing the houses had caught fire. (5)
Soon, however, people began to realize that the gas wasn't harmless after all. One man recalled: "..ten - fifteen minutes later I got severe stomach cramps. I felt that my stomach was being torn apart. And a burning sensation in my chest. I couldn't breathe." People began to vomit, and go into seizures and spasms, then collapse and lose consciousness. (6)
Forty people were admitted to Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis "in an odd state of hysteria and nervous breakdown", suffering from "fainting and spasms." Sixteen of them had to be transferred to the intensive care unit. Doctors "reported the Israeli use of gas that appeared to cause convulsions. (7)
At the Gharbi refugee camp, also in Khan Younis, thirty-two people "were treated for serious injuries" following exposure to the gas. Dr. Salakh Shami at Al-Amal Hospital reported that the hospital received "about 130 patients suffering from gas inhalation from February 12." (8)
Bewildered medical personnel had "never seen anything..like the gas at Tufa." Victims were "jumping up and down, left and right..thrashing limbs around", suffering "with convulsions..a kind of hysteria. They were all shaking." Others were already unconscious. An hour or two later, they would come to. And the convulsions and the vomiting and disorientation and pain would return. And so it would go, for days or, for some, weeks to come. (9)
The following day, February 13, Israeli forces again lobbed the poison gas canisters into the neighborhoods of Khan Younis. Over forty new gas victims, "including a number of children..from 1 to 5 years-old", arrived at Al-Nasser Hospital and the hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. (10)
The news began to trickle out that Israel might be using something new and dreadful. AFX News Limited reported that "Palestinian security services have accused the Israeli army of using nerve gas during a gunbattle yesterday..", and noted "the army has strongly denied the charges." The BBC wire picked up the Voice of Palestine's report that "specialists believe that this is an internationally banned nerve gas." Those who inhaled the gas, the report said, "suffered a nervous breakdown and vomited blood." (11)
The next day, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur news service reported that "Israel has been using a powerful type of tear gas against the Palestinians that causes convulsions and spasms," a quote attributed to Dr. Yasser Sheikh Ali at Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. "More than 80 Palestinians arriving at Nasser Hospital..reported that Israeli soldiers had used the white smoky gas, but Israel denied doing so." (12)
According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), on February 15, three more canisters of the poison gas were fired at houses in the Khan Younis camp, and "another 11 Palestinian civilians, mostly children, suffered from suffocation and spasms due to gas inhalation." (13)
In the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram, British journalist Graham Usher wrote that Khan Younis civilians were "incapacitated" by "a 'new' form of toxic gas". (14)
The same day, PA President Yasser Arafat publicly "accused Israel of using poison gas", reported CNN. The IDF issued another denial. Israeli Communications Minister Ben-Eliezer called the reports of gas casualties in Khan Younis "incorrect and false". Senior Palestinian Authority minister Nabil Shaath reportedly said that a sample of the gas would be sent to "an international center for analysis." (15)
During the following six weeks, the Israeli Defense Forces would continue to deploy this novel weapon against civilians. In all, at least eight separate attacks with the "new gas" are recorded in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. According to the Israeli government, the victims of these attacks were suffering from "anxiety".
References
(1) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, February 8 - 14, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/15-02-2001.htm" - l "Return1"
(2) Ibid. - l "Return2"
(3) Selected Interviews recorded for the documentary film “Gaza Strip” by James Longley, transcripts: Regarding the use of an unidentified gas by the Israeli Defense Forces During the week of February 12, 2001, In the Khan Younis Refugee Camp "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return3"
(4) Ibid. - l "Return4"
(5) Ibid. - l "Return5"
(6) Ibid. - l "Return6"
(7) Israelis Kill 14-year-old, Assassinate Arafat Bodyguard February 13, 2001 Palestine, IANA Radionet, Islamic Assembly of North America "http://www.ianaradionet.com/E_newstext/2001/Feb/2-13ME.htm" - l "Return7"
(8) Gaza Archives: Feature Israeli Army Fires Highly Toxic Quantities of Tear Gas at Civilians in Khan Yunis, Gaza Palestine Monitor, February 15, 2001 "http://www.palestinemonitor.org/eyewitness/Gaza/Israeli_army_fires_tear.htm" - l "Return8"
(9) Selected Interviews “Gaza Strip” by James Longley "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return9"
(10) PCHR Weekly Report, Feb. 8 - 14, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/15-02-2001.htm" - l "Return10"
(11) Selected Interviews “Gaza Strip” by James Longley "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return11"
(12) Ibid. - l "Return12"
(13) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, February 15 - 21, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/22-02-2001.htm" - l "Return13"
(14) “Unprepared for the Worst“, by Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Feb. 15 - 21, 2001, Issue No. 521 "http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/521/re1.htm" - l "Return14"
(15) CNN Asia: Arafat accuses Israel of using poison gas, February 16, 2001 "http://asia.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/02/15/arafat.gas/" - l "Return15"
![teargas_1223.JPG"]()
Yet when President Arafat publicly alleged the use of "poison gas" fifteen months later, following the initial attacks in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli response was strangely muted and terse. There were none of the indignant comments or demands for retraction that dogged Ms. Arafat's similar comment for months. Could it be that Israeli authorities wished to avoid drawing attention to the new "poison gas" charges?
Just three days after Mr. Arafat's public allegations, Israeli soldiers reportedly used the "new" poison gas again in Khan Younis. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), on the morning of February 18 Israeli forces positioned near the Neve Dekalim settlement fired artillery shells, bullets, and four poison gas canisters at Palestinian houses. Later that afternoon, more poison gas was fired at houses in the Khan Younis refugee camp, forcing Palestinians to flee their homes. PCHR reported that "41 Palestinian civilians, mostly children and women, suffered from suffocation and spasms." (18)
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) stated that 238 Palestinians were affected by poison gas attacks between February 12 and February 20. Twenty-seven of the victims were still hospitalized as of the 22nd. (19)
On March 2, poison gas was used against civilians living in the West Bank town of Al-Bireh. Israeli soldiers reportedly fired "live and rubber-coated metal bullets at Palestinian civilians", as well as "canisters of a highly effective black gas similar to the one used in Khan Yunis three weeks ago." (20)
March 26, Israeli forces east of Gaza City reportedly used a gas that "left symptoms different from those of the..gas used first against Palestinian civilians in Khan Yunis starting from February 12, 2001..", reported PCHR. However, the symptoms and gas characteristics described were essentially similar to those reported from previous attacks, with the exception that the onset of abdominal pain was apparently delayed in the latest attack. (21)
Four days later, on March 30, five Palestinians were killed in bloody clashes in the West Bank city of Nablus. Medical professionals on the scene reported that Israeli soldiers also used the new poison gas against Palestinian demonstrators. (22)
The April 5 - 11 issue of Al-Ahram Weekly featured the story, Vale of Tears: Tear or Poison Gas?, by British journalist Jonathan Cook. It tells the story of an Israeli poison gas attack in the schoolyard of Al-Khader village, near Bethlehem. A gas canister landed in the schoolyard next to thirteen year-old Sliman Salah, "enveloping him in a cloud of gas described by witnesses as an unfamiliar, yellow colour". The boy required large doses of anti-convulsants to control his seizures and regain consciousness. Transferred to a second hospital to be treated by a neurologist, Sliman was later released, only to be re-admitted the following day with the same symptoms, which "were finally brought under control five days after his exposure to the gas. But Salah's father says the boy is still suffering from stomach pains, vomiting, dizziness and breathing problems.” (23)
"Salah is just one of a spate of such cases in the Bethlehem area in the past month", Cook wrote, noting that "Hussein Hospital has reported a rapid increase in untreatable patients since the first such case was admitted in late February." An attending pediatrician, who has practiced in the West Bank for fifteen years and treated "dozens of teargas cases", said, "I have seen nothing like this before." (24)
Cook related the Israeli Defense Forces' claim that it uses only standard CS teargas, and occasionally deploys inert smoke screens to protect its soldiers. The Israelis suggested that the gas victims were simply suffering from "anxiety". (25)
Nerve Gas?
If the new Israeli weapon was a form of nerve gas, as a number of observers asserted or suggested at the time, (26,27) the Israeli claim might have been marginally true; anxiety is one of the many symptoms of nerve gas poisoning. (28) However, as far as we know, no identifying chemical assay of the gas exists. It appears that the last official comment by the Palestinian Authority about the gas was Nabil Shaath's February 15 announcement that it would be independently analyzed.
Now, almost two years later, much work remains to be done. It may be that a few of the gas canisters can be found and tested. It is possible that test results exist, yet lie unpublished. The victims, and their doctors, need and deserve to know what poisoned them, and governments seem unwilling to help. But we do not need to know the poison's chemical identity to study its effects, or to consider the standing of these attacks under international law.
In some situations it has been possible to determine the use of nerve gas, even without definitive chemical analysis. For example, an investigative team dispatched by the United Nations Security Council encountered forty Iranian victims of an Iraqi chemical attack in 1984. The UN investigators "had time to examine" only six of the afflicted soldiers. They found that "the signs and symptoms..were quite different from those associated with the mustard-gas sample. The UN team concluded from them that the patients had been exposed to an anticholinesterase agent" - nerve gas. (29)
At the time, the UN researchers did not have a chemical assay, apparently made little or no use of biological analysis, and worked with only six victims. Despite these handicaps, the UN team was able to reach a strong conclusion about the type of poison used. Why? Largely because the anticholinesterase nerve agents produce a unique and striking pattern of symptoms. In the situation, any other diagnosis would very likely have been implausible. Another team of experts may reach similar conclusions after thoroughly reviewing the documented cases of the Palestinian gas victims.
Initially, there was some conjecture that the "new gas" used by the Israelis might be a highly concentrated mixture of different teargases. (30) The overall record offers scant support for this idea. The smoking gas canisters emitted no odor when first opened, and the gas was non-irritating on contact. Unlike teargas, this gas took time to rob its victims of their breath, from one or two minutes to forty-five minutes, apparently depending upon the rate of inhalation. The gas does not appear to have been physically repellent in an open space. When a mint fragrance emerged, usually a few minutes after a canister opened, the gas was described by several victims as "pleasant" to breathe. Victims did not respond to the proven treatments for teargas inhalation. (31) Those who suffered and those who witnessed or treated the victims agreed: "This is like nothing we've ever seen before." (32) -- (PalestineChronicle.com)
Earlier Parts in this series
References
(16) Hillary Clinton criticises Mrs Arafat, November 12, 1999, BBC "http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/517983.stm" - l "Return16"
(17) Still no apology from Suha Arafat, Jerusalem Post, November 17, 1999 "http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/17.Nov.1999/LatestNews/lnews-2.html" - l "Return17"
(18) PCHR Weekly Report, Feb. 15 - 21, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/22-02-2001.htm" - l "Return18"
(19) Ibid. - l "Return19"
(20) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 1 - 7, 2001 (report contains typographical error incorrectly listing incident as occurring "Friday, February 22") "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/07-03-2001.htm" - l "Return20"
(21) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 22 - 29, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/29-03-2001.htm" - l "Return21"
(22) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 29 - April 4, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/05-04-2001.htm" - l "Return22"
(23) Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas? By Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 5 - 11 April 2001, Issue No.528 "http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/528/re3.htm" - l "Return23"
(24) Ibid. - l "Return24"
(25) Ibid. - l "Return25"
(26) Selected Interviews Gaza Strip by James Longley "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return26"
(27) Israelis Kill 14-year-old, Assassinate Arafat Bodyguard February 13, 2001 Palestine, IANA Radionet, Islamic Assembly of North America "http://www.ianaradionet.com/E_newstext/2001/Feb/2-13ME.htm" - l "Return27"
(28) Health Aspects of Chemical and Biological Weapons: Annex 3: Chemical Agents, World Health Organization "http://www.who.int/emc/pdfs/DraftAnnex3WS.pdf" - l "Return28"
(29) Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Fact Sheet, Chemical Weapons I, May 1984, Julian Perry Robinson and Jozef Goldblat "http://projects.sipri.se/cbw/research/factsheet-1984.html" - l "Return29"
(30) Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas?, Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 5 - 11 April 2001, Issue No.528 "http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/528/re3.htm" - l "Return30"
(31) Selected Interviews Gaza Strip by James Longley "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return31"
(32) ibid
!["13-year]()
13-year old Sliman Salah, one of many recent victims of a new Israeli "tear" gas
photo: Antonio Olmos
Jonathan Cook, in the West Bank, investigates evidence of a new war crime
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/528/re3.htm
The school playground in the village of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem, has been a children's battleground for the past six months: pupils finish classes at midday and congregate to throw stones at the Israeli soldiers stationed in the hills around their homes. The confrontation was relatively trouble-free until last month when soldiers fired tear gas into the playground. One canister landed only a few feet from 13-year-old Sliman Salah, enveloping him in a cloud of gas described by witnesses as an unfamiliar, yellow colour. Within a minute he was unconscious.
According to James B. Longley those affected reeled in excruciating, unending agony for days, some as long as a month.
This was not reported in the US media which, if it were Arabs doing this to Israelis, you can just imagine the reaction.
VIDEO:
RealAudio metafileFrench Physician on the scene describes the symptoms:
"The people we saw in the hospital, were mainly young people, exhibiting neurological manifestations: with hypertonic and choreoathetotic crisis in their limbs, spasms causing the body to stiffen, or worse: to go rigid in an arc position. This was followed by episodes of muscle relaxation: Nearly complete paralysis of the limbs, with hypertonia and also digestive pains like cramps and colics, and behavioral distresses; periods of extreme excitation, that kind of trouble."
-Dr. Helen Bruzau
Medecins Sans Frontieres
"As I made my way through the wards of Amal and Nasser Hospitals that day and for many days afterward, I observed many patients that had been brought to the hospitals suffering from these symptoms [from tear gas laced with poison gas]. Room after room, women, children, men. Some were vomiting. Some alternated between a coma-like state and violent convulsions, their entire bodies twisting and arching, members of their families struggling to hold them down on the beds. On and on, for days. One boy, who had inhaled a large amount of the gas in question, suffered in the hospital for an entire month with recurrent convulsions. It is difficult to describe the sensation of sitting in a room for hours and days with people suffering so terribly, and knowing that this was done by human beings."
"The incident went largely unreported. No articles were written in major US newspapers. Fox News and 60 Minutes did not produce special reports. The story gradually grew old and fell through the cracks. Out of sight and out of mind – and who would believe that the Israeli military would do such a thing to civilians in a refugee camp? Olivier Rafowicz, an Israeli Army spokesman, was furious that I even dared to ask him about the gas when I interviewed him in Tel Aviv on April 10, and he repeated the same angry denials. I did not tell him what I had witnessed and filmed. I make these transcripts available in order to set the record straight. I filmed many other interviews with patients, doctors, etc., but the accounts tend to vary only in the details."
-James B. Longley
212-898-0472
james@littleredbutton.com
This was of course totally ignored by our media. Now imagine the reaction if Arabs had done this to Israelis.
www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/
www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf
Transcript of BBC documentary
00.33.21
Olenka Frenkiel
The Israeli army has used new unidentified weapons. In February 2001 a new gas was used in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with severe convulsions.
00.33.41
Voiceover
The Israelis say this is tear gas. But this is not tear gas. We have never seen this gas before. We need some medicine for treatment. But it must be the right medicine.
00.33.56
Aston
Dr MOHAMMED SALAMA
Director, Palestinian Health Ministry We asked, what kind of gas? But nobody verified for us the type of gas to give the antidote at that moment. Also we don't know how to check, how to examine, how to send this. We are in occupied area. We are surrounded. It is impossible to send these samples to international lab to test.
00.34.27
Olenka Frenkiel
Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons treaties and still refuses to say what the new gas was.
An article by James Brooks follows:
Part I
Part II
In occupied Palestine, where neighborhoods can become high-tech, made-in-America shooting galleries in the blink of an eye, it might have been just another day of occupation. But the Israeli army chose that afternoon to introduce a new and mysterious gas weapon to a defenseless population. To ensure its delivery, the soldiers fired the gas canisters into the streets, courtyards, and houses of the Khan Younis and Gharbi refugee camps.(2)
The people of Khan Younis are utterly familiar with teargas; their neighborhood has long been known as one of the most heavily teargassed areas in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). But no-one in Khan Younis had seen these strange canisters before, or their seemingly harmless multicolored smoke.
The smoking gas had no immediate effect. There was none of the instant irritation to the eyes and breathing passages caused by all forms of teargas. And, at first, the gas had no odor. "It's harmless - this gas is nothing!", yelled a few teenagers, taunting Israeli soldiers. "Throw more!" The soldiers complied.(3)
After a few minutes, the gas started to smell. "Like mint," several people said. One resident later recalled that, "the smell was good. You want to breathe more. You feel good when you inhale it." A girl reported that "its taste was like sugar. The smell was sweet.” (4)
"First, the smoke was white, then yellow, then black," a teenage victim recalled later. Another victim said that the smoke changed colors "like a rainbow." But mostly the smoke was black, and very sooty. When the gas canisters landed on homes, black smoke billowed so thickly that neighbors rushed to the scene, believing the houses had caught fire. (5)
Soon, however, people began to realize that the gas wasn't harmless after all. One man recalled: "..ten - fifteen minutes later I got severe stomach cramps. I felt that my stomach was being torn apart. And a burning sensation in my chest. I couldn't breathe." People began to vomit, and go into seizures and spasms, then collapse and lose consciousness. (6)
Forty people were admitted to Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis "in an odd state of hysteria and nervous breakdown", suffering from "fainting and spasms." Sixteen of them had to be transferred to the intensive care unit. Doctors "reported the Israeli use of gas that appeared to cause convulsions. (7)
At the Gharbi refugee camp, also in Khan Younis, thirty-two people "were treated for serious injuries" following exposure to the gas. Dr. Salakh Shami at Al-Amal Hospital reported that the hospital received "about 130 patients suffering from gas inhalation from February 12." (8)
Bewildered medical personnel had "never seen anything..like the gas at Tufa." Victims were "jumping up and down, left and right..thrashing limbs around", suffering "with convulsions..a kind of hysteria. They were all shaking." Others were already unconscious. An hour or two later, they would come to. And the convulsions and the vomiting and disorientation and pain would return. And so it would go, for days or, for some, weeks to come. (9)
The following day, February 13, Israeli forces again lobbed the poison gas canisters into the neighborhoods of Khan Younis. Over forty new gas victims, "including a number of children..from 1 to 5 years-old", arrived at Al-Nasser Hospital and the hospital of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society. (10)
The news began to trickle out that Israel might be using something new and dreadful. AFX News Limited reported that "Palestinian security services have accused the Israeli army of using nerve gas during a gunbattle yesterday..", and noted "the army has strongly denied the charges." The BBC wire picked up the Voice of Palestine's report that "specialists believe that this is an internationally banned nerve gas." Those who inhaled the gas, the report said, "suffered a nervous breakdown and vomited blood." (11)
The next day, the Deutsche Presse-Agentur news service reported that "Israel has been using a powerful type of tear gas against the Palestinians that causes convulsions and spasms," a quote attributed to Dr. Yasser Sheikh Ali at Al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. "More than 80 Palestinians arriving at Nasser Hospital..reported that Israeli soldiers had used the white smoky gas, but Israel denied doing so." (12)
According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), on February 15, three more canisters of the poison gas were fired at houses in the Khan Younis camp, and "another 11 Palestinian civilians, mostly children, suffered from suffocation and spasms due to gas inhalation." (13)
In the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram, British journalist Graham Usher wrote that Khan Younis civilians were "incapacitated" by "a 'new' form of toxic gas". (14)
The same day, PA President Yasser Arafat publicly "accused Israel of using poison gas", reported CNN. The IDF issued another denial. Israeli Communications Minister Ben-Eliezer called the reports of gas casualties in Khan Younis "incorrect and false". Senior Palestinian Authority minister Nabil Shaath reportedly said that a sample of the gas would be sent to "an international center for analysis." (15)
During the following six weeks, the Israeli Defense Forces would continue to deploy this novel weapon against civilians. In all, at least eight separate attacks with the "new gas" are recorded in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. According to the Israeli government, the victims of these attacks were suffering from "anxiety".
References
(1) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, February 8 - 14, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/15-02-2001.htm" - l "Return1"
(2) Ibid. - l "Return2"
(3) Selected Interviews recorded for the documentary film “Gaza Strip” by James Longley, transcripts: Regarding the use of an unidentified gas by the Israeli Defense Forces During the week of February 12, 2001, In the Khan Younis Refugee Camp "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return3"
(4) Ibid. - l "Return4"
(5) Ibid. - l "Return5"
(6) Ibid. - l "Return6"
(7) Israelis Kill 14-year-old, Assassinate Arafat Bodyguard February 13, 2001 Palestine, IANA Radionet, Islamic Assembly of North America "http://www.ianaradionet.com/E_newstext/2001/Feb/2-13ME.htm" - l "Return7"
(8) Gaza Archives: Feature Israeli Army Fires Highly Toxic Quantities of Tear Gas at Civilians in Khan Yunis, Gaza Palestine Monitor, February 15, 2001 "http://www.palestinemonitor.org/eyewitness/Gaza/Israeli_army_fires_tear.htm" - l "Return8"
(9) Selected Interviews “Gaza Strip” by James Longley "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return9"
(10) PCHR Weekly Report, Feb. 8 - 14, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/15-02-2001.htm" - l "Return10"
(11) Selected Interviews “Gaza Strip” by James Longley "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return11"
(12) Ibid. - l "Return12"
(13) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, February 15 - 21, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/22-02-2001.htm" - l "Return13"
(14) “Unprepared for the Worst“, by Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Feb. 15 - 21, 2001, Issue No. 521 "http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/521/re1.htm" - l "Return14"
(15) CNN Asia: Arafat accuses Israel of using poison gas, February 16, 2001 "http://asia.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/02/15/arafat.gas/" - l "Return15"
Part 2
(PC) - In November, 1999, Suha Arafat, the president's wife, caused an international sensation and embarrassed Hillary Clinton with public charges about Israeli use of "poison gas", apparently referring to the chronic overuse of teargas by Israeli soldiers. Poison gas is an understandably sensitive subject for Israeli Jews. Her comments so incensed Israeli authorities that they were called a violation of the peace process. (16,17)Yet when President Arafat publicly alleged the use of "poison gas" fifteen months later, following the initial attacks in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli response was strangely muted and terse. There were none of the indignant comments or demands for retraction that dogged Ms. Arafat's similar comment for months. Could it be that Israeli authorities wished to avoid drawing attention to the new "poison gas" charges?
Just three days after Mr. Arafat's public allegations, Israeli soldiers reportedly used the "new" poison gas again in Khan Younis. According to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), on the morning of February 18 Israeli forces positioned near the Neve Dekalim settlement fired artillery shells, bullets, and four poison gas canisters at Palestinian houses. Later that afternoon, more poison gas was fired at houses in the Khan Younis refugee camp, forcing Palestinians to flee their homes. PCHR reported that "41 Palestinian civilians, mostly children and women, suffered from suffocation and spasms." (18)
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) stated that 238 Palestinians were affected by poison gas attacks between February 12 and February 20. Twenty-seven of the victims were still hospitalized as of the 22nd. (19)
On March 2, poison gas was used against civilians living in the West Bank town of Al-Bireh. Israeli soldiers reportedly fired "live and rubber-coated metal bullets at Palestinian civilians", as well as "canisters of a highly effective black gas similar to the one used in Khan Yunis three weeks ago." (20)
March 26, Israeli forces east of Gaza City reportedly used a gas that "left symptoms different from those of the..gas used first against Palestinian civilians in Khan Yunis starting from February 12, 2001..", reported PCHR. However, the symptoms and gas characteristics described were essentially similar to those reported from previous attacks, with the exception that the onset of abdominal pain was apparently delayed in the latest attack. (21)
Four days later, on March 30, five Palestinians were killed in bloody clashes in the West Bank city of Nablus. Medical professionals on the scene reported that Israeli soldiers also used the new poison gas against Palestinian demonstrators. (22)
The April 5 - 11 issue of Al-Ahram Weekly featured the story, Vale of Tears: Tear or Poison Gas?, by British journalist Jonathan Cook. It tells the story of an Israeli poison gas attack in the schoolyard of Al-Khader village, near Bethlehem. A gas canister landed in the schoolyard next to thirteen year-old Sliman Salah, "enveloping him in a cloud of gas described by witnesses as an unfamiliar, yellow colour". The boy required large doses of anti-convulsants to control his seizures and regain consciousness. Transferred to a second hospital to be treated by a neurologist, Sliman was later released, only to be re-admitted the following day with the same symptoms, which "were finally brought under control five days after his exposure to the gas. But Salah's father says the boy is still suffering from stomach pains, vomiting, dizziness and breathing problems.” (23)
"Salah is just one of a spate of such cases in the Bethlehem area in the past month", Cook wrote, noting that "Hussein Hospital has reported a rapid increase in untreatable patients since the first such case was admitted in late February." An attending pediatrician, who has practiced in the West Bank for fifteen years and treated "dozens of teargas cases", said, "I have seen nothing like this before." (24)
Cook related the Israeli Defense Forces' claim that it uses only standard CS teargas, and occasionally deploys inert smoke screens to protect its soldiers. The Israelis suggested that the gas victims were simply suffering from "anxiety". (25)
Nerve Gas?
If the new Israeli weapon was a form of nerve gas, as a number of observers asserted or suggested at the time, (26,27) the Israeli claim might have been marginally true; anxiety is one of the many symptoms of nerve gas poisoning. (28) However, as far as we know, no identifying chemical assay of the gas exists. It appears that the last official comment by the Palestinian Authority about the gas was Nabil Shaath's February 15 announcement that it would be independently analyzed.
Now, almost two years later, much work remains to be done. It may be that a few of the gas canisters can be found and tested. It is possible that test results exist, yet lie unpublished. The victims, and their doctors, need and deserve to know what poisoned them, and governments seem unwilling to help. But we do not need to know the poison's chemical identity to study its effects, or to consider the standing of these attacks under international law.
In some situations it has been possible to determine the use of nerve gas, even without definitive chemical analysis. For example, an investigative team dispatched by the United Nations Security Council encountered forty Iranian victims of an Iraqi chemical attack in 1984. The UN investigators "had time to examine" only six of the afflicted soldiers. They found that "the signs and symptoms..were quite different from those associated with the mustard-gas sample. The UN team concluded from them that the patients had been exposed to an anticholinesterase agent" - nerve gas. (29)
At the time, the UN researchers did not have a chemical assay, apparently made little or no use of biological analysis, and worked with only six victims. Despite these handicaps, the UN team was able to reach a strong conclusion about the type of poison used. Why? Largely because the anticholinesterase nerve agents produce a unique and striking pattern of symptoms. In the situation, any other diagnosis would very likely have been implausible. Another team of experts may reach similar conclusions after thoroughly reviewing the documented cases of the Palestinian gas victims.
Initially, there was some conjecture that the "new gas" used by the Israelis might be a highly concentrated mixture of different teargases. (30) The overall record offers scant support for this idea. The smoking gas canisters emitted no odor when first opened, and the gas was non-irritating on contact. Unlike teargas, this gas took time to rob its victims of their breath, from one or two minutes to forty-five minutes, apparently depending upon the rate of inhalation. The gas does not appear to have been physically repellent in an open space. When a mint fragrance emerged, usually a few minutes after a canister opened, the gas was described by several victims as "pleasant" to breathe. Victims did not respond to the proven treatments for teargas inhalation. (31) Those who suffered and those who witnessed or treated the victims agreed: "This is like nothing we've ever seen before." (32) -- (PalestineChronicle.com)
Earlier Parts in this series
References
(16) Hillary Clinton criticises Mrs Arafat, November 12, 1999, BBC "http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/517983.stm" - l "Return16"
(17) Still no apology from Suha Arafat, Jerusalem Post, November 17, 1999 "http://www.jpost.com/com/Archive/17.Nov.1999/LatestNews/lnews-2.html" - l "Return17"
(18) PCHR Weekly Report, Feb. 15 - 21, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/22-02-2001.htm" - l "Return18"
(19) Ibid. - l "Return19"
(20) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 1 - 7, 2001 (report contains typographical error incorrectly listing incident as occurring "Friday, February 22") "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/07-03-2001.htm" - l "Return20"
(21) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 22 - 29, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/29-03-2001.htm" - l "Return21"
(22) Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, March 29 - April 4, 2001, "http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/05-04-2001.htm" - l "Return22"
(23) Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas? By Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 5 - 11 April 2001, Issue No.528 "http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/528/re3.htm" - l "Return23"
(24) Ibid. - l "Return24"
(25) Ibid. - l "Return25"
(26) Selected Interviews Gaza Strip by James Longley "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return26"
(27) Israelis Kill 14-year-old, Assassinate Arafat Bodyguard February 13, 2001 Palestine, IANA Radionet, Islamic Assembly of North America "http://www.ianaradionet.com/E_newstext/2001/Feb/2-13ME.htm" - l "Return27"
(28) Health Aspects of Chemical and Biological Weapons: Annex 3: Chemical Agents, World Health Organization "http://www.who.int/emc/pdfs/DraftAnnex3WS.pdf" - l "Return28"
(29) Stockholm International Peace Research Institute Fact Sheet, Chemical Weapons I, May 1984, Julian Perry Robinson and Jozef Goldblat "http://projects.sipri.se/cbw/research/factsheet-1984.html" - l "Return29"
(30) Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas?, Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 5 - 11 April 2001, Issue No.528 "http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/528/re3.htm" - l "Return30"
(31) Selected Interviews Gaza Strip by James Longley "http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf:" - l "Return31"
(32) ibid
13-year old Sliman Salah, one of many recent victims of a new Israeli "tear" gas
photo: Antonio Olmos
Vale of tears
Tear or poison gas?
Jonathan Cook, in the West Bank, investigates evidence of a new war crime
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/528/re3.htm
The school playground in the village of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem, has been a children's battleground for the past six months: pupils finish classes at midday and congregate to throw stones at the Israeli soldiers stationed in the hills around their homes. The confrontation was relatively trouble-free until last month when soldiers fired tear gas into the playground. One canister landed only a few feet from 13-year-old Sliman Salah, enveloping him in a cloud of gas described by witnesses as an unfamiliar, yellow colour. Within a minute he was unconscious.
By the time Salah arrived at the private Yamamah hospital, his body was racked by violent spasms and convulsions, his breathing was sporadic and his pupils tightly constricted. The French doctor who admitted him was baffled. Annie Dudin, a paediatrician who has worked in the West Bank for 15 years, has treated dozens of victims of gas inhalation, including many between 1987 and 1993, during the first Intifada, but had never seen symptoms like Salah's before.
Normally, victims recover after a few minutes away from tear gas. In more severe cases, oxygen and an injection of glucose may be needed to stop coughing fits and dry up streaming eyes. Neither treatment worked with Salah. His seizures continued until he was given large doses of anti-convulsants and only slowly did he regain consciousness.
"I have seen nothing like this before," Dudin said. "I would have expected these sorts of symptoms in a case of severe poisoning. But to treat him properly, I needed to know what chemicals he had been exposed to." Later that day, Salah was transferred to Hussein Hospital in nearby Beit Jala, to be put under the care of neurologist Nabir Musleh. Tests suggested that the boy had been poisoned, but doctors again had no idea how to treat him. They told him to shower regularly to wash away any chemical traces on his skin.
Within 24 hours of his release, Salah was having convulsions and had to be readmitted to the Hussein. His symptoms were finally brought under control five days after his exposure to the gas. But Salah's father says the boy is still suffering from stomach pains, vomiting, dizziness and breathing problems.
Salah is just one of a spate of such cases in the Bethlehem area in the past month. Another tear gas victim recently arrived unconscious at the Yamamah having convulsive fits and Hussein Hospital has reported a rapid increase in untreatable patients since the first such case was admitted in late February.
Peter Qumri, the hospital's director, said: "Until a few weeks ago it was simple to help tear gas victims. We gave them oxygen for 10 minutes and then discharged them. Now they arrive having fits, dizzy, sometimes unconscious, having severe problems breathing. Something has definitely changed."
The new cases in Bethlehem follow a pattern first seen in the Gaza Strip in mid-February, when a large crowd was tear-gassed near Khan Younis refugee camp. Ten men were admitted to Nasser Hospital suffering from seizures that doctors could not treat. Many other patients vomited for days afterwards.
Because of Israel's strict blockade of Gaza, the cases were difficult to verify at the time. But local Palestinian doctors raised concerns that Israel might have started using a new, concentrated form of tear gas or combining different gases.
The Israeli Defence Force says it uses only standard CS gas, although it admits that in some clashes it has also used smoke screen gases to protect its soldiers. It believes the victims' complaints are caused by "anxiety." That conclusion has been dismissed by doctors, including one of the few Western medics in the Gaza Strip. Helen Brisco of Médecins Sans Frontières, says the Khan Younis patients she treated were clinically ill and that in the more serious cases, patients had severe muscle paralysis.
Brisco's and Dudin's observations are supported by an investigation carried out by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which took air samples at Khan Younis as well as blood samples of patients. Its preliminary findings suggest that Israel used a cocktail of gases in much higher concentrations than before.
Dudin is also sceptical of Israel's explanations. "Sliman's condition was certainly not one of anxiety. It is very difficult for me to say what he was exposed to. Without knowing the chemicals involved, I cannot run the necessary tests, but his symptoms were compatible with exposure to a strong poison. This suggests to me that the gas being used by Israel is no longer safe."
Add Your Comments
§Paul Unger
I noticed an interview, some would call it a "debate" today [July 6] on CNN between an official of the BBC and an official of the zionist "government" I could not believe that the zionists have the hide to continue to refuse to acknowledge the routine use of poison gas.It is a national disgrace that my country Australia fights wars in the Middle East to prop up grotesque creations like zionism. MY comfort is that history teaches us it will not last,my hope is that I will live to see the end of it before I die .
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