By Professor Paola Manduca, Global Research 8/7/2006

By now there are countless reports, from hospitals, witnesses, armament experts and journalists that strongly suggest that in the present offensive of Israeli forces against Lebanon and Gaza 'new weapons' are being used.

New and strange symptoms are reported amongst the wounded and the dead.

Bodies with dead tissues and no apparent wounds; 'shrunken' corpses; civilians with heavy damage to lower limbs that require amputation, which is nevertheless followed by unstoppable necrosis and death; descriptions of extensive internal wounds with no trace of shrapnel, corpses blackened but not burnt, and others heavily wounded that did not bleed.

Many of these descriptions suggest the possibility that the new weapons used include 'direct energy' weapons, and chemical and/or biological agents, in a sort of macabre experiment of future warfare, where there is no respect for anything: International rules (from the Geneva Convention to the treaties on biological and chemical weapons), refugees, hospitals and the Red Cross, not to mention the people, their future, their children, the environment, which is poisoned through dissemination of Depleted Uranium and toxic substances released after oil and chemical depots are bombed.

Right now, the Lebanese and Palestinian people have many urgent and impellent problems, yet many people believe that these episodes cannot and must not pass ignored. In fact several appeals have been launched to scientists and experts with a view to investigating the issue.

With the intent of responding to such appeals, we have set up a team to investigate the testimonies, the images, and possibly the material evidence that delegations and NGOs will be able to bring from the affected areas. We want to offer support to the health institutions of Lebanon and Palestine, which ask constantly for help and external verification and monitoring, and we are examining all available materials in order to formulate hypotheses which can be verified or disproved.

We ask for the active participation of our (Italian) scientific institutions, and, following the request from medical personnel in the conflict area, we are requesting that the UN set up an international independent verification and investigation committee, with a view to facilitating entry into the conflict zone, as well as collecting material and testimonies directly in the field, and undertaking inquries and verifications concerning the various claims regarding these new kinds of weapons of mass destruction being used by Israeli forces in Lebanon. We request that such investigating teams be set up immediately, and that procedures be defined and implemented with a view to supporting future investigations. Of particular concern is the issue of how to collect and store samples from the different theatres, with a view to preserving important information regarding the various impacts of these weapons.

We ask that the international committee have access to all sources of information, that it be fully operational, while abiding by relevant investigative procedures, including cross-checking of information between different laboratories. The international committee is to report to the competent authorities, including the Human Rights tribunals and international courts, if appropriate..

As people and as scientists, we are offering our time and expertise in order to reach an understanding of the underlying facts, in the belief that a perspective of justice, equity and peace among people can be reached only with the respect of the rules defined up to now within the international community of nations. The issue pertains to the behavior of the parties in an armed conflict.

We ask that the respect of these rules be verified in the context of the present conflict.

We invite scientists to contribute to this effort by offering their specific competences. In particular we seek collaboration of toxicology experts, pharmacologists, anatomy pathologists, doctors with an expertise in trauma and burns, chemists.

They can reach the working group at the E-mail address: nuovearmi@gmail.com Paola Manduca, Professor of.Genetics, University of Genova, Italy

The ministry called upon the international community and the humanitarian organizations to send an international medical community to examine the victims and confirm the truth about these banned weapons that Israel appears to be using.

The ministry showed that most of the injuries which the hospitals receive result from huge explosions which cause burning and severing of limbs, including the inner parts of the body. This causes long term deformations.

It is added that doctors in Gaza have been forced to amputate limbs of at least 12 injured Palestinians as a result of injuries sustained in the current Israeli offensive on the Strip.

Chemical or depleted uranium could have been used in producing the new type of ammunition according to Dr Jomaa Al Saqqa, head of the Emergency Unit at Gaza's main medical facility, the Al Shifa Hospital.

In a telephone interview, Al Saqqa told Gulf News that operation Summer Rain was not just the code name of a military operation launched by Israel against Gaza since June 26.

"It is a live exercise on a new ammunition that, so far, has resulted in killing 50 Palestinians and injuring 200," he said.

He said he was not yet sure about the kind of chemical being used because the Israeli Army had bombed the only criminal laboratory in Gaza on the first day of the assault.

Dr Saqqa who has been working in the Al Shifa Hospital for almost 10 years said he had never seen such wounds before.

At the beginning of the Summer Rain operation I noticed that people's wounds looked strange.

I thought it was just because the attack was from a close distance or that the temperature of bullets penetrating the bodies of injured or killed people were so high they were causing burns.

I later found out that all wounds referred to the hospital since the start of the operation were very similar.

"I also noticed that despite the damage in internal soft tissue in the bodies of injured people, the fragments were not detected by X-ray. In other words, they had disappeared or dissolved inside the body."

Al Saqqa urged the international health authorities to come to Gaza and check the wounds of people in Al Shifa Hospital.

"The situation is very bad because out of the 200 injuries there are 50 children who are suffering badly because of their internal wounds caused by the new kind of ammunition," he said.

Gulf News contacted the spokesman for the Israeli Army but he was not available for comment.

The doctor spoke on Thursday, giving the death count at 85 Palestinians in the Strip since the latest Israeli attack began. Among the dead are 34 children under the age of 13. And as of Thursday afternoon, 300 Palestinians are injured.

Dr. Al Sakka told Voice of Palestine Radio that the Israeli army is using new types of non-conventional weapons against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the recent attacks. He said, “They are targeting the Palestinian body with unconventional weapons and with that comes a phenomena we have not seen before in any Israeli bombardment we have lived through for many years.”

He continued, “The hospital is central and sees almost all cases of injuries and deaths as a result of Israeli against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. These Israeli bombings are entering the body and fragmenting, causing internal combustion leading to up to fourth degree internal burns, exposing the bone, and affecting the tissue and skin.”

The doctor added, “These tissues die, they do not survive, which obliges us to perform arm or leg amputations, and there are fragments which penetrate the body and do not show up on X-rays. When entering the body they spark like a combustion firearm, but not chemically. They seem radioactive.”

He confirmed that there were dozens of wounded legs and arms. Many of them had been burned from the inside, and distorted to the point that they cannot return to life again.

Yesterday, Wednesday, was one of the most bloody of all in the recent attacks. Israeli forces killed 25 Palestinians. Dr. Al Sakka said, “It is escalating day after day. Yesterday alone Israeli forces killed 25 and injured dozens. Among them so many were children.”

Dr. Al Sakka revealed that the Israelis completely destroyed by the lab which would help in diagnosing such cases. “We no longer have the ability to make these examinations on phenomena that we see is not normal.”

He called on the international community to examine the latest weapons however the doctor reported that “no one has lifted a finger.” Dr. Al Sakka complained that he did not see any foreign medical institution interested in the use of new weapons and their affects on the human body. He said, “What we found were journalists who came to take pictures, but as for the medical community, nothing.”

Israel has begun fresh air strikes in the Gaza Strip after pledging to intensify its military offensive on the territory that has killed 51 Palestinians in two weeks.

One Palestinian was killed and four others wounded in a series of Israeli air strikes in the northern industrial zone of Bait Hanun, medics said on Tuesday.

The Israeli military confirmed an air raid in the Bait Hanun area of northern Gaza, the site of two earlier strikes on Tuesday.

Israeli aircraft also carried out two overnight air strikes against a bridge in the northern Gaza Strip and against a "gunman" west of the Karni transit point for goods entering and leaving the Palestinian territory, a spokesman said.

Ground troops are massed on the eastern and northern border of the impoverished territory - one of the most densely populated areas on earth - and are also stationed east of Gaza City and in the south near a defunct airport.

Israel says the massive operation is to secure the release of a captured soldier on June 25, and halting Palestinian rocket attacks.

Palestinian medics said on Tuesday that patients treated in Shifa hospital in Gaza and bodies at the mortuary presented unusual burns, raising concerns that Israel was using chemical weapons.

Meanwhile, Israeli defence sources said the government had given the military the green light to continue and, if necessary, intensify the so-called Summer Rain offensive with infantry and armour poised to carry out "in depth" incursions.

The approval was granted during consultations late on Monday between Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, and the defence minister, Amir Peretz, who faced their biggest test since the new Israeli government took office on May 4.

Olmert is due to hold talks with military commanders on Tuesday with a view to continuing the offensive, the largest operation since Israel pulled out of the Gaza Strip in September.

Chemical weapons?

In Shifa hospital, Dr al-Saqqa said most of the dead bodies taken to the facility were torn apart and completely burnt.

"Even bodies of the injured have been almost completely burnt. They have been deformed in a very ugly way that we have never seen before," he told Aljazeera channel.

Al-Saqaa, who heads the hospital's emergency service, said relatives had been unable to identify the dead victims.

"When we try to X-ray dead bodies, we find no trace of the shrapnel that hit the person killed," he said, adding that the bodies seemed to have been chemically burnt.

"We are sure that Israel is using a new chemical or radioactive weapon in the new operation. More than 25% of the injured are children, aged under 16."

Four teenagers playing football were among the dead on Monday.

At least 51 Palestinians have been killed since the operation started two weeks ago. An Israeli soldier also died as a result of "friendly fire", according to the Israeli military.

Missiles fired from Apache helicopters killed at least one person and seriously injured two others in Biet Hanoun today. Israeli tanks shelled the main bridge leading to Biet Hanoun, destroying it and damaging several nearby houses.

Meanwhile, Palestinian medics are now saying that patients at the Shifa hospital in Gaza city and some bodies at the local morgue have unusual burns, raising concerns that Israel was using chemical weapons in its attacks on the Gaza Strip. Dr Jumaa Al Saqa the PR person in the hospital: “When the shrapnel hit the body, it causes very strong burns that destroy the tissues around the bones. When these shrapnel enters the body, it burns and destroys internal organs, like the liver, kidneys, and the spleen and other organs and makes saving the wounded almost impossible. As a surgeon, I have seen thousands of wounds during the Intifada, but nothing was like this weapon.”

The Rafah border crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt remains closed after two weeks. Three out at least 4000 stranded there have died. Those stranded include an estimated 580 people who had traveled to Egypt for medical care.

"What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.

Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.

In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.

The rocket unit commander stated that Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms were heavily used in spite of the fact that they were known to be highly inaccurate.

MLRS is a track or tire carried mobile rocket launching platform, capable of firing a very high volume of mostly unguided munitions. The basic rocket fired by the platform is unguided and imprecise, with a range of about 32 kilometers. The rockets are designed to burst into sub-munitions at a planned altitude in order to blanket enemy army and personnel on the ground with smaller explosive rounds.

The use of such weaponry is controversial mainly due to its inaccuracy and ability to wreak great havoc against indeterminate targets over large areas of territory, with a margin of error of as much as 1,200 meters from the intended target to the area hit.

The cluster rounds which don't detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended.

Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war.

According to the commander, in order to compensate for the inaccuracy of the rockets and the inability to strike individual targets precisely, units would "flood" the battlefield with munitions, accounting for the littered and explosive landscape of post-war Lebanon.

When his reserve duty came to a close, the commander in question sent a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz outlining the use of cluster munitions, a letter which has remained unanswered.

'Excessive injury and unnecessary suffering'

It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. An artillery commander has admitted to seeing trucks loaded with phosphorous rounds on their way to artillery crews in the north of Israel.

A direct hit from a phosphorous shell typically causes severe burns and a slow, painful death.

International law forbids the use of weapons that cause "excessive injury and unnecessary suffering", and many experts are of the opinion that phosphorous rounds fall directly in that category.

The International Red Cross has determined that international law forbids the use of phosphorous and other types of flammable rounds against personnel, both civilian and military.

IDF: No violation of international law

In response, the IDF Spokesman's Office stated that "International law does not include a sweeping prohibition of the use of cluster bombs. The convention on conventional weaponry does not declare a prohibition on [phosphorous weapons], rather, on principles regulating the use of such weapons.

"For understandable operational reasons, the IDF does not respond to [accounts of] details of weaponry in its possession.

"The IDF makes use only of methods and weaponry which are permissible under international law. Artillery fire in general, including MLRS fire, were used in response solely to firing on the state of Israel."

The Defense Minister's office said it had not received messages regarding cluster bomb fire.

"The IDF's use of weapons and ammunition conforms to international law. The specific claims are being checked based on the information provided to us," the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) said in a statement sent to IRIN.

Lebanon's Information Minister Ghazi Aridi has said "Israel is using internationally prohibited weapons against civilians." Aridi failed to specify which weapons, but his comment followed claims that Israel had used bombs containing phosphorous.

Phosphorus is a chemical that burns the skin and increases risk of mortality because of the absorption of chemicals into the body resulting in organ failure. White phosphorus continues to burn until consumed completely or deprived of oxygen. In some cases it can burn right down to the bone.

"Israel has always used them [phosphorous bombs]," said Timor Goksel, a former spokesman of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) who served for over 20 years in southern Lebanon.

"[Phosphorous bombs were] mostly used in the terrain, not in urban areas, which is allowed. Phosphorus bombs are allowed to light up a battlefield, [but cannot be used] to firebomb buildings."

"I've seen the victims' burns in the hospital of Tyre, and they almost certainly have been caused by phosphorous bombs," he told IRIN.

Protocol III of the Geneva Conventions, to which Israel is a signatory, but with legal reservations, prohibits and restricts the use of incendiary weapons on civilian populations.

A Belgian doctor of Lebanese descent, Bachir Cham, heads the Assairane Hospital in the southern city of Sidon. "Following a bomb attack near Sidon, we had eight bodies brought to the hospital," said Cham. "Normally, people killed or injured by a bomb explosion or in a car accident show traces of burns or blood. But these bodies showed neither. The skin was completely black, while the muscle underneath was intact."

Cham, a heart and vascular specialist who taught at universities in Brussels and Paris, took 24 skin samples from the bodies and sent them to the World Health Organization in Geneva. He also took photos. According to Cham, similar burns cases have been reported in other hospitals. Doctors say many patients have been treated with severe burns in the southern city of Tyre.

The emergencies' director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Peter Boukhaert, who is currently in Lebanon, said HRW researchers in Israel had been able to confirm Israel's use of phosphorus bombs along the border with Lebanon.

But deeper inside Lebanon, it had been harder to establish the use of phosphorus. "So far, the burns we've seen in Lebanon could have been caused by normal bombs fire."

Today, U.S., British, and now Israeli military personnel are using illegal uranium munitions- America's and England's own "dirty bombs" while U.S. Army, U.S. Department of Energy, U.S. Department of Defense, and British Ministry of Defence officials deny that there are any adverse health and environmental effects as a consequence of the manufacture, testing, and/or use of uranium munitions to avoid liability for the willful and illegal dispersal of a radioactive toxic material - depleted uranium.

The use of uranium weapons is absolutely unacceptable, and a crime against humanity. Consequently the citizens of the world and all governments must force cessation of uranium weapons use. I must demand that Israel now provide medical care to all DU casualties in Lebanon and clean up all DU contamination. more..

Dr. Rokke is a former Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium project.

“Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “They should never be used in populated areas.”

According to eyewitnesses and survivors of the attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, Israel fired several artillery-fired cluster munitions at Blida around 3 p.m. on July 19. The witnesses described how the artillery shells dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on the village. They clearly described the submunitions as smaller projectiles that emerged from their larger shells.

The cluster attack killed 60-year-old Maryam Ibrahim inside her home. At least two submunitions from the attack entered the basement that the Ali family was using as a shelter, wounding 12 persons, including seven children. Ahmed Ali, a 45-year-old taxi driver and head of the family, lost both legs from injuries caused by the cluster munitions. Five of his children were wounded: Mira, 16; Fatima, 12; ‘Ali, 10; Aya, 3; and `Ola, 1. His wife Akram Ibrahim, 35, and his mother-in-law `Ola Musa, 80, were also wounded. Four relatives, all German-Lebanese dual nationals sheltering with the family, were wounded as well: Mohammed Ibrahim, 45; his wife Fatima, 40; and their children ‘Ali, 16, and Rula, 13.

....Human Rights Watch conducted detailed analyses of the U.S. military’s use of cluster bombs in the 1999 Yugoslavia war, the 2001-2002 Afghanistan war, and the 2003 Iraq war. Human Rights Watch research established that the use of cluster munitions in populated areas in Iraq caused more civilian casualties than any other factor in the U.S.-led coalition’s conduct of major military operations in March and April 2003, killing and wounding more than 1,000 Iraqi civilians. more..

Stretched out on a bed at Najem Hospital, Zainab squeezed her brown eyes shut as memories of the attack flooded back, some of her words muffled as she fought sobs.

A day earlier, Israeli bombs destroyed her family's home in the southern village of Ayta Chaeb. Then rockets slammed into the family's car as they fled.

"I don't want to remember, but I can't help it. What I remember most is the sound, the sound of the planes, and I was scared because I thought there were so many. I fell asleep last night, but all I could hear in my sleep were planes."

Zainab's aunt was in the next bed. Her mother, Usra Jawad, and 4-year-old brother, Mohammed, were across the hall. Mohammed's eyes fluttered as he slipped in and out of consciousness; his leg was in a cast to his hip. His mother's leg was in traction, with steel pins in several places.

The week before, Usra Jawad's three sisters visited her village to see the new family home. When the bombing started, the four sisters fled in a car with the two children, hoping to reach their parents' home north of Tyre.

But rockets hit their car. Two of the sisters, both teachers, were killed.

"Now I have no house. My sisters are dead," Usra Jawad said. "I can't do anything."

Jawad Najem, a surgeon at the hospital, said patients admitted Sunday had burns from phosphorous incendiary weapons used by Israel. The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorus as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas. Israel said its weapons comply with international law. more..

Lahoud said Israeli forces have fired "phosphorus incendiary bombs, which are a blatant violation of international laws, ...against Lebanese civilians."

He called on the United Nations to help "deter Israel from using destructive weapons which violate human rights and the United Nations charter."

In an extraordinary meeting earlier Sunday, the Lebanese government also accused Israel of using banned weapons against Lebanese civilians.

"We are facing a real annihilation carried out by Israel," Information Minister Ghazi Aridi told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

"Israel is using internationally prohibited weapons against civilians," he said.

Military sources told Agence France Presse that Israel had used phosphorus incendiary bombs and implosion bombs, which suck up the air and collapse buildings.

The artillery shell below, with its FMU penetrator, can also be used to deliver chemical weapons, the use of which is also being reported from southern Lebanon. In addition, it can deliver white phosphorous, a substance that literally melts through skin but leaves clothing relatively intact. In Fallujah and elsewhere in Iraq, U.S. forces have used white phosphorous on civilians, leaving grotesque corpses as a psychological warfare reminder to the civilian population to surrender or evacuate an area. The photo from Sidon of a burnt and badly disfigured young Lebanese girl is a telltale sign of white phosphorous use by the Israelis. Similar photos from Fallujah were shown to this editor by a top investigative reporter for Italy's RAI television network.

U.S. military intelligence experts believe the ease at which the Israeli soldier is handling the artillery shell is an indication that the payload contains light-weight gas and not a fuel-air mixture or thermobaric bomb components. WMR continues to receive reports from Lebanon of depleted uranium shells being used by the Israelis. The New York Times today is reporting that the U.S. is stepping up its delivery of "precision-guided" munitions to Israel (see article below on Bush administration pre-planning for the Israeli invasions of Lebanon and Gaza).

Wayne Madsen is a former U.S. Naval officer who was assigned to the National Security Agency during the Reagan administration.

"I can see parts of bodies, lots of families..." he said, his voice rising in terror. "It's all residential, there's nothing, nothing military here."

At least 20 civilians were killed and over 50 wounded, including an American woman who reportedly told Houiela: "Let this be a message to George Bush." At the time of the report, the death toll in Lebanon had passed 120. By 8 p.m. it was at least 140.

The strike happened as reports came that Israel was using internationally banned cluster and vacuum bombs and white phosphorous against civilians in Southern Lebanon.

"We have preliminary reports about unusual injuries that are different from injuries incurred from regular explosions - severe, abnormal burns," said Health Minister Mohammad Khalife, stressing that the reports had not been confirmed.

"We have a plan but we cannot make things more chaotic than they are. Health officials are there but to launch instructions without confirmation would do more harm than good," he said.

On Saturday, Israeli planes struck two pick-up trucks packed with evacuees from Marwaheen who had responded to warnings to leave their village.

The trucks, carrying over 30 people, had been turned away after attempting to seek refuge at a UN compound. They were less than 2 kilometers away when they were struck by Israeli missiles, killing 18 people, 11 of them children.

A Daily Star correspondent who arrived three hours later reported charred human limbs scattered over the area, creating a stench that reached as far as 50 meters away.

French and Italian UNIFIL soldiers appeared shocked at the ghastliness of the scene. One nurse burst into tears.

The team extinguished fires and collected the pieces of bodies before heading to the nearest hospital.

After the incident, Israel said it regretted civilians casualties, but maintained Hizbullah was intentionally operating from civilian areas.

Three more civilians were killed Saturday during an air raid on the Beirut-Damascus Highway, and five others were killed in the South, including one Egyptian national.

Media commentators have scoffed that Israel, with its relatively unique history, would ever use chemical weapons or poison gas in any war. It is precisely because of that perception that they are using such weapons. The deniability factor prevents the media from taking seriously the credible reports of banned weapons being used by the Israelis.

Meanwhile, Israeli government spokespersons and Bush administration officials took to the Sunday morning talking head programs in Washington to defend Israel's barbarous actions. The networks failed to present the views of Lebanese government spokespersons. Israel's and the Bush administration's line is that Israeli attacks are "precision targeted." Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointedly refused to criticize Israel on ABC's This Week.

Israeli Kadima (ex-Likud) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert joins Ariel Sharon in annals of Israeli leaders who committed war crimes in Lebanon.

American media is failing to report that the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, like the U.S. attacks in Iraq, are violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Additional Protocols governing military attacks on civilians by governments that are parties to the conventions:

- Civilians are not to be subject to attack. This includes direct attacks on civilians and indiscriminate attacks against areas in which civilians are present.
- There is to be no destruction of property unless justified by military necessity.
- Warring parties must not use or develop biological or chemical weapons

Poison Gas Attacks

1. The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks of 2001: A Preliminary Investigation, James Brooks, http://www.vtjp.org/report/The_Israeli_Poison_Gas_Attacks_Project.htm

2. Dispersing Demonstrations--Or Chemical Warfare?, James Brooks, July 12, 2004 Electronic Intifada, http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2900.shtml

3. Video clip of gas victims suffering in the hospital: Excerpt from Gaza Strip, a documentary by James Longley click for more information - click to order

4. Interviews, Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, March - April 2001 - From: 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

5. February 12, 2001: Statements by Dr. Yasser Sheikh Ali, Nasser Hospital, and Dr. Salakh Shami, Amal Hospital, http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf

6. February 13, 2001: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Weekly Report, Feb. 8 - 14, 2001, http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/15-02-2001.htm

7. February 14, 2001: Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 14, 2001

8. February 15, 2001: CNN Asia: Arafat accuses Israel of using poison gas, February 16, 2001 http://asia.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/meast/02/15/arafat.ga

9. February 18, 2001: Palestinian Centre for Human Rights Weekly Report, Feb. 15 - 21, 2001, http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/22-02-2001.htm

10. State of Palestine, Ministry of Health, Health Information Center, June 23, 2001: Ministry Of Health Calls Upon The International Community To Save International Protection For The Palestinian People http://www.moh3.com/update%5Cjune2002%5Cfile023.html

11. March 2, 2001: Palestinian Center for Human Rights Weekly Report, March 1 - 7, 2001 (contains typographical error incorrectly listing incident as occurring "Friday, February 22") http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/07-03-2001.htm

12. March 26, 2001: Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report, March 22 - 29, 2001, http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/29-03-2001.htm

13. March 30, 2001: Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report, March 29 - April 4, 2001, http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/05-04-2001.htm

14. April 5, 2001: Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas? By Jonathan Cook, in the West Bank, investigates evidence of a new war crime Al-Ahram Weekly On-line, 5 - 11 April 2001, Issue No.528 http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/528/re3.htm

15. Symptoms: See Symptoms: The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks

16. Tareg Bey, chemical weapons expert: Gas Attack/What Was It?/News Bites, Michael Miner, Chicago Reader, August 23, 2002  Reader Archive--Article: 2002/020823/HOTTYPE

17. James Longley quote: Selected Interviews, recorded for the documentary film Gaza Strip
http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf

18. October 9, 2003: What gas is Israel using?, by Jennifer Loewenstein and Angela Gaff, Electronic Intifada, 10/9/2003 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article1796.shtml

19. October 11, 2003: Israeli invasion of Gaza refugee camps leave 7 dead and 65 injured meanwhile strict lock down of Palestinian territories continues, Palestine Monitor, 10/11/2003 http://www.palestinemonitor.org/updates/invasion_of_rafah.htm

20. October 11, 2003: Eyewitness account of the invasion of Rafah, by Laura Gordon, International Middle East Media Center, 10/14/2003 http://www.imemc.org/opinion/october/laura-gordon.htm

21. June 11, 2004: Sharon Praised While Wall Construction Continues, Gush Shalom, 6/11/2004 http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO0406/S00152.htm

Tear Gas

1. Tear Gas - Harassing Agent or Toxic Chemical Weapon?, Hu, Fine et al, Journal of the American Medical Association, August 4, 1989, Volume 262 http://www.phrusa.org/research/chemical_weapons/chemjama.html

2. Choking the Truth to Death: More CAMERA Fabrications, by Ali Abunimah, April 3, 2000 http://www.abunimah.org/features/000403camera.html

3. “LET THEM SUFFOCATE”: Police Brutality during House Demolition in Upper Galilee Village of al-Bea’neh, February 25, 2004, Arab Association for Human Rights, http://www.arabhra.org

Additional Threats

Israel's poisonous aerial spraying of Negev crops illegal, endangers health of Bedouin villagers, Press Release, Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), 6 July 2004 http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article2871.shtml

Dimona’s Buried Nuclear Waste Spreads Cancer and Sterility in Southern Hebron and Negev, International Press Center, July 6, 2004 http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2004/2004_07/032.html

Dimona Reactor… a Mystery Threatening the Middle East, International Press Center, September 18, 2003 http://www.ipc.gov.ps/ipc_e/ipc_e-1/e_News/news2003/2003-09/062.html

More

The Jews of Iraq, by Naeim Giladi, The Link, April-May, 1998, American Middle East Update
http://www.ameu.org/uploads/vol31_issue2_1998.pdf

Traces of poison, by Salman Abu-Sitta, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, 27 Feb. - 5 March 2003
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2003/627/focus.htm

Israeli WMD - Israel's Weapons of Mass Destruction, by Neil Sammonds, ZNet, 10/11/2002
http://communication.ucsd.edu/911/massdestruction.html

Israel's Anti-Civilian Weapons by John F. Mahoney, January-March 2001
http://www.ameu.org/uploads/vol34_issue1_2001.pdf