Send Hans Blix to Nes Ziona: CIVILIANS ATTACKED WITH POISON GAS

Michael Pugliese debsian at pacbell.net
Mon Feb 24 09:25:20 PST 2003


Via ANTIFA(scist) INFO-BULLETIN Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 08:54:14 -0800

From: Tom Burghardt <tburghardt at igc.org>

Subject: ANTIFA INFO-BULLETIN, No. 397 Send Hans Blix to Nes Ziona

CIVILIANS ATTACKED WITH POISON GAS

____________________________________________________________________

 

ONLINE JOURNAL

Feature Story

Thursday,February 20, 2003

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Special_Reports/ 022003Brooks/022003brooks.html

By James Brooks

Online Journal Contributing Writer

 

Some of the victims were demonstrators. Some were children in their homes,

trying to get away from the gas seeping under the door. Some were old men

walking down the street. One of the victims was a 13-year-old boy, playing

in a schoolyard when a gas canister enveloped him in a cloud of poisonous

smoke.[1] Like many of the others, he suffered recurring severe convulsions

for days.

 

Ambulance drivers responding to one of the gas attacks found people on the

street jumping around, thrashing their limbs in uncontrollable spasms. The

victims seemed unaware of their actions and surroundings. One driver said,

"If they had anything in their hand--a woman carrying her child might throw

him down without realizing it. She'd just drop him and start clawing at

herself from the gas." Many adults were required to restrain each violently

convulsing victim.[2]

 

These attacks with an unknown poison gas were reported in a prestigious

regional newspaper by respected journalists.[3- 4] They appeared on European

wire services, and on at least one US military website.[5-8] They were

repeatedly documented by an award-winning human rights organization

affiliated with the UN.[9-13] Graphic film documentation of the victims'

suffering is available on VHS and DVD.[14] Three days after the attacks

began, the leader of the targeted people publicly alleged the use of

"poison gas" against civilians and demanded that it stop. Yet the attacks

broadened in scope and continued for the next six weeks, until they ceased

as mysteriously as they had begun.[15]

 

These facts are all in plain sight. But chances are you've never heard

about this chemical warfare against innocent civilians. It was not the work

of Saddam Hussein, or the Russians, or terrorists, at least as the term is

generally understood. It didn't occur in the 1980s, and it didn't require

the satellite data and battle planning that the US military provided Iraq

for its chemical warfare against Iran.

 

These poison gas attacks were perpetrated just two years ago by Israeli

troops against civilians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Although

they are documented by a small mountain of detailed and consistent

open-source information, they remain a silent, ignored, seemingly

untouchable story. At least eight separate attacks were reported from

February 12 through March 30, 2001, first in the Gaza Strip and later in

the West Bank. Several hundred civilians are reported to have suffered from

exposure to the gas. Many required prolonged hospitalization. Six weeks

after the initial attacks, a doctor caring for victims at Ali Nasser

Hospital in Gaza said, "We still have 10 cases who we would like to send

abroad for treatment."[16]

 

The poison gas canisters were unfamiliar, marked only with a few numerals

and Hebrew letters. The smoking gas they released was non-irritating and

initially odorless. After a few minutes a sweet, minty fragrance would

emerge. One victim recalled that "the smell was good. You want to breathe

more. You feel good when you inhale it." The smoke often spewed in a

"rainbow" of changing colors, ending in a steady billow of black soot.

 


>From five to 30 minutes after breathing the gas, victims began to feel sick

and had difficulty breathing. A searing pain would begin to wrench their

gut, followed by vomiting, sometimes of blood, then complete hysteria and

extremely violent convulsions. Many victims suffered a relentless syndrome

for days or weeks afterward, cycling between convulsions and periods of

conscious, twitching, vomiting agony. Palestinians agreed: "This is like

nothing we've ever seen before."[17]

 

Eyewitness reports identify 33 distinct symptoms induced by the gas. All

but three are typical of nerve gas poisoning.[18] Tareg Bey, a chemical

warfare expert at the University of California- Irvine, told the Chicago

Reader that the symptoms "all fit really well to nerve gas," though he was

puzzled by the reported fragrance and skin rashes.[19] The gas, which

caused no recorded fatalities, may have been a novel "nerve agent"

developed in Israel's CBW laboratories at Nes Ziona, where they've been

making nerve gases, and many other things, for decades.[20]

 

Were these gas attacks an "experiment"? What has become of the victims? Who

made the decision to conduct this criminal and inhuman campaign? These and

many other questions about Israel's willingness to use chemical weapons

demand answers. The silence about these attacks must end. Failure to

investigate them and bring their perpetrators to justice is a violation of

the Geneva Accords. America cannot make a case for war over potential

chemical weapons in Iraq, yet turn a blind eye to the actual chemical

warfare conducted by its "staunchest ally."

 

References:

 

[1] Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas? By Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly

On-line, 5-11 April 2001, Issue No.528.

[2] Selected Interviews recorded for the documentary film Gaza Strip by

James Longley, transcripts.

[3] Unprepared for the worst, by Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly Online, Feb.

15-21, 2001, Issue No. 521.

[4] Vale of tears: Tear or poison gas? By Jonathan Cook, Al-Ahram Weekly

On-line, 5-11 April 2001, Issue No.528.

[5] BBC Monitoring Middle East - Political, February 13, 2001.

[6] Deutsche Presse-Agentur, February 14, 2001, BC Cycle, 00:45 CET.

[7] AFX News Limited, AFX European Focus, February 13, 2001.

[8] Protests of U.S. and U.K. Air Strikes, Fort Bragg Web site, Feb 19, 2001.

[9] Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report, Feb. 8-14, 2001.

[10] PCHR Weekly Report, February 15-21, 2001.

[11] PCHR Weekly Report, March 1-7, 2001.

[12] PCHR Weekly Report, March 22-29, 2001.

[13] PCHR Weekly Report, March 29-April 4, 2001.

[14] Gaza Strip, a documentary by James Longley, February, 2002.

[15] The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary Investigation, James

Brooks, Media Monitors Network, January 8, 2003.

[16] Selected Interviews recorded for the documentary film Gaza Strip by

James Longley, transcripts.

[17] ibid.

[18] Symptoms - The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary

Investigation, James Brooks.

[19] Gas Attack/What Was It?/News Bites, Michael Milner, Chicago Reader,

August 23, 2002 Reader Archive-Article: 2002/ 020823/HOTTYPE.

[20] Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence, and Arms

Control, Avner Cohen, The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 8, No. 3

(Fall-Winter), pp. 27-53.

 

For additional references, see: The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A

Preliminary Investigation, James Brooks.

 

James Brooks of Worcester, Vermont, is an independent researcher and former

business owner whose articles have been published by Vermont newspapers,

Antiwar.com, Media Monitors Network, Dissident Voice and several other

sites. Currently Mr. Brooks serves as webmaster for Vermonters for a Just

Peace in Palestine/Israel and publishes News Links, a free once-daily

e-mail digest of in-depth Middle East news and commentary. To subscribe,

contact jamiedb at attglobal.net

 

Copyright © 1998-2003 Online Journal. All rights reserved.

 

*****

-- Michael Pugliese

"Without knowing that we knew nothing, we went on talking without listening to

each other. Sometimes we flattered and praised each other, understanding that

we would be flattered and praised in return. Other times we abused and shouted

at each other, as if we were in a madhouse." -Tolstoy



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