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War Crimes in Gaza
This article presents a damning
rundown of Israeli war crimes in Gaza--including apparent use of a
new weapon (developed in the U.S.) that is extra-lethal and highly
cancerous, as well as the better known cases of the use of white
phosphorus and depleted uranium. The U.S. provided a significant
portion of these weapons to Israel.
--Rebecca Vilkomerson Berkeley
Daily Planet Dispatches From The
Edge—Gaza: Death's Laboratory
By Conn Hallinan
Wednesday February 18, 2009
It was as if they had stepped on a
mine, but there was no shrapnel in the wound. Some had lost their
legs. It looked as though they had been sliced off. I have been to
war zones for 30 years, but I have never seen such injuries before.
—Dr. Erik Fosse, Norwegian
cardiologist who worked in Gaza hospitals during the recent war.
What Dr. Fosse was describing was
the effects of a U.S. "focused lethality" weapon that minimalizes
explosive damage to structures while inflicting catastrophic wounds
on its victims. While the weapon has been used in Iraq, Gaza was the
first test of the bomb in a densely populated environment.
The specific weapon—the GBU-39—is
a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and was developed by the U.S.
Air Force, Boeing Corporation, and University of California's
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in 2000. The weapon wraps the
high explosives HMX or RDX with a tungsten alloy and other metals
like cobalt, nickel or iron, in a carbon fiber/epoxy container. When
the bomb explodes, the container evaporates and the tungsten turns
into micro-shrapnel that is extremely lethal up to about 60 feet.
Tungsten is inert, so it does not
react chemically with the explosive. While a non-inert metal like
aluminum would increase the blast, tungsten actually limits the
explosion.
Within the weapon's range, however,
it is inordinately lethal. According to Norwegian doctor Mad
Gilbert, the blast results in multiple amputations and "very severe
fractures. The muscles are sort of split from the bones, hanging
loose, and you also have quite severe burns."
Those who survive the initial
blast quickly succumb to septicemia and organ collapse. "Initially,
everything seems in order … but it turns out on operation that
dozens of miniature particles can be found in all their organs,"
says Dr. Jam Brommundt, a German doctor working in Kham Younis, a
city in southern Gaza. "It seems to be some sort of explosive or
shell that disperses tiny particles … that penetrate all organs,
these miniature injuries, you are not able to attack them surgically."
According to Brommundt, the particles cause multiple organ failures.
If, by some miracle, victims do
survive, they are almost to certain develop rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS),
a particularly deadly cancer that deeply embeds itself into tissue
and is almost impossible to treat. A 2005 U.S. Department of health
study found that tungsten stimulated RMS cancers even in very low
doses. Out of 92 rats tested, 92 developed the cancer.
While DIMEs were originally
designed to avoid "collateral" damage generated by standard high
explosive bombs, the weapon's lethality and profound long-term
toxicity hardly seems like an improvement. And in Gaza, the
ordinance was widely used. Al-Shifta alone has seen 100 to 150 such
patients.
Was Gaza a test of DIME in urban
conditions?
Dr. Gilbert told the Oslo
Gardermoen,"There is a strong suspicion I think that Gaza is now
being used as a test laboratory for new weapons."
The characteristics of the GBU-39
are likely to make it a go-to weapon in the future. The bomb is
small and light—less than six feet long and only 285 pounds—that
means an aircraft can carry four times as many weapons. It can also
be dropped 60 miles from its target. Internal wings allow the bomb
to navigate to its target. It can penetrate three feet of reinforced
concrete. It can also be mounted on drones, like the Predator and
the Reaper, and compared to other weapons systems, is a bargain."
Marc Garlasco, Human Rights
Watch's senior military advisor, says "It remains to be seen how
Israel has acquired the technology, whether they purchased weapons
from the United States under some agreement, or if they in fact
licensed or developed their own type of munitions."
In fact, Congress approved the $77
million sale of 1.000 GBU-39s to Israel in September, 2008, and the
weapons were delivered in December. Israel was the first foreign
sales of the DIMES.
DIME weapons are not banned under
the Geneva Conventions because they have never been officially
tested. However, any weapon capable of inflicting such horrendous
damage is normally barred from use, particularly in one of the most
densely populated regions in the world
For one thing, no one is sure
about how long the tungsten remains in the environment or how it
could affect people who return to homes attacked by a DIME.
University of Arizona cancer researcher Dr. Mark Witten, who
investigates links between tungsten and leukemia, says that in his
opinion "there needs to be much more research on the health effects
of tungsten before the military increases its usage."
DIMEs were not the only
controversial weapons used in Gaza. The Israeli Self-Defense Forces
(IDF) also made generous use of white phosphorus, a chemical that
burns with intense heat and inflicts terrible burns on victims. In
its vapor form it also damages breathing passages
International law prohibits the
weapon's use near population areas and requires that "all reasonable
precautions" be taken to avoid civilians.
Israel initially denied it was
using the chemical. "The IDF acts only in accordance with what is
permitted by international law and does not use white phosphorus,"
said Israel's Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi on Jan. 13.
But eyewitness accounts in Gaza
and Israel soon forced the IDF to admit that they were, indeed,
using the substance. On Jan 20, the IDF confessed to using
phosphorus artillery shells as smoke screens, as well as 200
U.S.-made M825A1 phosphorus mortar shells on "Hamas fighters and
rocket launching crews in northern Gaza."
Three of those shells hit the UN
Works and Relief Agency compound Jan. 15, igniting a fire that
destroyed hundreds of tons of humanitarian supplies. Al-Quds
hospital in Gaza City was also hit by a phosphorus shell. The
Israelis say there were Hamas fighters near the two targets, a
charge that witnesses adamantly deny.
Donatella Rovera of Amnesty
International said, "Such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza's
densely-populated residential neighborhoods … and its toll on
civilians, is a war crime."
Israel is also accused of using
depleted uranium ammunition (DUA), which in a UN sub-commission in
2002 found in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,
the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the International Convention
Against Torture, the Conventional Weapons Convention, and the Hague
Conventions against the use of poison weapons.
DUA is not highly radioactive, but
after exploding some of it turns into a gas that can easily be
inhaled. The dense shrapnel that survives also tends to bury itself
deeply, leaching low-level radioactivity into water tables.
Other human rights groups,
including B'Tselem, Gisha, and Physicians for Human Rights, charge
that the IDF intentionally targeted medical personal, killing over a
dozen, including paramedics and ambulance drivers.
The International Federation for
Human Rights called upon the UN Security Council to refer Israel to
the International Criminal Court for possible war crimes.
While the Israelis dismiss the war
crimes charges, the fact that the Israeli cabinet held a special
meeting on Jan 25 to discuss the issue suggests they are concerned
they could be charged with "disproportionate" use of force. The
Geneva Conventions require belligerents to at "all times"
distinguish between combatants and civilians and to avoid "disproportionate
force" in seeking military gains.
Hamas' use of unguided missiles
fired at Israel would also be a war crime under the Conventions.
"The one-sidedness of casualty
figures is one measure of disproportion," says Richard Falk, the
UN's human rights envoy for the occupied territories. A total of 14
Israelis have been killed in the fighting, three of them civilians
killed by rockets, 11 of them soldiers, four of the latter by "friendly
fire." Some 50 IDF soldiers were also wounded.
In contrast, 1330 Palestinians
have died and 5450 were injured, the overwhelming number of them
civilians.
"This kind of fighting constitutes
a blatant violation of the laws of warfare, which we ask to be
investigated by the Commission of War Crimes," a coalition of
Israeli human rights groups and Amnesty International said in a
joint statement. "The responsibility of the state of Israel is
beyond doubt."
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
said that Justice Minister Daniel Friedmann would coordinate the
defense of any soldier or commander charged with a war crime. In any
case, the U.S. would veto any effort by the UN Security Council to
refer Israelis to the International Court at The Hague.
But, as the Financial Times points
out, "all countries have an obligation to search out those accused
of 'grave' breaches of the rules of war and to put them on trial or
extradite them to a country that will."
That was the basis under which
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in Britain in 1998.
"We're in a seismic shift in
international law," Amnesty International legal advisor Christopher
Hall told the Financial Times, who says that Israel's foreign
ministry is already examining the risk to Israelis who travel
abroad.
"It's like walking across the
street against a red light," he says. "The risk may be low, but
you're going to think twice before committing a crime or traveling
if you have committed one."
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