The Israeli Poison Gas attacks: A Preliminary Investigation, Part II

Part 2 in a 5-part series: Gas attacks continue despite protests - Doctors: 'What am I treating?'

By James Brooks

Palestine Chronicle

December 23 2002

(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:  Israeli Poison Gas Attacks, Part I

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://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/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://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/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