came across my desk this morning...

[prozak at anus.com]

seems everyone's using the gas, gas, gas

Send Hans Blix to Nes Ziona: Civilians Attacked With Poison Gas 
16/02/2003


By James Brooks*

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 
thirteen 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 
Web site. (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 thirty minutes after breathing the gas, victims began to 
feel sick and have 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 thirty-three 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."



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(1) 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

(2) Selected Interviews recorded for the documentary film Gaza Strip 
by James Longley, transcripts, 
http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf

(3) Unprepared for the worst, by Graham Usher, Al-Ahram Weekly 
Online, Feb. 15-21, 2001, Issue No. 521 
http://www.ahram.org.eg/weekly/2001/521/re1.htm

(4) 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

(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 
http://www.bragg.army.mil/sid/wwwthreat/CountriesGHI/iraq.htm

(9) Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) Weekly Report, Feb. 8-
14, 2001,
http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/15-02-2001.htm

(10) PCHR Weekly Report, February 15-21, 2001,
http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/22-02-2001.htm

(11) PCHR Weekly Report, March 1-7, 2001,
http://www.pchrgaza.org/files/W_report/English/07-03-2001.htm

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

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

(14) Gaza Strip, a documentary by James Longley, February, 2002,
http://www.littleredbutton.com/gaza

(15) The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary Investigation, 
James Brooks, Media Monitors Network, January 8, 2003,
http://www.mediamonitors.net/jamesbrooks2.html

(16) Selected Interviews recorded for the documentary film Gaza Strip
by James Longley, transcripts, 
http://www.littleredbutton.com/gas_interviews/interviews.pdf

(17) ibid.

(18) Symptoms - The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A Preliminary 
Investigation, James Brooks,
http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.jamiedb/Symptoms.htm

(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 
http://www.puaf.umd.edu/CISSM/Scholars/Cohen.pdf


For additional references, see: The Israeli Poison Gas Attacks: A 
Preliminary Investigation, 
James Brooks 
http://pws.prserv.net/usinet.jamiedb/The_Israeli_Poison_Gas_Attacks_Pr
oject.htm 


*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 (www.vtjp.org) 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 

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