As if the death of hundreds of civilians, is not enough of a show of overwhelming force by Israel against the prepped-by-starvation population of Gaza, now we learn from Mads Gilbert, a brave Norwegian doctor working as "a member of a Norwegian triage medical team" in the Gaza strip, that Israel is using unconventional weapons in their assault on Gaza. According to Dr. Gilbert:
"The Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy. These weapons have an enormous power to explode."
IN an interview, Dr. Gilbert addresses allegations that Israel is using depleted Uranium, inflicting more horrific casualties among civilians.
Press TV: What can you tell about the uranium findings?
Dr. Mads Gilbert:The findings about the uranium I cannot tell you much about, but I can tell you that we have clear evidence that the Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten alloy. These weapons have an enormous power to explode.
The power of the explosion dissipates very quickly and the strength does not travel long, maybe 10 meters, but those humans who are hit by this explosion, this pressure wave are cut in pieces.
This was first used in Lebanon in 2006, it was used here in Gaza in 2006 and the injuries that we see in Shifa [Hospital] now, many many of them I suspect and we all suspect are the effect of DIME weapons used by the Israelis.
On the long term, these weapons will have a cancer effect on those who survive. They will develop cancer we suspect. There has been very little research on this but some research has been among other places in the United States, which show that these weapons have a high tendency to develop cancer. So they kill and those who survive risk having cancer.
It's just one thing after another. First, collective punishment, basically prepping the population by devastating them, putting them in a state of desperation, hunger, and hopelessness. When that didn't work - and what does "work" mean? Who in their right mind can hold children in Gaza accountable for Hamas? (And why is Hamas always "terrible" and worthy of blame, but what the Israeli government is doing to the people of Gaza is never supposed to be called "terrible"? This lopsidedness is a total outrage. It can't possibly be good.)
Then, after testing the international waters and finding them, as always, unresponsive, Israel invades Gaza, a population whose self-defense is, relative to the Israeli military machine, enhanced stone age DIY weaponry. And hey, why not deploy a little DU, while we're at it? After all, those "international waters" of conscience are tested and found to be inert. After all, if collective punishment went down with a little "security" sugar-coating, why not target the entire population of Gaza with unconventional weapons and meet the same US-sanctioned impunity?
And I have an appeal to the Israeli doctors and nurses. They are my colleagues. We belong to the same international community, the medical community. I wish that the good doctors and nurses in Israel tell their government to stop these atrocities. We cannot continue with this. We may differ in opinions, but you cannot treat the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza in this way.
And he has this to say about the Palestinian medical teams:
You know we have a lot to do. Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics do an incredibly heroic job to save their people. Doctor Eric and I are just a small drip in the ocean, but we learn from them.
And who are the majority of the victims? Terrorists?
Half of the population in Palestine are below 15 years and 80 percent of the people in Gaza live below the level of poverty defined by the UN. Now they don't have food, they don't have electricity. It's cold, they don't have warmth and in addition to that, they are killed.
And so how many people have been affected by these unconventional weapons?
Dr. Mads Gilbert: Almost all of the patients we have received have these sever amputations. They seem to have been affected by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have many fragment injuries and burns but those who have got their limbs cut off, constitutes quite a large proportion.
It would seem that Israel is indeed using unconventional weapons. But since when did Israel care about conventions of war? Pre-emptive attacks, pre-emptive assassinations, collective punishment against civilians, and the virtual imprisonment of an entire civilian population within secure walls, checkpoints and guarded fences, the deprivation of liberty and the means of living, all these are against international law. And thus Israel joins with Dick Cheney, when faced with the condemnation of those who are brave and outrageously daring enough to give a damn about the people of Palestine:
"SO?"
How long will these unconscionable acts continue? As long as the world looks on like a giant piece of inert protoplasm. Israel's banking on it.