A Norwegian doctor working at Shifa hospital, in Gaza City, told reporters that some of the injuries that wounded and killed Palestinians have experienced are consistent with the use of banned weapons by Israeli forces.In the 2008-9 war on Gaza, Israel was found by the UN to have used white phosphorus on numerous occasions in civilian areas. White phosphorus is considered a ‘banned weapon’ in civilian areas, due to the severe burns it can cause.
The doctor, Mads Gilbert, has been working in Gaza for years, including during the 2008-9 Israeli invasion. He is most well-known for being the doctor who revived a woman from the lowest survived body temperature ever recorded, in 2000, in northern Norway.
Gaza’s undersecretary of health, Youssef Abu al-Resh, verified the concern that Israeli forces have begun to use DIME weapons against Palestinian civilians.
Abu al-Resh told a press conference, “Medical teams have found wounds on the bodies of those killed and injured that are caused by the banned DIME weapons.” He added, “Gaza hospitals are bursting at the seams with dead and wounded. Children and women make up around 62 percent of those injured in the attacks.”
Hospitals in Gaza have faced a chronic shortage of medicine and equipment since the Israeli siege on the coastal strip began in 2006, after the Palestinian people voted for the Hamas party in what was considered by international observers to be a free and fair election. Israel did not like the result of that election, and so imposed a blockade that has lasted eight years.
DIME weapons (Dense Inert Metal Explosive) cause extreme heat and severe injuries. Some of the indications that these weapons have been used include severed limbs that have extreme heat at the point of the severing, without shrapnel present at the site.
The weapon produces micro-shrapnel, which is not visible to the human eye. The weapon contains small particles of a chemically inert material such as tungsten. Several studies by the U.S. government have found DIME weapon exposure to cause cancer in lab animals.
