IP: Secrecy News -- 06/18/02 FAS

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

SECRECY NEWS
from the FAS Project on Government Secrecy
Volume 2002, Issue No. 54
June 18, 2002


**   DEATH IS A MASTER FROM PALESTINE


DEATH IS A MASTER FROM PALESTINE

There is probably nothing that could do more damage to the Palestinian
cause than the ongoing campaign of suicide bombings, which must cause
even sympathizers to question the character of the Palestinian national
movement.

The bombings continued with an attack today that killed at least 19
Israeli civilians and wounded dozens more.

In their war against Israel, Palestinian terrorists have devised
original, innovative ways of killing people that have not been widely
reported.

"We see here things you don't usually see in civilian hospitals,"
observed Dr. Avi Rivkind, director of the trauma unit at Hadassah
University Hospital in Jerusalem.

For example, he said that nails, ball bearings and other penetrating
objects carried by suicide bombers had on occasion been laced with rat
poison, which promotes internal bleeding in those wounded victims who
are not killed immediately.  To combat the effects of the poison,
Israeli physicians have used Factor VII, a coagulation protein used to
treat hemophilia.  Factor VII is contra-indicated for trauma, according
to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, said Dr. Rivkind, but "it
works, so we use it anyway."

But rat poison is "insignificant relative to other blast effects," said
Dr. Michael Stein, trauma director at the Rabin Medical Center near Tel
Aviv.  In addition to hundreds of Israeli fatalities, thousands of
non-combatants have suffered penetrating wounds and burns since the
Palestinian uprising began in September 2000.  Over 1,700 Palestinians
have died.

Suicide bombers do not simply transport the explosive weapon that they
use to murder their targets.  In several respects, the bombers
themselves become the weapon.

Thus, Dr. Stein noted the new phenomenon of "human shrapnel," in which
fragments of the terrorist's bones serve as projectiles causing
indiscriminate injury.

Another novel development is the role of communicable disease in
terrorist attacks.  Several Palestinian suicide bombers were found to be
positive for Hepatitis B, according to Dr. Stein.  As a result, all
survivors of such attacks who are admitted to the trauma ward are now
routinely vaccinated against Hepatitis B, he said.

In one case, tissue pathology studies conducted several weeks after a
terrorist attack revealed that a terrorist was HIV positive.  "We
haven't figured out what to do about that," Dr. Stein said on June 4.

A Palestinian suicide bomber who struck June 17 was HIV positive,
according to al Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arabic news channel.  The al
Jazeera report, noted by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, was not
mentioned in U.S. coverage of the incident.

"We are against armed attacks that target Israeli civilians, because
they did not benefit our political efforts," said Palestinian
intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Amin al-Hindi.  See his May 27 interview in
the Palestinian paper Al-Quds:

     http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2002/05/aq052702.html

Yet even this equivocal rejection of suicide bombing may be a minority
view among Palestinians, many of whom passively support attacks on
Israeli civilians or actively celebrate them.  Thus, the father of the
man who blew up a bus full of passengers in Jerusalem today told Reuters
he was "very happy" to hear that his son was the bomber.

Amid the unfathomable devastation, it is still possible to find glimmers
of human dignity.

In accordance with elementary medical ethics, Israeli medical facilities
treat all comers, Jewish and Arab, Israeli and Palestinian, said Dr.
Rivkind of Hadassah.  "Everybody is receiving the same treatment," he
said, while noting that one of the Hadassah medical staff, a Dr. Gillis,
had been killed by a sniper's bullet.  "We are proud that Hadassah is an
island of equality."

Among the numerous organizations working with compassion and skill to
provide support to survivors of terrorism and to heal those wounds that
can be healed is Natal, the Israel Trauma Center for Victims of Terror
and War.  See:

     http://www.natal.org.il/eng/home.html


******************************
Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published by the
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_______________________
Steven Aftergood
Project on Government Secrecy
Federation of American Scientists
web:    www.fas.org/sgp/index.html
email:  saftergood () fas org
voice:  (202) 454-4691


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