- 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.
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- 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.
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- "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.
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- 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."
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- 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.
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- 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:
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- http://www.fas.org/irp/news/2002/05/aq052702.html
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- 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.
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- 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."
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- 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
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- Secrecy News is written by Steven Aftergood and published
by the Federation of American Scientists.
-
- Secrecy News is archived at:
- http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/secrecy/index.html
-
- 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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