Mysterious weapons still around?

The Guardian revives the issue of whether some new weapon is being used by Israel on Palestinians in Gaza. I posted about this some months ago, expressing considerable scepticism at the time.

This new article adds a little:

"Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured," said Jumaa Saqa'a, a doctor at the Shifa hospital, in Gaza City. "We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on their internal organs."

It is not clear whether the injuries come from a new weapon. The Israeli military declined to detail the weapons in its arsenal, but denied reports that the injuries came from a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (Dime), an experimental weapon.

Aljazeera.net has a version of the story too.

Both articles say that a Dime is in fact intended to have a small blast area, thereby reducing the collateral (human) damage. If it does in fact do that, it's a good thing, isn't it?

Anyway, the Guardian quotes some Israeli figures as denying that there is any new weapon at all. Some Italian journalists are sending off some material from wounds for testing. I guess we should know sooner or later if there is any hard evidence about this one way or another.

Mysterious weapons, or stupid rumour

IslamOnline.net- Muslim Affairs - Asia - Politics & Economy

Sorry, no time for positive posts yet...

The above story starts with this:

As I write this, doctors in the Gaza Strip are telling me they are puzzled by the condition of the Palestinian dead. X-rays of the bodies of those strafed by the F-16 fighter jets and Apache attack helicopters show no indication of shrapnel shards. Instead, limbs have been severed and corpses burned to a crisp.

I am told that there is no technology available to determine what has caused this. Even the wounded are making the desperately under-equipped medical staff scratch their heads. Their injuries are not responding to conventional treatment.

And there the mystery is left, as the article goes on in more conventional (pro Palestinian) fashion.

The Palestinian News Network says this:

Dr. Al Sakka told Voice of Palestine Radio that the Israeli army is using new types of non-conventional weapons against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during the recent attacks. He said, “They are targeting the Palestinian body with unconventional weapons and with that comes a phenomena we have not seen before in any Israeli bombardment we have lived through for many years.”

He continued, “The hospital is central and sees almost all cases of injuries and deaths as a result of Israeli against the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. These Israeli bombings are entering the body and fragmenting, causing internal combustion leading to up to fourth degree internal burns, exposing the bone, and affecting the tissue and skin.”

The doctor added, “These tissues die, they do not survive, which obliges us to perform arm or leg amputations, and there are fragments which penetrate the body and do not show up on X-rays. When entering the body they spark like a combustion firearm, but not chemically. They seem radioactive.”

He confirmed that there were dozens of wounded legs and arms. Many of them had been burned from the inside, and distorted to the point that they cannot return to life again.

I remain very sceptical. At the (I think slight) risk of being proved wrong, this just seems to be an example of the conspiratorial anti-semitic rumour mill of Palestine.

UPDATE: Little Green Footballs has a post with a translation of a statement by a loopy French MP. This part is relevant to my post:

According to the same testimonials, the Israeli army would be using fragmentation bombs, and “vacuum packed” bombs that result in destruction by implosion. The bodies then look like totally dislocated puppets, like rag dolls.

Just wait til they let loose the Ark of the Covenant. (Note: am satirising stupid rumours, not death of children.)


UPDATE: comment from Kieran is correct: I was unfamiliar with the term "vacuum bomb" , but Wikipedia confirms it is a nick name for a thermobaric weapon (which I think is far more commonly known as a fuel-air explosive weapon.) That'll teach me not to Google or Wiki search a term before I post.