The Gorilla Baby
by Areej Al-Ashhab | Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010

Flash back to Hiroshima and Nagasaki’s atomic bombing, Gazans have witnessed their own rise of mutations in newborns since the Israeli offensive last year, assure many health professionals.

The most dangerous and weird story among hundreds is that of a child born at the Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip. He was born with severe congenital distortions, such as his face, eyes, short stature, flattened nose, reddish-brownish skin discoloration, short limbs with feet and toes severely curled towards the inside in a similar shape to that in gorillas.

The baby weighed 4 kilos (8 lbs.), which indicated that he was in a good health, but his appearance showed something different. Out of shock his parents left him at the hospital and refused to go back to take him, denying it was their own child.

The Gorilla baby, as he is nicknamed now, is still under hospital custody as he faces problems in breathing in an unstable condition.

Medical reports have confirmed that there has been an increase in the rates of birth defects in Gaza since the last war waged against civilians. Such an increase rose to 50 cases in comparison to 30 cases in the prior years. Miscarriages have also increased among pregnant women after the war.

Doctors have asserted that such uncommon cases can’t occur due to genetic reasons or due to the mother’s age. These defects are apparently the result of using white phosphorus during the war.

I should note here that the white phosphorus is a material made from a common allotrope of the chemical element phosphorus that is used in smoke, tracer, illumination and incendiary munitions. As an inflammable weapon, white phosphorus burns fiercely and can set cloth, fuel, ammunition and other combustibles on fire. Since, WWII, it has been extensively used as an anti-personnel weapon capable of causing serious burns or death.

Neglecting the international law, the Israeli military forces used it against Gaza civilians. The shock is that they denied using it but acknowledged the fact after the end of the war.

Many international human rights institutions and experts reported the use of such prohibited materials, which burns both structures and people, against Gazans. Donatella Rovera, the head of an Amnesty fact-finding mission to southern Israel and Gaza, said: “Israeli forces used white phosphorus and other weapons supplied by the USA to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes.” The massacre is continuous as the gradual effects start of the bombing begin to appear.

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Admin’s Note:

While white phosphorus has scarred the population and landscape of Gaza, depleted uranium on ammunition has also been used. Like in the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, depleted uranium has been linked to birth defects and deformations in civilians.

Tags: depleted uranium, Gaza, Israel, white phosphorus

3:42 am. Politics.