January 14, 2010

Gaza, January 14, 2010 (Pal Telegraph) - Recent scientific analyses have shown that the war was a direct cause of the increasing numbers of birth defects, miscarriages and cancer in the Gaza Strip.

A report by Conscience Organisation for Human Rights concerning the environmental and health dangers resulting from the bombardment and invasion revealed that incidents of children born with deformities have risen markedly in the Gaza Strip.

The report said that in the three months prior to the start of the war in December 2008 just twenty-seven children were born with such deformities. During the same period in 2009 the number was forty-nine, a significant increase. The report indicated that 50% of the confirmed cases relate to the nervous system and joining of organs.

It also pointed out that the rate of deformities was particularly high in Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya districts, which witnessed the most intense Israeli bombing during the war. The report attributes this increased number of deformities to the use of weapons containing toxic and radioactive elements.

The citizen Anwar Abed Al-Ghfor, who lives in Gaza, said that his wife was in her first month of pregnancy when the Israeli war started on Gaza. White phosphorus bombs targeted the neighborhood where he lives. After 9 months of her pregnancy she delivered a deformed baby who lived 3 months then died!!

Dr. Muawiya Hassanin, the spokesman of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, said that after a year of the Israeli war on Gaza serious results and indicators of using internationally banned weapons have emerged. Besides, using toxic gas, white phosphorus, and weapons doctors did not know before.

He said that the results of these weapons appeared a year later as there are 75 cases of deform fetus and newborn of both males and females, in Gaza. These deformed newborns need special effort to treat them, he added.

Dr. Hassanein said: "in addition to deformity of fetus, the sterility in young men and women has risen. This is also proved by international academic institutions and universities in Italy, Sweden and the United States because they took samples from the patients"

He added that Italian research centers in cooperation with human rights organizations published their findings with evidences. He pointed out that there is another serious indicator as the number of blood cancers patients has risen too.

Photo Mohammed Asad