Israel is testing 'nasty' bombs on Gaza: doctors

Medics shocked by injuries of DIME bombs that tear legs off

Israel is testing a new "extremely nasty" type of weapon in Gaza, two medics charged as they
returned home to Norway Monday after spending 10 days working at a hospital in the impoverished territory;
while Israel seized night cameras hidden in humanitarian aid.
"There's a very strong suspicion I think that Gaza is now being used as a test laboratory for new weapons,"
Mads Gilbert told reporters at Oslo's Gardermoen airport, commenting on the kinds of injuries he and his colleague
Erik Fosse had seen while working at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza.



The two medics, who were sent into the war zone by the aid organization NORWAC on Dec. 31, said they had seen clear
signs that Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME), an experimental kind of explosive, were being used in Gaza.
"This is a new generation of very powerful small explosives that detonates with an extreme power and dissipates its power
within a range of five to 10 meters (16-98 feet)," said Gilbert, 61.

"We have not seen the casualties affected directly by the bomb because they are normally torn to pieces and do not survive,
but we have seen a number of very brutal amputations... without shrapnel injuries which we strongly suspect must have been
caused by the DIME weapons," he added. The weapon "causes the tissue to be torn from the flesh. It looks very different
(from a shrapnel injury). I have seen and treated a lot of different injuries for the last 30 years in different war zones, and this
looks completely different," said Fosse, 58.
"If you are in the immediate (vicinity of) a DIME weapon, it's like your legs get torn off. It's an enormous pressure wave and
there is no shrapnel," he explained.
Gilbert also accused Israel of having used the weapon in the 2006 Lebanon war and previously in Gaza, and referred to studies
showing wounds from the explosive could cause lethal forms of cancer within just four to six months.



"Israel should disclose what weapons they use and the international community should make an investigation," he said, stressing
the amount of damage apparently caused by the new form of explosive. "We are not soft-skinned when it comes to war injuries,
but these amputations are really extremely nasty and for many of the patients not survivable," he said.

In related news, Israel said it was investigating how a night-vision security camera and other electronics ended up on
humanitarian aid trucks bound for Gaza. The equipment was seized at the Kerem Shalom border crossing before entering
the coastal enclave along with truckloads of food, medicine and other humanitarian goods, said defense official Peter Lerner.
Photographs taken by Reuters showed the boxes contained at least one infra-red camera, a remote control unit for security
cameras and a swivel-mount for such a camera, along with other devices and software.
"Of course we can't let night-vision items get into the hands of Hamas," Lerner said. "This was not on the list and was not
approved. We're investigating it."He said it was not yet clear who was trying to bring the equipment into Gaza.
More than 900 Palestinians have been killed in the fighting and international aid groups say humanitarian conditions for Gaza's
1.5 million residents have sharply deteriorated.