- Doctor Mads Gilbert is a member of a Norwegian triage
medical team present in the besieged Gaza Strip. The team has exposed that
Israel has used depleted uranium weapons in its war on the impoverished
territory which is home to 1.5 million Palestinians. He described the conditions
inside Gaza in an exclusive Press TV interview.
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- Press TV: What can you tell about the uranium findings?
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- Dr. Mads Gilbert: The findings about the uranium
I cannot tell you much about, but I can tell you that we have clear evidence
that the Israelis are using a new type of very high explosive weapons which
are called Dense Inert Metal Explosive (DIME) and are made out of a tungsten
alloy.
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- These weapons have an enormous power to explode. The
power of the explosion dissipates very quickly and the strength does not
travel long, maybe 10 meters, but those humans who are hit by this explosion,
this pressure wave are cut in pieces.
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- This was first used in Lebanon in 2006, it was used here
in Gaza in 2006 and the injuries that we see in Shifa [Hospital] now, many
many of them I suspect and we all suspect are the effect of DIME weapons
used by the Israelis.
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- In the long term, these weapons will have a cancer effect
on those who survive. They will develop cancer we suspect. There has been
very little research on this but some research has been among other places
in the United States, which show that these weapons have a high tendency
to develop cancer. So they kill and those who survive risk having cancer.
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- Press TV: And what do you have to say about this?
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- Dr. Mads Gilbert: All that is happening in Gaza
here now is against international law, it is against humanity and I think
it is against what it means to be a decent person. You don't treat other
people like this. Even if you disagree with him... maybe even if you fight
with them, you don't treat civilians, children and women like this.
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- And I have an appeal to the Israeli doctors and nurses.
They are my colleagues. We belong to the same international community,
the medical community. I wish that the good doctors and nurses in Israel
tell their government to stop these atrocities. We cannot continue with
this. We may differ in opinions, but you cannot treat the civilian Palestinian
population in Gaza in this way.
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- Today, they were bombing in Gaza City; we received 150
wounded and more than 50 killed.
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- Press TV: Only at Shifa hospital ?!
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- Dr. Mads Gilbert: Yes, here in Shifa. I treated
a ten-year-old boy. He had his whole chest filled with fragments from the
bomb. On his lap was another person's leg that had been cut off. We resuscitated
him and did everything we could do to save his life but he died between
our hands.
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- This is such a terrible experience and behind the numbers
that you report all the time, there are human beings, families, women,
grandmothers, children. That is in fact the reality in this situation.
Those who are paying the price for the Israeli bombardments now are the
common people, the Palestinian people.
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- Half of the population in Palestine are below 15 years
and 80 percent of the people in Gaza live below the level of poverty defined
by the UN. Now they don't have food, they don't have electricity. It's
cold they don't have warmth and in addition to that, they are killed. This
must be stopped.
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- Press TV: How many people did you see that are
effected by this weapon?
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- Dr. Mads Gilbert: Almost all of the patients we
have received have these sever amputations. They seem to have been affected
by this kind of weapon. Of course, we have many fragment injuries and burns
but those who have got their limbs cut off, constitutes quite a large proportion.
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- You know we have a lot to do. Palestinian doctors, nurses
and paramedics do an incredibly heroic job to save their people. Doctor
Eric and I are just a small drip in the ocean, but we learn from them.
Unfortunately, we don't have the time to do research, we have to save lives,
but this question should be researched by the international community.
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