BY AL MAYADEEN ENGLISH
Israeli media published documents revealing that the Israeli Occupation Forces poisoned the lands of the Palestinian village of Aqraba, south of Nablus, in 1972 in order to force out its residents and occupy their lands.
Haaretz published the report on its Hebrew page without making any reference to it on its English website. According to the report, the documents tell the story of “the ways in which the governments of Israel worked behind the scenes, and their settlement projects, in a way that has not been told before.”
In the beginning, the report explained, the IOF confiscated land from the Palestinian village of Aqraba, under the false pretext of establishing training fields for its members. After the Palestinians insisted on continuing the cultivation of their land. As a result, the IOF then ordered its members to ensure “non-cultivation of land in the field, including the elimination of existing cultivation by driving in the field.
When that failed, the IOF scaled up their aggression and held a discussion on the subject of “Spraying the Deviation Areas in the Tel Tal Sector [Aqaba region].” The decision was made after it was confirmed that this aggression would have “prohibited” farmers from entering their lands for three days “for fear of stomach poisoning,” while their cattle would be “banned from entering these areas for another week” due to the health risks it posed.
It is worth noting that this was not the first aggression of its kind. Last year, it was revealed that ‘Israel’ also used biological weapons to uproot Palestinians and steal their lands and homes.
When that failed, the IOF scaled up their aggression and held a discussion on the subject of “Spraying the Deviation Areas in the Tel Tal Sector [Aqaba region].” The decision was made after it was confirmed that this aggression would have “prohibited” farmers from entering their lands for three days “for fear of stomach poisoning,” while their cattle would be “banned from entering these areas for another week” due to the health risks it posed.
It is worth noting that this was not the first aggression of its kind. Last year, it was revealed that ‘Israel’ also used biological weapons to uproot Palestinians and steal their lands and homes.
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‘Israel’ wages biological warfare against Palestinians in 1948
The Israeli occupation committed various atrocities against the Palestinian people before the establishment of the Israeli entity in 1948, but it was only now revealed that the occupation carried out campaigns of ethnic cleansing against Palestinians in 1947 and 1948 using biological and bacteriological warfare, according to Israeli historians.
The details of “Israel’s” secret use of biological weapons and poison against Palestinians during the 1947/48 ethnic cleansing campaign have been revealed in a recent article titled “‘Cast Thy Bread’: Israeli Biological Warfare during the 1948 War” by historians Benny Morris and Benjamin Kedar and published by Middle Eastern Studies.
According to Haaretz, the article is a rarity because it was researched and published against the wishes of the Israeli security establishment, which has tried for years to block any embarrassing historical documents that expose war crimes against Arabs, such as murdering prisoners, ethnic cleansing, and destroying villages. Moreover, the article is based on original documents obtained from the Israeli occupation’s national archive.
Scientists and battlefield units alike joined forces, the article said, to carry out campaigns aimed at killing Palestinians by poisoning their water sources, such as wells, in addition to spreading typhoid in Palestinian villages. The typhoid bacteria was also used by “Tel Aviv” against the Egyptian and Jordanian armies in a bid to weaken them and force them to retreat.
According to historians, the systemic campaign of biological warfare was approved by the founder of “Israel” and the occupation regime’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion.
Read: Since the Nakba – More than 100,000 martyrs, 6.4 mln refugees
“Israel” used poison in various ways, one of which cited by the article includes sending typhoid in bottles to the southern front via Israeli occupation forces. The villages mentioned in the article include Akka and Al-Jalil, which goes with documents from the British, Palestinians, Egyptians, and the Red Cross recording dozens of cases of poisoning and severe illness among local residents.
The Israeli occupation, right after its declaration as a colonialist arm usurping the state of Palestine in May 1948, used the same methods in Gaza, sending Israeli soldiers who posed as Palestinians to the strip with tubes containing typhoid on their person with the aim of poisoning the local water supply.
Despite a lot of evidence pointing to the Israeli occupation’s use of biological weapons, and “Tel Aviv” getting caught red-handed on various occasions, the occupation is yet to admit to its usage of biological warfare.
Read: Haaretz – “Israel” concealing archives of Nakba civilian killings
The Israeli security establishment has for decades been trying to cover up its tracks of violating international law against Palestinians, blocking any historical documents exposing its war crimes, such as ethnic cleansing, from ever making it into the hands of the public.
And despite the mountains of evidence stacked against the Israeli occupation, “Israel” was never sanctioned or had war declared against it by the West that used the pretexts of weapons of mass destruction and biological weapons to invade Iraq – all due to “Tel Aviv” being a class ally to the United States and its friends in Europe.
It is noteworthy that the Israeli occupation has refused on numerous occasions to commit to the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting the use of chemical and biological weapons in international armed warfare, and though it signed the Geneva Convention, the Knesset has never ratified the document.
Read more: “Israel” planned, LF executed: The Sabra and Shatila massacre
Israeli documents: 1972 ‘Israel’ poisons Aqraba in Palestinian exodus | Al Mayadeen English