The great Amy Goodman had two witnesses to the killing of Jawaher Abu Rahma on today’s show, the second a doctor who was at the demo and says that CS gas is well known to cause deaths. Some excerpts:
Goodman: Jonathan [Pollak], we want to begin with you. Since unnamed sources in the Israeli military are denying that Jawaher was even at the protest, did you see her there?
JONATHAN POLLAK: I did see her at the beginning of the protest, and I did see the ambulance evacuating her. It’s important for me to say that these are completely unsubstantiated reports coming from, as you said, anonymous sources. We have numerous eyewitnesses all attesting to her being there or attesting to her being hurt by tear gas. We have the ambulance driver who evacuated her saying that he evacuated her from the area of the demonstration and that she was semiconscious when she got to him and told him she had breathed tear gas, that her injury was a result of tear gas inhalation. We also have the medical reports that suggests—that clearly say that she had died as a result of a cardiac arrest as—a cardiac arrest caused by tear gas inhalation. We also know that she died in the hospital, from the hospital reports. I also know it personally, because I spoke to people at the hospital all night long.
This is outrageous, basically. What the army—what the IDF is saying is outrageous. They’re spreading rumor without any fact. If you ask me, this is not even newsworthy. And yet, people keep on reporting it.
AMY GOODMAN: Reporting that unnamed sources are saying this?
JONATHAN POLLAK: Yes. Well, unnamed sources in the army, and they’re reporting it as news. This is the news that opened Israeli news last night. This is in all the Israeli newspapers, with front-page—in the front page, a version that is completely not based on any fact and is only based in rumor. And the only reason that they publish it is because the army says so. And we, on the other hand, our version is completely backed by fact and by evidence, but it is only provided as a response.
AMY GOODMAN: Can you tell us who Jawaher Abu Rahma was, her brother killed a year ago in a similar protest in a similar place, protesting the separation wall in Bil’in?
JONATHAN POLLAK: Well, they were actually both killed in pretty much the same place, near the separation barrier in Bil’in. Unfortunately, I didn’t know Jawaher herself very well. I knew the family pretty well. So I can’t tell you much about her. I can tell you that her family, her entire family, is very involved in the struggle. As you said, her brother was killed last year after an American-made tear gas projectile, high-velocity tear gas projectile, hit him in the chest, a tear gas projectile that was shot, in contradiction to manufacturer orders, directly at him from short distance—killed him on the spot…
DANIEL ARGO: this tear gas is well known, for the last 80 years, to cause—that it may cause severe injuries and even death. The Israeli army, the same anonymous officers in the Israeli army, claimed in the last several days that they are not aware of any significant injuries or deaths occurring because of tear gas. But the facts are against them. They are very well aware of the history of this tear gas.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask you about this issue, an Israeli official contending tear gas disperses rapidly in the air over open ground, it does not kill protesters, again questioning whether Abu Rahma was even at the December 31st demo.
DR. DANIEL ARGO: This is against—this is totally different from all the researches and all the reviews that are being made in the medical—in different medical journals. Just a year and a half ago, one of the best medical journals in the world, the British Medical Journal, published a big article about the dangers of using different tear gases, and especially put emphasis on CS gas, saying that it might cause severe injuries and even death. From what I heard and from evidence that we had about the death of Abu Rahma, it seems as if—that her injury and her death was the consequences of tear gas injury. And that would not be the first case, not in the medical history, and unfortunately not in Palestine, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Argo, considering how much tear gas we see they used, why would only she die or be affected in this way?
DR. DANIEL ARGO:
I think we can somehow compare it maybe to, for example, for different medications or to different toxins that are being used. Not every person who is being exposed to any compound would react the same way. Some would develop some side effects; some might not develop any side effects at all. Even more, a person can develop side effects to a tear gas, very slight side effects, and in the next week develop a much harder reaction to a tear gas.
