Is there a new Israeli weapon?

Late last year, in a post in the Jerusalem File on ABC News, Wilf Dinnick reported on a possible new Israeli weapon.

Anwar Abu Holy sits in a plastic lawn chair by his home in Al Brij Camp in Gaza and likes to tell stories. He promises this story is true.

Abu Holy is an ambulance driver and this was his worst year.

“I have never seen anything like the injuries this summer”

Like many Palestinians Abu Holy is sure the Israelis are using a mysterious and deadly new weapon against the Palestinians.

Abu Holy often raced to the front line when Palestinian militants and Israeli soldiers clashed. He would be one of the first on the scene after an Israeli missile zeroed in on a Palestinian militant’s home. He would sift through the rubble looking for victims.

In July he started seeing people with odd burns, mutilated limbs and he rarely saw shrapnel. Most unusual, he says, were little dark spots on the skin.

“Like this”, he says lifting his right pant leg and revealing a stump. Most of his leg is gone and on his upper thigh, his hands and his right leg are hundreds of small black spots.

On July 19th Abu Holy was helping the wounded after an Israeli missile attack. Shortly after arriving on the scene a second missile hit a nearby home and he was injured.

While he carefully inspects the spots on his fingers and legs he says, “they call it the black dust. And I am afraid now I am going to die of cancer because of this”

Given what Dr al-Wahid says later in this piece, this prognosis is sadly probably correct.

There are plenty of rumors but few facts.

Isn't that always the case when it comes to the Israeli war machine?

The non-profit group Physicians for Human Rights is convinced the Israeli Army is using a weapon called D.I.M.E. (Dense Inert Metal Explosive). The weapon is now being tested in the United States.

The blast area of D.I.M.E. is intended to be small with almost no shrapnel. It is suppose to reduce the collateral damage in any attack. It has a very powerful and hot explosive.

If the fatality rate is as high as is suggested later in the piece, it sounds like there is more at work than just hot and powerful explosive.

In a statement the Israel Defense Forces “deny the possession or use of such weapons”

They didn't! Did they? How out of character! As they say, denial is not just a river in Egypt (and the planned Western edge of Eretz Israel).

but admits it is looking into ways to cut down on collateral damage.

That's another irony meter that will need replacing, dammit!

Habas al-Wahid, head of the emergency at the Shuhada al-Aqsa hospital is sure there is a new weapon being used.

As ever, it is those on the front line, those having to deal with the horrendous consequences of the killing machine that have a handle on what is actually going on.

In his sparsely decorated second floor office, Dr al-Wahid says he could never find a clear wound or much shrapnel in the patients he was treating. The effected areas he says were just severely mutilated.

“Most of the patients that came in did not survive”

Sounds like reduced collateral damage to me. Make sure they don't live to tell the tale.

Dr al-Wahid then stopped the interview, put his head in his hands, leaned forward on his desk and began to sob.

There is no concrete proof the Israeli Army is using a new weapon but for Palestinians like Dr al-Wahid there is no doubt the wounded in Gaza are being injured like never before.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it probably is a duck. Likewise, if it maims and kills in a manner that can not be attributed to existing weaponry, then it is not beyond the bounds of reason to conclude that there is indeed a new weapon in the Israeli arsenal. I'd also bet the farm on this new killing toy being either the product of U.S. research or Israeli research funded by the ever-suffering U.S. taxpayer.