From: "Clifford Duffy" <cwduff-AT-hotmail.com>
Subject: Fwd: Palestine: Death in Bethlehem, Made in America
Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 18:03:34 -0400


<br><br><br>


>From: Friends of Al Aqsa <info-AT-aqsa.org.uk>
>To: cwduff-AT-hotmail.com
>Subject: Palestine: Death in Bethlehem, Made in America
>Date: Wed, 15 Aug 2001 19:17:38 GMT
>
>Assalamu'alaikum,
>
>Palestine: Death in Bethlehem, Made in America
>
>By Robert Fisk in Bethlehem
>
>The Independent (UK)
>
>April 15, 2001
>
>Lockheed Martin of Florida and the Federal Laboratories of Pennsylvania
>have made quite a contribution to life in the municipality of Bethlehem.
>Or, in the case of Lockheed, death. Pieces of the US manufacturer's
>Hellfire air-to-ground missile lie in the local civil defence headquarters
>in Bethlehem less than two months after it exploded in 18-year-old Osama
>Khorabi's living room, killing him instantly. The missile engine, fuel
>pipe and shreds of the wiring system have been sorted into plastic bags by
>ambulance drivers and paramedics, alongside shrapnel from dozens of
>US-made fuses for shells fired by Israeli tanks into the Christian village
>of Beit Jalla.
>
>Israeli troops also regularly fire American-made CS gas rounds at
>Palestinians in Bethlehem itself. Palestinians claim the gas has caused
>serious breathing difficulties among children after the rounds were fired
>at stone-throwing youths near Rachel's tomb. The cartridges and gas
>canisters are labelled "Federal Laboratories, Saltsburg, Pennsylvania
>15681" and are stated on the metal to be "long range projectiles 150
>yards". The rounds, show the US manufacturers' instructions on the side,
>contain "tear gas which is highly irritating to eyes, nose, skin and
>respiratory system". And continue: "If exposed, do not rub eyes, seek
>medical assistance immediately."
>
>The Israeli tank crews routinely send shells into Beit Jalla when
>Palestinian gunmen fire Russian-made Kalashnikov rifles from the village
>at the neighbouring Jewish settlement of Gilo - itself illegally built on
>land belonging to the people of Beit Jalla - and most of these rounds have
>US fuses. All are coded: "FUZE P18D M549ACO914H014-014" (in some cases the
>last digit reads "5"). One of these shells killed Dr Harald Fischer, a
>German citizen living in Beit Jalla, last November. But the name of the
>firm making these fuses is not included in the code.
>
>Lockheed has already been implicated in the massacre of four children and
>two women in Lebanon when an Israeli Apache helicopter, made by Lockheed,
>fired a Lockheed-made Hellfire 1 missile into an ambulance in southern
>Lebanon in 1996. Computer plates from the air-to-ground rocket - whose
>advertising logo read: "All For One and One For All"- were subsequently
>taken to the US by the Independent on Sunday and identified as a Hellfire,
>by Boeing executives who were then joint-makers of the missile.
>
>The engine of the missile which struck Osama Khorabi's home in February
>(it was, say the Israelis, a "pre-emptive strike" against the village
>although Mr Khorabi was no militant and his only ambition was to join the
>Beit Jalla theatre project) survives. It carries the coding: "189
>76-1334987 DMW90E003-007" and its "lot" number (the batch of missiles from
>which it comes) is 481. On a small steel tube at the top of the engine is
>the code: "12903-9225158 MFR-5S443." A small, heavy cylindrical dome which
>appears to come from the same projectile is labelled "Battery Thermal" and
>carries the code: "P/N 10217556 E-W62, Lot No. EPH-2-111, Date of MFG
>(manufacture) 08776, MFG Code 81855". The codes are followed by the
>initials: "U.S." Other missile parts include damaged fragments of a hinged
>fin and a mass of wiring.
>
>Palestinian civil defence workers are ambulance drivers and paramedics;
>they have dutifully collected thousands of pieces of shrapnel from
>bullets, tank rounds, gas projectiles and missiles after Israeli
>bombardments, but without trying to discover their provenance. "We are
>humanitarian workers, not scientists," one of them told me in Bethlehem
>yesterday. Many of the fragments carry codings in the Roman alphabet and
>appear to be also of American manufacture. They include what looks a
>missile part coded "SPO 2- 95 RAD (then a digit obliterated during the
>rocket's explosion) - 89".
>
>The Israelis used Apache helicopters to fire missiles into Beit Jalla on
>at least six occasions - including the one that killed Mr Khorabi - and
>the Apaches are made by Lockheed at their massive arms plant at Orlando,
>Florida, home of the Hellfire 1 and 2 missiles.
>
>Palestinians are still trying to discover the nature of a gas canister now
>regularly used by Israelis containing what they call "brown smoke".
>Obviously feared by stone-throwers, it is described as having a far more
>potent effect even than the Federal Laboratories' Pennsylvania-made gas.
>At least one gas canister found in Bethlehem is covered in Hebrew markings
>and carries the code 323 1-99. It does not appear to be of US manufacture.
>
>American arms makers deny all responsibility when their weapons have
>slaughtered innocent civilians. Lockheed's scornful reaction to the 1996
>Hellfire-1 bloodbaths in southern Lebanon was to point out that "no one
>has ever sued a bullet-manufacturer" after a murder. And it's true that
>the last words stamped on the Pennsylvania gas cartridges, after a warning
>that they must not be fired at individuals, make the usual disclaimers.
>"Federal Laboratories," it says, "will assume no responsibility for the
>misuse of this device."
>
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Friends of Al Aqsa is a voluntary organisation concerned with the defence 
>of
>Al Aqsa Haram Sharif and the protection of Palestinian Human Rights.
>www.aqsa.org.uk
>Contact:
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>Tel 077 11 823 524
>Fax ++ 44 [116] 253 7575
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