IDF: Jawaher Abu Rahma died of medical malpractice
An IDF investigation has concluded that 36-year old Jawaher Abu Rahma died of medical malpractice at a Ramallah hospital, and not of inhaling teargas during a December 31, 2010 demonstration against the 'security fence' at Bil'in.
Abu Rahma, IDF sources said on Saturday, did not actively participate in the demonstration but was inside a house about 500 meters away from the site of the demonstration. She was however evacuated to a hospital in Ramallah sometime later in the day and after the demonstration where she was treated for an unclear ailment.
“According to our findings Abu Rahma died as a result of the medical treatment,” an source in the Central Command said on Wednesday.
Medical documents obtained by the IDF show that Abu Rahma received unusually high doses of Atropine, a medicine that is commonly used as an antidote to nerve agents such as nerve gas. Israeli gas mask kits used to be distributed to the public with shots of atropine inside.
According to the IDF’s findings Abu Rahma died of medical complications due to the medical treatment she received that was not connected to tear gas. The IDF has also uncovered documentation which hints to the possibility that Abu Rahma was sick with cancer and had been hospitalized several weeks before her death. ]
The IDF probe into the incident included an analysis of the demonstration and involved experts from the IDF Medical Corps who examined the medical documents that were received from the Palestinians.
I will guarantee you two things: She did not die of inhaling teargas and this will not be the end of the story.
Here's an Arabic report from al-Jazeera on the Bil'in security fence riots and on the death of Jawaher Abu Rahma.
If any of you speaks Arabic and can translate what they're saying, please do (whether in the comments section or by email).
At the beginning of the video, you will see a nearly dead Abu Rahma. Any doctors want to speculate on what the sores on her face are? I find it hard to believe they were caused by teargas, but they might have been caused by a breathing tube. Anyone?
The video begins with an IDF warning to demonstrators over a megaphone.
“You may protest and express your opinions. You may not throw stones or cross the yellow gate. You may not damage the security fence,” she continued.
In the next camera shot, a male protester, wearing a white scarf around his head and another around his mouth, walks up to the wire fence that is part of the security barrier, and cuts it, even though soldiers are standing just a few meters away from him on the other side of the barrier.
In the video, the IDF issues another warning: “Any harm to the fence will force us to respond.”
Upon hearing this, the Palestinian protestors gives the IDF "the finger."
The video then depicts many more shots of activists throwing stones at the soldiers standing on the opposite side of the barrier. The rocks sail over the barrier and over the heads of the soldiers; in some cases, the soldiers had to jump out of the way.
The IDF then uses a large white police truck, which sprayed strong streams of foul-smelling water at the rioters.
In the video, Brig.-Gen. Nitzan Alon explained, “Our approach is to enable a protest as long as it is nonviolent. We differentiate very clearly between a non-violent demonstration, which is a legitimate form of protest, and a violent riot that involves the throwing of rocks and metal objects, physical harm and damage to the security barrier.”
But several videos posted by activists from Friday’s demonstration show a completely different face to the protest, which was dedicated to the memory of Abu Rahma.
...
Only in one clip is a protester seen trying to dismantle the barrier with his hands.
After that there are several video shots of the white police truck shooting out streams of the foul-smelling water that completely clear the protestors away from the wire fence. After that soldiers shoot rounds of tear gas.
One wounded protester is seen lying on the ground. Another is evacuated from the scene.
In a second video, shot after the activists reached the gate in the barrier, protestors could be seen running from thick clouds of tear gas and tear-gas canisters that snaked a path across the fields before exploding.
From its perch on a hilltop overlooking the site on Friday, The Jerusalem Post saw how both aspects of the protest, violent and nonviolent, took place at the same time.
Depending on where one stood and at what time, one would see a violent or a non-violent demonstration.
I don't understand something. I assume that the IDF had these videos all along and could have released them had it chosen to do so. So why didn't they? Is this just what Melanie Phillips calls our 'lousy hasbara'? Or is there something else at play?
'Palestinians' to admit that Abu Rahma died of natural causes?
If this report is correct, the 'Palestinians' are about to admit that Bil'in rioter Jawaher Abu Rahma died of natural causes and not of inhaling teargas as has previously been claimed.
An understanding over the death of Bilin protestor Jawaher Abu Rahmah last week is taking shape. Both sides have concluded that Abu Rahmah hadn't died from inhalation of tear gas at the Bilin protest but from the results of the medical care she received along with medical problems she suffered from prior to the demonstration; Judea and Samaria Division Commander Nitzan Alon revealed Friday.
He announced that an investigation into the affair would be officially completed by both sides soon. Alon stressed that the IDF has no intention of changing its crowd dispersion methods during violent riots.
Heads up: Larger riot than usual in Bil'in planned for Friday
The 'Palestinians' have announced that Friday's weekly riot in Bil'in will commemorate the 'killing' of Jawaher Abu Rahma.
Following the tragic killing of Jawaher Abu Rahmah as a result of tear-gas inhalation during the weekly demonstration against the Wall last Friday, the residents of Bil'in will dedicate this week's protest to her memory. The demonstration is expected to be joined by hundreds outraged by Abu Rahmah's killing, most notably women from across the West Bank, as well as representatives of Israeli women organizations.
And they are trying to defend themselves against the claim that no one else has died of teargas inhalation.
Contrary to Israeli claims, Abu Rahmah is not the first to have died as a result of tear-gas inhalation. Already during the years of the First Intifada, Amnesty International had reported forty deaths from CS tear gas inhalation from December 1987 to June 1988 alone in its report "Israel and the Occupied Territories: Amnesty International's concerns in 1988" (published 1989).
Well, there's a spurious claim if I ever heard one. Amnesty's biases against Israel are known, its report likely documented claims of the 'Palestinians' without independent verification, those killed more than 20 years ago may have been killed in closed areas, while the 'Palestinians' claim that Abu Rahma was killed in an open area, and even if it turns out that the report was true, do we know that the teargas used in 1988 is the same teargas used in 2011? Food for thought.
But in any event, Friday has the potential to be one heck of a 'demonstration.'
Alana Goodman cites a press release from NGO Monitor's Gerald Steinberg on the NGO rush to judgment in the Abu Rahma case.
“NGO officials and media outlets made serious allegations about Jawaher Abu-Rahmah’s death, without verifying claims or checking the many inconsistencies in the reports,” said Prof. Gerald Steinberg, president of NGO Monitor, in an e-mailed press release. “We again see that NGOs issue statements and condemnations consistent with their own political agendas, but lack the ability to verify any of the details.” Some of these groups included B’Tselem, Yesh Din, and Physicians for Human Rights in Israel.
In this case, the NGO's had the ability to verify the claims. But verifying the claims would have revealed that the claims were false, which would have contradicted the NGOs' agendas. So they didn't bother to investigate. For that, they deserve our condemnation and contempt.
With all the instances of Pallywood over the last ten years, if the media and the NGOs were really interested in fairness, they would have learned by now not to jump to conclusions.
Unfortunately, both the Palestinians and the Israelis are missing the point. The Palestinians are missing it on purpose, the Israelis are missing it because they are so frantic to deflect yet another dubious blood libel.
The point is that even if Abu Rahma died from inhaling tear gas, it is a non-story. The firing of tear gas at a violent demonstration does not indicate lethal intent. The Israelis were not trying to kill Abu Rahma. They were using a common and globally accepted form of crowd control.
If that crowd control method resulted in Abu Rahma’s death, it must be chalked up to either a freak accident or a reaction resulting from an undisclosed medical condition.
To suggest that Abu Rahma’s death in some way demonstrates malicious Israeli intent is the kind of unhinged propaganda that has come to characterize the Palestinian position. And not just from fringe apologists, but from the very Palestinian leaders with whom Israel is supposed to be making peace.
An Israeli anarchist has distributed to the media evidence that Jawaher Abu Rahma died on Saturday as a result of inhaling tear gas during a Friday riot against Israel's 'security fence' in Bil'in.
Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak presented the media with three documents Tuesday to counter IDF claims that a Palestinian protester had died from cancer and not from the tear gas she inhaled at Friday’s anti-barrier demonstration in Bil’in.
Pollak e-mailed to the media a copy of a report from the Red Crescent ambulance and the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah, as well as a copy of CT scan from the Shafey Diagnostic Center in Ramallah.
...
A Red Crescent ambulance report, provided by Pollak to the Post in English, dated December 31, showed that the ambulance arrived in Bil’in at 1:20 p.m., to be on hand in case there were injuries at the demonstration.
It left Bil’in 2:15 with Abu Rahma and arrived in Ramallah by 2:43. According to the report, Abu Rahma was having difficulty breathing due to gas inhalation.
Separately, Pollak and members of Abu Rahma’s family have told the media that they saw her at the demonstration. Among them were her mother, Subhiye, who stood with her when she was first overcome by tear gas.
On Monday, Pollak had shown the Post a Twitter post from 2:36 p.m. Friday, which stated that Jawaher had been taken to the hospital. A Palestinian website reported the incident on 4:48 p.m. on Friday.
On Tuesday, Pollak also provided the medical report from the Palestine Medical Center, which was dated January 2, 2011.
It stated that Abu Rahma was drowsy when she arrived and had a changed “level of consciousness.” According to the report, she had “frothy secretion” and was sweating, after a “history of unknown gas inhalation by attack of Israeli soldiers as family said. No other associated symptoms.”
It noted that she had no chronic illness or history of previous illnesses.
According to the report, she was admitted to the intensive care unit, and put on a mechanical ventilator. The report added that she had not responded to treatment and that her heart stopped three times.
The director of the Palestine Medical Complex, Muhammad Eidh told the Post that to the best of his knowledge, she had not been treated by his hospital for cancer and that the family had told him that she was healthy.
According to Pollak, Jawaher had in recent weeks complained of an inner ear infection, which affected her balance, for which she was recently given a CT scan.
The radiologist who performed the CT scan, Dr. Hamis Al Sahfi’i, confirmed that the brain scan was normal, Pollak said. He also provided a copy of the scan, which was done at the Shafey Diagnostic Center in Ramallah.
The IDF continues to investigate so I'll reserve judgment except to raise a few questions:
1. Since when does the Red Crescent issue reports in English?
2. What is the value of a hospital report that corroborates the story that the 'Palestinians' have been distributing to the media when it was issued after the woman was dead and buried so that the hospital knew what it was 'supposed to say'?
3. How does a CT scan of the brain provide evidence one way or the other regarding Leukemia? How does it provide evidence of tear gas inhalation when it was done long before the tear gas was inhaled?
4. How can they claim that she was healthy on the one hand, and yet admit that she recently had a CT scan for an inner ear infection on the other hand?
5. Note that the hospital director says that she was not treated for Leukemia in his hospital. Could she have been treated elsewhere? The senior security source with whom I spoke on Monday night said that there is only one hospital in Ramallah. But Ramallah is just a few miles from Jerusalem (if I lived on the other side of the mountain, I could see it out my window).
I still smell a rat here. As the security source noted in our call on Monday, there is no known instance of death being caused by inhaling tear gas in an open area. Something here doesn't fit.
Open letter to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
I received this via email, as did the person who shared it with me, so there is no URL and all you can do is (hopefully) link to it. I'm not aware of its origins.
Open Letter to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
1/1/11
There was a short newscast on CBC 1 Radio news I heard today 1 January at 6 PM.
The lead item was about a Palestinian who died during a protest in the West Bank.
This same day 21 Christians were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a Church in Egypt.
Why was the non-deliberate death of the Palestinian more important than the 21 Christian Copts murdered in Egypt?
A. It can’t be the number of deaths, since many more died in Egypt.
B. It can’t be the religion of the victims, since Canada has many more Christians than Moslems.
C. It can’t be that it was accidental, since every day the world is perfused with accidental deaths during military and police actions.
D. It can’t be because it occurred in disputed territory, since we almost never hear about single deaths in Kashmir (Hindu Vs. Muslim), Cyprus (Turkish Muslim Vs. Greek Christian), Sudan (Arab Muslim Vs Black African), etc.
E. In fact, the only reason left for putting this item in the lead is because of the perpetrator of the death, Israel – even when it’s accidental.
Could it be possible that Israel is selected out for preferential negative news whenever possible?
Within this brief newscast, there was enough time to mention the unfounded accusation of media-savvy Palestinians that Israel had used a special new more toxic and evil form of tear gas. To be balanced, the CBC said Israel has denied this.
If I say that the CBC is secretly funded by the Muslim Brotherhood, will you also air this, and then deny it?
Why is the CBC so willing to broadcast all rumours that portray Israel in a bad light?
It’s a funny thing you know, the Palestinian issue has Muslims Vs Israelis, the Kashmir problem is Muslims Vs Hindus, Cyprus is Muslims Vs Greeks, Darfur is Muslims Vs. Black Africans, Egypt is Muslims Vs. Christian Copts. Muslims are killing in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, Yemen and virtually every other trouble spot. Oh yes, let’s not forget the various Muslim terror plots in Europe, USA and Canada.
Is this escalating worldwide series of events not worth the attention of the CBC?
Of course not, let’s lead off the CBC news with one accidental death caused by Israel.
After all, you’re the CBC, and we know for sure the CBC couldn’t possibly be running a bigoted propaganda vendetta against one small country or one small religion.
Now, that wouldn’t be Canadian, would it?
Yours truly,
(I’m sorry I can’t sign it, because Al Qaeda has put out a hit list on Canadian Coptic Christians. I guess that news isn’t important enough for the CBC either.)
For those of you having trouble keeping track of the hoax involving the death of 'Palestinian demonstrator' Jawaher Abu Rahma, Elder of Ziyon has a nice cartoon series that sums it up here.
Senior security source raises questions about the death of Jawaher Abu Rahma
In a call this evening, a senior security source told me that Jawaher Abu Rahma did not die from inhaling teargas as the 'Palestinians' have claimed.
The source raised several questions regarding Abu Rahma's death. First, the lab test report, which the IDF has obtained, is dated 35 minutes before Abu Rahma arrived at the hospital. The lab test is dated 2:45 pm, whereas Abu Rahma did not arrive at the hospital until 3:20 pm.
There is no emergency room report.
The cause of death in the certificate of death is listed as "inhaling gas of Israeli soldier according to the family."
The 'Palestinians' also claim that there was no prior medical history, but the IDF has discovered that Abu Rahma visited the same hospital ten days ago.
On Friday, Abu Rahma was prescribed medications that had nothing to do with mitigating the effects of teargas, but which were medications that are used in the treatment of chronic illnesses such as blood cancer (Leukemia).
The IDF has never heard of anyone in the five years of riots at Bil'in who died of inhaling teargas.
Abu Rahma had been participating in the riots at Bil'in weekly for five years, and did not have any respiratory problems before.
Ordinarily, the 'Palestinians' share all of their information and reports on civilian deaths with the IDF; this time they refused to share that information.
The IDF purchases its teargas abroad and uses the same teargas as other Western countries. The teargas was not remixed or altered.
Jawaher Abu Rachma's brother Rachman is the leader of the demonstrations at Bil'in, but there is no documentation that he was near her during the demonstration. If there had been such documentation, it would have been prominently displayed at the funeral.
Therefore, the IDF believes that Jawaher Abu Rahma may not have been at the demonstration on Friday at Bil'in to begin with.
I asked about the identity of the woman who was in the ambulance at the end of this video. The senior security source did not know who she was. The IDF was told on Friday that two lightly wounded people reached the hospital in Ramallah, and that they were treated and released on Friday. They did not hear about Abu Rahma until Saturday.
I also asked about the rumor that Abu Rahma had been killed in an honor killing. The senior security source was not aware of any evidence to that effect. The IDF believes that Abu Rahma had a chronic illness - we know that she has been in and out of the hospital for the past month - and they believe that Abu Rahma's death is connected to that illness and not to an honor killing. The 'Palestinians' are attempting to take advantage of the coincidence of the time of her death to turn her into a 'martyr.'
The IDF is not aware of any other deaths of 'Palestinians' in riots as a result of inhaling teargas. This riot took place in a large open area. The IDF is not aware of any deaths of rioters from inhaling teargas in an open area. Ever.
The IDF does not use water cannons (The Independent's Donald McIntyre referred to the IDF adding "skunk" to water used from water cannons - the senior security source denied that the IDF uses water cannons).
The IDF has started to move the fence route in accordance with the high court order that it do so, and yet the residents of Bil'in continue to protest. Given that the Bil'in protesters have already 'won' the fence's removal, the IDF wonders why they continue to protest.
Abu Jawaher's cousin claims she was 500 meters away from Bil'in demonstration
Writing on Facebook, a cousin of Jawaher Abu Rahma, the woman who was allegedly killed in Friday's demonstration against the 'security fence' at Bil'in, was 500 meters (about four [corrected] tenths of a mile) away from the demonstration (Hat Tip: Elder of Ziyon).
Isn't it funny how no one else seems to have suffered the 'effects of the gas carried by the wind'? Eight tenths of a mile away? Moreover, there is no phosphorus in teargas.
The deadly effects of tear gas would only occur following exposure to a dosage several hundred times greater than the amount of tear gas typically used by law enforcement officials for crowd control.
Anarchists attack the home of US ambassador James Cunningham
Anarchists attacked the home of US Ambassador to Israel James Cunningham around 1:00 am on Sunday, throwing tear gas canisters (some of which were not spent), and according to at least one report, live grenades. The ambassador was not injured.
The anarchists arrived at the US diplomat's home overnight carrying posters. Police officials said the suspects were also carrying Palestinian flags, tear gas canisters and spray.
According to online reports, the anarchists claimed they arrived at Ambassador James Cunningham's house in order to protest against US military aid to Israel, which they claimed was being put to use against Palestinians.
The anarchists reportedly chanted, "One, two, three, four stop the occupation, stop the war. Five, six, seven, eight end the funding, end the hate."
Occurring to suspicion, one of the anarchists threw hand grenades towards the house yard, and then the suspects fled the scene. The patrol police was called over, headed by Superintendent Avi Ohayon, and began combing the area in search of suspects.
All of the suspected were then found and brought in for questioning over at Glilot police station, headed by Chief Superintendent Nimrod Daniel. They were interrogated and later detained for further investigation.
Police officials said the 11 anarchists, one of which is a German citizen, are expected to be brought before the Magistrate's Court in Tel Aviv in order to extend their arrest.
The arrests were later extended until Tuesday.
The 'demonstration' was in response to the death on Friday in Bil'in of Jawaher Abu Rahma, allegedly at a protest against the 'security fence.'
Police are now investigating the possibility that 'human rights' organization B'Tselem was involved in the attack on Cunningham's home.
But the story that I ran earlier about Abu Rahma's death being an 'honor killing' is gaining some traction. The 'Palestinians' seem to have no interest in getting to the truth.
But the PA rejected an IDF request to receive Abu Rahma’s medical file so that it could determine the cause of death. It also rejected an IDF request to establish a joint commission of inquiry with the PA, which it has done in the past after similar incidents.
“This raises suspicions about what really happened,” one source said.
Central Command sources said that after the protest was dispersed, the IDF received a report from the Palestinians that two activists were treated for inhaling tear gas. The sources said that the IDF fired the tear gas to disperse a violent protest.
On Friday night, the IDF learned that the two Palestinians had been released to their homes and then on Saturday morning they received a report that one of them died.
But Jonathan Pollak, a spokesman for the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee, said that Rahma was taken from the protest to a hospital in Ramallah, where doctors worked to save her life.
She was unconscious when she arrived and she never regained consciousness, Pollak said. Rahma suffered from severe asphyxiation caused by the tear gas, he said. She had poison in her body that was the same active ingredient in the tear gas, he added.
If that's the case, prove it.
I don't believe that Jonathan Pollak claim, and you shouldn't either. We have seen enough Arab and Muslim lies to treat that case with skepticism.
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
An IDF investigation has concluded that 36-year old Jawaher Abu Rahma died of medical malpractice at a Ramallah hospital, and not of inhaling teargas during a December 31, 2010 demonstration against the 'security fence' at Bil'in. 
