What is new in new weapons?
The question was posed by the doctors from Lebanon and Gaza, and the answer does not lay merely in technical developments or in an absolute novelty of the weapons system. It is rather primarily rooted in strategic and political choices that promoted the novel applications and the deployment of the weapons in a fashion that has novel targets.
Why should we get involved in obtaining proofs of the extended and purposeful (and as mass destruction weapons) utilization of these weapons on civilians? Are not enough reports coming from “vox populi”?
We cannot stay to “vox populi” because of the need to identify countermeasures for the prevention of further damages. We need to extend the information and to diffuse knowledge on the facts. We also need to generate diffuse and international political pressure. All the international protection that was demanded to the laws and agreements after war II have been now definitely overruled.
Where can we go using the tools of scientific research?
In terms of the information we can provide we can present exemplary set of data resulting from scientific investigation and possibly obtained in more than one independent institution, thus increasing their credibility.
How this will further the prevention of the continuous usage of weapons on populations?
We can provide data that are signals for alarm and to open the debate. On the basis of the data we can denounce if institutions that should control do not perform these controls. We can create a network for pooling the efforts that the few groups of scientists are putting in providing facts. Once the use of a weapon is proved, we can provide/support/demand programs for the reduction of the chronic damage to the population that most of these weapons embody.
Why we might be able to this now, even if during the whole of the last 5 years these weapons have been widely utilized in all wars and occupations?
The simple fact is that for the first time there was a rapid response of the professionals and the people on the victims side that denounced the facts and worked to pull information together on the spot and a partial accessibility of the war theater.