http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_ID=10&article_ID=14206&categ_id=2#
The Daily Star - Lebanon
April 12, 2005
Palestinian villagers accuse Israeli settlers
of poisoning their flocks
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
AL-TAWANI, West Bank: Palestinian herdsmen from the southern West
Bank are accusing the inhabitants of an Israeli settlement of
poisoning their flocks in a bid to force them to leave their land.
According to the director of the Hebron branch of the Agriculture
Ministry, Mohammed Qanam, no less than 20 heads of cattle have
died after having eaten poisoned fodder which had been left by
the settlers in the pastures of villages such as al-Tawani, al-Mufaqara
and Tuba.
"The poisoned area is the only pastoral land in the Hebron
and we have many herds here. Eighty-two
cattleheads have been poisoned and 20 have died," Qanam said.
"It is very dangerous as this poison can be transmitted
to humans if they eat meat or drink the milk of these animals,"
he added.
Palestinian witnesses said that the fodder contained toxic substances
and had been scattered in the fields by settlers from the neighboring
settlement of Maron and the inhabitants of two unauthorized "wildcat"
outposts around 20 kilometers south of Hebron.
"The settlers are ready at all times to chase us off our
lands and seize them," said Saber al-Harini, head of the
local municipal council which serves the 2,200 inhabitants of
all three villages.
"Last year they poisoned the water wells and burned our
harvests but we are staying on our land," he added.
Mohammed al-Hamamdeh, a farmer from the village of al-Mufaqara
who has lost five sheep, hinted at complicity by Israeli authorities
who had suddenly allowed the farmers into the fields. "These
pastures were off limits for several years but then recently a
member of the military administration told us that we could graze
our herds on Fridays and Saturdays," said Hamamdeh, 40.
"An hour and a half after my arrival in the fields, the
first ewe died after eating from the fodder and then the four
others," he added.
Tests carried out by the center for environmental health at the
university of Beir Zeit in the central West Bank have found that
the product spread in the pastures was fluoroacetamide.
"The tests have revealed that it is fluoroacetamide, a very
toxic substance without any known antidote. It was first conceived
as a pesticide against rats and its production and use are forbidden
without authorization from the Israeli government," said
the center's director Ramzi Sansur.
Fluoroacetamide is classified as a dangerous pesticide by the
Rotterdam Convention, adopted in 1998 under the auspices of the
UN environment program and Food and Agriculture Organization.
A spokesman for the Israeli police in the southern West Bank,
Shlomi Sagui, confirmed that a "poison" had recently
been detected in the fields in question following complaints from
Palestinian villagers.
"It is true that a poison has been found. We do not know
yet know where it came from but an inquiry is under way,"
Sagui said. - AFP
