http://www.middleeast.org/1998_11_08.htm
Israeli Jets Equipped for Chemical Warfare
By Uzi Mahnaimi
[The Sunday Times, London, 10/4]: ISRAELI assault
aircraft have been equipped to carry chemical and
biological weapons manufactured at a top secret
institute near Tel Aviv, military sources revealed
yesterday.Crews of F-16 fighters have been trained to
fit an active chemical or biological weapon within
minutes of receiving the command to attack, they
said.
The weapons are manufactured at the Institute for
Biological Research in a suburb of Nes Ziona 12 miles
southeast of Tel Aviv.
The plant attracted unwanted scrutiny last week when
the Dutch authorities confirmed that it was the
intended destination of 42 gallons of a chemical
called DMMP aboard an El Al 747-200 that crashed into
high-rise flats in Amsterdam six years ago, killing
the four crew and 39 people on the ground. The
chemical is used in the manufacture of sarin nerve
gas, and local inhabitants have complained of health
problems since the crash.
The Israeli plant manufactures not only chemical and
biologicalweapons for use in bombs, but more unusual
arms as well. It supplied the poison for a bizarre
attempt last year on the life of Khaled Meshal, a
leader of the Hamas Islamic fundamentalist group.
Agents of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service,
sprayed a liquid into his ear as he arrived at his
office in Amman, the Jordanian capital. If one of
Meshal's bodyguards had not chased and caught the
agents, the mysterious chemical would have caused
Meshal to die within days of apparent heart failure.
Instead, the institute was forced to supply an
antidote when King Hussein of Jordan threatened to
put the captured Israelis on trial.
Israel has accused Egypt, Libya, Syria and Iran of
developing chemical and biological weapons, but has
never acknowledged its own programmes to develop
weapons of mass destruction.
The Jewish state signed but never ratified the
chemical weapons convention, a treaty that prohibits
countries from developing, producing, stockpiling or
using such weapons. The Israeli programme for weapons
has been an open secret for years.
"There is hardly a single known or unknown form of
chemical or biological weapon . . . which is not
manufactured at the institute," said a biologist who
once held a senior post in Israeli intelligence.
The institute is one of the most secretive in Israel.
Founded in1952 as a single building hidden in an
orange grove, it now sprawls over several acres. It
is surrounded by a 6ft-high concrete wall topped with
sensors that reveal the exact location of any
intruder but is erased from local and aerial survey
maps.
Official publications disguise its more sinister
activities, indicating merely that the institute
provides services to the defence ministry as well as
chemicals for agriculture and research for civilian
companies.
Following rumours about risks to the neighbourhood
from toxins, members of the parliament's foreign
affairs and defence committee asked to visit the
plant. They were denied access.
Nes Ziona's mayor won a temporary injunction last
week freezing plans to expand the institute by 14
acres. His anxiety is well-founded. Accidents at the
plant have killed at least six workers but details
have been protected by military censorship.
