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TechnoratiIsraelis Rain 'Phosphorus Bombs' Over Gaza
RAMALLAH - "There is no doubt that Israel is using phosphorus bombs over Gaza. Israel is flagrantly violating the Fourth Geneva Convention," says Raji Sourani, head of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) in Gaza.
"This is not the first time we have documented Israel using this kind of prohibited weapon against Gaza's civilian population," Sourani told IPS on phone from Gaza.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed Sourani's assessment in a statement it released on Friday. Its researchers said they had seen "multiple air-bursts of artillery-fired white phosphorus over Gaza city."
"I've been on the border for the last few days watching the Israeli artillery firing white phosphorus shells into refugee camps," Marc Garlasco, senior military analyst at HRW told France TV channel 24.
Ann Sophie Bonefeld from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Jerusalem was more cautious. "We haven't been able to confirm if Israel is using phosphorus bombs in Gaza," she told IPS.
Chiara Stefanini, spokesman for the World Health Organization (WHO) in Jerusalem told IPS, "We have no evidence of phosphorus being used at this point in time. It is still too early to comment."
Terrifying pictures released by Israeli military planes of white clouds blanketing the skies of Gaza have filled the screens of Al-Jazeera television every night.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev was unable to tell Al-Jazeera whether the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) were using this controversial weapon, and referred the network to IDF spokeswoman Major Avital Leibovitch during an interview Sunday.
"We don't discuss what weapons we use," Leibovitch told Al-Jazeera. "But I can assure you we do not use any weapons that are prohibited by international law. There are other nations that use phosphorus bombs, and we have the right not to comment on this," she added.
Britain and the U.S. used phosphorus bombs in Iraq, particularly during the Fallujah campaign.
The Geneva Treaty of 1980 stipulates that white phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas, but there is no blanket ban under international law on its use as a smokescreen or for illumination.
This is not the first time Israel has been accused of using phosphorus bombs in crowded civilian areas in Gaza. Several years ago, doctors in Gaza reported seeing strange wounds on those injured during attacks by Israeli drones, which constantly monitor Gaza from the air.
The wounds consisted of many small holes, often invisible to X-rays, and burns caused by heat so intense that many required amputation because of the extensive burning.
Habas Al-Wahid, head of emergency at the Shuhada Al-Aqsa Hospital in Gaza city told journalists then that in several cases the legs of the injured were sliced from their bodies "as if a saw was used to cut through the bone." But there was no evidence of ordinary metal shrapnel in or near the wounds.
At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, spokesman Juma Saka said that on examination of the wounds, the doctors had found a powder on the victims' bodies and in their internal organs. The microscopic particles turned out to be carbon and tungsten.
"The powder was like microscopic shrapnel, and this is likely what caused the injuries," Saka said.
Following the claims of the Gaza doctors, an investigating team of Italian journalists from the television channel Rai News 24 took samples of the soil back to Italy.
Carmela Vaccaio, a doctor at the University of Parma, examined the samples and found a high concentration of carbon, as well as copper, aluminum and tungsten, whose presence she considered unusual.
She said in her report that "these findings could be in line with the hypothesis that the weapon in question was a dense inert metal explosive or DIME."
According to military experts, DIME is a carbon-encased missile that shatters on impact into minuscule splinters. On impact it sets off an explosive that shoots blades of energy-charged, heavy metal tungsten alloy (HMTA) powder, such as cobalt and nickel or iron, with a carbon fiber casing.
This turns to dust on impact, as it loses inertia very quickly due to air resistance, burning and destroying everything within a four-meter range, as opposed to shrapnel which results from the fragmentation of a metal casing.
The metal is designated "inert" because it is not involved in the blast, and not because it is chemically or biologically inert.
Israel was also accused of using phosphorus against civilian targets in Lebanon during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war. It initially denied the charge, but finally confirmed it following investigation by the same team of Italian journalists, and in the face of overwhelming evidence.
"While the international community might be horrified by the use of phosphorus, this is overlooking the issue that hundreds of half-ton bombs are being dropped on Gaza on civilian targets on a daily basis," Sourani told IPS.
Gaza's death toll has risen to over 900, while nearly 4,000 Palestinians have been wounded. The UN reports that half of the deaths are civilian, and half of the civilian casualties are women and children.
One million Gazans are currently living without electricity, and some 750,000 without water, according to UN estimates. Gaza has a population of about 1.5 million.
Thirteen Israelis have been killed, three of them civilian.
10 Comments so far
Show AllIsraelis Use of White Phosphorous Airburst Smoke Screening in Gaza
Accrding to IHS Jane’s Weapons Technology Analyst commenting on the discussions surrounding the Israeli use of white phosherous agents in Gaza, “The round so far specified as being fired are the M825A1 which is purely an air-burst white phosherous smoke projectile." the analyst said. 'It’s construction and function is highly elaborate and I would say deliberately so to make it inappropriate for anti-personnel use'. M825A1 shell is not defined as an incendiary weapon by the Third Protocol to the Convention on Conventional Weapons because its principal use is to produce smoke to protect troops. White Phosphorous weapons banned by theprotocol are ground or low level burst weapons designed primarily for anti-personnel use. The primary function of the M825A1 is for the rapid creation of a highly effective, but short lived visible and infrared smoke screen.
During the opening stages of Cast Lead land campaign, these munitions were employed at relatively low altitude, creating optimal obscuration for extended period of time. However, at the later stages, smoke screens were activated at higher elevation, thus eliminating much of the risk of collateral damage to non combatants. The activation height is determined by setting the time delay fuse for shorter activation.
According to the London Times, Israel is using white phosphorus shells. The Times claimed these shells are clearly seen on stockpiles used by Israel's artillery units operating near Gaza. The newspaper said Palestinian citizens had suffered burns caused by the weapons, claiming 'The use of WP against civilians is prohibited under international law". Phosphorus ignites on contact with oxygen and, according to the Times, is being used by the Israeli military to create smokescreens to allow its ground forces to operate.
Israeli military spokeswoman referred to the projectile identified by the Times as a 'quiet shell'. "It is empty, it has no explosives and no white phosphorus. There is nothing inside it... We shoot it to mark the target before we launch a real shell. We launch two or three of the quiet shells which are empty so that the real shells will be accurate. It's not for killing people."
As Alaa Al Aswany
One of his characters, a young activist who has long railed against the United States for supporting Egypt’s undemocratic regime, sums up the quandary of an Arab in the West: “Those kind Americans who treat strangers nicely, who smile in your face and like you the moment you meet them, who help you and let you go ahead of them and thank you profusely for the slightest reason? Do they realize the horrendous crimes their governments commit against humanity?"
They realize it, but after years living under the capitalist culture of atomization and Thatchers dictum of "there is no such thing as "society", USAns can only only think of things in terms of what they, as lone individuals can do.
Of course, there virtually nothing a single average working individual can do to stop the horrors in Gaza - so feelings of helplessness set in, leading to a banishing of the feelings and getting on with life - or at most lighting a candle in ones home or such.
Of course, if we organized in solidarity by the thousands, there is a lot we could do, but the very word solidarity, and the physical organizations are nowhere to be found.
---USAn---
I have many Jewish friends who also condemn the behavior of the state of Israel. There are also many former Jewish friends who have defended the acts of Israel for years in ways that I can't understand because it is against the beliefs that they have professed for decades. This is a great example of an abused child embracing the abuse by inflicting it on others. Israel has become a fascist government and its people are turning their collective heads away from the crimes being committed in their name.
It is not just the government but the tacit agreement of the people that is most confounding. These acts are fully supported by the people and those that don't support this quietly allow it to happen without a noise or resistance. This is not an American ideal or sentiment it is a sentiment of a government that seems to control America through propaganda and personal influence and perhaps the financial leverage that makes the American political system what it is today. I am ashamed of this country for the lack of moral courage and insight to abandon this Zionist atrocity and call it what it is. I am more affraid of Israel with and atomic bomb than I will ever be of Iran. Given the mindset of the Israelis Iran needs to have a bomb for its own defense.
Here is something that the Jews should remember that when their women and children were under siege the moneyed anti-semites in this country denied them support and shelter (The grand father of our current president) and supported the Nazi regime. Now they are engaging in what can only be considered fratricide in the destruction of the Palestinians. The systematic destruction of a people is now being conducted by the Jews who knows better than anyone on the planet that it doesn't work and the scars are carried for centuries by the children of the tyrants.
I pray that this might stop, brother killing brother, women and children bombed and murdered.
Criminal acts like the use of phosphorus weapons delegitimize any "right to exist" that the state of Israel ever had. Time to pull the plug.
The Jaded Prole
Gaza = Ghetto
Techniques of population suppression are from the 3d reich.
How do say "Anne Franke" in Palestinian??
It's disgusting and outrageous. Another Israeli massacre, misnamed a "war" by the complicit corporate media which constantly parades one Israeli govt. official after another on TV explaining the necessity of rooting out the "terrorists." Meanwhile Hamas, it's ostensible enemy, is a creation of the Mossad, just like Al-CIA-duh is a creation of the US govt. All very Orwellian and sick. It is slow-motion ethnic cleansing, a longstanding policy of the terrorist-state of Israel.
OF COURSE they're using Phosphorous bombs...they want to KILL PEOPLE! Well...people who aren't Jews...or useful to the Zionists....for the time being...
What other munitions explodes high above its target and rains down? Look at the pictures, those air bursts with the thin white streamers of smoke trailing toward the ground, then Google "airburst white phosphorus" and click on "Images" and look at THOSE pictures.
Here's ONE: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/images/wp-h57483.jpg
If you rummage around a bit you can find others that look almost EXACTLY like the pics from Gaza.
Since the pictures from Gaza are taken in daylight those shells are NOT designed for "illumination", and, since the main burst is high above the ground and the only smoke that reaches the ground is trailing the white hot shards of phosphorus, it is NOT being used as smoke cover.
The state of Israel, in broad daylight, is using white phosphorus artillery or rockets over civilian targets in the Gaza Strip, and because of the spectacular appearance of the bursts, almost like fireworks, the media have been broadcasting pictures of it!!
Ask your friends who were in VietNam to tell you about "Willie Peter."
for the record, the use of phosphorous bombs is a war crime in and of itself
like depleted uranium, which is a nuclear weapon
the only other state sick enough and heartless enough in its socio pathology to use these weapons is the united states
the united states and israel - the true axis of evil
just ask the iraqis what genocide is like - they know
amercian corporations and jewish scum = death machine
i have seen other posts saying that this is the fault of the europeans who dumped the jews from their continent after ww2
seems like the jews can't get along with anyone
why is that
cheers, b