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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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January 14th,
2009 - Gaza: Israel Under Fire for Alleged White Phosphorus Use |
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Gaza: Israel Under
Fire for Alleged White Phosphorus Use On Tuesday, the Israeli army denied using white phosphorus munitions.
A Norwegian doctor claims Israel is using Gaza as a ‘test laboratory for new
weapons,’ including Dense Inert Metal Explosives, or DIME. By Robert Marquand & Nicholas Blanford Christian Science Monitor January 14, 2009 Paris and Beirut, Lebanon -
Marc Garlasco has been on the northern border of Gaza for the past five days
watching what he says are white phosphorus munitions exploding over a crowded
refugee camp. Mr. Garlasco, a senior
military analyst for New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), says that the
way Israel is using the incendiary device is illegal. White phosphorus shells
contain more than 100 felt filaments that ignite upon contact with the
atmosphere, drift to earth, and burn intensely for at least 10 to 12 minutes. The usage of white
phosphorus is not illegal under international law if it's used in military
operations as a smoke screen to cover troop movements or against bunkers,
armored vehicles, and ammunition dumps. But its use is forbidden against
people - civilians and soldiers alike - under nearly all military codes and
laws. "The use of white
phosphorus is banned as a weapon that causes 'unnecessary suffering,'"
says Mark Ellis, director of the International Bar Association in London.
"It isn't to be used in civilian areas, or indeed against people since
it creates horrible damage to the human body, and unnecessarily so." Israel, which has been
charged with using white phosphorus in Lebanon, says it is not using white
phosphorus in its war against Hamas in Gaza, now in its 18th day. "The IDF [Israeli
Defense Forces] acts only in accordance with what is permitted by
international law and does not use white phosphorus," IDF Chief of Staff
Gabi Ashkenazi told Israel's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on Tuesday
in response to a query. But Garlasco says that
phosphorus is clearly being used in the Jabaliya refugee camp, one of the
most crowded areas in Gaza. "I can see them; we are
very certain, whatever the Israeli Defense Forces may say, that white
phosphorus is being used. It was used by Israel in Lebanon in 2006, but not
until the population fled. In Gaza, the population can't flee." As the offensive continues,
which has killed more than 900 people, a variety of European doctors in Gaza,
human rights groups, news organizations like Al Jazeera, and observers on the
border are reporting instances and sightings of weapons use that is causing
deaths, and wounds they say they have not encountered before. Most are
calling for access to Gaza to determine what is true amid a rage of reports
and rumors. While the phosphorus
explosives are widely condemned for raining down indiscriminate harm, questions
have also arisen about the possible use of another weapon called Dense Inert
Metal Explosives, or DIME, that was created by the US Air Force. DIME is
designed to be used in crowded urban areas since the weapons are highly
lethal but have an extremely limited range of explosive force that can reduce
collateral damage. Norwegian doctor Mads
Gilbert, who worked in Gaza's main Shifa hospital during the first weeks of
the conflict, and who spoke to media in Egypt and Norway in recent days, is
the main source for allegations of DIME use. "This is a new
generation of very powerful small explosive that detonates with extreme power
and dissipates its power within a range of five to 10 meters," he told
reporters. "There is a very strong suspicion I think that Gaza is now
being used as a test laboratory for new weapons." Al Jazeera, which has
reporters in Gaza, has described hospital cases that appear to conform to the
clean tearing of limbs that DIME can cause. Italian scientists from the
New Weapons Research Committee, which examines emerging military technology,
said in a statement that "evidence is mounting" of DIME usage,
saying the wounds may be "untreatable" due to metals like tungsten
that enter the body. DIME is packed with tungsten dust that forms micro-shrapnel
upon detonation. Paola Manduca, a geneticist
at the University of Genoa, says she has seen "four photos from Gaza
hospitals since December that look like the effects of DIME. We want to
stress as professionals that we need to be able to verify what is happening,
and we can't do that if Gaza is blocked." But Israeli experts deny any
such usage of DIME by the IDF in Gaza. Shlomo Brom, former brigadier general
who consulted international legal experts on weapons use as head of the IDF's
Strategic Planning division, derided human rights groups' allegations on
white phosphorus and DIME as political propaganda. "The weapons itself are
not illegal. Whether they are used in keeping with international law is a
matter of interpretation. To judge you need all of the operational
considerations and intelligence available. Of course, they don't have it, so
they are playing a very irresponsible role," he says. During the Lebanon war in
2006, Israel was suspected of employing depleted uranium munitions as well as
DIME. The Israeli military has also used cluster bombs and phosphorous
munitions in its previous battles in Lebanon. It was heavily criticized by
human rights groups for firing both kinds of munitions into the densely
populated streets of west Beirut during the siege of the city in the summer
of 1982. In the 1990s, when Israeli
troops occupied a border strip of South Lebanon, the distinctive cotton ball
puffs of brilliant white smoke from exploding phosphorous rounds were a
common sight in frontline areas. The Israelis used phosphorous to burn crops
in frontline villages and to destroy ground cover used by Hezbollah fighters
to infiltrate the occupation zone. In August 1997, five Israeli
soldiers burned to death during a battle with Lebanese guerrillas when they
were trapped in a frontline valley by a brush fire ignited by phosphorous
rounds fired by their own artillery. HRW reported in 1996 that
phosphorous shells fired by Israel had struck populated areas, causing
civilian casualties, during a week-long Israeli air and artillery blitz in
South Lebanon in July 1993. At the time of the 1993 attack, Maj. Gen. Herzl
Bodinger, commander of the Israeli Air Force, was quoted by Israel's Yedioth
Ahranot as saying: "We do not use such bombs." But in 1994, the US State
Department reported that there were "credible accounts of IDF [Israeli
Defense Forces] use of phosphorous shells against military and civilians
targets" in South Lebanon. Other controversial
armaments used by Israel in Lebanon included antipersonnel
"flechette" rounds fired by tanks. The round is designed to explode
in the air, showering the target with 5,000 three-centimeter-long steel darts
in a cone-shaped trajectory some 900 feet long. The United Nations recorded
many instances of "flechette" rounds being used in South Lebanon in
the 1990s in which civilians were killed or wounded. Last year, Fadel Shanaa, a
Reuters cameraman, was killed in Gaza by a "flechette" round fired
by an Israeli tank that Mr. Shanaa was filming at the time. Whether Israel is using
white phosphorus illegally or not in its latest war against Islamist
militants in Gaza, the issue may be gaining too much focus, says Garlasco
from HRW, and could be "a red herring." Sara Roy, a senior research
scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University,
agrees. "While it is important
to pay attention to these weapons, the majority of Gazans are being killed by
typical military operations. I am a scholar and I use words carefully, and
this seems like a massacre." Joshua Mitnick contributed
reporting from Tel Aviv. External link: http://www.csmonitor.com/2009/0114/p07s01-wome.html |