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The War Profiteers - War Crimes,
Kidnappings & Torture |
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February 24th,
2009 - Amnesty International: White Phosphorus Shells were US made |
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Amnesty
International: Gaza White Phosphorus Shells were US made By Sheera Frenkel The Times February 24, 2009 White phosphorus bombs used
by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip were produced and supplied by American
arms manufacturers, according to an Amnesty International report that called
for a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel. The report documented dozens
of weapons used by Israel and Hamas during the three-week offensive,
concluding that both groups had carried out attacks on civilians constituting
war crimes punishable by international law. The UN Security Council should
impose an embargo until a mechanism was established to ensure that military
equipment was not used to carry out such violations, said Amnesty. Donatella Rovera, who headed
the Amnesty fact-finding mission, said that the group had systematically
collected and catalogued shells across Gaza, and traced serial numbers back
to factory production lines in the US. "All of the evidence
points to the failure of America to exercise due oversight of what they sell
to Israel, which is in breach of their own laws... which require that weapons
will not be sold to a country where they will be misused. And the manner in
which these weapons were used in Gaza is a war crime." The human rights group said
that weapons experts in Gaza found white phosphorus artillery shells marked
M825 A1 - a US-made munition - throughout the coastal strip. The Times
published photographic evidence that Israel was using the M825 A1 shells on
January 8. At that time, Israeli military spokesmen denied that the weapon
was being used, saying: "This is what we call a quiet shell - it has no
explosives and no white phosphorus". After the Gaza conflict,
Israel acknowledged using white phosphorus in a manner "according to
international law". Israeli media reported that the military was
investigating the incident on January 15, when several white phosphorus
artillery shells hit a UN headquarters in Gaza City, destroying tens of tons
of humanitarian aid. Amnesty said that they had found shells with the marking
PB-91K018-035, a lot number which indicates that they were assembled by Pine
Bluff Arsenal (PB) in October 1991. Mark Regev, spokesman for
the outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, said that the report was
"fundamentally flawed" and "tainted" by Hamas. "Every effort is made
to avoid having innocent civilians caught up in the crossfire between us and
Hamas," Mr Regev said. Hamas spokesman Fawzi
Barhoum called the report "unfair", claiming that Hamas did not
receive weapons from other countries, but defended themselves with
"rifles and other primitive means". Ms Rovera said that Hamas
and other militant Palestinian groups had fired hundreds of rockets at
civilians in Israel made of components from abroad. "Though far less lethal
than the weaponry used by Israel, such rocket firing also constitutes a war
crime and caused several civilian deaths." A number of other weapons
were catalogued in the Amnesty report, including flechette shells - which release
thousands of metal darts - and Dense Inert Metal Explosives (DIME). Amnesty
also said that it found evidence of a new type of missile that dispersed into
tiny cube-sized shrapnel pieces "designed to cause maximum injury".
The report said that several children had been killed by the new weapon. In another instance, Amnesty
said that it found fragments of an AGM114 Hellfire missile, made by the
Florida-based Hellfire Systems, a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and
Boeing, that had been fired at an ambulance, killing three Palestinian
paramedics and a boy in Gaza City on January 4. The US has long been the
largest arms supplier to Israel. Under a 10-year agreement negotiated by the
Bush Administration the US will provide £21 billion in military aid to the
country. "As the major supplier
of weapons to Israel, the USA has a particular obligation to stop any supply
that contributes to gross violations of the laws of war and of human rights.
The Obama Administration should immediately suspend US military aid to
Israel", said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s Middle East director. External link: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5792182.ece |