Friday, April 26, 2013

 

Israel to stop using white phosphorus for smokescreens or... Pass the Red Line?


It was a war crime for Israel to use white phosphorus during its 2008-2009 fighting in Gaza, a rights group alleges. 


The munitions will be replaced in about a year.



JERUSALEM — Israel said Friday it was phasing out white phosphorus smokescreen munitions whose use during its 2008-2009 offensive in the heavily populated Gaza Strip drew war crimes allegations.

Announcing the plan, the Israeli military did not say whether it would also review its use of weaponized white phosphorus, which is designed to incinerate enemy positions.

While legal when fired to mask troop movements on battlefields, white phosphorus smokescreens produce embers and ash that can burn — a risk in urban areas.

The New York-based watchdog group Human Rights Watch said in a 2009 report that Palestinian civilians "needlessly suffered and died" due to Israel's use of the munitions in Gaza.

"Israel's repeated firing of white phosphorus shells over densely populated areas of Gaza during its recent military campaign was indiscriminate and is evidence of war crimes," the group said.

Israel said its military's conduct in Gaza was lawful, though two senior army officers were eventually reprimanded for a strike near a U.N. compound that involved smokescreen shells.

Such shells "are to be removed from active duty soon" and replaced by Israeli-developed alternatives to white phosphorus "based completely on gas" around a year from now, the military statement said Friday, without giving details.

During the Gaza fighting, Israel said troops also fired mortar rounds with white phosphorus warheads to clear brush around trenches used by Palestinian gunmen.


Date
Labels: , , ,
Tags : , , ,

Share

Social

The idea behind the text.
Respect for the truth is almost the basis of all morality.
Nothing can come from nothing.



Popular Topics

Read

Well, the way they make shows is, they make one show. That show's called a pilot. Then they show that show to the people who make shows, and on the strength of that one show they decide if they're going to make more shows.

Like you, I used to think the world was this great place where everybody lived by the same standards I did, then some kid with a nail showed me I was living in his world, a world where chaos rules not order, a world where righteousness is not rewarded. That's Cesar's world, and if you're not willing to play by his rules, then you're gonna have to pay the price.

You think water moves fast? You should see ice. It moves like it has a mind. Like it knows it killed the world once and got a taste for murder. After the avalanche, it took us a week to climb out. Now, I don't know exactly when we turned on each other, but I know that seven of us survived the slide... and only five made it out. Now we took an oath, that I'm breaking now. We said we'd say it was the snow that killed the other two, but it wasn't. Nature is lethal but it doesn't hold a candle to man.

You see? It's curious. Ted did figure it out - time travel. And when we get back, we gonna tell everyone. How it's possible, how it's done, what the dangers are. But then why fifty years in the future when the spacecraft encounters a black hole does the computer call it an 'unknown entry event'? Why don't they know? If they don't know, that means we never told anyone. And if we never told anyone it means we never made it back. Hence we die down here. Just as a matter of deductive logic.