So successful in Fallujah for clearing out those nasty Sunni insurgents in urban areas, that now the Israelis are reportedly using White Phosphorus rounds in Lebanon, with predictable results:
From Narharnet Newsdesk, an Arabic website:
President Emile Lahoud accused Israel on Sunday of using banned weapons against Lebanese civilians in its military offensive against the country.
Lahoud said Israeli forces have fired “phosphorus incendiary bombs, which are a blatant violation of international laws, …against Lebanese civilians.”
From Forbes.com:
Jawad Najem, a surgeon at the [Najem Hospital], said patients admitted Sunday had burns from phosphorous incendiary weapons used by Israel. The Geneva Conventions ban using white phosphorous as an incendiary weapon against civilian populations and in air attacks against military forces in civilian areas; Israel said its weapons comply with international law.
“Mahmoud Sarour, 14, was admitted to the hospital yesterday and treated for phosphorous burns to his face,” Najem said. Mahmoud’s 8-month-old sister, Maryam, suffered similar burns on her neck and hands when an Israeli rocket hit the family car.
The children were with their father, mother and other relatives when the car was hit by an Israeli missile. The father died instantly.
Please take notice of the official mealy-mouthed response from the Israelis: Israel said its weapons comply with international law. The same excuse we heard from American forces about their use of White Phosphorus in the attack on Fallujah, almost word for word. As Colman notes in The limits of western power, this is the inevitable result when your military values force protection (i.e., the lives of its own soldiers) over civilian casualties. White phosphorus is no doubt effective in clearing areas of possible enemy fighters and bringing them out into the open where they can be more easily slaughtered from a distance. It is also, and let’s not mince words here, a weapon of Terror.
First the Marines, and now the IDF. Both defending countries that are putatively democracies. And both which have now employed chemical terror weapons against innocent civilian populations.