…even as an accessory?
Did the US (via Bush) tacitly or even by verbal understanding give Israel the go ahead to use phosphorous bombs, flechette bombs, and DIME munitions, all manufactured in the US, licensed to Israel, and provided free, on the Gaza population?
The answer to this question could give rise to US culpability for Gaza war crimes. As far as anyone is aware, US officials never denied Israel permission or criticized its use of these weapons against civilian targets, either in Gaza or Lebanon earlier. What use are such weapons in Israel’s conflicts against Lebanese (Hezbollah) or Gaza militants (Hamas)? Previous military invasions by Israel routinely ended in the massacre of mostly innocent civilians (e.g., Lebanon, Gaza, 2006, before Gaza, 2009).
Earlier last year, Amnesty International reported that Gaza white phosphorus shells were US made (as were the flechette bombs and DIME munitions employed).
White phosphorus bombs used by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip were produced and supplied by American arms manufacturers…(snip)
“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…(snip)
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.
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.
So don’t ask how 1,400 Palestinians died during the Gaza massacre.
Half way through the massacre, Marjorie Cohn (Huffington Post) wrote, not only about Kadima party’s motivation, of not looking “soft” on the Palestinians during the Israeli election (hence Barak’s act of breaking the ceasefire), but also America’s obligations according to its own laws on the use of US exported weapons, especially the use of weapons against civilian populations.
Israel would be unable to carry out its aggressive policies in Gaza without the support of the United States, which gives Israel $3 billion in U.S. taxpayer money each year. The F-16 bombers and Apache attack helicopters Israel is using on Gaza were bought with U.S. money.
The war on Gaza also violates U.S. law. The Human Rights and Security Assistance Act mandates that the United States cease all military aid to Israel, which has engaged in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights. The Arms Export Control Act prohibits U.S. weapons from being used for any purpose other than inside the borders of a country for self-defense. Targeting schools, police stations and television broadcast centers is not self-defense.
Here’s just one story about the devastation wrought by a phosphorous bomb that landed on the home of just one Palestinian family, Al Jezeera reporting:
Gazan mother tells of white phosphorus pain
Phosphorus ignites in oxygen at temperatures of more than 30C. It is almost impossible to put out and, if it comes into contact with human flesh, can burn to the bone.
Sabah Abu Halima who lost her husband and four of her children during Israel’s war on Gaza, recalls the day it fell on her home. Here’s her story.
Sabah Abu Halima has weekly physiotherapy sessions and regular visits to the Shiba hospital for treatment on her injuries from white phosphorus sustained during the war.
“I was burnt from head to toe, my face, my legs, my back were burnt,” she says. “I am still in pain, I have not recovered yet, I massage my arm where they operated it on it but it’s still stiff. “I can’t even pick up a cup of tea now, my life will never be the same.” (snip) “Everything has changed,” Sabah says. “I feel lost I don’t know where to go my house is destroyed my husband has died my children have died all the happiness is gone, I am miserable.”
In the same report, it was announced that Israel’s cabinet was considering how to protect its soldiers from international prosecution for alleged war crimes in Gaza.
Here’s another report from an Eygptian hospital that took in many phosphorous bomb victims:
More than 1,300 Palestinians were killed during Israel’s three week offensive, many of them women and children. Al Jazeera’s Amr El-Kahky has been to a hospital in Egypt, where doctors claim the wounds they are treating may have been caused by the use of white phosphorus.
This video contains images that may disturb or offend some viewers.
In the same vein, Jordanian doctors returning from Gaza reported:
90% of injuries from phosphorus bombs.
Jordanian medical team that returned from the Gaza Strip told a press conference in Amman on Tuesday that 90% of injuries suffered by Palestinians in the Israeli occupation forces’ aggression were from the white phosphorus bombs. Members of the team said that the IOF used internationally banned weapons in the war on Gaza, which earned Israeli leaders a deserved international arbitration for “war crimes”.
Norwegian medical experts, who previously worked in Afghanistan and Lebanon and finally in Gaza, asserted that the injuries were the result of non-conventional, internationally banned weapons, the Jordanian doctors underlined.
So Israel did not commit war crimes? And America?
