Israel rains fire on Gaza with phosphorus shells

Source: London Times

Israel is believed to be using controversial white phosphorus shells to screen its assault on the heavily populated Gaza Strip yesterday. The weapon, used by British and US forces in Iraq, can cause horrific burns but is not illegal if used as a smokescreen.

As the Israeli army stormed to the edges of Gaza City and the Palestinian death toll topped 500, the tell-tale shells could be seen spreading tentacles of thick white smoke to cover the troops’ advance. “These explosions are fantastic looking, and produce a great deal of smoke that blinds the enemy so that our forces can move in,” said one Israeli security expert. Burning blobs of phosphorus would cause severe injuries to anyone caught beneath them and force would-be snipers or operators of remote-controlled booby traps to take cover. Israel admitted using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with Lebanon.

The use of the weapon in the Gaza Strip, one of the world’s mostly densely population areas, is likely to ignite yet more controversy over Israel’s offensive


Read more: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article5447590.ece

---

Fallujah redux.

My hope is that Israel is exiled from the international community, and treated as the Rogue state that it is. They deserve nothing less.

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Thanks!

GAZA CITY (CNN) -- Gaza's main hospital, already overloaded with Palestinians wounded in the week-long Israeli air assault, has reached critical mass, according to a Norwegian doctor volunteering at Shifa Hospital.

Word of health facilities being pushed to the limit came as Israel announced on Monday it was opening up border crossings to allow the flow of humanitarian goods into the Palestinian territory.

"The injured patients are mainly civilians, a lot of children with dreadful injuries," Dr. Erik Fosse told CNN on Monday, estimating that 20 percent of the more than 500 people dead were children.

"This figure is rising, and I think it has to do with the development of the war as it moves into the city," he added.

After a weeklong series of air strikes, Israel launched a ground assault Saturday night. Watch the latest on the Israeli offensive »

"We've had a steady stream (of patients) every day, but the last 24 hours has (seen) about triple the number of cases," Fosse said late Sunday.

Fosse said that he estimated that about 30 percent of the casualties at Shifa Hospital on Sunday were children, both among the dead and wounded. The increase in casualties at Shifa followed Israel's ground incursion into Gaza, which it launched on Saturday night. Fosse said 50 patients were "severely wounded" when an Israeli air strike hit a food market in Gaza City.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/01/05/gaza.humanitarian/

and be sure to maim and kill as many kids as possible, since they were the ones who voted for Hamas, right? :sarcasm:

US used white phosphorus in Iraq


-snip

BBC defence correspondent Paul Wood says having to retract its denial is a public relations disaster for the US.

-snip

White phosphorus is highly flammable and ignites on contact with oxygen. If the substance hits someone's body, it will burn until deprived of oxygen.

Globalsecurity.org, a defence website, says: "Phosphorus burns on the skin are deep and painful... These weapons are particularly nasty because white phosphorus continues to burn until it disappears... it could burn right down to the bone."

A spokesman at the UK Ministry of Defence said the use of white phosphorus was permitted in battle in cases where there were no civilians near the target area.

-snip

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4440664.stm

"... permitted in battle..."

What killers PERMITTED this?

Our enemy is the military. Which leaders believe they are so superior that they will get away with this?

Those who believe they are this superior cannot be human.

Blow em up. Burn em up. The new marching song.

we know that there are many civilians trapped there. I was appalled enough in 2005 when we learned of it's use in Fallujah, now we hear of it's use again. The world needs to take action against those who use it.

:mad:

coordinated outcry to the U.S., UK, Israel. They are showing democracy, justice, fairness? Just the opposite.

True colors? Military dictatorship. It's here and now and it's our leaders directing the military.

When will the Country I was born and raised in, and still try to love, have a Ghandi leading its affairs, and not someone with a poster of Ghandi <sigh>

but especially in heavily populated areas. The world has called for a cease fire, but because the US backs Israel 100%, Israel thumbs its nose at the world.

IOW, innocent until proven guilty. Novel concept around here or what?

--what is going in is not a "war" but a massacre perpetrated on the inhabitants of the world's largest outdoor prison camp.

Sorry, might as well get it right.

but Willy Peter has been the time honored nickname for White Phosphorous since World War I. :hi:

However, interestingly enough, but not very important, the last time our forces killed civilians with white phosphorous, in Baghdad 2002, it was universally referred to as Whiskey Pete by the US armed forces members, not that I care much about the naming, given the war crimes being the most egregious example of our side's disregard for civilian life.

I hope that the stuff will be forever banned, myself. I fired 5" WP shells from the frigate I was on in the Navy, and I can barely describe the effect they have even on a deserted beach. :scared:

It takes all the moisture out of the body and leaves behind a facsimile of the body in ash. Horrible.

we always called it "willie pete." Maybe the military pr guys were trying to make it sound less...frivolous...'cause as you know, there ain't nothin' frivolous about that stuff...especially the wwp version.

WP releases multitudes combustible shards that continues to individually burn until the process runs out of chemical reactants. :wow:



71st Evac Hosp-Pleiku, Vietnam - Stories

http://streeper.com/71st/stories/wp.asp

A Special Forces team was training Montagnard Spec Forces troops in the use of White Phosphorus ("Willie Pete") grenades. They were located at an outdoor class facility near their base camp. As the instructor, a SpecForces Master Sergeant (E-7) pulled the pin, he fumbled the grenade and dropped it. It rolled away from him and he chased it, screaming "Grenade", as he was trained to do. The students, also being well-trained, hit the deck, just as the grenade exploded, filling the air with the smoky trails of burning white phosphorus. Most of the blast was absorbed by the sergeant, as well as most of the WP. The blast knocked him onto his back. The front of his body was on fire, as the smell of burning flesh and the sound of screams filled the area.

Once there, we began removing each individual piece of phosphorus, while trying to keep all the others from burning deeper into his flesh. After several hours of this tedious work, we had the burning under control. The patient, however, had sustained terrible burn wounds to his face, throat and chest, with lesser wounds to his arms and legs. We smeared his burns with Sulfamylon cream, covering his whole body and moved him to post-op to see if he would stabilize. He died a couple of days later of Sulfamylon poisoning, as a complication of the treatment. Having all that copper sulfate and phosphorus in his system probably didn't help much, either. The bad thing about burns is that the smell stays with you for days afterward. All you can taste is burning flesh. The memories last even longer....burns are the most horrible of wounds, IMHO.

"believed to be" until samples are taken, yes. But we can goddamn see it in the air. A beheaded person is believed to be dead until its vitals are checked. Still, you can be fairly sure in your assumption that he is indeed dead.

Looks like pretty strong evidence. Or are we overlooking the iron-clad IOKBII defense to this crime against humanity?

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thugs and barbarians, oh hell no. Not anymore than the bush** admin were human rights violators and dispicable killer filth.

:sarcasm:

One of the most horrific weapons & used in an urban setting???

WAR CRIMES...But were waaay beyond that now aren't we?.

So, do you think the Hague should hold trials where Olmert, Barak, Livni, Netanyahu, Peres and many, many others are found guilty and hung? Or just imprisoned for life?

Captioned "The Israeli ground operation is being supported by intensive aerial, land and naval bombardment of Gaza."

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4766696

"A shell fired by the Israeli military explodes in the northern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Bernat Armangue/AP"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/04/israelandthepalestinians-middleeast

Phosphorus makes for some ugly pictures.

Israel really no longer has a defense any more than the United States does. These photos are just proof of how international law is viewed as applying only to the enemies of the United States and its allies. Not to the United States and its allies.

The United States has become the biggest threat to world peace. Along with its allies.

The world cries out for a Nuremberg. The United States made sure there would be no Nuremberg. And should the United Nations demand one, the United States will veto it.

The United States demanded democratic elections by the Palestinian people and when the Palestinians elected Hamas as their representatives in Tel Aviv, the United States responded with a "try again." That is what set this all off. Who are we to tell a people who they can and cannot elect?

:nuke: :patriot: :nuke:

what Israel is doing is a horrific war crime, sure, and rightly unforgivable, but 500 deaths is a minuscule number compared with the million and a half and counting on the hands of the US government and the good people of the world, for not trying hard enough to stop it. Sure, ten million in the streets on a single day in January 2003 should have caught their attention, but we should have overrun their blood-soaked institutions, clogged their tanks with flowers, and stripped all the genetically cursed soldiers naked so they could have sex without having to kill first. But sterilize them first. And sterilize anyone who finds a uniform sexy.

I love how the hawk Israelis use the logic "the US did it in Afghanistan and Fallujah, so it must be OK and how can anyone criticize us for the necessary carnage." (Yes, they use the word "carnage".)

I trust we've all seen the pictures of blackened, shriveled bodies of civilians hit with white phosphorus in Fallujah, paid for with our American tax dollars? If not, have a nice google.

Look, what makes us human is not some hallucinatory historical narrative, or the possession of some special entity floating around in our bodies. It's our trait of being able to extend sympathy infinitely, beyond self, family, clan, village, nation, species. The rest, even our intelligence, is minor in comparison, or dolphins and whales would rule.

The tragedy is we evolved too fast thanks to the power of our love, and brought along habits that might have worked at the ape level, like rewarding those who kill other apes outside the community by helping them make children, but which make no sense at all given what we have become as transcendent social animals.

As evolutionary biologists know it is very hard to break a sexual selection feedback loop absent external pressure, and "I love a man in a uniform" is just such a loop. We have to extend our sympathy to the point where militarism makes no sense, as John Lennon did by putting on that army jacket.

Maybe we should all start wearing our own military uniforms of different colors -- oh, the Beatles tried that too?

Funny how times like these help one grasp the symbolic points made in the 1960s.

Make love, not war.

Our tax dollars pay for horrible things, and this is one. Welcome! :hi:

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We have, indeed, failed our eyes. We knew what we were seeing in Fallujah and we know what we are seeing in Gaza. We were and are seeing crimes against humanity, which was one of the four indictments at Nuremberg. How sad that the state of Israel, which did not exist during the Nuremberg Trials (but was nevertheless so invested in those trials), has come to this. How sad that the US ignored the lessons of Viet Nam (especially the lessons of My Lai-4) when it scorched Fallujah. Are Israel and the US becoming Hostis humani generis (enemies of mankind)? Ask the shoe thrower in his cell in Baghdad.

Yep, that would be Israel. There's a long history here.

Shake and Bake is what the Marines who used WP in Fallujah jokingly called it back in 2004.

I noted back on July 26 2006 at my blog that the NYT had reported the IDF was using WP on Lebanese citzens during the "Summer War" of 2006.

http://imnotworthy.blogspot.com/2006/07/willy-pete-moves-to-lebanon.html

And also some other as of yet undisclosed anti-personnel weapon.

The NYT reported doctors at a hospital in Nabatiye, Lebanon, said of some victims of Israel's bombs that their skin "dissolved like wet paper when he began to stitch."

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/26/world/middleeast/26lebanon.html?_r=1&ref=middleeast

Now, what kind of chemical agent does that? I'm pretty sure it's not legal, but the "Mad Dog" cares little for the law, I guess.

Note today's NYT:

"One surgeon said that he had performed five amputations.

'I don’t know what kind of weapons Israel is using,' said a nurse, Ziad Abd al Jawwad, 41, who had been working 24 hours without a break. 'There is so much amputation.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/05/world/middleeast/05gaza.html?hp

More on the Marine's use of Mr. William Peter here:

1st Lt. Neil Prakash writes that on November 8th 2004:

"In preparation for the assault, artillery guns dropped white phosphorus or 'Willy Pete' on the city. The FA guys later told us this was the newest WP in the way it deployed. Whatever it was, it was incredible. As the rounds came in, they burst in the air several hundred feet above the ground. They streaked towards the ground in little spider trails burning bright orange. The WP hit the ground creating a thick white smoke screen but it still burned bright orange on the ground. This lit up the battlefield for the main effort, and created a smoke screen."

http://imnotworthy.blogspot.com/2005/04/meet-willy-pete.html

Dense Inert Metal Explosive bombs, IIRC. You might Google them to learn a bit more how they work. The IDF has used these weapons in the past, especially in the 2006 Second Lebanese War. They have an extremely small explosive radius (for a bomb, anyway) but more or less disintegrate anything within that explosive radius.

  Surivivors who happen to have any shrapnel are poisoned by the metal used.

PB

Instead of aerial burst, they fired the rounds into closed spaces where there were fighters.

By the time the aerial burst fragments hit ground level, they're likely to be small. If they hit you, it'll hurt, but probably not kill or maim. They'll look larger simply because they burn brightly. I think it would make a fairly bad weapon against fighters used that way.

When a WP explodes in a room, it plasters those in the room with WP fragments. That's meant to kill and maim, simply because the WP combusts fairly quickly upon exposure to oxygen. If you had Pam, you could just spray yourself to solve the problem, at least temporary. WP is usually stored under something like oil since it floats in water.

The phosphorus oxide that's produced isn't all that pleasant, either, if it gets in your eyes. It produces an acid. I don't think it's a particularly strong acid, but it's supposed to be unpleasant and you'd need to wash your eyes if you were in it for very long. Fortunately, human bodies deal with acids better than with bases; such is the nature of the buffering system we come with as factory standard.

On edit: They deployed it both ways, but the problematic way was as an antipersonnel weapon. Its use as a smoke screen's been around for a while, however it's deployed. Since then, people and the media seem to have stopped distinguishing between the various uses.

You wrote:

"Instead of aerial burst, they fired the rounds into closed spaces where there were fighters."

Shake and bake, riiiight!

1st Lt. Neil Prakash writes that on November 8th 2004:

"In preparation for the assault, artillery guns dropped white phosphorus or 'Willy Pete' on the city. The FA guys later told us this was the newest WP in the way it deployed. Whatever it was, it was incredible. As the rounds came in, they burst in the air several hundred feet above the ground. They streaked towards the ground in little spider trails burning bright orange. The WP hit the ground creating a thick white smoke screen but it still burned bright orange on the ground. This lit up the battlefield for the main effort, and created a smoke screen."

What part of that didn't you understand?

You write:

"When a WP explodes in a room, it plasters those in the room with WP fragments. That's meant to kill and maim, simply because the WP combusts fairly quickly upon exposure to oxygen. If you had Pam, you could just spray yourself to solve the problem, at least temporary."

And then you would die? Very reassuring.

(BTW, you say "explodes in a room." How does that happen exactly? These things are shot out of artillary pieces. Just wondering . . .)

And who the hell had Pam in Fallujah or has it now in Gaza? Should the IDF have dropped some leaflets beforehand to let everyone know to stock up? Seriously!

You write:

"By the time the aerial burst fragments hit ground level, they're likely to be small. If they hit you, it'll hurt, but probably not kill or maim."

Have you ever been in that situation? You know that for a fact?

I talked to a guy I worked with in Arlington, Va, even before Fallujah, about WP. He had been in the initial invasion in 2003, he was in a NG-MP unit, and he had actually seen WP in use.

He told me that once the stuff gets on your skin, 'it never stops burning' (his words). He was 22 at the time and he thought it was awesome! How did he know about his stuff even before Fallujah? Maybe, because we were using it on a regular basis to begin with?

Don't give us this soft soap crap about the benign uses of WP. This is a lethal weapon, a "safer" version of napalm, meant to skirt the Geneva Conventions, the ban inspired by the use of the very same stuff in WWII by the Nazis, BTW.

What the the hell are you trying to kid?



http://www.democracynow.org/2005/11/8/u_s_broadcast_exclusive_fallujah_the

Should have had Pam on hand! Your bad!

(edit for spelling)

I am ashamed of our enabling, it sickens me to no end.

More Birthpangs for the Middle East and yet more "sustainable ceasefires." By "sustainable" she really means there isn't anyone left alive to fight back. (edit for spelling)

I noted at my blog back in August of '07:

"(Judith) Warner quotes a very revealing passage from a biography of Rice called 'Twice as Good,' in which, Rice in her late teens after many years of 'assiduous and ambitious practice,' washes out of concert piano school. It seems Rice's teacher felt she lacked the 'interest or inclination' to 'make someone else's thoughts or emotions own.' I don't know about you, but that sounds like we're getting into sociopath territory to me.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E2DC163AF937A15754C0A9619C8B63

Definition: Antisocial Personality Disorder is chronic, beginning in adolescence and continuing throughout adulthood. There are ten general symptoms: Not learning from experience, no sense of responsibility, inability to form meaningful relationships, inability to control impulses, lack of moral sense, chronically antisocial behavior, no change in behavior after punishment, emotional immaturity lack of guilt, self-centeredness."

http://imnotworthy.blogspot.com/2007/08/what-is-deal-with-condi-rice.html

I guess, that could go for W., as well.

...to allow any country to do this...is just abhorrent.

Our country should be trying to broker peace. Or at the very least, they should not be justifying and
encouraging the murder of children who are slowly burned alive before they die.

That's what Bush and the rest of the neocons are doing...in our name.

Why aren't more countries speaking out against this atrocity?

.....there are commentators on this fucked up mess. This at this point has to be the Obama administrations first foreign policy thing. I would hope that he (and Hillary) will take a tough tact on Israel putting pressure on them to settle this mess quickly and fairly with the Palestinians. If they don't want to "play", then fuck them. Cut off military aid and ALL financial aid to Israel. Time to play hard ball, not that sissy stuff the Bush admin has been doing (which is nothing).

That there were no calls in the Arab world for Palestinian independence when they were ruled by Jordan. What ever happened to Transjordan?

Should Obama declare war on Israel? Not sissy stuff.

It will kill and maim many children.

Democracy Now: May 20 2008

"Representatives of more than 100 governments are gathering in Dublin, Ireland for two weeks of talks aimed at finalizing a global treaty to ban the use of cluster bombs. But the United States, historically the world’s largest producer, stockpiler, and user of cluster bombs, won’t be at the negotiations. Other major producers of cluster bombs—Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan—also stayed away from the talks.

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/20/us_skips_international_conference_to_ban

We're in good company.

From Haaretz: 12/9/06

'What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs,' the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.

Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.

In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/761781.html

Remebmer, those last 10 days the US was frantically shipping weapons to Israel because they had run out.

Truthout:

"The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.

The munitions that the United States is sending to Israel are part of a multimillion-dollar arms sale package approved last year that Israel is able to draw on as needed, the officials said. But Israel's request for expedited delivery of the satellite and laser-guided bombs was described as unusual by some military officers, and as an indication that Israel still had a long list of targets in Lebanon to strike."

http://www.truthout.org/article/bush-admin-rushing-more-bombs-israel

So are high explosives and lead bullets. All of which will kill innocent civilians and children. The weapon doesn't matter so much here, as the willingness to use large volumes of it in a densely packed civilian area, where civilians were not even allowed to flee before the fighting.

The only way to save any lives at all, will be to halt the offensive. Ceasing the use of White Phosphor will not save lives on it's own.

get a pass on acts that would get any other country in the middle east the smack down so fast their whole population would be spinning?

eom

Some for food thought. I wrote this a couple of years ago, but it's always current:

"This is a pretty crazy neighborhood we're dealing with and we're already way over our heads in Iraq. Obviously, Ahmadinejad is as batty as they come, but Israel also has a few nuts of its own. The reason the Israelis see a nuclear Iran as such a dire threat is that they see there's little chance that any attack on Iran, even a nuclear one, would wipe that country off the face of the map. However, Israel could very easily be wiped off the map, hence the understandable fear of nukes in the hands of the Mullahs.

In his excellent book 'The Gun and the Olive Branch,' David Hersh quotes Hebrew University's professor Martin van Creveld and his pessimistic appraisal of Israel's potential reaction to another existential threat, at the time the second Intifada. If Israel were going to be destroyed by the terrorists, there was only one thing to do:

'We possess several hundred atomic warheads and rockets and can launch them at targets in all directions, perhaps even at Rome. Most European capitals are targets for our air force...Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: 'Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother.' Our armed forces...are not the thirtieth strongest in the world, but rather the second or third. We have the capability to take the world down with us. And I can assure you that will happen, before Israel goes under.'

Of course, he was hoping this would never happen...unlike Ephraim Kison. Kison wrote in the Jerusalem Post on April 26, 1975 that Israel needed the bomb because it could never win an arms race with all its Arab neighbors. Such a race, therefore, even with U.S. money and arms, was ultimately self-defeating:

'Our one and only alternative to our gradual destruction by arms race is to develop a nuclear deterrent of our own. It's our single chance for telling our enemies and our one friend: that's it, we're not playing anymore....Sooner or later we'll have to say it out loud. Sooner or later we'll have to announce: if any Arab army crosses this green line, we reserve the right to use atomic weapons, and if he crosses the red line, we'll drop the bomb automatically, even if this whole country is blown up by nuclear retaliation. You don't believe it? Try us!"

http://imnotworthy.blogspot.com/2006/04/israel-must-be-like-mad-dog-too.html

Now how's that for nuttiness? Note the line "and our one friend." Blackmail anyone?

Like right now.

  It really, genuinely, doesn't get much more complex than that. Who does the smacking down? The United States. Who does the veto-ing to prevent the security council resolutions against Israel? The United States.

  Why is this situation like this? Now that's a complex answer but even it has only a finite number of causes.

PB

So much so that some days, it's hard to say for sure who is the master and who the lackey.

Phosphorus shells? Shit, just as bad. :(

I thought its use was an obscenity when we used it in Iraq -- I don't think any differantly when its's Israel using it. :mad:

now confirmed

:thumbsdown:

America and Israel are the worlds most dangerous terroist nations. Iran couldnt come close to the devastation, ruin and carnage America and Israel have brought to Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Gaza. And all with our hard earned tax dollars. This insanity really should be stopped and we the people are the only ones who can stop it. Anyone who thinks Obama is going to change the tune we sweetly sing in Israel's ear has not been payin attention. Nothing will change until WE THE PEOPLE stand up and demand an end to the killing, maiming and torture in our name and with our hard earned money!

peace

EF

just using smoke to obscure the vision is unfair in that it prevents the Palestinian resistance from defending themselves.

out the entire population of Gaza. What would anyone do to stop them?

but the upside is the end of timers/rapture people would be happy

So I wouldn't put it past them to lob some nukes around Gaza, kill a bunch of people, Palestinian and Israeli, and call it a success. :eyes:

Are they using napalm for signal flares?

The dispersal pattern sure as hell doesn't look like an attempt at a smoker. Looks to me like it was meant to spray a heavily populated area with one of the most horrific substances used in warfare to date. FUBAR.

How the hell can this not be against international law?

It is a war crime to use WP for anything other than illumination and anywhere other than a non-civilian area.

They are claiming using rounds like that constitutes fair use under the 'smoke' provision. I disagree. Perhaps someone with a bit more expertise in these weapons could weigh in?

Go call an "international lawyer" and trying holding the fascist/criminal U.S. regime accountable. The U.S. is a criminal country, law went out the window years ago.

areas, too, right?

Or are they only able to magically transform Palestinian areas into combat zones?

And so if the areas they attacked became war zones, why is anyone upset? War is conducted in war zones, correct?

And so why is there any beef with Hamas if they are only fighting in war zones?

That's your logic.....

Israel doesn't fight from those schools and hospitals, they don't hide munitions there or launch rockets from there. At most they'll have some armed guards. They are civilian, thus are supposed to have some protection -- not that Hamas would care.

When you move your troops into civilian areas to be a base for the launching of attacks, when you put your rockets in the playgrounds of schools, you make those places legitimate targets.

It depends on the design of the bomb and the height of the burst.

But WP makes the absolute best instant smoke screen possible, which is probably why Israel is using it.

The IDF get a "two-fer"

1) Physical Carnage;

2) Psychological Warfare on those left alive not unlike Napalm.

http://www.teachpeace.com/movies2all.htm

When it is used for smoke. It's a primary effect when it's deployed as an incendiary.

It is also not an illegal weapon. Its use is restricted though.

And I would bet anything, with Bush's approval.

I knew there would be more bombs before Bush left Washington. And I was betting it would come in the form of a proxy kind of situation.

Yet more disaster to with which to tie the Democrats hands. In other words, another trifecta.

I want to see the communications the Bush administration has had with Israel in the leadup to this violence.

Am I all wet here? Is this not what we should be thinking?

Like it or not, the policy of both parties is to "never put into question" Israel's acts of "defense," as Hillary Clinton stated.

...military have become monsters

And I hear they eat Blonde babies for breakfast

At least Israel's actions have gotten the international community's attention.

The Geneva Convention prohibits the use of WP purposely against civilians or civilian targets like hospitals and schools.

But by using human shields Hamas legitimizes the use of WP under international law.

Have a link for that OBSCENE conclusion?

Chemical Weapons Convention, Its toxic properties are secondary as a smoke device, so it doesn't fall under that.

Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons: Incendiary Weapons. Again, incendiary is secondary.

Geneva Convention: Deals with attacks in civilian areas in general

Even then, the treaties are only binding on the signatories.

For this use it is a smoke screen. Its use as an incendiary is covered.

That leaves the issue of civilian populations. This is covered by the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory. First of all there's this:

"Although one of the Powers in conflict may not be a party to the present Convention, the Powers who are parties thereto shall remain bound by it in their mutual relations. They shall furthermore be bound by the Convention in relation to the said Power, if the latter accepts and applies the provisions thereof."

That Palestine is a signatory is questionable. They once delivered a letter of intent to comply, but its legal authority is not sure. Besides, they have definitely neither accepted nor applied the provisions as evidenced by constantly targeting missiles at purely civilian areas and operating from protected areas. Therefore, Israel is most likely not even bound by the Convention in this conflict.

Also:

"Art. 4. ... Nationals of a State which is not bound by the Convention are not protected by it. "

But let's say Israel is acting as if it were bound. This covers Hamas using hospitals for military purposes:

"Art. 19. The protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease unless they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after due warning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases, a reasonable time limit and after such warning has remained unheeded."

Israel has warned them many times against using human shields. They even plaster the area with leaflets telling the civilians to stay away from terror cells. Any hospital or indeed any designated protected zone (schools, mosques) is fair game as soon as Hamas fighters enter it.

Then we have this:

"Art. 28. The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations."

A "protected person" is a non-combatant. Israel is clear as long as it does not purposely target civilians when there is no intermingled military objective.

no matter what they may claim.

How can the IDF sacrifice the lives of innocent women and children via chemicals to protect their own troops? This is not war. In war, soldiers fight soldiers. This is slaughter.

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They learn fast. :puke:

Israel used them in 06 also and nothing happened by way of sanctions or anything else for that matter. No reason they would not use them again... I would never say that a people do not have a right to defend themselves and Israel does but proportionality is the key to coming out on the side of any conflict with any legitimacy.

It has gone wayyy beyond "defending themselves."

Terrorism. Barbarism. Pure and simple.

:grr:

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Started lobbing rockets at LA ? Attack Canada ....

My husband is watching the news, and, OMG.

Google for it, check out local peace websites. if you don't find one.. go in front of one of the local networks and protest during rush hour.
call your Reps and also local news station every single day.

The Israeli Government is being heavyhanded. It is such a shame that so many civilians are being killed by the Israeli actions.

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