After a much needed break yesterday, I return to this news:
The Israeli army dropped phosphorous bombs against Hizbollah guerrilla targets in Lebanon during the war in August, an Israeli minister said yesterday, confirming Lebanese allegations for the first time.
Phosphorus weapons can cause severe burns and are banned for use in civilian areas, but Israel insisted it used the weapons in accordance with international law. “The Israeli army made use of phosphorous shells during the war against Hizbollah in attacks against military targets in open ground,” Cabinet Minister Yaakov Edri said.
I posted about complaints that some weapons were being used in Gaza were leaving injuries that had eerie similarities to Phosphorus weapons. As this article points out, these weapons are very nasty:
Israel has been accused of firing up to four million cluster bombs into Lebanon during the war, especially in the hours before the ceasefire. UN experts say up to one million cluster bombs failed to explode immediately and continue to threaten civilians.
The UN Mine Action Centre says at least 21 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded by cluster bombs since the end of the war. A cluster bomb killed a 12-year-old boy and injured his brother in southern Lebanon yesterday.
So did Israel break international law by using these weapons in civilian areas? I believe the UN should investigate that and if it is the case all the people who rallied behind Israel’s “success” need to ask themselves how successful they really were. If it took Israel breaking international law and resorting to something so horrible then they did not become victors, they became terrorists. We must also wonder where Israel got these weapons. We are aware of one other country that has used them recently – ours.