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Israel: White Phosphorus Used in Gaza, Lebanon
(www.reuters.com)
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this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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They probably used it, in 2013 Israel said they would phase out the use of WP but is not clear when this project would finish, also WP was used in literally every conflict before this by Israel. It is also important to note that WP is not forbidden by international law, but only close to civilians.
IMO is obvious that Israel would use this kind of weapon, IDK why ppl are so impressed. They are using the same tactics used by Russia of trying cut supply of food, fuel and water supplies in order to destroy the morality of everyone there.
And this is why I hate, while sharing all the beliefs of the discourse, USA and and west Europe, because what they say publicly does not match what they do.
At least China say openly that they want to protect their stuff, even when their stuff is not exactly their. USA and west Europe, in other hand, claim a moral superiority to their decisions while justify killing civilians with the Hammas violence, if you call it out they complain about whataboutism, dude, they are ignoring international law.
But isn't basically everywhere in Gaza close to civilians? Gaza city has about the same population density as Boston.
Yes it is, I'm not saying the opposite, it was just a fact I found interesting to share.
Pro tip: you can't head off claims of whataboutism my preemptively trivializing them. It doesn't work that way.
WP is forbidden as an incendiary weapon, not as a smoke screen or for illumination. I know the distinction seems silly, but there are actually no WP incendiary weapons in NATO inventories anymore. I don't know about Israel, but I assume the same is true since they have a lot of the same supply chains.
There is a pretty big functional difference though. WP incendiary rounds are basically cluster munitions intended to contain a solid chunk of relatively slow burning WP so that it can settle on objects and remain in contact for an extended period while it burns. This is why it's such a horrific weapon - because it will literally burn through roofs and people and keep burning.
WP smoke and illumination rounds can obviously light fires as well, but they are intended to burn much quicker to produce greater volumes of smoke and light. While you definitely don't want to get a coating of burning WP powder on your roof, it's much less dangerous than a golfball sized sub muntion which will spend a solid 10 minutes at 3000F.
None of the alleged videos of Israel using WP show incendiary rounds IMO. They are all illumination rounds. Though they do often seem to be deployed in a way which is more likely to make fires. Russia does the same thing. They use illumination rounds in a direct fire capacity to blind and discombobulate. This is still probably a war crime.
WP with a design meant to create shrapnel is absolutely banned. The only legal Phosphorus rounds are ones that have a small bursting charge after striking the ground.