HRW: Israel Used Illegal and Experimental Weapons in Action on Gaza. Weapons Expert Analyzes the Evidence

Excerpt Haaretz report "Is Israel using illegal weapons in its offensive on Gaza?":

Last Saturday HRW hastened to publish a call to Israel to "stop unlawful use of white phosphorus in Gaza." The use of white phosphorus is permitted on the battlefield, explains Garlasco, but the side effects on humans and the environment are severe and highly dangerous. The statement notes that the "potential for harm to civilians is magnified by Gaza's high population density, among the highest in the world."

The fireworks-like explosions, the thick smoke, suffocating gas, and flames that are not extinguished by water, but rather are heightened by it - all of these are characteristic of the white phosphorus bombs the IDF is using. Garlasco believes the decision to make such extensive use of these bombs, manufactured by America's General Dynamics Corporation, stems from conclusions drawn from the Second Lebanon War, in which the IDF lost many tanks.

"The phosphorus bombs create a thick smokescreen and if Hamas has an anti-tank rocket, the smoke prevents the rocket from tracking the tank," he explains. There are two ways to use the bombs: The first is to impact them on the ground, in which case the resulting thick smokescreen covers a limited area; the second way is an airburst of a bomb, which contains 116 wafers doused in phosphorus. The moment the bomb blows up and the phosphorus comes in contact with oxygen - it ignites. This is what creates the "fireworks" and billows of jellyfish-shaped smoke. The fallout covers a wide area and the danger of fires and harm to civilians is enormous. The phosphorus burns glass, and immediately ignites paper, trees, wood - anything that is dry. The burning wafers causes terrible injury to anyone who comes in contact with them. The irony is that tear gas is included in the Chemical Weapons Convention and is subject to all kinds of restrictions, whereas phosphorus is not. 

So Israeli troops could have used WP in a safe way by deploying it one the ground to create smoke screens, but chose to use it in the much more dangerous method of shooting it into the sky to rain down on whomever.

 Gazans have noticed that there are bombs that produce mushroom clouds in various shades of red. Here, Garlasco admits, "I can only speculate. It looks like Israel is maybe using a new weapon that it was not using before: DIME - the dense inert metal explosive, consisting of 25 percent TNT and 75 percent tungsten, a heavy metal. You mix the two, in a fine grain, like pepper, and when the bomb hits the ground it aerosolizes. In less than a second, the mist dissipates and explodes."

He says the advantage of DIME is that "it strikes a very small area, 10 to 20 meters, and the fire it ignites burns out very quickly; if it hits us now, we will die, but no one around us will be hurt. The problem is that when you are killed - you are ripped to shreds and there is nothing left." Indeed, the injuries DIME causes are in general more severe than those caused by a "regular" bomb.

I read elsewhere that the radius of the DIME is 10 meters (c. 30 ft) s0 20 meters, (or 60 ft) is about the diameter of the blast actually.  Combined with the great power of the bomb and its toxic residue, in a crowded area like Gaza, this weapon is actually much worse than the report makes it seem.  If a person survives the horrendous wounds and immediate poisoning they usually develop cancer. 

Also see UK Independent " 'Tungsten bombs' leave Israel's victims with mystery wounds

The HRW expert also describes other criminal weapons used by Israel and Hamas, and tells the tale of a Gaza ambulance destroyed because the Israelis thought that the oxygen tanks inside were rockets.

tags: war crimes  dime weapons  gaza  israel  hrw  

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