International Red Cross: 'IDF white phosphorus use not illegal'

‘IDF white phosphorus use not illegal’

Shove it, Al Jizz!

* Al Jizz is making the fanatical Arabs even more hysterical with  cooked reports by  Norwegian witch doctors Mad Maads & Eric Fosse, both rabid Marxists and anti-Semites, featured here previously with “wading in blood” stories…

By ASSOCIATED PRESS GENEVA

The International Red Cross said Tuesday that Israel has fired white 
phosphorus shells in its offensive in the Gaza Strip, but has no evidence to 
suggest it is being used improperly or illegally.

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The comments came after a human rights organization accused the Jewish state 
of using the incendiary agent, which ignites when it strikes the skin and 
burns straight through or until it is cut off from oxygen. It can cause 
horrific injuries.

The International Committee of the Red Cross urged Israel to exercise 
“extreme caution” in using the incendiary agent, which is used to illuminate 
targets at night or create a smoke screen for day attacks, said Peter Herby, 
the head of the organization’s mines-arms unit.

“In some of the strikes in Gaza it’s pretty clear that phosphorus was used,” 
Herby told The Associated Press. “But it’s not very unusual to use 
phosphorus to create smoke or illuminate a target. We have no evidence to 
suggest it’s being used in any other way.”

In response, the IDF said Tuesday that it “wishes to reiterate that it uses 
weapons in compliance with international law, while strictly observing that 
they be used in accordance with the type of combat and its characteristics.”

Herby said that using phosphorus to illuminate a target or create smoke is 
legitimate under international law, and that there was no evidence the 
Jewish state was intentionally using phosphorus in a questionable way, such 
as burning down buildings or knowingly putting civilians at risk.

However, Herby said evidence is still limited because of the difficulties of 
gaining access to Gaza, where Palestinian health officials say more than 900 
people have been killed and 4,250 wounded since Israel launched its 
offensive late last month. The operation aims to halt years of Palestinian 
rocket attacks over the border.

Human Rights Watch accused Israel of firing phosphorous shells and warned of 
the possibilities of extreme fire and civilian injuries. The chemical was 
suspected in the cases of 10 burn victims who had skin peeling off their 
faces and bodies.

White phosphorus is not considered a chemical weapon.

Law professor: Hamas is a war crimes ‘case study’

Haviv Rettig Gur , THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 13, 2009

The fighting tactics and ideology of Hamas are a “case study par excellence” 
of a systematic violation of international humanitarian law, according to a 
leading expert in international law who visited the Gaza periphery region on 
Tuesday.

There is “almost no comparable example” anywhere in today’s world of a group 
that so systematically violates international agreements related to armed 
conflict, Irwin Cotler – a former Canadian justice minister, MP and law 
professor at Montreal’s McGill University – told The Jerusalem Post on 
Tuesday.
Hamas is committing at least six violations of international law, Cotler 
explained.

“First, the deliberate targeting of civilians is in and of itself a war 
crime,” he noted, referring to the Hamas rockets fired at southern towns for 
eight years.

“A second war crime is when Hamas attacks [from within] civilian areas and 
civilian structures, whether it be an apartment building, a mosque or a 
hospital, in order to be immune from a response from Israel,” he went on. 
“Civilians are protected persons, and civilian areas are protected areas. 
Any use of a civilian infrastructure to launch bombs is itself a war crime.”

That Hamas bears legal responsibility for the harm to civilians in areas 
from which it fires is enshrined throughout international law, he said: “In 
the general principles of customs binding on nations, in the specific 
international law of armed conflict [also called] international humanitarian 
law, in the Fourth Geneva Convention, in decisions of the International 
Court of Justice and the international criminal tribunals for the former 
Yugoslavia and Rwanda – it’s all set out there.”

Third, he explained, “the misuse and abuse of humanitarian symbols for 
purposes of launching attacks is called the perfidy principle. For example, 
using an ambulance to transport fighters or weapons or disguising oneself as 
a doctor in a hospital, or using a UN logo or flag, are war crimes.”

The fourth violation, “of which little has been made, is the prohibition in 
the Fourth Geneva Convention and international jurisprudence against the 
direct and public incitement to genocide. The Hamas covenant itself is a 
standing incitement to genocide. [Similarly,] just before this fighting 
started, I saw Hamas leaders on television referring to Israel and Jews as 
the sons of apes and pigs.”

The fifth crime relates to the scope of the attack on civilians, which 
upgrades the violation to a crime against humanity. According to Cotler, 
“when you deliberately hit civilians not infrequently but in a systematic, 
widespread attack, that’s defined in the treaty of the International 
Criminal Court and international humanitarian law as a crime against 
humanity.”

The final war crime for which Hamas is responsible is the recruitment of 
children into armed conflict.

“Hamas is a case study of each of these six categories of war crime,” said 
Cotler. Unfortunately, the international community “has been minimizing the 
manner in which Hamas has engaged in consistent mass-violation of 
international humanitarian law.”

Cotler said specifically delineating Hamas’s violations was important in 
that it would place the onus of responsibility for the civilian tragedy in 
Gaza on the proper party.

“The consequences [of the fighting] are tragic in human terms,” he said. 
“Clearly what is happening in Gaza is a tragedy. But there has to be moral 
and legal clarity as to responsibility. When Israel responds and civilians 
are killed because Israel is targeting an area from which rockets were 
launched, then it is Hamas which bears responsibility for the deaths, and 
not Israel, according to international law.”