Region | Palestinian Territories
Arabs urged to take issue to special UN court
Rights Watch to continue to embarrass Israel through media until it stops targeting civilians with banned weapons.
- By Jumana Al Tamimi, Associate Editor
- Published: 23:31 January 12, 2009
Dubai: Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has announced that Israel is using white phosphorus in its war on Gaza, said yesterday it will maintain pressure on the Jewish state through the media until it stops targeting civilians with banned weapons.
International law experts, meanwhile, called on Arab governments to take the issue to one of several special UN courts.
"There are 68 international courts, some of which are specialised in certain aspects of jurisprudence," Jordanian International law professor Gassan Jundi said.
"What Israel is committing is more than war crimes. They are crimes against humanity. It is genocide," Jundi told Gulf News.
More than 900 Palestinians have been killed and 4,000 injured in the attacks.
Scores of causalities, according to medical sources in Gaza, were inflicted by what are believed to be phosphorus shells fired by Israel on civilian areas.
Trails of burning smoke
Human Rights Watch called on Israel on Sunday to stop using the unlawful white phosphorus in military operations in densely populated areas of Gaza.
Researchers at the New-York based human rights watchdog said they witnessed hours of artillery bombardments on Friday and Saturday from Israel's border in which shells burst over the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza, sending out trails of burning smoke that indicate the shells contained white phosphorus.
An Israeli spokesman was yesterday denied Human Rights Watch allegations of multiple use of white phosphorus.
"I might say I am a little bit surprised," HRW senior military expert Marc Garlasco said. "That they would deny using something that everybody can stand there and see."
When Garlasco raised the issue with the concerned Israeli authorities, "they said they don't discuss the types of weapons they are using in combat," he told Gulf News.
International law permits the use of white phosphorus in order to cover troop movements, but its use against civilian targets is prohibited, noted experts. It can cause serious burns if it touches the skin and can spark fires on the ground.
Garlasco said Israel used white phosphorus in its war with Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006.
Moreover, the US used these munitions in a 2004 operation against insurgents in the Iraqi city of Fallujah.
HRW's four-member team headed by Garlasco went to occupied Jerusalem a week ago, and planned to stay until they gained access to Gaza.
As they are outside Gaza, they can not provide 100 per cent proof that Israel is using prohibited weapons, Garlasco said.
"We can only make public calls for them to stop. At this point we are not able to do anything more. And again we are only a human rights organisation, we don't have any power except to embarrass them."
"We are not the UN, not that they even listen to the world body. Still we can only continue to pressure them through the media and the public, and hope that this pressure at some point will make things change," he said.
Your comments
URGING !....after 2 weeks and 900 dead...what makes them to react?
Ghulam
Dubai,UAE
Posted: January 13, 2009, 13:45
using white phosphorus on civilian is a cruelty by Israel.It's existence would be always a threat for the whole world.It must be disposed off forever.
Shaikh Mohammad Ayyub
Dubai,UAE
Posted: January 13, 2009, 09:49
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