Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions in its military operations in Gaza and Lebanon, saying the use of such weapons puts civilians at risk of serious and long-term injury.
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 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.