Evidence in Gaza proves that Israel Violates International Law

Although the war was still occurring, it was a fairly normal day for Sabah Abu Halima and her matriarch of a farming family in northern Gaza. But that day soon turned into a nightmare when her house was hit by an Israeli shell.

Abu Halima describes what happened next as an unspeakable inferno that killed her husband and four of their nine children.

Laying at Shifa Hospital with severe burns, Abu Halima says that when her family was hit "fire came from the body of my husband and my children. The children were screaming, 'fire, fire,' and there was smoke everywhere and a horrible, suffocating smell. My 14-year-old cried out, 'I'm going to die. I want to pray.' I saw my daughter-in-law melt away."

But it’s not the scale of her loss that has caught the attention of international human rights organizations. All evidence gathered so far is leading investigators to believe that Abu Halima’s family was hit by an Israeli phosphorus shell, which violates international law and is considered a war crime.

The use of prosperous shells violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life."

The Israeli military spokesman said on Tuesday January, 13 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." Due to mounting international pressure, on January 21, Israel finally admitted that they might have used phosphorous shells.

Amnesty International is helping to prove it. Amnesty International said it found "indisputable evidence of widespread use of white phosphorus in densely populated residential areas in Gaza City and in the north" and that streets and alleyways were “littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli army."

Israeli soldiers are caught on camera preparing white phosphorus 155mm artillery shells (light green) as troops keep position on the Israel-Gaza border. Photograph: Jack Guez/AFP/Getty Images

Dr. Nafez Abu Shaban, head of Shifa's burn unit, adds to Amnesty Internaional’s evidence and said the burns he treated on the Abu Halima family were one’s he had never seen before, reaching to the bone and muscle.

"They were deeper and wider than anything I had seen, a bad odor came from the wounds and smoke continued to come out of them for many hours," he said as he sat in his office around the corner from Abu Halima's sickbed.

He continued, "We took out a piece of foreign matter that a colleague identified as white phosphorus."

The phosphorus weapons used by Israel are mostly 155-millimeter shells normally used to spread a thick white smoke to screen military actions. They contain more than 100 pieces of felt soaked in phosphorus that when shot into the air can land on people and cause intense burning, according to Chris Cobb-Smith, who spent 20 years in the army and is in Gaza as part of Amnesty International's investigative team.

The phosphorus is used both to ignite and to add a whiter color when they hit the ground for better cover and to mark targets.

It added that investigation was focusing on a preserved group that fired about 20 phosphorus shells in the area where Abu Halima lived.