Crime of Genocide against Palestinians

What is Genocide?

Human Rights Watch has called on Israel to stop using white phosphorus which it says has been used in military operations in the densely populated Gaza Strip. The US-based group said that its researchers observed the use of the chemical, which can burn away human flesh to the bone, over Gaza. White phosphorus is a highly flammable incendiary material which ignites when exposed to oxygen, and will burn human skin until all the oxygen is used up. Human Rights Watch said that it believed the use of the chemical in Gaza violated the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life. Israel used white phophorus during its 34-day war against Lebanon's Hezbollah movement in 2006, while the United States used it during the controversial siege of the Iraqi city of Fallujah in 2004. The civilian population has no way to hide. The population density is so high you can not do attacks like this without knowing that you are attacking the civilians.

Israel military previously used cluster bombs for two weeks during the 2006 Lebanon war. It dropped the bombs without telling the Israeli government, despite UN protests who called it “immoral”; no actions were taken against Israel. Israel repeated it again in Gaza today. The cluster bombs, unlike other bombs, cause damages for a long period of time and most of the casualties are civilians long after the war is over. Cluster munitions cause deaths and maiming - primarily of poor children playing in areas where they've been dropped - for decades after the hostilities cease. 94 countries recently signed a treaty banning them, but Israel and the U.S. refused to sign on to the ban.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned on Sunday that the wide-ranging ground offensive in the Gaza Strip would be "full of surprises." Norwegian medics found traces of depleted uranium in some Gaza residents wounded in Israel's ground offensive on the strip, meaning the ultimate death toll could be far higher as future generations are plagued by cancers and birth defects. The residue of a DU weapon can be spread by the wind and infect humans not in the immediate area as well as the entire food chain. In 1999, the UN called for the use of depleted uranium to be banned worldwide but efforts to downplay its effects led by the Pentagon have blocked such a ban.

The already fragile humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has deteriorated dramatically since Israel began its military offensive. Israel is denying access to Gaza for international journalists and human rights monitors, so it is not possible to verify the accounts. Claims have been received by the BBC and an Israeli human rights group that Israeli troops have fired on Gaza residents trying to escape the conflict area. One testimony heard by the BBC and human rights group describes Israeli forces shooting a woman in the head after she stepped out of her house carrying a piece of white cloth... Yet, Israelis call their action a war on terror.