For two days, Shaymaa Ziara has been seeing messages in WhatsApp group chats from family and friends in Gaza about how to keep themselves safe from white phosphorous bombs that are allegedly part of Israel’s airstrikes on Gaza.
Ziara, who lives in Markham, Ont., said her father, three siblings and pregnant sister-in-law are currently in Gaza, moving from building to building in an effort to avoid the constant bombardments from Israel since hostilities began after Hamas militants launched a stunning and brutal attack in Israel on Saturday.
Videos of white phosphorus munitions allegedly deployed in Gaza have been circulating online for several days.
On Thursday, Human Rights Watch said it has confirmed that these munitions are being used over the Gaza City port using videos posted on Oct. 10 and 11, and interviewing two people from the al-Mina area in Gaza City who described the strikes.
But what? Where are all of the Muslim countries railing against Russia for using it to burn whole villages of Ukraines?
Idk, I haven’t read up on it. But for one, where are all the western countries railing against Israel for using it?
It’s a human rights organization that’s bringing this up not a country so that is irrelevant.
And why the fuck does it even matter? White phosphorus is bad, end of story.
It’s nasty if it gets in contact with humans but that doesn’t mean that it is inherently evil. They haven’t crossed some sort of line in weapons ethics. It’s an accepted tool on the battlefield with multiple uses having nothing to do with directly harming people. It’s like saying water is bad because you drank several gallons and your brain swelled up from the osmotic pressure. Heck even flamethrowers are perfectly fine to use in war.
Refusing to use a less lethal tool seems pretty evil.
I know it’s a great smokescreen but that doesn’t make it okay.
Just because the current main users of white phosphorus are the US, Israel, and Russia. Doesn’t make it an accepted and especially an acceptable tool.
But you’re trying to argue that it passes some ethical boundary even being used in its most mundane things. It’s fine if we differ in that opinion.
It doesn’t matter what the intention is, if people are seriously injured by it and you still use it on people (including civilians) with that knowledge.