Human Rights Watch recently accused Israel of using white phosphorus munitions in Gaza, and said that such weapons put civilians at risk of serious and long-term injury. In the 2008-2009 Gaza War too, there were allegations that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) struck the Gaza Strip with sub-munitions containing white phosphorus. The Israeli government, which initially denied this, later acknowledged that it did use white phosphorus in 2009, but only in uninhabitable areas, for the purpose of signalling and marking.
A toxic substance
In the summary of the report of the United Nations Headquarters Board of Inquiry into certain incidents in the Gaza Strip between December 27, 2008 and January 19, 2009, the then UN Secretary General said that the IDF had targeted certain UN facilities and asserted that “any precautions that were taken by the IDF were clearly inadequate in view of the firing of high-explosive shells into the compound [of a UNRWA Field Office].”
