According to EFE, the leading news agency in Spain, on Monday, Hamas’s Public Relations Office stated in a press release that “the weapons used by the Israeli military that caused third-degree burns to these casualties are incendiary or chemical weapons (arms térmicas o químicas),” and “most of them are American-made, internationally banned (prohibidas internacionalmente) non-conventional weapons.”
Hamas claims that the United States has supplied Israel with bunker-busting bombs of three types, as well as American GBU-28 bombs, GPS-guided bombs intended to destroy infrastructure, internationally banned white phosphorus bombs, dumb or unguided bombs, and JDAM smart bombs.
In particular, white phosphorus shells are weapons designed to emit a large amount of smoke and flames using phosphorus with a low ignition point. They cause extensive damage to both soldiers and civilians around the drop point. Hence, they are called “devil’s weapons.”
As a result, the Protocol on Incendiary Weapons, which took effect in 1983, prohibits the use of weapons specifically designed to cause fire or burns against civilians or civilian facilities.
While the United States is a party to this protocol, Israel is not.
In response, Hamas called on the US government, which supplied such weapons to Israel, to “take full legal and moral responsibility” and urged all countries to condemn such crimes against civilians and prosecute them in international courts.
Previously, international human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International also condemned the Israeli military for allegedly dropping white phosphorus shells in densely populated civilian areas in the Gaza Strip and southern Lebanon.
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