National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said Sunday that the US would not draw any “red lines” over Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus munitions, a chemical weapon that can cause severe burns.
Human Rights Watch has said it verified videos of Israel using white phosphorus on Gaza and Lebanon on October 10 and 11. According to HRW, white phosphorus can be used “either for marking, signaling, and obscuring or as a weapon to set fires that burn people and objects.”
In an interview on NBC News’ Meet the Press, Sullivan noted that the Israeli military denied the allegations but made clear the use of the chemical weapon wouldn’t impact US support for Israel.
“I have seen the reports of that. The IDF has actually come out and said they were not using phosphorus bombs. I’m not going to sit here… and draw red lines,” Sullivan said. “I was asked this same question at the White House podium a few days ago, and I said, ‘You know, it’s not my job in public to draw red lines.'”
Whether deployed for marking or as a weapon, the use of white phosphorus munitions in a densely populated place like Gaza risks harming civilians. When it comes in contact with the skin, white phosphorus can burn people all the way down to the bone. According to HRW, even minor burns are often fatal.
“The use of white phosphorus in densely populated areas of Gaza violates the requirement under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to avoid civilian injury and loss of life,” HRW said.
The fact that Israel is engaged in massive attacks on densely-populated areas with relatively-few combatants and many hundreds of thousands of noncombatants is a much more important point than squabbles about what weapons should or should not be used.
No credible claim can be made that Israel is targeting Hamas fighters and that civilian deaths and injuries are unavoidable collateral damage. Israel is engaged in open, obvious state terrorism and collective punishment and the whole world knows it — including the despicable enablers in the US government.
But only Russia engages in war crimes. That’s what the mainstream media tells me anyway
Israel is a war crime.
If Iran and Syria are “aircraft carriers’ for Iran, then Israel is 1000 aircraft carriers for the USA! Israel reserves the “right to self-defense” while apparently criminalizing “self-defense” for its neighboring states!
It’s always been that way. Israel started the 1956 war; Israel started the 1967 war. Then Israel cried because the Arabs started the 1973 war, although the main cause was israel’s refusal to give back the territory they seized in 1967; and we all “felt sorry for them”.
I didn’t. Never have.
I didn’t. Never have.
Hark,a pattern emerges.
wow cluster-bombs for Ukraine and white-phosphorous for Israel.
just A-OK, right uncle sam ?
“Rules-based” Uncle Sam. Of course Blinken is not going to draw a “red line” about the use of white phosphorous.
So a Gazan shoots off a civilians arm off at the elbow-is that more humane?
So a settler shoots a 5 year old in the stomach. Humane? Speaking of settlers: https://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20230621_wave_of_settlers_riots_across_the_west_bank Note the date of the message.
Israeli snipers are known to shoot off the legs of civilian Palestinian demonstrators, is that more humane? For political reasons some 5000 young Palestinian men are incarcerated without trial. Palestinian babies get torn to shreds by Israeli bombs paid for curtesy of American taxpayers.
You have previously made inappropriate comments to me-Go away!
No, you go away. Blocked.
You are saying to disagree with you is inappropriate?
Replying to morons is similar to pissing into the wind with the same result. Never the less sometimes one can not help themselves..
You are right, I have good intentions and then I fall as you describe in your second sentence.
Why don’t you shut up and get lost?
How can we? We’ve already allowed cluster bombs for Ukraine.
On Politico, there were pictures of the suffering on both sides. What jumped out at me were the pictures themselves, at sites in Israel and Gaza. In Israel the mourning was in or around nice intact buildings, pretty landscapes, clean neighborhoods. In Gaza the mourning was in or around destroyed buildings, rubble, desperate people taking their children to hospitals, the dead in ice cream trucks because there was no refrigeration in morgues. It is always the same. Everything is equal. The pictures were in the CNN coverage.
We are being governed by war criminals, we should have the courage to say it out loud and clear and put distance between them and us. Our silence makes us guilty too.
What the hell? Not even suggesting that the Geneva conventions might be in play?
The US and Israel dance to their own laws and opinions without regard for humanity both in their country and others.
It is readily obvious that the US and Israel do not listen or obey any facet of International law.It makes one wonder how are the terrorists and who are the animals?