1.2 million cluster bomblets; phosphorus bombs

From HaAretz’s Meron Rapoport today:

    “What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs,” the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said regarding the use of cluster bombs and phosphorous shells during the war.
    Quoting his battalion commander, the rocket unit head stated that the IDF fired around 1,800 cluster bombs, containing over 1.2 million cluster bomblets.
    In addition, soldiers in IDF artillery units testified that the army used phosphorous shells during the war, widely forbidden by international law. According to their claims, the vast majority of said explosive ordinance was fired in the final 10 days of the war.

This is, of course, a follow-up to the piece Rapoport published Friday (Sept. 8), as discussed on JWN here.
Today’s piece continues:

    The rocket unit commander stated that Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) platforms were heavily used in spite of the fact that they were known to be highly inaccurate.
    MLRS is a track or tire carried mobile rocket launching platform, capable of firing a very high volume of mostly unguided munitions. The basic rocket fired by the platform is unguided and imprecise, with a range of about 32 kilometers. The rockets are designed to burst into sub-munitions at a planned altitude in order to blanket enemy army and personnel on the ground with smaller explosive rounds.
    The use of such weaponry is controversial mainly due to its inaccuracy and ability to wreak great havoc against indeterminate targets over large areas of territory, with a margin of error of as much as 1,200 meters from the intended target to the area hit.
    The cluster rounds which don’t detonate on impact, believed by the United Nations to be around 40% of those fired by the IDF in Lebanon, remain on the ground as unexploded munitions, effectively littering the landscape with thousands of land mines which will continue to claim victims long after the war has ended.
    Because of their high level of failure to detonate, it is believed that there are around 500,000 unexploded munitions on the ground in Lebanon. To date 12 Lebanese civilians have been killed by these mines since the end of the war.
    According to the commander, in order to compensate for the inaccuracy of the rockets and the inability to strike individual targets precisely, units would “flood” the battlefield with munitions, accounting for the littered and explosive landscape of post-war Lebanon.
    When his reserve duty came to a close, the commander in question sent a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz outlining the use of cluster munitions, a letter which has remained unanswered.
    It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. An artillery commander has admitted to seeing trucks loaded with phosphorous rounds on their way to artillery crews in the north of Israel.
    A direct hit from a phosphorous shell typically causes severe burns and a slow, painful death.
    International law forbids the use of weapons that cause “excessive injury and unnecessary suffering”, and many experts are of the opinion that phosphorous rounds fall directly in that category.
    The International Red Cross has determined that international law forbids the use of phosphorous and other types of flammable rounds against personnel, both civilian and military.
    In response, the IDF Spokesman’s Office stated that “International law does not include a sweeping prohibition of the use of cluster bombs. The convention on conventional weaponry does not declare a prohibition on [phosphorous weapons], rather, on principles regulating the use of such weapons.
    “For understandable operational reasons, the IDF does not respond to [accounts of] details of weaponry in its possession.
    “The IDF makes use only of methods and weaponry which are permissible under international law. Artillery fire in general, including MLRS fire, were used in response solely to firing on the state of Israel.”
    The Defense Minister’s office said it had not received messages regarding cluster bomb fire.

I don’t feel the need to add anything except my sadness at the inhumanity that seemed, “demonically”, to have taken possession of the IDF commanders who planned and ordered these kinds of actions, and my appreciation to both Rapoport and to his informants who saw the need to bring these facts to light.
Of course, a good part of the evidence is still all out there, spread over the lands of south Lebanon, so many of which have now become killing fields because of this wildly indiscriminate and disproportional spraying around of cluster bomblets.
But it is also great to start investigating the perpetration of these criminal actions. Who undertook them? Who planned and ordered them? Too bad that no-one in the Kirya (Israel’s Defense Ministry complex) is prepared to speak more openly about it. But it is certainly very laudable that that rocket unit head recognized, and was prepared to say to Rapoport, that what his unit had done with the cluster bombs and phosphorus shells was “insane and monstrous.” Indeed.

22 thoughts on “1.2 million cluster bomblets; phosphorus bombs”

  1. Might is right. Is anyone going to be held accountable? No.
    Maybe the only answer is a balance in military strength.

  2. Yeah ab, unfortunately I think that is the only answer at our current stage of evolution.
    Of course the use of these weapons is a monstrous crime, but war is a criminal enterprise. There is no such thing as a good, legal war. It is a little ridiculous to claim that “international law forbids the use of weapons that cause ‘excessive injury and unnecessary suffering.'” That’s what weapons are designed to do – it’s the whole point.

  3. Israel has been getting away with war crimes for 50 years. This kind of record encourages them to commit further atrocities. Both Bush and Israel seem to be trying to push the envelope.

  4. “The Foreign Ministry official said the legal-defense team, which includes representatives from the Justice and Defense ministries, is maintained by the government to help officials facing the possibility of war crimes charges abroad. It was first assembled to deal with charges related to Israeli actions in the West Bank and Gaza.”
    http://www.fox23news.com/news/world/story.aspx?content_id=61006AE6-D2CE-43AA-B1ED-42F75CA300C5
    Those criminals who issued orders for this massive carpet bombing for Lebanon in last 72 hours should brought to justice and should be follow those old Israeli criminals as what’s happened in Canada with retired Israeli Colonel Zeev Raz when he arrives to speak in Vancouver to speak at Temple Shalom on Saturday, and General Almog, former head of the Israeli army’s Southern Command, was unable to get off his plane at London’s Heathrow airport Monday as a warrent for his arrest over alleged war crimes was issued by an English court the previous day.

  6. I saw that Christian Science Monitor editorial as well, and was shocked. I wrote a letter to the editor:
    I am aghast that the Monitor would immediately refer to Hamas as a “terrorist” organization without mentioning its role in building the societal infrastructure in Gaza, or without distancing itself from the label by writing something like “US labeled terrorists.” I expect this from other news sources, but not the Monitor.
    Hamas stopped its terrorism in Feb 2005, and the instances the authors refer to (“rocket-lobbing and Israeli-soldier-kidnapping”) as Hamas’ terrorism took place *after* israel killed the Ghalia family in Gaza in June, and laid siege to Gaza since January, and countless other daily atrocities that occur under military occupation.
    I am in no way defending any violence on the part of Hamas, but I am simply shocked that the Monitor would overlook the realities of the situation to sum up all the suffering Palestinians have gone through since aid was cut off as “democracy at work.” The cut off is *anti-democractic* because it is punishing a nation for its free and open elections, which the donor nations pushed for in the first place.
    If the world does not want to give aid to the Hamas government, then it should not give that aid. But if it does not give aid, then it should work to end the occupation, which is why there is no Palestinian economy to begin with.
    Palestinians don’t want the world’s charity. They want to live. I would have thought of all papers, the Monitor would know this.
    Oh, and you cannot “kidnap” a soldier. You take him prisoner. The media has acted as if the soldiers taken hostage were little girls on their way to school, rather than uniformed military occupiers.

  7. My friend wrote this about that editorial:
    So turning Islamists into democrats involves placing international sanctions on them and having foreign entities shape what their governments look like? Some ask about the possibility of democracy — what about the absence of actual sovereignty? The office of the PM was the product of US pressure to begin with — to create an alternative entity within the PA to sideline Arafat. Now Abbas is playing the same role as pres.
    And the note about the salaried workers’ protests lacks the appropriate context. The HAMAS government has failed to pay gov’t workers’ salaries because of int’l sanctions — not because the money was going to Suha Arafat or Muhammad Dahlan’s bank accounts. Its failure at governance has less to do with its ability to govern than the dependency of the not-so-autonomous “authority” it supposedly operates.

  9. Oh, and you cannot “kidnap” a soldier. You take him prisoner.
    Sure you can. ‘captured’ connotes an act of war by a duly empowered agent. Hezbollah has no legal standing to wage war on behalf of Lebanon.
    eg: “A previously unknown organization, calling itself Jund Allah (God’s Soldiers) Organization for the Sunni Mujahideen in Iran kidnapped a soldier working for the Iranian Intelligence Agency, who was identified as Shehab Mansuri.”
    ” the PKK kidnapped a soldier at a roadblock in southeast Turkey”
    ” three policemen from Popayan, Cauca department, kidnapped a soldier and his younger brother, asking for $77000 (200 million pesos)”
    “Al-Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades, Fatah’s military wing, issued a statement claiming that their operatives had kidnapped a soldier from the Border Guard Police in the West Bank.”
    If the armed forces of Lebanon had captured the soldiers it would be a different story.

  10. Unless moral ordinary Israelis stand up against the fanatics that control Israel and the fanatics in USA that support them, Israel future will be continously dripping with blood.
    It ain’t gonna happen in USA. Americans are too ignorant. They are blinded by television and macho talk radio. Israel to them is either the place for the second coming of Jesus, or a place to send their kid for his barmitzvah.(It’s the LA-LA land!)
    I applaud the head of the IDF rocket unit for telling the truth of what was done in Lebanon. It shows that in Israel there are people that
    hold human life,dignity and decency above greed,bigoity, and narcissism. A big lesson for those in the USA who hold/control any intelligent discussion on Israel.
    Now, who’ll bet me that the IDF’s report is ever going to be shown on American corporate news?

  11. I have to wonder — was the massive cluster bombardment a deliberate attempt to render southern Lebanon uninhabitable? That is, were the unexploded munitions the point of the bombardment, rather than an unfortunate side effect? Ordinarily I would not speculate such a thing, but since one of Israel’s stated goals was to force the Lebanese to withdraw beyond the Litani, I think it has to be considered. Has anyone in the Israeli press put forth this question?

  12. “Unless moral ordinary Israelis stand up against the fanatics that control Israel and the fanatics in USA that support them, Israel future will be continously dripping with blood.”
    Why should Israel’s future be any different from its past and present?

  13. (Why should Israel’s future be any different from its past and present? )
    Israel recorded themselves crimes against humanity they’ve committed. The American public, that doesn’t read, wouldn’t know about this.
    Are you saying the occupation of Lebanon for many years with its death and destruction normal? Is the spilling of Palestinian blood normal?
    Israel knows what it is doing wrong, and I believe they will like to be stopped.It is the people in USA, who don’t have to pull the trigger, or knock down a door , or drop a bomb who encourage Israel’s goverment behavior.
    Israel behavior should change because it killing itself. Israel behavior should change because it is not human.

  14. Debra R.
    Israel behaviours should change because it is not human.
    What human act done by US or Israeli can you tell us?
    – Slaughtering of native Indians?
    – Slaughtering the Philippines
    – Through Nuclear Bombs and killing hundreds of thousands of peoples because one military ship damaged
    – Carpet bombing cities in Germany
    – Invading ME and kills millions of Muslims and Arab in name of freedom in 1900
    – Killing Iraqi in 1991 -2003 in name of regime fault and change
    – created Israeli on Palestine land
    Is the history speck here or you having short memory also?
    When you and other stop talking and take action by teaching your kids the right things from respecting the hums what ever they are….

  16. Salah,
    Could you pls explain a bit more about these two items in your list?
    – Through Nuclear Bombs and killing hundreds of thousands of peoples because one military ship damaged
    – Invading ME and kills millions of Muslims and Arab in name of freedom in 1900
    I didn’t learn about either of these when I studied history. Perhaps you can fill me in?

  17. JES,
    I, too, was puzzled by the two assertions you mention.
    I am, however, more puzzled by your silence on the substance of Helena’s post, i.e. Israel’s use of 1.2 million cluster bomblets and phosphorus bombs.

  18. King,
    Actually I did try to post a rather lengthy response yesterday, but was met by the ubiquitous “Server Error” and did not have the time or inclination to repost.
    In sum, I find it somewhat odd to come to conclusions based on a couple of articles in Ha’aretz, particularly when the Rappaport piece is highly questionable.
    Regarding the use of cluster munitions, Rappaport bases his entire argument on what he heard from a single, junior officer citing what his batallion commander told him. Nowhere, does Rappaport indicate what the purpose of these MLRS barrages were or whether they were in support of ground forces or to destroy fleeing rocket launchers, whose positions may have been moving, that had fired on civilian targets in Israel. (And I also think that to jump to the conclusion that these munitions were used because of the high rate of unexploded bomblets, as some people here have done, is unfounded.) I think that these charges need to be investigated. But I also think that the use of 302mm rockets loaded with thousands of ball bearings, that by all reports I’ve heard have absolutely no military value when launched on cities and towns, need to be investigated as well in the interest of finding out where these munitions came from, who ordered their use and why.
    If this aspect of Rappaport’s piece is shaky, then the assertions he makes about phosphorous munitions are simply speculation. Rappaport begins with the statement that the use of phosphorous is “widely forbidden by international law”. This is simply not true, and he later provides statements attributed to the ICRC that contradict this claim, viz. that their use against personnel is illegal. But he provides absolutely no evidence at all that these munitions were used in this manner. His best shot is to provide the following, undocumented and unsubstantiated assertion:
    It has come to light that IDF soldiers fired phosphorous rounds in order to cause fires in Lebanon. [Note the use of passive voice here. How has it come to light? Who brought it to light? We simply don’t know.]
    Finally, the fact that most of the munitions were fired during the last 10 days of the war – by some reports during the last 72 hours – makes perfect sense; not as some sort of attempt to harm civilians, as implied, but rather because this is when the IDF ground forces in Lebanon grew from a single division operating in isolated locations to three full divisions operating in widely dispersed locations in southern Lebanon.
    I think that, far from being some sort of conclusive indictment, Rappaport’s article is just plain bad journalism. This makes me wonder how Helena sees fit to label Yossi Melman – a much more senior Ha’aretz staffer, I believe – as a “purported” journalist, as she did earlier, while relying on Meron Rappaport’s unsubstantiated articles to deliver a rather moralistic lecture.

  19. Compensation claim against Lebanese gov’t in works
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3278932,00.html
    “Attorneys Yehudah Talmon, Yoram Dantziger, and Nitzah Libai preparing symbolic lawsuit to be presented in US against Lebanese government for compensation to be paid to Israeli businesses, citizens for war damages”
    By Tani Goldstein
    “Let us not forget the 1978,1982 invasion of lebanon, the blowing up of all
    M.E.A. Commercial jets at beirut airport as well.damages to power p[lants,
    bridges,microwaves,roads and every building and house damages in the past
    and present.”
    Who shold be asking for real compensations?

  20. “”The scale of Hizbollah’s attacks on Israeli cities, towns and villages, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used and statements from the leadership confirming their intent to target civilians make it all too clear that Hizbollah violated the laws of war,” Amnesty’s Secretary-General Irene Khan said.
    “The fact that Israel has also committed serious violations in no way justifies violations by Hizbollah,” she said in a statement. “Civilians must not be made to pay the price for unlawful conduct on either side.”
    http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-14T062824Z_01_L12834417_RTRUKOC_0_US-MIDEAST-LEBANON-AMNESTY.xml&archived=False
    Justice takes place in this world!

  22. Excuse me King Colbert, but exactly what in the article renders my arguments “insupportable” factually or otherwise? Cockburn simply cites the same faulty Rappaport article embellished by the addition of descriptions of the wounded. He hasn’t added anything to support or substantiate Rappaport’s assertions about the number of cluster munitions fired, the targets at the time they were fired, or the supposed long-term motives of using these munitions.
    I have stated that these charges should most certainly be investigate, as should the use of rockets by Hizballah.
    If you can show where my statements were either factually incorrect or immoral, then please do.

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