Human Rights Glance
The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) had privately admitted using phosphorus bombs, and that the Judge Advocate General's Office and Southern Command were investigating.
The Times first accused Israeli forces of using white phosphorus on January 5, but the IDF has denied the charge repeatedly. Phosphorus bombs can be used to create smoke screens, but their use as weapons of war in civilian areas is banned by the Geneva Conventions.
Israel 'admits' using white phosphorus munitions
Eight human rights groups call for probing Israel
Eight Israeli human rights groups came together Tuesday to demand the state investigate the army's behaviour in the deadly 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip.
They urged prosecutor general Menachem Mazuz, who is also the government legal adviser, to act "given the scale of the casualties among the civilian population during Operation Cast Lead."
Israel 'can be tried for war crimes'
Human rights group Amnesty International accuses Israel of war crimes, saying its use of white phosphorus shells in Gaza was indiscriminate.
"Such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza's densely populated residential neighborhoods is inherently indiscriminate," Donatella Rovera, a Middle East researcher with Amnesty International, said in a statement on Monday.
"Its repeated use in this manner, despite evidence of its indiscriminate effects and its toll on civilians, is a war crime," she charged.
Gaza doctors struggle to treat deadly burns consistent with white phosphorus
Doctors in Gaza described today how they had struggled to treat dozens of patients with terrible and unusually deadly burns consistent with white phosphorus weapons, during Israel's three-week war in Gaza.
Nafiz Abu Shabaan, head of the burns unit at Shifa hospital and the most senior burns surgeon in Gaza, said 60 to 70 patients had died in his unit during the war from severe burns that were unlike any injury he had previously seen.
Gaza homeless toll 'hits 50,000'
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been left destitute by Israel's three-week offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip, the UN estimates.
The United Nations says that some 50,800 people are now homeless and 400,000 are without running water.
Correspondents in Gaza City say entire neighbourhoods have been flattened and bodies are still being recovered.
Palestinian medical sources say at least 1,300 Palestinians have been killed and 5,500 injured during the conflict. Thirteen Israelis have been killed since the offensive began on 27 December.
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