Oh for heavens sake! - are you trying to drive me to total frustration or simply drive anyone who disagrees with you off this thread again Keith?


"As an INCENDIARY WEAPON WP burns fiercely and can set cloth, fuel, ammunition and other combustibles on fire. Since WWII, it has been extensively used as a weapon, capable of causing serious burns or death" - Wiki from the US Army Center

Want to disagree with the US Army too?

It is ALSO a highly efficient smoke producing agent used by tanks and armoured vechicles to mask movement from the enemy
Are you stating this was solely how it was used in the urban densely populated area of Gaza city - because the photos and other evidence don't seem to support this

In fact, the Israeli government released a report in July 2009 that confirmed that the IDF used white phosphorus in BOTH exploding munitions AND smoke projectiles.
The report acknowledged the use of exploding munitions by Israeli ground and naval forces.
Contrary to eyewitness testimony and considerable physical evidence to the contary, the report continued to deny the use of these munitions in populated areas and maintained smoke screening projectiles were the 'majority' of the munitions containing white phosphorus employed by the IDF

The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, not the Chemical Weapons Convention in its Protocol III prohibits the use of all air-delivered incendiary weapons against civilian populations, or for indiscriminate incendiary attacks against military forces co-located with civilians but specifically excludes weapons whose incendiary effects are purely secondary, such as smoke grenades.

To claim that white phosphourous missiles fired from a distance which rain 100s of burning pieces of phosphourous soaked felt into urban areas fall into this category is blatent contempt for the Protocol

The legal position however, is not the only consideration in any war.
For instance, concerning the U.S. use of WP in Iraq, the British Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman at the time Sir Menzies Campbell, said

"The use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency.
The denial of use followed by the admission will simply convince the doubters that there was something to hide"

Finally -
"They did not use it to inflict casualties. It would not be effective for that because it is not a weapon."

Keith have you seen the photographs of phosphorus burns - the description of a child simply 'melting'?

'Bake' is a sick expression to use against combatants but it means what it says! and not - you will notice - 'shake and smoke'

To 'burn out the enemy' means exactly that when the 'versatle' phosphorous is used in a house