After working for 10 days at the Shifa Hospital in the war-torn Palestinian territory, doctors from a Norwegian triage medical team in Gaza felt that Israelis were using Gaza as a test laboratory for new urban-warfare weapons. These doctors, who had years of experience in treating war casualties, felt that the injuries treated by them in Gaza were of an entirely different nature. Those who survive may have had to have limbs amputated as their soft tissues and bones were shredded to pieces. These weapons are not constituted of any hard metal shields; they consist instead of carbon fibres filled with a mixture of explosives. The victims are also subsequently subject to the possibility that they can develop cancer from micro-shrapnel that may remain in their body tissue.

There were also reports, duly corroborated by the International Red Cross, that Israel fired white phosphorus shells during this battle. It is probable that such agents were used to create smoke screens for day attacks and for illuminating targets during night attacks. Israel has previously admitted to using white phosphorus during its 2006 war with Lebanon; and it is not in itself considered a chemical weapon. However, the Geneva Treaty of 1980 stipulates that white phosphorus should not be used as a weapon of war in civilian areas — though there is no blanket ban under international law on its use as a smokescreen or for illumination. (Israel has also claimed that Hamas militants fired a phosphorus shell from the Gaza Strip into Israel though no injuries were reported.) It is interesting that, on the one hand, Israel is using weapons, like DIME, that they say are developed for pin-point targeting, while on the other hand they are using artillery shells made from white phosphorus, which are area weapons. (Naturally, the IDF’s intentions when it comes to such shells — were they only for illumination? — is hotly debated.)

... contd.