The Israeli regime has started using internationally banned white phosphorus in its bombing of the Gaza Strip, a report says, as the regime continues to target residential neighborhoods in the densely-populated Palestinian territory.
The Monday report by the Arabic-language Al Alam news channel said the Israeli regime’s military had fired white phosphorus shells over residential areas in Gaza earlier in the day.
The use of white phosphorus shells for direct targeting of enemy positions is illegal under international law as the practice can amount to war crime and cause widespread fatalities.
Israel admitted to ‘using munitions containing white phosphorus’ during its 2008-2009 war on Gaza but the regime denied violating international law by insisting that such weapons were not fired into areas populated by civilians.
Videos published on social media on Monday showed the regime firing white phosphorus shells over densely-populated regions in Gaza, a Palestinian territory located on the Mediterranean where some 2.3 million people live under constant Israeli siege.
The attacks are part of a massive onslaught launched by Israel in Gaza since Saturday when its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories came under a series of unprecedented attacks by the Gaza-based Hamas resistance movement.
More than 680 people have been killed and thousands more injured as a result of Israeli attacks on Gaza.
The number of Israeli fatalities from attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian groups reached nearly 800 on Monday, according to reports published by the Israeli media.
Palestinians say Saturday’s attacks on Israeli-controlled settlements and military posts were a response to growing violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank in recent months as well as the recurrent presence of Israeli extremists in al-Aqsa Mosque, one of the holiest sites in Islam which is located in the occupied city of al-Quds.