Livewire – Amnesty International blogging for human rights

Phosphorous shell cases found in Khuza'a, Gaza, 24th January 2009 ©Amnesty International

Friday 23 January: Wherever we have been here in Gaza we have found various fragments from Israeli munitions. We have observed a quite staggering array of shrapnel from the military hardware used by the Israeli Army during the three week long conflict that began on 27 December.

They include pieces of shell casing, mortar fins, phosphorus-impregnated felt wedges, an assortment of bits of artillery, tank and gunboat shells along with a wide range of live and spent bullets of various calibres – including 7.62 mm, 5.56 mm and the larger 50 calibre.

The white phosphorus shells, easy to spot with their distinctive light blue-green casing, are everywhere. There are also bits of air-delivered munitions – ranging from pieces of 20mm cannon and Hellfire missiles fired from Apache helicopters and other missiles launched from unmanned drones, to large pieces of giant bombs dropped from F-16 warplanes.

Shrapnel from these massive bombardments is all over Gaza – on the streets, in school playgrounds, in hospitals and in people’s living rooms.

We have also been coming across more unusual weapons. In one of the Bedouin villages in north Gaza, we spoke to a man whose son, a primary school teacher in a UN school who also volunteered with the ambulance emergency services, was killed in an Israeli attack on 4 January.

The next day, he said, Israeli forces launched a missile strike at the mourners for his dead son who had gathered at the wake house opposite the family home. Three of the mourners were killed while he, the dead man’s father, and several others had been lightly wounded.

The father said that, when the mourners reassembled at the wake house, he told them to go home because he feared that any gathering of men – only men attend wakehouses – might attract further attacks. The mourners dispersed and the family returned home and sat around the fire in the courtyard. Then, at around 11.30 am, the area came under attack once again, this time with flechettes, which sprayed the area.

Several of these flechettes are still embedded in the walls around the family house. Flechettes are like tiny arrows or small darts, about 2.5cm long, pointed at one end and with fins at the other end. They are usually fired by tanks, in shells each containing some 5,000 to 7,000.

They blast out with tremendous force and when they strike a person they penetrate deep into the body, sometimes becoming embedded in their bones. The attack that day killed three more people and injured several others. The use of flechettes against civilians is illegal.

We are also seeing evidence of a strange new weapon that appears to explode huge numbers of tiny ball bearing-like steel cubes, each about 4 mm square in size. Like the flechettes, these tiny fragments are blasted out with huge force, penetrating steel plates and becoming embedded in walls.

A young man who had been hit with some of these pellets from a blast that is said to have killed a dozen youths and injured others showed us an X-ray in which the tiny metal pieces could be seen still embedded in his thigh.

Today, we also visited the Abderrabbo area, north-east of Gaza City, where the destruction is of truly vast proportions. Dozens of houses have been flattened. Gazans describe the smashed houses and other buildings as having been crushed like “Bascote” – biscuits.

The area was no longer recognizable. Such wholesale destruction appears to be part of a deliberate effort to create a large area of no-man’s land, shrinking Gaza and extending the barren no-go area inside its perimeter, which is now off-limits to Palestinians.

Among the mountains of rubble that used to be people’s homes, we found pieces of high explosive that had failed to detonate scattered among the shattered concrete. These explosive lumps look like innocuous gravel, but are highly incendiary and dangerous. People scooped them up in handfuls from the ground, and children collected them in old crisp packets.

Local people are also anxious to know more about what weapons the Israeli forces used. We have urged the Israeli authorities to disclose whatever munitions they deployed so that medical staff in Gaza have the information they need to be able to treat the wounded appropriately.

Whatever weapons and munitions have been used – they have had a devastating effect on Gaza and the people there.

As a result of the destruction, thousands of people have been made homeless. Many spend their days beside the rubble that used to be their homes, sitting on blankets around small fires, wondering where to find the strength to pick up the pieces of their lives.

It’s hard to see how life can ever return to normal for them again.