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ARSENAL PHOSPHOROUS CITED IN AMNESTY INT’L OUTCRY

By Amy Riggin/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Tuesday, February 24, 2009 11:00 AM CST

Amnesty International has called for an embargo on the sale of U.S. and other foreign-made weapons to Israel after an investigation revealed that the weapons such as white phosphorous produced at the Pine Bluff Arsenal were used to attack civilians.

According to a statement issued Friday by Amnesty, both Israel and Hamas used foreign-supplied weapons to attack civilians. Amnesty also is calling for an embargo by the United Nations Security Council on arms sales to Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

In a Jan. 23 response to an inquiry from The Commercial, Lt. Col. Patrick Ryder, spokesman for the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense at the Pentagon, neither confirmed nor denied the Army’s sale of white phosphorous to Israel.

“We fully support Israel’s right to defend itself,” Ryder said. “We have a long-standing defense relationship with Israel, as well as many other nations in the region.”

Amnesty said weapons from the U.S., Israel’s main foreign arms supplier, were used by Israeli forces during a three-week conflict in Gaza and southern Israel that began Dec. 27. Hamas and other Palestinian groups fired hundreds of rockets that had been smuggled in or made of components from abroad at civilian areas in Israel, Amnesty said.

“Israeli forces used white phosphorus and other weapons supplied by the U.S.A. to carry out serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes,” said Donatella Rovera, head of Amnesty’s fact-finding mission in southern Israel and Gaza. “Their attacks resulted in the killing of hundreds of children and other civilians and massive destruction of homes and infrastructure. At the same time, the firing of rockets by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups, though far less lethal than the weaponry used by Israel, also caused several civilian deaths and constitute a war crime.”

Amnesty’s report found that, under a 10-year agreement through 2017, the U.S. will provide $30 billion in military aid to Israel.

“To a large extent, Israel’s military offensive in Gaza was carried out with weapons, munitions and military equipment supplied by the U.S.A. and paid for with U.S. taxpayers’ money,” said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty’s director for the Middle East. “The Obama administration should immediately suspend U.S. military aid to Israel.”

The white phosphorous was manufactured by the Pine Bluff Arsenal, the Army’s sole producer of white phosphorous ammunition in the Western Hemisphere. Amnesty reported that markings on artillery shells found in Gaza indicated that they were assembled at the arsenal in October 1991.

Amnesty said it considers the repeated use of white phosphorus — used to provide a smokescreen for troops, with a highly incendiary effect — in densely-populated civilian areas a form of indiscriminate attack.

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