Israel-Gaza conflict: Israeli military ‘using flechette rounds in Gaza Strip’
The Independent
The tiny arrow-like ammunition, fired in their thousands in a tank shell, have been described as carrying ‘a particularly high danger of harming innocent civilians’
The Israeli military is reportedly using flechette shells in its
offensive in Gaza, weapons described as illegal under “rules of
humanitarian law” by an Israeli human rights organisation.
Generally fired by a tank and described as an “imprecise
weapon” ill-suited to combat in a built-up area, flechette shells
explode in the air above a target, sending out a cone of thousands of
tiny steel darts each no more than 4cm (1.57 ins) long.
According
to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), six such shells were
fired towards the village of Khuzaa in the Gaza Strip on 17 July, the Guardian reported.
The
PCHR was described as saying that a woman, 37-year-old Nahla Khalil
Najjar, suffered injuries to her chest in the flechette shelling, and
pictures purporting to show the ammunition were passed on by a PCHR
fieldworker.
When approached by the newspaper, the
Israeli military did not deny using the shells in the conflict, saying
that it only deploys weapons “determined lawful under international
law”.
Read more
No comments:
Post a Comment