• Numerous social media posts share the photo of a young girl with a burnt body, which allegedly proves that Israel is using white phosphorus bombs on the Palestinian population as part of the ongoing conflict with Hamas.

  • While the teenager was burned by white phosphorus bombs, the photo was taken in 2009 north of Kabul, Afghanistan, during an armed conflict between NATO and Taliban forces.

  • Israel did use white phosphorus in the late 2000s in the Gaza Strip, but there is no information to suggest that this would be the case today.

As the conflict rages in the Middle East between Israel and Hamas, numerous social media posts accuse the Israeli army, the IDF, of using white phosphorus bombs on the Palestinian population during bombings.

"How far will they go in cruelty?"

“Accuses an Instagram user.

The post, accompanied by a screenshot, shows a seriously injured young girl.

Several similar posts are visible on Twitter and Facebook.

Each time, the photo of the victim is followed by the same accusation: "Israel is using white phosphorus to bomb Gaza".

This chemical compound is held by many armies around the world for its properties on the battlefield - at night, its explosion helps to illuminate the theater of combat, while by day, it creates large shields of smoke. On populations, however, "white phosphorus causes serious thermal and chemical burns which often penetrate to the bones, are slow to heal and are likely to cause infections," denounces the NGO Human Rights Watch. Protocol III additional to the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, adopted in 1980, prohibits the use of this substance against civilian populations, but does not exclude its use for other uses, deplores the NGO.

While Israel has used white phosphorus bombs on the Palestinian population in the past, this photo has been taken out of context. 

20 Minutes

takes stock of this image.

FAKE OFF

This photo of a young girl with a burnt body has nothing to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It was taken by photojournalist Rafiq Maqbool for the Associated Press on June 9, 2009, in the US hospital at Bagram base, Afghanistan.

The image and its credits can be seen in many articles available online, such as here, in Stripes and ABC News posts featuring an Associated Press report.

According to a Reuters report, this severely burned young Afghan girl is called Razia Rahman.

She was the victim of a white phosphorus bombardment in an armed conflict between NATO forces, then mainly composed of French troops, and the Taliban in northern Kabul.

Razia and her family are the first known civilians to have fallen victim to white phosphorus in Afghanistan, writes the news agency.

At the time of publication of this dispatch in May 2009, neither NATO forces nor the Taliban had acknowledged being behind the strike.

A June 2009 archive, also filmed by Associated Press and available on YouTube, shows the girl's discharge from hospital, the relief of her family, and the emotion of the caregivers.

Why is Israel accused of using white phosphorus?

If Israel is today accused of using white phosphorus on the Palestinian population, it is undoubtedly because the use of this substance by the IDF has been confirmed in the past. In 2009, Human Rights Watch, as early as 2009, alerted the international community to the collateral damage caused by the use of white phosphorus by the Israeli army against Palestinian armed groups.

Israel had denied for months before admitting, in a report published in July 2009, that it had used such bombs in the context of uses permitted by international law.

Human Rights Watch opposes this version of events, including reporting that phosphorus shells exploded on a home in the northern Gaza Strip, killing five members of a family, and seriously injuring five others.

Today, there is no information to suggest that Israel would use white phosphorus against the Palestinian population in its recent conflict with Hamas.

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