Former Syrian rebels reveal the effects of white phosphorus said to be used by Israel
Former Syrian rebel Rabih Sarraf was defending his hometown of Maarat Al Numan when Russian aircraft were bombing the area with white phosphorus seven years ago.
It is the same weapon Israel is suspected of having used in October in southern Lebanon, in low-intensity cross-border warfare linked to its almost two-and-half month operation against Hamas in Gaza.
Mr Sarraf, however, felt relatively safe when it was used on him and his fellow fighters.
He said Russian aircraft avoided using white phosphorus munitions on front lines “because regime forces were too close”.
This has been a common problem for attacking forces where the defender is hiding in built-up areas, as in Gaza today, or the jungles of Vietnam during the US-Vietcong war there.
Massive use of so-called wide-area effects weapons can kill or injure large numbers of the enemy.
But the weapons, containing cluster bombs, large amounts of shrapnel or incendiary substances, such as white phosphorus, are often too dangerous for the attacker to use in close combat without harming their own forces.
International rights organisations and Lebanese civilians who spoke to The National say Israel used the weapon last month on a village in southern Lebanon, causing only civilian casualties, echoing its use in the Syrian civil war against rebel areas.
It has been increasingly employed since the 2015 Russian intervention allowed forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad to capture large parts of Syria that had fallen outside of his control.
While civilians were incinerated or sustained gruesome burns, white phosphorus had little effect on entrenched rebels in tunnels, similar to Hezbollah and Hamas, former fighters said.
They cited long sieges, intense napalm and cluster munition bombing and shelling, and external backers abandoning the opposition to Mr Al Assad, as the main factors that eventually forced Syrian rebel cities and towns to surrender.
In Maarat Al Numan, which was under rebel control from 2012 to 2020, Russian warplanes were “dropping white phosphorus mainly on the wooded outskirts of the city, and occasionally inside it”, Mr Sarraf said from the opposition-held city of Al Bab in northern Syria.
He fled there after Maarat Al Numan fell to the Assad regime three years ago.
Most of the white phosphorus casualties were Bedouin refugees from outlying areas who had taken shelter among the trees, he said.
“Phosphorus was useless militarily, except to inflict casualties on civilians who were in the open, or had taken cover under the trees, or to forests, and [to set] crops on fire,” he said.
“Even when it hit front lines, the tunnels and trenches we had built allowed us to deal with it.”
The Washington Post reported that Israel last month used white phosphorus munitions, supplied by the US, in an October attack on a village in southern Lebanon, the operational theatre of Hezbollah, wounding nine civilians and setting fire to four homes.
Hezbollah, a guerrilla group supported by Iran, has played a main ground role in Iran’s support for Mr Al Assad in the civil war.
The Syrian war followed mass pro-democracy demonstrations in March 2011, which the authorities suppressed using force, prompting the militarisation of the revolt and a near takeover by militant groups of the armed struggle against Mr Al Assad.
White House spokesman John Kirby said while Washington was concerned by the reports, white phosphorus has a “legitimate military utility” for illumination and producing smoke to conceal movement.
The substance, although controversial, is not banned, unlike chemical weapons, some of which can kill almost instantly.
In 2013, the first large-scale use of chemical weapons in the Syria civil war took place in Eastern Ghouta, a suburb of Damascus.
It led to mounting international pressure, which forced Mr Al Assad to join the international Chemical Weapons Convention.
The substance, although controversial, is not banned, unlike chemical weapons, some of which can kill almost instantly