Broken condominium within the Ramada Plaza lodge constructing within the aftermath of an Israeli strike, following an escalation between Hezbollah and Israel amid the U.S.-Israeli battle with Iran, in central Beirut, Lebanon, March 8, 2026.
| Photograph Credit score: Reuters
Human Rights Watch on Monday (March 9, 2026) accused Israel of “unlawfully” utilizing white phosphorus over residential components of a southern Lebanese city final week.
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“The Israeli navy unlawfully used artillery-fired white phosphorus munitions over properties on March 3, 2026, within the southern Lebanese city of Yohmor,” the New York-based rights group stated in a report.
HRW added that it “verified and geolocated seven photos displaying airburst white phosphorus munitions being deployed over a residential a part of the city and civil protection employees responding to fires in no less than two properties and one automotive in that space”.
White phosphorus, a substance that ignites on contact with oxygen, can be utilized to create smokescreens and to light up battlefields.
However the munition will also be used as an incendiary weapon and may trigger fires, horrific burns, respiratory injury, organ failure and loss of life.
Israel — which stored up strikes concentrating on Hezbollah regardless of a 2024 ceasefire — launched a number of waves of strikes throughout Lebanon since final week and despatched floor troops into border areas after the Iran-backed group attacked it.
The Israeli military has since repeatedly referred to as on individuals dwelling south of the Litani River, round 30 kilometres (20 miles) north of the Israeli border, to depart.
At the very least 394 individuals have been killed in Israeli assaults, Lebanese authorities stated, registering greater than half one million individuals as displaced.
“The Israeli navy’s illegal use of white phosphorus over residential areas is extraordinarily alarming and could have dire penalties for civilians,” Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at HRW, was quoted saying within the report.
“Israel ought to instantly halt this follow and states offering Israel with weapons, together with white phosphorus munitions, ought to instantly droop navy help and arms gross sales and push Israel to cease firing such munitions in residential areas,” he added.
Lebanese authorities and HRW have over the previous years accused Israel of utilizing controversial white phosphorus rounds, in assaults authorities say have harmed civilians and the atmosphere.
Lebanon’s state-run Nationwide Information Company on Sunday stated Israeli forces focused the cities of Khiam and Tal Nahas, close to the border with Israel, “with artillery and phosphorus shelling”.
Final month, Lebanon accused Israel of spraying the herbicide glyphosate on the Lebanese aspect of their shared border, with President Joseph Aoun decrying it as a “crime in opposition to the atmosphere”.
Revealed – March 09, 2026 10:19 am IST