Sabbah Abu Halima has very deep burns on her arm and leg. The doctors treating her at Gaza's Shifa hospital say they were caused by the Israeli army's white phosphorus incendiary shells. They showed samples of the dark brown substance in plastic bags, emitting an unpleasant, chemical odor. “It starts to smoke if you let the air get to it,” said consultant surgeon Sobhi Skaik. They also have photographs of burn wounds shortly after admission and their first, unsuccessful treatments, which failed to prevent the chemical burning down into the muscles. Shifa doctors said they had about 10 cases of severe phosphorus burns suffered during Israel's three-week assault on the Islamist Hamas stronghold in the Gaza Strip. “Most were moved to the Egyptian border then on to hospitals in Egypt or Saudi Arabia. We don't actually know where they are right now,” said Skaik. Israel's Haaretz daily on Wednesday reported that an army investigation into the use of phosphorus was focused on an incident in which 20 shells of it were fired into a populated area. It said the incident occurred in the northern Gaza town of Beit Lahiya. This is where Abu Halima was burned on Jan. 4 during a daytime attack that killed her husband and a son, the 45-year-old woman said. “It was like bright stars falling, strong white light,” she said, grimacing in pain in a hospital bed, with wounds heavily bandaged. Phosphorus munitions explode high in the air and are not intended to kill by blast. They are fired by long-range heavy artillery and burst over the battlefield to create a smokescreen for infantry or to mark a target for shelling or bombing. “When this woman was admitted the wounds were wrapped and closed. When we exposed them they started smoking. There was a chemical smell,” said plastic surgeon Jalal Abdallah. “It was not the smell typical of flame burns. They smell like charred meat. We did not know what this was at first. In the end we had to excise the burning flesh surgically.”
