White House ‘concerned’ about report Israel used US-supplied white phosphorus in Lebanon

WASHINGTON (AA) : The White House expressed concern on Monday over a report suggesting that Israel used US-supplied white phosphorus in an attack in southern Lebanon.

“We’ve seen the reports, certainly, we’re concerned about that,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters en route to the US city of Philadelphia. “We’ll be asking questions to try to learn a little bit more.”

Kirby said white phosphorus has a legitimate military use for illumination and producing smoke to conceal movements.

“And anytime that we provide items of white phosphorus to another military, it is with the full expectation that it’ll be used in keeping with those legitimate purposes and in keeping with the law of armed conflict,” he added.

His comments were made in response to a Washington Post report on an Oct. 16 Israeli attack which wounded at least nine civilians. Human rights group Amnesty International has called for an investigation, labeling the incident a potential war crime.

Among the nine injured in Israel’s attack on Dheira, a town of 2,000, at least three were hospitalized, one for days, according to the report.

Since Oct. 7, tension has flared along the border between Lebanon and Israel amid intermittent exchanges of gunfire between Israeli forces and Hezbollah in the deadliest clashes since the two sides fought a full-scale war in 2006.

The border tension comes amid an Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip following a cross-border attack by Palestinian group Hamas.