(Beirut) Mohammad Hammoud was at home with his wife in southern Lebanon when Israeli bombings targeted their village earlier this year, unlike any he had experienced.

“A fire broke out in front of the house […] There was a strange smell […] we couldn’t breathe,” said the septuagenarian, contacted by telephone by AFP.

“When the rescuers arrived, they told us it was phosphorus,” adds the man from Houla, near the border with Israel, who was hospitalized.

Since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on October 7, Lebanese Hezbollah has regularly exchanged fire with the Israeli army, in support of its Palestinian ally.

Lebanese authorities accuse Israel of using white phosphorous munitions that harm civilians and the environment.

This substance, which ignites on contact with oxygen, can be used to create smoke screens and illuminate battlefields.

But it can also be used as an incendiary weapon and cause fires, severe burns, respiratory damage, organ failure and even death.

“Israel’s widespread use of white phosphorus in southern Lebanon puts civilians at risk and contributes to the displacement of civilians,” Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Wednesday.

The NGO said it had “verified the use of white phosphorus munitions by Israeli forces in at least 17 municipalities in southern Lebanon since October,” including five where they were “illegally used against populated residential areas.”

AFP images taken at least ten times between October and April show strange octopus-shaped plumes of smoke, usually associated with white phosphorus.

The images were taken at at least eight different locations, many close to homes.

The Israeli military said in October that its procedures require white phosphorus bombs “not to be used in densely populated areas, with certain exceptions.”

“This is consistent with and goes beyond the requirements of international law,” it said in a statement, adding that the military “does not use such shells for targeting or burning purposes.”

The official Lebanese news agency ANI has repeatedly reported Israeli phosphorus bombings in southern Lebanon, including in recent days, sometimes causing fires.

She said the village of Houla suffered such a bombardment on January 28, the day Mohammad Hammoud and his wife were admitted to a nearby hospital.

The hospital told AFP that four civilians had been admitted to intensive care for “severe asphyxia and shortness of breath due to white phosphorus.”

The Lebanese Ministry of Health said Wednesday that it had identified 178 people suffering from “chemical exposure due to white phosphorus” since October, without distinguishing between civilians and combatants.

“The use of white phosphorus in areas populated by civilians may […] constitute a violation of international humanitarian law,” Brian Castner, military expert at Amnesty International, told AFP.

“If civilians are injured or killed, this may constitute a war crime,” he added.

Peacekeepers deployed in southern Lebanon have also detected white phosphorus in their premises, a UN official assured AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Cross-border fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has left more than 450 dead in Lebanon according to an AFP count, most of them fighters, but also 88 civilians, and caused the exodus of more than 94,000 people.

Amnesty International reported last year that it had “evidence of illegal use of white phosphorus by Israel” in southern Lebanon between October 10 and 16.

In particular, she said an attack on October 16 on the village of Dhayra, which injured at least nine civilians, should “be investigated as a war crime.”

In December, the White House expressed concern over reports that Israel had used U.S.-supplied white phosphorous in attacks in Lebanon.

Beirut filed a complaint with the UN in October, accusing Israel of having “endangered the lives of a large number of civilians” by using white phosphorus and of having “caused widespread environmental degradation » by “burning Lebanese forested areas”.

The use of white phosphorus has also raised concerns among farmers in southern Lebanon whose land has burned, with some fearing potential contamination of soil and crops.

Tamara Elzein, secretary general of the National Council for Scientific Research in Lebanon, notes that there is little documentation relating to the impact of white phosphorus bombing on the soil.

This organization is planning a large number of scientific samples to assess possible contamination, but is waiting for a ceasefire to send a team to make this assessment, she explained to AFP.