A picture taken from Israel, along the border with southern Lebanon on March 4, 2024, shows smoke billowing following Israeli bombardment on the Lebanese village of Markaba.

Mohammad Hammud, in his late 70s, was at home with his wife in a south Lebanon border village when Israeli bombing hit. This time, the attack was different.

"Fire broke out in front of the house... there was a strange smell... we had trouble breathing," he told AFP by telephone from his village of Hula.

"We thought it was a regular bombing but when the emergency responders arrived they told us it was phosphorus and took us to hospital," he said.

The Israeli military and Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah movement have been exchanging near-daily fire since Palestinian militant group Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.

Lebanon has accused Israel of using controversial white phosphorus rounds, in attacks authorities say have harmed civilians and the environment.

White phosphorus, a substance that ignites on contact with oxygen, can be used to create smokescreens and to illuminate battlefields.

But the munition can also be used as an incendiary weapon and can cause fires, horrific burns, respiratory damage, organ failure and death.

"Israel's widespread use of white phosphorus in south Lebanon is putting civilians at grave risk and contributing to civilian displacement," Human Rights Watch said in a report released Wednesday.

The rights watchdog said it "verified the use of white phosphorus munitions by Israeli forces in at least 17 municipalities across south Lebanon since October", including five where it was "unlawfully used over populated residential areas".

AFP photographs taken on at least 10 separate occasions between October and April show eerie, octopus-like smoke plumes consistent with white phosphorus.

The images were taken in at least eight different locations along the border, several times in apparent proximity to houses.

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The Israeli army said in October its procedures require that white phosphorus rounds "are not used in densely populated areas, subject to certain exceptions".

"This complies and goes beyond the requirements of international law," it said in a statement, adding that the army "does not use such shells for purposes of targeting or setting fire".

- 'Asphyxiation' -

Lebanon's official National News Agency has repeatedly reported Israeli phosphorus bombing in south Lebanon, including in recent days, sometimes causing fires.

The agency said "phosphorus shells fell between the houses" in Hula on January 28 after "enemy artillery" targeted the village.

Hammud said he and his wife, in her 60s, were admitted to hospital in nearby Mais al-Jabal after the attack that day, receiving treatment including oxygen.

The hospital told AFP that four civilians, two of them women, were admitted to intensive care for "asphyxiation and severe shortness of breath due to white phosphorus", including a man in his 70s and a woman in her 60s.

Lebanon's health ministry said Wednesday it had registered 178 people as suffering from "chemical exposure due to white phosphorus" since October, a figure that does not distinguish between fighters and civilians.

Doctors at three other hospitals in south Lebanon told AFP their facilities had treated people with respiratory symptoms of white phosphorus exposure.

Brian Castner, a weapons investigator for Amnesty International's crisis team, said "using white phosphorus in areas populated by civilians can constitute indiscriminate attacks, which are a violation of international humanitarian law".

"If civilians are injured or killed that can be a war crime," he added.

Peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon have also detected white phosphorus within their premises, a UN official told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to brief the media.

- Farmers worried -

The cross-border hostilities have killed more than 450 people in Lebanon according to an AFP tally, most of them fighters but also including 88 civilians.

Israel says 14 soldiers and 11 civilians have been killed on its side of the border.

Amnesty International last year said it had "evidence of Israel's unlawful use of white phosphorus" in south Lebanon between October 10 and 16.

An October 16 attack on the village of Dhayra "must be investigated as a war crime because it was an indiscriminate attack that injured at least nine civilians", Amnesty said at the time.

The White House in December expressed concern over reports that Israel used US-supplied white phosphorus in attacks on Lebanon.

Beirut in October lodged a complaint with the UN, charging that Israel's use of white phosphorus was "endangering the lives of a large number of innocent civilians and causing widespread environmental degradation, owing to the Israeli practice of burning Lebanese wooded areas".

The use of white phosphorus has also caused alarm among south Lebanon farmers who have seen their agricultural lands burnt, with some worried about potential soil and crop contamination.

Tamara Elzein, secretary-general of Lebanon's National Council for Scientific Research, noted there was little literature on how white phosphorus bombing impacts soil.

The organisation was planning broad scientific sampling to assess any contamination but was "waiting for the ceasefire to send our team and to make this assessment", she said.

Antoine Kallab, associate director of the American University of Beirut's Nature Conservation Center, said "the lack of data" was causing panic and that some farmers were "scrambling to get testing" done.

"It's important that we take measurements as soon as possible" to understand whether white phosphorus shelling poses "a general risk on public health, on food security, on the ecosystem itself", he said.

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Netanyahu vows ‘extremely strong’ response to Hezbollah attacks

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned that the military are ready for “extremely strong action” to attacks across the Israel-Lebanon border by Hezbollah.

His comments – made during a visit to northern Israel – come as attacks by the Iran-backed Hezbollah have intensified in recent days, with a wave of attacks setting off massive forest fires that have been fanned by high winds. Many Israeli towns near the border have been evacuated in recent months, with hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah at their worst since a 2006 war.

The exchanges of fire started in the wake of an attack by Hamas – also backed by Tehran – on Israeli soil on 7 October last year that saw 1,200 people killed and around 250 more taken hostage. That attacked triggered an Israeli offensive on Gaza that has killed more than 36,000 people, according to health officials in the Hamas-run strip. The conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, which has been fought in parallel to the Gaza war.

“We said at the start of the war that we would restore security in both the south and the north, and this is what we are doing,” Mr Netanyahu said. “Whoever thinks that they can harm us and we will sit idly by is making a big mistake. We are prepared for a very strong action in the north. In one way or another we will restore security to the north.”

His comments came as the Israeli military began a new campaign against Hamas in central Gaza, launching airstrikes that Palestinian medics said killed dozens of people.

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At least 44 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli military strikes in central Gaza Strip areas since Tuesday, health officials in the enclave said. The Israeli military said jets were hitting Hamas militant targets in central Gaza while ground forces were operating "in a focused manner with guidance from intelligence" in the area of Al-Bureij - one of Gaza’s long established refugee settlements.

The attacks took place while ceasefire negotiations continued in the Qatari capital of Doha, and Gaza residents furiously claimed they were being used as bargaining chips while the talks were ongoing.

“Every time they speak about new truce talks, [Israel] uses one town or refugee camp as a pressuring card,” Aya, 30, a displaced woman in Deir Al-Balah, told Reuters. “Why should civilians, people safe inside their homes or tents, pay the price? Why can’t Arabs and the world stop the war?"

The negotiations are being led by officials from the Qatar, Egypt and the US and hope to seal a deal involving the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza for some of the Palestinians held in Israel jails. CIA Director Bill Burns met with Qatar’s prime minister on Wednesday as part of those talks, according to an official briefed on the negotiations.

It is believed the US are waiting for a response from Hamas, through the Qatari mediators, to the proposal revealed by US President Joe Biden last Friday.

Efforts to wind down the almost eight-month-old war have stumbled over Israel's declared aim of eliminating Hamas as a governing and military force, while Hamas has given no sign it would step down and wants the Israeli offensive called off. "Any negotiations with Hamas would be conducted only under fire," Israel’s defence minister, Yoav Gallant said in remarks carried by Israeli media after he flew abroad a warplane to inspect the Gaza front on Wednesday.

Qatar announced on Tuesday that the proposal was now much closer to the positions of both sides. But a spokesman for Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007, reiterated on Tuesday it could not agree to any deal unless Israel makes a “clear" commitment to a permanent truce and complete withdrawal from Gaza. Is

In signs of a lack of unity among Israel’s ruling coaltion, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, a far-right minister, threatened to “disrupt” the government until Mr Netanyahu discloses details of the prospective Gaza deal

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Meanwhile, thousands of Israeli police deployed in the streets of Jerusalem on Wednesday for the annual Flag Day procession. The event marks Israel's capture of east Jerusalem, including the Old City and its holy sites sacred to Jews, Christians and Muslims, in the 1967 Middle East war. Thousands of Israelis, including many ultranationalists, took part in the "Jerusalem Day" march.

The march in the past has helped fuel violence, including helping to set off an 11-day war with Hamas three years ago. Palestinians see the march as provocative.

Just before the march began, crowds scuffled with police and threw plastic bottles at at a journalist wearing a Press vest .

Mr Ben-Gvir, who has repeatedly made contentious visits to a sensitive Jerusalem holy site, was expected to join the march through the Old City.

"We are delivering a message from here to Hamas, Jerusalem is ours. Damascus Gate is ours," he told marchers at the start of the rally.

Commenting on the march, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh said "our people will not rest until the occupation is gone and an independent Palestinian state is established, with Jerusalem as its capital".

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