skip navigation
Home | Site Map | RSS FeedsRSS Feeds
Landmine Action

Explosive violence - Israel & Gaza

5 February 2009 | Related documentRelated document

 

The pattern of violence in Gaza and Israel from December 2008 to January 2009 provides pressing evidence of the need to further stigmatise the use of explosive weapons in populated areas.

Whilst prohibitions on anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions have applied legal controls to narrow categories of technology, this paper calls for the development of a stronger precautionary orientation to the  wider category of ‘explosive weapons.’  In doing so it challenges the ‘normalisation’ of explosive force in populated areas. It is not proposing new legal controls but rather, as a first step, a collective and explicit recognition that explosive weapons used in populated areas tend to result in a predictable pattern of indiscriminate and severe humanitarian harm.

This policy brief argues that a common recognition that the use of explosive weapons in populated areas consistently produces severe humanitarian harm would provide a powerful lever for future efforts to reduce the humanitarian impact of armed violence.

How you can help

Donate NowDonate Now
Help Landmine Action protect civilians from the effects of conflict.

Take ActionTake Action
Write to your MP, sign a petition, make your voice heard.

VolunteerVolunteer
Could you spare a few hours a week to help support our campaigns?

 Endrit_and_Labinot-Rexhaj, Kosovo
Featured resources

Publications

AOAV update on explosive weapons in populated areas - July 2010
20 July 2010
An Action on Armed Violence update welcoming the UN’s call for action on the issue of explosive weapons use in populated areas.

A State of Ignorance
14 July 2010
A State of Ignorance critically examines attempts by the UK to assess the number of civilian deaths resulting from the 2003 Iraq war and the violence that followed. Using documents released under the UK Freedom of Information Act over several years, it outlines the internal deliberations within government and Whitehall about Iraqi deaths. It concludes that the effort was fundamentally inadequate.