PARIS: Injuries caused to Palestinians by the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip are unusually severe, a French humanitarian group said Tuesday after one of their doctors raised the possibility that the Jewish state was using cluster bombs. "Our emergency doctor, Regis Garrigues, who has traveled regularly to Gaza for several years has noted the particular gravity and severity of injuries," said Eric Chevallier, director of international operations at Paris-based Medecins du Monde.
"Amputations of both limbs are being carried out, which is relatively rare. This indicates injuries that are particularly serious. The impact appears to be very violent," he said.
Chevallier refused to be drawn on what type of weapons could cause such wounds.
The comments were a step back from affirmations made by Garrigues to Liberation newspaper in which he said the injuries resembled those caused by cluster bombs.
"We were very surprised to note injuries of an unusual gravity," the head of the Medecins du Monde mission in the Occupied Palestinian Territories said.
"All this resembles the effects of cluster bombs released from drones carrying delayed-explosion sub-munitions, very sophisticated weaponry that causes hellish damage and which should not be used against civilian populations," Garrigues said, quoted in Tuesday's edition.
The US-based rights group, Human Rights Watch, Monday said that Israel had used artillery-fired cluster munitions in Lebanon. Cluster munitions are particularly dangerous because they have a high level of duds that can explode much later after the attack. - AFP