posted August 23, 2006 11:08 PM              

The aftermath of an Israeli air strike on southern Beirut. Photograph: Mohamed Messara/EPA

David Fickling
Wednesday August 23, 2006

Guardian Unlimited

Israel deliberately targeted civilian infrastructure and committed war crimes during the month-long conflict in Lebanon, according to an Amnesty International report.
The report said strikes on civilian buildings and structures went beyond "collateral damage" and amounted to indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks under the Geneva conventions on the laws of war.

Kate Gilmore, the Amnesty executive deputy secretary general, said the bombardment of power and water plants and transport links was "deliberate and an integral part of a military strategy".

"Israel's assertion that the attacks on the infrastructure were lawful is manifestly wrong," she said.

"Many of the violations identified in our report are war crimes. The pattern, scope and scale of the attacks makes Israel's claim that this was collateral damage simply not credible."

Amnesty called for an official UN inquiry into human rights violations on both sides of the conflict.

The report's authors described the destruction of up to 90% of some towns and villages in southern Lebanon, releasing aerial photographs that showed Beirut's southern Dahiya district had been transformed from a bustling suburb into a grey wasteland.

"In village after village the pattern was similar - the streets, especially main streets, were scarred with artillery craters along their length," the report said.

"In some cases, cluster bomb impacts were identified. Houses were singled out for precision-guided missile attack and were destroyed, totally or partially, as a result.

"Business premises such as supermarkets or food stores and auto service stations and petrol stations were targeted, often with precision-guided munitions and artillery that started fires and destroyed their contents."

Israel launched more than 7,000 air strikes against Lebanon during the 34-day war, and naval vessels launched 2,500 shells, the report said.

Around one third of the 1,183 people killed in Lebanon were children, while 4,054 people were injured and 970,000 displaced.

Lebanese estimates suggest that 30,000 houses, along with up to 120 bridges, 94 roads, 25 fuel stations and 900 businesses, were destroyed.

Two hospitals were destroyed and three others severely damaged, while 31 "vital points" - such as airports, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, and electrical facilities - were also completely or partially destroyed.

The overall cost of the damage amounted to $3.5bn (£1.8bn), the report said.

Around 4,000 Hizbullah rockets were fired at northern Israel during the conflict, killing around 40 civilians. Up to 300,000 people in northern Israel were driven into bomb shelters by the fighting, and 117 soldiers died.

The Amnesty report said Israeli military policy seemed directed at destroying Lebanese popular support for Hizbullah, a tactic prohibited by the Geneva conventions.

"The widespread destruction ... in addition to several statements by Israeli officials, suggests a policy of punishing both the Lebanese government and the civilian population in an effort to get them to turn against Hizbullah," it said.

Red Cross officials were quoted as saying that people left behind in inaccessible villages in southern Lebanon had been unable to get hold of fresh water.

Refugees from the border village of Rmeish had told Red Cross delegates that locals had had to drinking foul water from an irrigation ditch.

The report's allegation of disproportionate action echoes comments made during the conflict by international observers including French, Russian and EU officials and the UN humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland.

However, the British government has avoided the term, which could be considered an accusation of war crimes, although former the foreign secretary Jack Straw and the Conservative foreign affairs spokesman William Hague both used it.

posted August 23, 2006 11:10 PM              

quote:

---

"The civilian population in Lebanon and in northern Israel have been the biggest losers in this senseless cycle of violence that is now exactly one month old...Civilians were supposed to be spared and in this conflict they are not."

Jan Egeland, UN Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, 10 August 2006

---

For the report:

posted August 25, 2006 04:43 PM              

Says massive destruction `deliberate'

Aug. 25, 2006. 01:00 AM
SUE LEEMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS

LONDON—Amnesty International has accused Israel of war crimes, saying it broke international law by deliberately destroying Lebanon's civilian infrastructure during its recent war with Hezbollah guerrillas.

The human rights group said initial evidence, including the pattern and scope of the Israeli attacks, number of civilian casualties, widespread damage and statements by Israeli officials "indicate that such destruction was deliberate and part of a military strategy, rather than `collateral damage.'''

The group, whose delegates monitored the fighting in both Israel and Lebanon, said Israel violated international laws banning direct attacks on civilians and barring indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.

"The scale of the destruction was just extraordinary," said Amnesty researcher Donatella Rovera, who co-authored the report. "There is clear evidence of disproportionate and indiscriminate attacks."

The group urged the United Nations to look into whether both Israel and Hezbollah — whose attacks on Israel will be addressed separately — broke international law.

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry, said his country acted legally.

"Israel's actions in Lebanon were in accordance with recognized norms of behaviour during conflicts and with relevant international law," he said. "Unlike Hezbollah, we did not deliberately target the Lebanese civilian population. On the contrary, under very difficult circumstances, we tried to be as surgical as is humanly possible in targeting the Hezbollah terrorist organization.''

Regev said that Lebanese infrastructure was "targeted only when that infrastructure was being exploited by the Hezbollah machine, and this is in accordance with the rules of war.''

Israel suffered international condemnation when it attacked targets in southern Lebanon hours after Hezbollah guerrillas operating there killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two in a cross-border raid July 12.

The Israel Defence Forces has said that between that raid and the Aug. 14 ceasefire, it launched more than 7,000 air attacks and the navy conducted about 2,500 bombardments.

UNICEF estimates 1,183 people died, about a third of them children. Some 970,000 Lebanese were displaced, and 15,000 homes destroyed.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendly&c=Article&cid=1156456211725&call_pageid=968332188854

posted August 25, 2006 06:08 PM            

Using civilians as shields behind which to launch attacks in a war crime. Combatants hiding in a civilian population is a separate war crime because it invites...and almost assures there will be more civilian casualties.

Further, Lebanon is in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 15-59 by which Lebanon was supposed to disarm all militias within it's borders and set up a buffer zone in southern Lebanon on the border with Israel to prevent anyone within Lebanon from attacking Israel from Lebanon.

Further, Lebanon is now in violation of it's ceasefire agreement whereby they were to disarm Hezbollah and place sufficient Lebanese troops in a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon to prevent attacks.

Hezbollah, which also was consulted and agreed to the ceasefire provisions is also in violation.

So much for the word of terrorists and terrorist supporters.

When the hostilities resume...and if things continue to go the way they are now...they will resume, Hezbollah and the Lebonese government better pray that there isn't a change in government in Israel.