sofia already mentioned this in a
comment, but it's worth a diary of its own. Human Rights Watch has released a
fifty-page report on the Israeli assault in Lebanon. The summary press release, titled "Israel/Lebanon: End Indiscriminate Strikes on Civilians,"
states the following conclusion:
Human Rights Watch researchers found numerous cases in which the IDF launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military objectives but excessive civilian cost. In many cases, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some instances, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians.
More on the flip
The press release begins by noting a "systematic failure" by Israel to distinguish between combatants and civilians. It adds:
The pattern of attacks in more than 20 cases investigated by Human Rights Watch researchers in Lebanon indicates that the failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hezbollah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes.
The report documents 153 dead civilians, including 63 children, all of whom are identified by name, and it also notes that at least 500 people have been killed in Lebanon, mostly civilians, since the fighting began.
"The pattern of attacks shows the Israeli military's disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Our research shows that Israel's claim that Hezbollah fighters are hiding among civilians does not explain, let alone justify, Israel's indiscriminate warfare."
The press release then goes on to document two different instances in which Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targetted civilians, in acts that may constitute war crimes:
In one case, an Israeli air strike on July 13 destroyed the home of a cleric known to have sympathy for Hezbollah but who was not known to have taken any active part in the hostilities. Even if the IDF considered him a legitimate target (and Human Rights Watch has no evidence that he was), the strike killed him, his wife, their 10 children and the family's Sri Lankan maid.
On July 16, an Israeli aircraft fired on a civilian home in the village of Aitaroun, killing 11 members of the al-Akhrass family, among them seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were vacationing in the village when the war began. Human Rights Watch independently interviewed three villagers who vigorously denied that the family had any connection to Hezbollah. Among the victims were children aged one, three, five and seven.
The report also demolishes the Israeli claim that high rates of civilian deaths are due to Hezbollah fighters hiding among the civilian population:
[I]n none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in the report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah was operating in or around the area during or prior to the attack.
"Hezbollah fighters must not hide behind civilians - that's an absolute - but the image that Israel has promoted of such shielding as the cause of so high a civilian death toll is wrong," Roth said. "In the many cases of civilian deaths examined by Human Rights Watch, the location of Hezbollah troops and arms had nothing to do with the deaths because there was no Hezbollah around."
Human Rights Watch calls on Israel to end its indiscriminate attacks and on the United States to suspend transfers of war materiel to Israel. It finishes with this:
In previous reporting, Human Rights Watch has addressed the conduct of Hezbollah forces, condemning its attacks on civilian areas as serious violations of international humanitarian law amounting to war crimes. Human Rights Watch has called on the governments of Syria and Iran to use their influence on Hezbollah to promote respect for the laws of war. In this report, it urges Hezbollah to take all feasible steps to avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas and to remove civilian persons and objects under its control from the vicinity of military objectives.
WaPo report on the HRW report
here.