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Amnesty International today published findings that point to an Israeli policy of deliberate destruction of Lebanese civilian infrastructure, which included war crimes, during the recent conflict.

The organization's latest publication shows how Israel's destruction of thousands of homes, and strikes on numerous bridges and roads as well as water and fuel storage plants, was an integral part of Israel's military strategy in Lebanon, rather than “collateral damage” resulting from the lawful targeting of military objectives.

The report reinforces the case for an urgent, comprehensive and independent UN inquiry into grave violations of international humanitarian law committed by both Hizbullah and Israel during their month-long conflict.

"Israel’s assertion that the attacks on the infrastructure were lawful is manifestly wrong. Many of the violations identified in our report are war crimes, including indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks. The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of power and water plants, as well as the transport infrastructure vital for food and other humanitarian relief, was deliberate and an integral part of a military strategy," said Kate Gilmore, Executive Deputy Secretary General of Amnesty International.

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Cluster bombs dropped earlier by Israeli warplanes continue to kill and maim those who step on them. The CBC's Mike Hornbrook reports that the victims are often young children.

"I went to a house with my friend where a soldier died," said Hassan Tahini, 10, from a hospital bed in the southern city of Tyre. "I stepped on the bomb. I didn't see it."

Hassan was injured by a fragment from a cluster bomb, an anti-personnel device dropped by Israeli war planes on Hezbollah fighters.

Nadim Houry, a Montreal lawyer, is in Lebanon to head an investigation by New York-based group Human Rights Watch.

Houry says there is a very high failure rate for bomblets within the cluster bombs, and many unexploded bomblets remain, creating minefields. He says at least 30 villages are littered with cluster bombs and the threat grows as more people return to their homes.

"It's a race against the clock at this point. We need resources. The de-mining groups are working 24 hours a day, but they need resources," Houry said. "That, in my opinion, is the first priority: making the villages safe."

Human Rights Watch is preparing a report that is expected to accuse Israel of breaching the Geneva Conventions in its use of cluster bombs.

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The Mennonite Central Committee, which has done work with unexploded bomblets in Laos, has some information here on cluster bombs, including information on why a number of military establishments have not wanted to include these awful weapons in the landmines ban.

[ 23 August 2006: Message edited by: sgm ]

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The State Department is investigating whether Israel’s use of American-made cluster bombs in southern Lebanon violated secret agreements with the United States that restrict when it can employ such weapons, two officials said.

The investigation by the department’s Office of Defense Trade Controls began this week, after reports that three types of American cluster munitions, anti-personnel weapons that spray bomblets over a wide area, have been found in many areas of southern Lebanon and were responsible for civilian casualties.

Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman, said, “We have heard the allegations that these munitions were used, and we are seeking more information.” He declined to comment further.

Several current and former officials said that they doubted the investigation would lead to sanctions against Israel but that the decision to proceed with it might be intended to help the Bush administration ease criticism from Arab governments and commentators over its support of Israel’s military operations. The investigation has not been publicly announced; the State Department confirmed it in response to questions.

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In 1982, delivery of cluster-bomb shells to Israel was suspended a month after Israel invaded Lebanon after the Reagan administration determined that Israel “may” have used them against civilian areas.

But the decision to impose what amounted to a indefinite moratorium was made under pressure from Congress, which conducted a long investigation of the issue. Israel and the United States reaffirmed restrictions on the use of cluster munitions in 1988, and the Reagan administration lifted the moratorium.

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Negotiations preceded convoy attack

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The military, formally called the Israel Defense Forces, "suspected that the vehicles were either returning from a weapons delivery to Hezbollah terrorists in the south or were fleeing from IDF forces with their weapons," the statement added. It did not address the questions of what led the Israeli military to believe the cars were carrying weapons or how, if a request for safe passage had come from the United Nations, the Israeli military could believe it was seeing a Hezbollah convoy.

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Israeli collective massacres in Lebanon

The details are horrifying and include village, region, targetted area, number of killed, number of wounded and some remarks. There are 56 entries in the list, starting with the Aytaroun first massacre in which a Lebanese-Canadian family was slaughtered.

A short biography of the Angry Arab follows:

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As'ad AbuKhalil, born March 16, 1960. From Tyre, Lebanon, grew up in Beirut. Received his BA and MA from American University of Beirut in pol sc. Came to US in 1983 and received his PhD in comparative government from Georgetown University. Taught at Tufts University, Georgetown University, George Washington University, Colorado College, and Randolph-Macon Woman's College. Served as a Scholar-in-Residence at Middle East Institute in Washington DC. He served as free-lance Middle East consultant for NBC News and ABC News, an experience that only served to increase his disdain for maintream US media. He is now professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus and visiting professor at UC, Berkeley. His favorite food is fried eggplants.

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[ 06 September 2006: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

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As the initial assessment and clean up of American cluster bombs, estimated at more than 130,000 unexploded bomblets across the south of Lebanon, gets underway, unanticipated findings are emerging:

The breadth and depth of the problem with cluster bombs found in 498 locations in scores of villages as of September 9th was not expected. So far less than 4% have been disposed of, and 0 % of the villages in the south have been certified as safe for domestic or agricultural use by the United Nations ordnance disposal task force.

Even operators of heavy rubble clearing equipment are finding their work is stymied because Israel dropped cluster bombs both before and after many buildings were destroyed by bombs, and therefore cluster bombs are sandwiched between layers of pancaked walls and piles of rubble....

Other recent findings confirm that Israel may have dropped as many as 60% of the cluster bombs they used during July-August 2006 in the 72 hours immediately before the ceasefire. Military analysts on the ground offer two explanations:

1. Sheer frustration, hatred, and rage by Israel's leadership and its obsession with punishing Lebanon for its more than 85% support (including Lebanon's middle class and Christian citizens) for Hezbollah's resistance to Israel's attempted reoccupation up to the Litani River.

2. A desire by Israel to get rid of as much of its U.S. cluster bomb inventory as possible, which the Pentagon has stipulated must be reduced to a lower level before Israel can reorder newer models like the M-26. This is why the 33 year old CBU-58, almost extinct, was used so widely. Israel was cleaning out its CBU closet for new orders, one Lebanese army source reported.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
How Human Rights Watch lost its way in Lebanon

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JERUSALEM -- In a rare internal critique of Israel's use of cluster bombs, a government-appointed commission has found a lack of "operational discipline, control and oversight" in the army's deployment of the weapons in civilian areas.

The panel's statement, buried in an exhaustive report on Israel's conduct of the 2006 Lebanon war, did not directly challenge the army's assertion that its use of cluster bombs in that conflict fell within the bounds of international humanitarian law.

But the five-member panel raised questions about the army's use of the ordnance against Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanese villages from which civilians had fled but to which they would eventually return.

Cluster bombs spray deadly bomblets over a wide area. The United Nations and human rights organizations say that Israel unleashed about 4 million bomblets in southern Lebanon during the 34-day war against the militant Islamic group, and that up to 1 million of them failed to explode and now endanger civilians.

U.N. monitors in Lebanon say 26 civilians have been killed in explosions in southern Lebanon since the war ended in August 2006, most of them from leftover Israeli cluster bombs.

The Winograd Commission, named for the retired Israeli judge who has headed it, issued its long-awaited report Wednesday. The panel criticized Israeli leaders' strategic and operational blunders in the inconclusive campaign, which Israelis widely view as a psychological defeat.
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Amnesty International criticized the report for ignoring what it called "grave violations of international law" by Israel. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's office called the lingering presence of unexploded bomblets in southern Lebanon "a daily war crime."

At least 1,035 Lebanese, most of them civilians, died in the conflict, along with 119 Israeli soldiers and 39 Israeli civilians. Both Hezbollah and Israel drew international criticism during the war for killing civilians.

The Winograd panel explained that it avoided an in-depth study of such allegations against Israel because it was "inappropriate to deal with issues that are part of a propaganda war."

The panel nonetheless devoted a six-page appendix of the 629-page report to the issue of cluster bombs, which had also been the subject of a yearlong inquiry within the army.

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At the same time, it is important to point out that Hezbollah, which fired rockets directly at civilian areas within Israel, was also not complying with international law.

If you are one of the people like Allan Dershowitz, who can never criticize Israel, you are being dishonest.

The same goes for anyone who won't criticize Hezbollah for its crimes.

As Amnesty International wrote at the time:

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During the recent 34-day war between Hizbullah and Israel both sides committed serious violations of international humanitarian law. Amnesty International calls for a comprehensive, independent and impartial inquiry to be conducted by the UN into violations of international humanitarian law by both sides in the conflict.

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"seems like" is a grammatical flourish.

killing the previous occupants of the land, and those who support them, many of who happen to be Muslim, is a primary activity for the Israeli government.

more blunt but i think a truthful statement.

a lot of the older Israeli politicians, like Sharon, enjoy using Palestinians as target practice.

i would expect the young business leaders of Israel to do something except follow Sharon. they will happen to have safer lives for their families, when they toss the Palestinians a significant bone, something better than a concentration camp in the middle of the desert.

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Hamas might stop firing their bottlerockets if there wasn't anybody living within range of them.

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I wouldn't bet on it. They'd probably claim the unpopulated territory and move their rockets up.

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The Damascus conference was originally supposed to be held in parallel with the Annapolis conference last autumn. However, the Syrians asked Hamas, the principal convener, to postpone it until Annapolis revealed itself to the world.

The meeting turned into an opportunity to express solidarity with Gaza and reaffirm what Hamas and its allies describe as the fixed or unalterable principles: Palestine is from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, Israel is an illegitimate colonial entity and resistance is the only means of regaining Palestinian rights.

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At the same time, it is important to point out that Hezbollah, which fired rockets directly at civilian areas within Israel, was also not complying with international law.

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Johnathan Cook:

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HRW produced two lengthy reports in August 2007, one examining events in Lebanon and the other events in Israel. But the report on what happened inside Israel, "Civilians Under Assault," failed to examine Israel's treatment of its own civilians and focused instead only on proving that Hezbollah's firing of its rockets violated international law.

HRW did make a brief reference to the possibility that Israeli military installations were located close to or inside civilian communities. It cited examples of a naval training base next to a hospital in Haifa and a weapons factory built in a civilian community. Its researchers even admitted to watching the Israeli army firing shells into Lebanon from a residential street of the Jewish community of Zarit.

This act of "cowardly blending" by the Israeli army – to echo the UN envoy Jan Egeland's unwarranted criticism of Hezbollah – was a war crime. It made Israeli civilians a potential target for Hezbollah reprisal attacks.

So what was HRW's position on this gross violation of the rules of war it had witnessed? After yet again denouncing Hezbollah for its rocket attacks, the report was mealy-mouthed: "Given that indiscriminate fire [by Hezbollah], there is no reason to believe that Israel's placement of certain military assets within these cities added appreciably to the risk facing their residents."

In other words, Israel's culpability in hiding its war machine inside civilian communities did not need to be assessed on its own terms as a violation of international law. Instead Israel was let off the hook based on the assumption that Hezbollah's rockets were incapable of hitting such positions. It is dubious, to put it mildly, whether this is a legitimate reading of international law.

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Peacekeeper's death fault of Israeli military: report

OTTAWA - The death of a Canadian peacekeeper in Lebanon in 2006 was preventable and the fault of the Israeli military, a Canadian military inquiry has concluded.

The report notes that the IDF did not fully co-operate with the Canadian inquiry and denied access to documents and people involved in the event. It suggests that if the board had the access it requested, it might have been able to assign blame to an individual within the IDF.

(..) The board also couldn't resolve the unanswered question of why Israeli air force jets continued their attacks despite warnings that UN personnel were in the area.

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The Ottawa Citizen, Feb 1st, 2008

http://tinyurl.com/24av2q

[ 01 February 2008: Message edited by: adam stratton ]