The latest Human Rights Report offers a chilling reading on how more than one thousand Lebanese civilians died in Israel’s July war. It also rebukes one of Israel’s loudest sound-bites, namely the argument that Hezbollah used women and Children as human shields.
The investigation took 5 months, in which Human Rights Watch visited more than 50 Lebanese villages and interviewed 316 victims and eyewitnesses, as well as 39 military experts, journalists and Israeli, Lebanese government and Hezbollah officials.
Below is an excerpt from the press release they emailed me. (Interestingly, they did not email me the press release of the first Hezbollah report which caused a big outrage in Lebanon)
Human Rights Watch’s on-the-ground investigation refutes the argument made by Israeli officials that most of the Lebanese civilian casualties were due to Hezbollah routinely hiding among civilians and using them as “human shields” in the fighting. Hezbollah at times did fire rockets from, and store weapons in, populated areas and deploy its forces among the civilian population. That violated its legal duty to take all feasible precautions to spare civilians the hazards of armed conflict. In a few cases documented by Human Rights Watch, these Hezbollah violations led to civilian deaths. However, in contrast to this unlawful endangering of civilians, Human Rights Watch found no evidence in these cases of the separate legal violation of shielding, which is the deliberate use of civilians to render combatants immune from attack. The various film clips and photos published by the IDF and its allies do not provide that evidence.
Human Rights Watch found that a simple movement of vehicles or persons – such as attempting to buy bread or moving about private homes – could be enough to cause a deadly Israeli airstrike that would kill civilians. Israeli warplanes also targeted moving vehicles that turned out to be carrying only civilians trying to flee the conflict. In most such cases documented in the report, there is no evidence of a Hezbollah military presence that would have justified the attack.
The report makes the following main recommendations:
· Israel should revise its military policies that effectively treat all persons remaining in an area following evacuation warnings as combatants, so that in the future it targets only people or structures that constitute valid military objectives under the laws of war. Israel’s Winograd Commission, in particular, should investigate this issue.
· Hezbollah should take all feasible measures to ensure that Hezbollah forces do not place civilians or UN personnel at unnecessary risk by deploying in, firing from or storing weapons in populated areas. The Lebanese government should investigate these practices. (Human Rights Watch’s report on Hezbollah’s deliberate and indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilian areas of Israel also calls for the Lebanese government to investigate those practices: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/08/30/lebano16740.htm).
· The United States should investigate Israel’s use of US-supplied arms in violation of the laws of war and suspend the transfer of those arms that have been used unlawfully, as well as funding or support for such materiel, pending certification by the US State Department that Israel has stopped using such arms in violation of the law and has changed the military doctrine behind that misuse.
· Syria and Iran should not transfer to Hezbollah any material, including rockets, which Hezbollah has used in violation of the laws of war, until Hezbollah commits that it will not use them as such and in fact ceases such use.
· The secretary-general of the United Nations should establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate reports of violations of the laws of war by all parties to the conflict, including possible war crimes.
In case you wish to download the entire 237 pages report, click here.
You can also download the previous report: “Civilians under Assault, Hezbollah’s Rocket Attacks on Israel in the 2006 War”
Hello, my name is Mustapha and I've been blogging about Lebanese society, business and politics since February 2005.
All nice and well, but since when does anyone care about these kinds of reports? I don’t think either the IDF or Hezbollah will be listening to these “recommendations”.
Israel highly recommends that Hizballah mark the cars it uses so that Israel does not inadvertently shoot civillian vehicles.
All the laws of war assume that two regular armies are fighting each other. If HRW wants to be taken seriously by Israel they should explain how they would fight a guerilla army effectively. Otherwise, HRW is just another weapon in the hands of HA against Israel and all HRW is doing is telling Israel not to fight back.
who cares, no one reads that, but the difference in Isreal they can read it, but ours …….
I think we have to be fair and Hizballah must admit that it places rocket launchers in the middle of civilian buildings!!! Check just one video on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFQapL72Ouw&mode=related&search=
I am new to your blog and enjoyed reading it. My blog is not political but I love reading political blog from other countries.
I have been reading about Hariri’s family lately and their significance in Arab region.
Another missed opportunity for Seniora. If he stayed restrained when the first report criticised Hizballah. Then he could have used this report to bolster Lebanon’s claim of war crimes.
But since Siniora attacked HRW integrity he affectively nullified this 2nd report. And the ability of Lebanon to use its conclusions to go after Isreal through the courts. And it doesnt matter if you win, but you can keep Isreal’s crimes against Lebanon in the news.
Yeah I sorta agree with Ramzi…
My point would’ve been that the first report which was attacked by all was actually accurate although it kinda doesn’t make sense to blame Hezbollah for their “dumb”non-guided missiles… But the irony is although this report would’ve deafened us had it come before the one that condemns Hezbollah, this time around it was completely silent and unheard off, and didn’t stir any support… We remain a bunch of tribal herds…
War crimes ?
Its funny – not one word from the Arab world when the serbians lined up muslims by the 1000′s and gunned them down in cold blood. No Jihad, No protest, No Nothing.
The Americans had to intervene – save muslim lives and now they are the “evil infidels”
Let me make it very simple for the Arab world to understand Israels position..
We know full well that you wont leave her alone until she is dead. Only the extermination of the Jewish people will make you happy.
Soon enough we will have to go nuclear – because you simply wont stop trying to kill her, when all she wants is to be welcomed home by her greater semitic family and be allowed her rightful space on the planet
only her blood and death will satisfy you
so when 1000 die – when she could have easily killed 100,000 – this is not a crime – its a gesture saying that she has no wish to harm you…please just once and for all leave her alone
I agree with Zionist, Israel could have done 100 times worse at least, and if hezboz had Israels power they would have done 1 million time worse.
I think that Ramzi prooved on the contrary that Siniora did the right thing, who said that he wants to sue Israel for war crimes? Which tribunal is going to find Israel guilty of targeted attacks and hezboz innocent of blind attacks.
Tarek: “it kinda doesn’t make sense to blame Hezbollah for their “dumb”non-guided missiles…” I wonder if what you are saying makes any sense. By saying that you mean i can go out to my balcony and launch a dumb missile, and since its not guided, than i am not responsible of its damages??? Thats PLAIN DUMB!!!
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I want to appologise to mustapha – I love your blog – and I dont mean to lump all arabs together in one catagory.
keep on doing what you’re doing mustapha – you prove that maybe the good guys will win
Yeah, Zionist, your comment there was a bit over the top.
I’m always curious how this kind of research is conducted.
It’s explained here:
“Reproduced below is a list of 97 incidents involving civilian casualties and civilian
infrastructure that we have investigated in Lebanon. The information listed below,
based on our field investigation of the sites and witness testimonies, includes the
date and time of the strike, the method of attack, the village where the attack took
place, and the death toll. Because place names often vary, our researchers also took
the GPS coordinates of individual strikes, which should allow the IDF to coordinate
this information with its strike logs and establish the specific military target attacked.”
97 incidents… that’s a lousy number if you would ask me.
Testimonies? Since when in Hezbollah reigned south testimonies are independent?
Reports such as these from human right organisations smell when research is done in messed up countries.
Unfortunately usually messed up countries have to deal with human rights organisations.
So I am not going to blame HRW for doing their work
btw mustapha…I see the question nasrallah ad’s on your site..
takes alot of guts – I respect that – you are making the fate of your nation (rather than accepting it by default)
be well
To the Zionist,
The phrase “Soon enough we will have to go nuclear”, that is not constructive. Such kind of talk gives right to crazy leaders in Iran to go nuclear as well. With such phrases you are not helping in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons in the region, and seriously who wants that?
“Hezbollah should take all feasible measures to ensure that Hezbollah forces do not place civilians or UN personnel at unnecessary risk by deploying in, firing from or storing weapons in populated areas. The Lebanese government should investigate these practices. (Human Rights Watch’s report on Hezbollah’s deliberate and indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilian areas of Israel also calls for the Lebanese government to investigate those practices: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/08/30/lebano16740.htm).”
I wouldn’t hold my breath on this one.
Or any of the others, really, though I hope someone in Israel is paying attention to this:
· Israel should revise its military policies that effectively treat all persons remaining in an area following evacuation warnings as combatants, so that in the future it targets only people or structures that constitute valid military objectives under the laws of war. Israel’s Winograd Commission, in particular, should investigate this issue.
Even if they think it will give Hezbollah a tactical advantage, as the July war proved the media disadvantage of being wrong and its impact on future action is probably worse than the tactical disadvantage of requiring more intel that “we said leave”.
Not to mention the moral implications.
“although it kinda doesn’t make sense to blame Hezbollah for their “dumb”non-guided missiles”
That argument would make more sense had Hezbollah:
1) Not announced that they were intentionally targeting Israeli cities with no military value whatsoever; or
2) Not packed their missile warheads with ball bearings, which are useless against military targets (even individual soldiers) but perfectly tailored to maximize the damage to unprotected civilian flesh and unarmored civilian property.
Anyone who thinks Hezbollah had any interest at all in avoiding or minimizing civilian casualties needs their heads examined
Surprise, As an Israeli saying some thing not 100% negative about the Hizb.
Ball bearings are put in missiles since the 17-18th century, perhaps before there were ball bearings. Such ball bearings are standard ammo. in Nato and Russia. They are designed against infantry and other soft targets. The Hizb. did not put the metal balls in the war heads. They bought or got the missiles that were designed militarily and used them against civilians.
It has been suggested that Israel will learn from the Hizb. and start manufacturing and using such missles with nominal bulls eye +/- 100 meters or even 300m. Israel can produce thusands of these for the price of one wing of F 16. Is it legal? is war legal?
This reeks of a semantics arguement. Did Hizb hide amongst the populace. Sure. Did they hold people at gun point and force them to get hit by rockets… probably not. Israel’s point remains: Fighting opposing forces that use guerilla and/or insurgent tactics cause much higher civilian casualties. The fact that his appears to be News to HRW shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Ali @ 15
“To the Zionist,
The phrase “Soon enough we will have to go nuclear”, that is not constructive. Such kind of talk gives right to crazy leaders in Iran to go nuclear as well. With such phrases you are not helping in stopping the spread of nuclear weapons in the region, and seriously who wants that?”
You are correct assuming Ahmadnejad reads this blog and assuming his desire to go nuclear rests solely on ability of Israel go nuclear.
“although it kinda doesn’t make sense to blame Hezbollah for their “dumb”non-guided missiles”
Does it mean Israel should forgo use of precision-guided weapons in favor of “dumb” weapons to satisfy HWR watch requirements?
I am sure they are technically capable of laying more than one carpet of those dummies. Daisy-cutters, anyone? What a load of …
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