(Jerusalem, September 6, 2007) – Israel’s indiscriminate airstrikes, not Hezbollah’s shielding as claimed by Israeli officials, caused most of the approximately 900 civilian deaths in Lebanon during the July-August 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch investigated more than 500 of the deaths.
Israel wrongfully acted as if all civilians had heeded its warnings to evacuate southern Lebanon when it knew they had not, disregarding its continuing legal duty to distinguish between military targets and civilians. Issuing warnings doesn’t make indiscriminate attacks lawful.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.
“Israel wrongfully acted as if all civilians had heeded its warnings to evacuate southern Lebanon when it knew they had not, disregarding its continuing legal duty to distinguish between military targets and civilians,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Issuing warnings doesn’t make indiscriminate attacks lawful.”
The 249-page report, “Why They Died: Civilian Casualties in Lebanon during the 2006 War,” represents the most extensive investigation to date of civilian deaths in Lebanon during the war. In five months of research, Human Rights Watch investigated 94 cases of air, artillery and ground attacks by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to discern the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 510 civilians and 51 combatants, nearly half the at least 1,109 Lebanese deaths during the conflict. Of the approximately 510 Lebanese civilian deaths investigated by Human Rights Watch, at least 300 were women or children. 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.
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.
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Israel Governement will find another excuses for what they have done, just like any criminal organisation.