...Based on its research and analysis, including a review of Israeli interpretation of the laws of war, Amnesty International has concluded that Israeli forces committed serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, including war crimes. In particular, Amnesty International has found that Israeli forces carried out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on a large scale. These include the sustained artillery bombardment of south Lebanon and, in particular, the widespread use of cluster bombs in civilian areas in the last days of the war.
As shown in an initial briefing published in August(118) and illustrated further in this report, such attacks also included those on civilian infrastructure -- for example, the bombing of the Jiyye power station which also caused massive environmental damage. In this context Israeli forces also appear to have carried out direct attacks on civilian objects, such as the destruction of factories and of the small port of al-Ouza’i and its fishing boats.
The attacks on the infrastructure, on objects indispensable to the survival of the population, as well as the air and sea blockade imposed throughout the war and beyond, seem to have been intended to inflict a form of collective punishment on Lebanon’s people, in order to induce them and the Lebanese government to turn against Hizbullah, as well as to cause harm to Hizbullah’s military capability.
Finally, based on the available evidence and in the absence of an adequate or any explanation from the Israeli authorities for so many attacks by their forces causing civilian deaths and destruction, when no evidence of Hizbullah military activities was apparent, it seems clear that Israeli forces consistently failed to adopt necessary precautionary measures. As seen in threats expressed in public statements by senior political and military leaders and in leaflets dropped into Lebanon, Israeli forces effectively considered any civilian travelling in south Lebanon as a military target, in flagrant violation of the principle of distinction. Any attack carried out in this context would have been an indiscriminate attack if not a direct attack against civilians.
In a briefing published in September 2006, Amnesty International looked into Hizbullah’s rocket bombardment of northern Israel and concluded that Hizbullah also committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, including war crimes. In particular, the scale of Hizbullah’s rocket attacks on towns and villages in northern Israel, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used, together with statements by Hizbullah’s leader, showed that Hizbullah carried out direct attacks on civilians as well as indiscriminate attacks and attacks on the civilian population as reprisal.
Hizbullah fighters also appear not to have taken necessary precautions to protect civilians in Lebanon from the effects of Israeli attacks. The evidence suggests that, in at least some cases, Katyusha rockets were stored within villages and fired from civilian areas, although the extent of such conduct is not clear. It is also not clear from the handful of examples made available by the Israeli authorities and other evidence whether civilians were present in buildings close to the firing areas. If Hizbullah fighters stored Katyushas in, or fired them from, close proximity to civilians in the hope of deterring Israeli attacks, this would amount to the war crime of using civilians as "human shields". The evidence available to Amnesty International does not substantiate the allegations that Hizbullah prevented civilians from fleeing, and in several cases points to the contrary...
http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engmde020332006
