Targeting of civilian areas in the 2006 Lebanon War

Main article: 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

Aftermath of an attack on residential area, Beirut. Courtesy of koldo

Artillery and missiles fired into civilian areas in Lebanon and Israel by both Israel and Hezbollah have been a major component in the conflict. Without regard to targeting, approximately one-quarter of the Israelis killed by Hezbollah and majority of the Lebanese killed by Israeli forces are reported to have been civilians. Israel, Lebanon, and the international community have all expressed grave concern over the damage to civilian life and property that has resulted from the current conflict. Israel mostly blames Hezbollah, although expressing "some regret for collateral damage to civilians caused by return fire on Hezbollah positions". Hezbollah blames Israel entirely, downplaying strikes which have killed Israeli civilians as exaggerated or justifiable. Allies of each have expressed similar views.

Targeting by Israel

Satellite photographs of the Haret Hreik neighborhood [Dahieh district] of Beirut, Lebanon, before and after 22 July 2006. See also high resolution photographs before and after.

File:Tyre Mass Graves (PBS NewsHour).png

Mass grave following Israeli air strikes in Tyre, Lebanon, 21 July 2006.

Strikes on Lebanon's civilian population and infrastructure include Rafik Hariri International Airport, ports, a lighthouse, grain silos, bridges, roads, factories, medical and relief trucks, mobile telephone and television stations, fuel containers and service stations, and the country's largest dairy farm Liban Lait.

The Amnesty International report on Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure states that "the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was deliberate and an integral part of the military strategy, rather than "collateral damage" – incidental damage to civilians or civilian property resulting from targeting military objectives.".

UN humanitarian chief Jan Egeland, called Israel's offensive "disproportionate" and "a violation of international humanitarian law" . Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent, reported from Beirut, "It used to be that the Red Cross or the Red Crescent, or some sort of health care sign made you immune in some ways on a battlefield. Not so here. We're hearing stories, confirmed stories, now about ambulances actually being attacked. Hospitals actually being bombed, so much so, that they can no longer function." The BBC reported that families evacuating the village of Marwahin in South Lebanon were struck on an open road by an Israeli missile attack; killing 17, many of them women and children. Human Rights Watch called for an investigation into this incident. There have been numerous reports of attacks on fleeing civilians; on 23 July 2006 three families fleeing Tyre at the command of the IDF were attacked by rockets fired from Israeli helicopters; all were prominently waving a white flag from their automobiles. The Israelis had warned civilians not to use vans.

An Israeli official stated that "Hezbollah has a huge arsenal and has fired 1,000 missiles at us. We are acting in self-defense. We are targeting only military objectives, including transport facilities that Hezbollah can use, but you have to remember that Hezbollah often hides in civilian areas. We sent flyers and gave other warnings to civilians to leave before our attacks." Vice Premier Shimon Peres said Israel has no intention to harm Lebanese civilians, but warned that civilians who live near Hezbollah weapon caches were in danger: "Because we know that some of their rocket caches, which are fired at Israel, are hidden in private apartments, I call on these residents to leave their homes. He who lives near a rocket is likely to get hurt."

The targeting of civilians has been characterised by some as the result of poor intelligence. In mid-June, the Lebanese Security Service allegedly arrested as many as 80 Lebanese citizens working for Mossad. The loss of such a significant number of assets would have allowed Hezbollah time to redeploy to new locations prior to the conflict without Israel's knowledge.

On 30 July 2006, Israel hit a residential building in Qana that housed refugees, which Israel said was near Hezbollah rocket launching sites; 28 people died, including 16 children.; the death toll initially reported was 57 people including 34 children . The deadly air strike, which followed Israeli attacks on two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances in Qana one week before on 24 July and Israel's infamous Qana massacre in 1996, sparked angry denunciations in Lebanon. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora revoked U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's invitation to Lebanon and said, "Out of respect for the souls of our innocent martyrs and the remains of our children buried under the rubble of Qana, we scream out to our fellow Lebanese and to other Arab brothers and to the whole world to stand united in the face of the Israeli war criminals."

The UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, has said that one third of the dead are children, and declared that the "horrific" leveling of "block after block" of buildings in Beirut "makes it a violation of humanitarian law." By Egeland's estimates, in his address to the United Nations Security Council, more than 500,000 Lebanese have been rendered internal refugees in Lebanon, as they have fled from the ongoing bombardments from Israel, and there is a mounting humanitarian situation in the country. . The figure has now jumped to over 1,000,000.

An IDF source said that in the fighting with Hezbollah in the Lebanese village of Bint Jbeil, aerial attacks have been ruled out in favor of ground troops for fear of harming the few hundred civilians thought to remain. Nine Israeli soldiers were killed in the operation.

Furthermore UN humanitarian coordinator Jan Egeland had appealed for a truce to allow casualties to be removed and food and medicine to be sent into the war zone, saying one third of the casualties in the conflict were children. But Israel has until now kept its blockade on Lebanon and has rejected such calls.

Israel's position

File:QanaLeaflet.jpg

A leaflet (authored by the IDF's psychological warfare unit) dropped by the IAF on southern Lebanon. It reads: “To all citizens south of the Litani River: Due to the terror activities being carried out against the State of Israel from within your villages and homes, the IDF was forced to respond immediately against these activities, even within your villages. For your safety! We call upon you to evacuate your villages immediately and move north of the Litani River. The State of Israel”

Israeli officials claim that they try to minimize the civilian casualties by dropping leaflets that warn civilians to leave the area before attacks.

On 14 July, IDF Army Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Dan Halutz declared that, "nothing is safe (in Lebanon), as simple as that."

On 19 July, during a speech at a pro-Israel rally in New York, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Dan Gillerman, said: “To those countries who claim that we are using disproportionate force, I have only this to say: You’re damn right we are. Because if your cities were shelled the way ours were, if your citizens were terrorized the way ours are, you would use much more force than we are using”. He has also said, “One who goes to sleep with rockets shouldn't be surprised if he doesn’t wake up in the morning.”

On 24 July, it was reported that Army Chief of Staff Halutz, according to a "senior officer", had issued orders to destroy 10 multi-storey buildings in southern Beirut for every rocket fired on Haifa. The same day the IAF/IDF confirmed it had destroyed ten buildings in Beirut, including what it described as "a vital target", but the nature of the target was not revealed. In response to the press reports, the IDF Spokesperson's Office first released a statement saying that reporters had misquoted "the senior officer", but later issued a new statement saying that the officer in question had made a mistake and was wrong in claiming that Halutz had issued such a "retaliation" directive.

On 26 July, during a security cabinet meeting headed by Prime Minister Olmert, the Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon is claimed to have said that any civilians remaining in southern Lebanon after having received warning leaflets should be considered "terrorists".

On 27 July, Professor Asa Kasher, who wrote IDF's Code of Conduct, said that the IDF may be "morally justified" to "obliterate areas with high concentrations of terrorists, even if civilian casualties result".

On August 6, in reference to EU criticism of civilian casualties resulting from IDF activity in Lebanon, Prime Minister Olmert said, "Where do they [European Countries] get the right to preach to Israel? European countries attacked Kosovo and killed 10,000 civilians. 10,000! And none of these countries had to suffer before that from a single rocket. I'm not saying it was wrong to intervene in Kosovo. But please: Don't preach to us about the treatment of civilians." According to Human Rights Watch, 500 civilians were killed during the Kosovo War in attacks confirmed to have been carried out by NATO forces. However, the Yugoslav government claimed that the bombings resulted in between 1,200 and 5,700 civilian casualties, and some sources put the death toll as high as 18,000.

An anonymous IDF rocket battery commander commented on the extent of the use of cluster bombs by saying "what we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs". IDF soldiers testified that the army had used phosphorous shells. The US government declared its intent to investigate whether Israel's use of American-made cluster bombs in southern Lebanon had violated secret agreements that restrict when it can employ such weapons. 90 percent of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the war. As of 6 September 2006, at least 13 people were killed and dozens injured after the ceasefire in Lebanon by unexploded ordnance. Most of the deaths resulted from the submunitions of cluster bombs. The UN had found 100,000 unexploded cluster bomblets at 359 sites by that time.

Eli Yishai, Israel's Vice Prime Minister and member of Israel's Security Cabinet, explained: "If Hezbollah fires Katyushas, we have to deliver a severe blow to Lebanon's infrastructure, black out Beirut, cut off electricity, turn off the water, destroy bridges, halt industry and flatten entire villages. If there is horrible damage in Lebanon, they will say, 'The Jews are crazy'" He also said: "If Lebanese citizens pay the price, they will rise up against Hezbollah."

Attacks on ambulances

On 13 July three Red Cross volunteers were wounded when an ambulance was hit.

On 18 July the IDF attacked a convoy of ambulances and trucks operated by the United Arab Emirates Red Crescent (UAERC) on the road between Damascus and Beirut. One truck was destroyed, two were damaged and four passenger vehicles were damaged, causing injuries.

According to CNN's Paula Zahn on 24 July, the Red Cross said that "an Israeli missile hit two clearly marked Red Cross ambulances that were parked inside the Lebanese town of Qana evacuating civilians—the wounded included a 60-year-old woman and 12-year-old boy who's now in a coma." The ambulances were hit around 11.15 pm while wounded patients were being from one ambulance to another. The ICRC recorded nine people including six Red Cross volunteers wounded in the attack.

It was reported on 26 July that "at least 10 Lebanese ambulances bearing the emblem of the international red cross have [...] become targets in Israeli air strikes", resulting in the injury of six emergency workers. Additionally, an ambulance marked as belonging to the Shiite Amal militia was struck by Israeli aircraft fire near Tyre.

On August 11 it was reported that the IDF had wounded several aid workers during an airstrike that hit a Lebanese Red Cross ambulance in Tibnin, southeast of Tyre. It was also reported by Associated Press that an ambulance dispatched to deal with the casualties from the airstrikes against a civilian convoy originating in Marjayoun was also attacked. The Red Cross also confirmed that a Red Cross worker had been killed in the attack on the convoy.

Attacks on convoys and road network

Main article: Attacks on civilian convoys in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

Attacks on journalists and media

By 27 July, the international journalists' representative body, Reporters without Borders, reported that, to its knowledge, the IDF had;

• killed a Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) technician during a strike against transmitting equipment in the Satka area of Beirut,
• reduced the premises of Al Manar, Hezbollah's TV station, to ruins, injuring three,
• inflicted injuries on a three-member New TV crew within Lebanon, and
• killed a young woman photographer, Layal Nagib, near Tyre.

The IDF contend that the Al-Manar TV facilities which they bombed represent the propaganda arm of Hezbollah and were a legitimate target for the IDF military. Reporters Without Borders disputes this saying that the station "cannot be viewed as [a] military" target. A statement issued by the Israeli Foreign Ministry read: "The Al-Manar station has for many years served as the main tool for propaganda and incitement by Hezbollah, and has also helped the organization recruit people into its ranks.”

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists responded to the statement by saying: "While Al-Manar may serve a propaganda function for Hezbollah, it does not appear based on a monitoring of its broadcasts today to be serving any discernible military function".

Attacks on homes

Further information: Israel Defense Forces § House demolitions

This is not a comprehensive listing:

• On 1 August it was reported that around 250 properties had been hit by IDF air strikes in the Baalbek area. The BBC described many of the homes as having "no apparent connection with Hezbollah" although the Associated Press described the targets as "suspected Hezbollah positions."

Aftermath of IDF attack on an apartment block in Tyre, Lebanon. Courtesy of Masser

• On 2 August, during the same day that the IDF captured five Hezbollah guerrillas in the Baalbek area, at least 12 people were killed in an air strike on the nearby village of Jammaliyeh. An IDF missile hit the home of the village's mayor, Hussein Jamaleddin, killing his son Ali, and six other relatives. The mayor, a reported political opponent of Hezbollah, survived the attack and witnesses said the building had apparently been attacked "randomly".
• On 6 August it was reported that a total of "2,000 bombs" had been dropped on the town of Aytarun by the IDF almost destroying it completely.
• According to the Lebanese Health Minister, on 7 August at least 50 civilians were killed and eleven missing after after an IAF missile "destroyed one residential building and damaged several others in the Shiyyah district of Beirut's southern suburbs." The initial toll of wounded was put at sixty.

Further information: 2006 Shiyyah airstrike

• Also on 7 August the IAF targeted a building in Ghaziyeh. The attack killed fourteen civilians. The next day on 8 August a further attack on Ghaziyeh against a building which the IDF claimed housed a Hezbollah member took place during the funeral of the previous day victims and killed a further one civilian. Forty minutes after this the IDF struck again and killed twelve other civilians in three separate bombings. A total of twenty-nine civilians.
  Further information: 2006 Ghaziyeh airstrikes

The number of homes destroyed by the IDF was estimated by Hezbollah to be over 15,000 completely destroyed and many more damaged. Other estimates were of 10,000 homes in need rebuilding or repairing.

Attacks on Lebanese industry

Main article: Attacks affecting Lebanese industry in the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

According to a report by Lebanon's Council for Development and Reconstruction, "The government review shows that Israel has largely avoided some types of targets: major power plants, water treatment facilities, telephone systems, central government buildings and most factories. The bombing has focused on Shiite areas of southern Lebanon and the Beirut suburbs." Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented extensive Israeli strikes against Water treatment facilities, power plants, fuel depots, factories, supermarkets and bridges, among others.

Targeting by Hezbollah

A car in Haifa, Israel damaged by shrapnel after a rocket attack during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

Map showing some of the Israeli localities attacked by rockets fired from Lebanese soil as of Monday 7 August.

Hezbollah has fired rockets, sometimes at a rate of more than 150 per day, at civilian targets throughout the conflict. These have landed in all major cities of northern Israel including Haifa, Nazareth, Tiberias, Nahariya, Safed, Afula Kiryat Shmona, Karmiel, and Maalot, and dozens of kibbutzim, moshavim, and Druze and Arab villages. Hezbollah rocket attacks are responsible for all 41 civilian Israeli fatalities in the ongoing conflict, in addition to 12 military fatalities. Because of the bombings by Hezbollah of Israel's northern cities, there is now a large displaced Israeli citizen population within Israel. "Israeli officials have estimated the number of displaced northern Israelis at 300,000 since the fighting began" on 12 July. Many of the displaced Israelis are staying in Israel's southern most city, Eilat, where hotels are overbooked. Therefore some are forced to camp out on the beach. Other families are staying in university dormitories in larger cities such as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem or in guests houses in kibbutzim south of Haifa. On 02 August figures of 200 - 300 rockets aimed at fifteen targets inside Israel were reported.

Hezbollah's position

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A Haifa street following Hezbollah rocket attack 17 July 2006

Referring to the two day period immediately after the capture of the two IDF soldiers and the IDF response, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah stated:

"'In the beginning, we started to act calmly, we focused on Israeli military bases and we didn't attack any settlement .... However, since the first day, the enemy attacked Lebanese towns and murdered civilians.' The resistance leader said Hizbullah militants had destroyed military bases, while the Israelis killed civilians and targeted Lebanon's infrastructure.

However, the Hezbollah attack that initiated the conflict has already involved rocket firing on the Israeli the towns of Even Menahem and Mattat, injuring 5 civilians. Four civilians were killed over the next two days.

Some Hezbollah statements suggest intentions of deliberately targeting civilians. On July 24 Hossein Safiadeen, Hezbollah envoy to Iran, told a conference that included the Tehran-based representative of the Palestinian group Hamas and the ambassadors from Lebanon, Syria and the Palestinian Authority "We are going to make Israel not safe for Israelis". He further outlined his organization's strategy of terrorizing Israeli civilians into leaving their country: "We will expand attacks," he said: "The people who came to Israel, (they) moved there to live, not to die. If we continue to attack, they will leave."

Hezbollah's attacks on civilian areas

Rockets fired by Hezbollah also landed and resulted in casualties in the Israeli Arab population. Nasrallah has apologized for the first two Arab fatalities, two brothers aged 3 and 5 in the mixed city of Nazareth.

Human Rights Watch stated on 18 July that

"Hezbollah's attacks [on Haifa] were at best indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas, at worst the deliberate targeting of civilians. Either way, they were serious violations of international humanitarian law."

Human Rights Watch has also noted that

"Hezbollah has launched rockets containing thousands of metal ball bearings towards Israeli towns and cities. Human Rights Watch is of the view that neither weapon should be used in or near civilian areas as a matter of international law, because the wide blast effects of these weapons cannot be directed at military targets without imposing a substantial risk of civilian harm and the weapons cannot distinguish between military targets and civilians. (...) Like cluster munitions, the use of rocket heads filled with metal ball bearings cannot be targeted precisely and are indiscriminate weapons when used in populated areas. Their use in rockets fired into populated areas appears intended to maximize harm to civilians."

Civilian infrastructure damaged by rocket attacks included a post office and two Israeli hospitals, according to the director general of the Israeli Ministry of Health, professor Avi Israeli. Furthermore, at least one raid by Israeli troops on a lauching site in Lebanon had found Nahariya's Ben Zvi general hospital on the operators' target list, complete with accurate bearing and range details. Rockets have also hit many civilian homes, and a cemetery, an event in which 10 Israelis where killed. In Acre, a Hezbollah rocket destroyed "the only school in the city that serves both Jewish and Arab pupils -- the el-Mahaba ("love" in Arabic) kindergarten for mentally and emotionally handicapped kids."

As for the Arab citizens of Israel in Haifa, Nasrallah said on Al-Manar television, "I have a special message to the Arabs of Haifa, to your martyrs and to your wounded. I call you to leave this city. I hope you do this. ... Please leave so we don't shed your blood, which is our blood."[4][5][6] Some analysts have drawn a comparison between these warnings and the alleged Arab leaders' endorsement for flight in 1948.[7][8]

Hezbollah's "human shield" tactics

Hezbollah has also been criticized by Israel and UN representatives for using the Lebanese civilian population as "human shields." Upon his visit to Lebanon, United Nations Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland accused Hezbollah of

"cowardly blending…among women and children. I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men."

Hezbollah disputes the claim, indicating that their contact with and proximity to Lebanese civilian centers is routinely minimized as a precaution against infiltration. The "human shield" argument has often been characterized as an attempt to legitimize high civilian death tolls in Lebanon. A Human Rights Watch report released on August 3 said:

"Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.. In none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in this report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah forces or weapons were in or near the area that the IDF targeted during or just prior to the attack."

There have been other reports of Hezbollah using civilians as human shields. The Sunday Herald Sun printed pictures that were smuggled out of Lebanon. One showing Militants in some lebanese town riding a truck equipped with an anti-aircraft gun, another showing a militant carrying an AK-47 rifle in some rural area. The photographer, a Melbourne man who refused to give his name, stated that he was less than 400 meters from the block when it was obliterated. He said that “Hezbollah came in to launch their rockets, then within minutes the area was blasted by Israeli jets…Until the Hezbollah fighters arrived, it had not been touched by the Israelis. Then it was totally devastated. It was carnage. Two innocent people died in that incident, but it was so lucky it was not more.”

Sonia Verma, of the National Post, reported interviews with Lebanese civilians who accused Hezbollah of using them as human shields. New Republic reporter Annia Ciezadlo reported that Hezbollah kept Shia families in an abandoned underground parking garage in Haret Hreik, bringing them food and water, under the auspices of "keeping them safe from the enemy" but in actual fact preventing their evacuation from a combat zone. While the families were underground, under the impression that the garage somehow provided safety from bombs, Israeli UAVs searched above as armed Hezbollah went about their business just outside the parking garage.

Israeli military spokesman, Capt. Jacob Dallal, further noted that much of the weaponry threatening Israel was deliberately being stored among civilians: "A lot of the rockets are stored in people’s homes in urban areas, fired from within villages and brought in from the Damascus-Beirut highway." The IDF also claims that Hezbollah militants are preventing or impeding the evacuation of civilians from southern Lebanon despite warnings by Israel to do so, thereby keeping civilians inside the military theatre and exposing them to danger.

During a raid in Baalbeck, Israeli forces found "a hospital building that served as a Hezbollah office complex." Israeli soldiers gathered weapons, documents, and other useful intelligence information from the hospital.

According to Al Arabia's website as well as an article on IslamOnline.net, Hezbollah fighters tend to wear civilian clothes while being blended within to the civilian populace. Hence, fallen Hezbollah fighters in civilian areas are likely to be accounted as civilians casualties.[9][10] A Hezbollah field commander Hajj Abu Hussein is quoted as saying:

"Our people are outfitted as soldiers, but when we are among civilians then we dress normally. When we are in the field, we dress as soldiers. ... It's not reasonable to walk around in military uniforms and carry rifles when, for example, the Red Cross comes into town."[11]

Discussing the cease-fire resolutions under debate in the United Nations, the German daily Financial Times Deutschland wrote that

"[a]fter four weeks of war, the highest UN authority will clearly identify the Lebanese terror militia as the aggressor and instigator of the conflict. It’s a good thing if this fact is acknowledged by the international community. The attackers from Hezbollah can ensure that the Lebanese population they have been using as human shields no longer has to suffer".

Allegations regarding various weaponry

Several critiques have been made of weapons allegedly used by Israel in the conflict such as phosphorus incendiary bomb and depleted uranium shells, though none of them are explicitly prohibited.

Use of wide dispersal pattern weapons

Of Israel, the Human Rights Watch has said that there is evidence that has Israel used cluster bombs too close to civilians and described them as "unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians" and that "they should never be used in populated areas." Human Rights Watch has accused Israel of using cluster munitions in an attack on Bilda, a Lebanese village, on 19 July which killed 1 civilian and injured 12, including seven children. The Israeli ambassador to Moscow dismissed the reports as "Hezbollah propaganda" and the Israeli "army defended ... the use of cluster munitions in its offensive with Lebanon, saying that using such munitions was 'legal under international law' and the army employed them 'in accordance with international standards.'"

Unexploded cluster bombs dropped by Israeli warplanes or duds fired by artillery remain in much of South Lebanon, and have killed 12 people and wounded 39, according to Chris Clarke, head of the U.N. Mine Action Coordination Center attached to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon. These unexploded cluster munitions have created "mini-minefields" and the casualties include three Lebanese bomb disposal experts. The U.N. Mine Action Co-ordination Centre in Tyre claims cluster bombs were dropped by Israel in 267 separate locations in South Lebanon and are still killing returning refugees. The United States has opened an inquiry into Israel's use of cluster bombs, which are supplied by the United States. According to The New York Times this is to determine whether Israel had infringed secret rules that restrict where cluster bombs could be used.

Of Hezbollah, Human Rights Watch has said that the rocket attacks in civilian areas are at best indiscriminate, and at worst deliberate targeting due to their anti-personnel nature, which suggest a will to maximally harm civilians:

"Some of the rockets launched against Haifa over the past two days contained hundreds of metal ball bearings that are of limited use against military targets but cause great harm to civilians and civilian property. The ball bearings lodge in the body and cause serious harm."

Allegations of phosphorus incendiary use

Lebanese President Émile Lahoud issued the claim on July 16 against Israel that forces dropped “phosphorus incendiary bombs, which are a blatant violation of international laws…against Lebanese civilians.” Information Minister Ghazi Aridi also said, "Israel is using internationally prohibited weapons against civilians." As-Safir newspaper also ran a story about alleged use of unknown chemical weapons, citing a member of the "French Association of Cardiovascular Surgeons" . Jawad Najem, a surgeon at a Tyre hospital, claims that he has treated patients with phosphorus burns. Other doctors in Southern Lebanon also suspect they are seeing phosphorus burns. On 24 July Lebanese President Émile Lahoud stated on France's RFI radio:"According to the Geneva Convention, when they use phosphorous bombs and laser bombs, is that allowed against civilians and children?" An IDF spokeswomen replied to the Lahoud's statement by saying, "Everything the Israeli Defense Forces are using is legitimate"

After conducting an investigation of the claims, Israel has "denied that charge and in a statement, the Israeli military said that all of its weapons and ammunition comply with the international law. For the record, under international law, white phosphorus is permitted." Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN senior medical correspondent, said:

"They have used [white phosphorous] for all sorts of different things including tracers for weapons, which is why I think it's allowed under a lot of international law. There's no test for it specifically and it's really present just about everywhere. It can be present in fertilizer as well. So it is very hard to test for. ... It's not something that people have outlawed in some way. It's present in a lot of different things."

Amnesty International also warned against "reports that Israel has used incendiary weapons, such as white phosphorous shells" It precised that:

"Protocol III on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Incendiary Weapons of the UN Convention on the Prohibition or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons prohibits the use of such weapons against civilians. And it prohibits making any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by incendiary weapons."

Neither Israel nor Lebanon are a party to the Protocol, its violation by either thus of only political but not legal consequence.

Allegations of depleted uranium use

Amnesty International has also called on Israel to consider refraining from the use of weapons with depleted uranium munitions, due to health risks. The effect of the radioactive dust created on impact is debated, though the weapon itself is considered "toxic and constitutes a health risk independent of any residual radioactivity" due to the nature of heavy metals. The Jerusalem Post reported that GBU-28 "bunker buster" munitions are in use by the IDF against civilian infrastructure which the IDF claim houses Hezbollah.

Depleted uranium weapons have been cited in some studies as contributing factors in Gulf War syndrome and increases in birth defects amongst residents within contaminated areas - the issue of DU use has also been raised by the Lebanese Government in the past, although the effect is widely debated, and the World Health Organization has concluded that "under most circumstances, use of DU will make a negligible contribution to the overall natural background levels of uranium."

Opinions on civilian attacks

See also: International reactions to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

See also: International reactions to the 2006 Qana airstrike

United Nations

UN's Secretary-General Kofi Annan criticized Israel for using cluster bombs, while Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland accused Israel of "completely immoral" use of the munitions in the country. Amnesty International stated on 30 August 2006 that it was "outrageous" that Israel had not yet provided maps indicating where cluster bombs were used, reiterating that their use "in the heart of where people live clearly violates the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks" and was therefore "a grave violation of international humanitarian law". On 1 September 2006 IDF said it would provide UNIFIL with maps of South Lebanon that indicated where bombs or other devices that did not explode may be found. [12]

UN's Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland criticized Hezbollah for its alleged use of Lebanese civilians as "human shields", stating: “Consistently, from the Hezbollah heartland, my message was that Hezbollah must stop this cowardly blending…among women and children.…I heard they were proud because they lost very few fighters and that it was the civilians bearing the brunt of this. I don't think anyone should be proud of having many more children and women dead than armed men.” He called Hezbollah rocket attacks into northern Israel and Israeli aerial bombing in Lebanon violations of humanitarian law. He accused Hezbollah of “cowardly blending…among women and children” and condemned their rumored pride at "having many more children and women dead than armed men."

UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour expressed "grave concern over the continued killing and maiming of civilians in Lebanon, Israel, and the occupied Palestinian territory." She suggested that the actions of Israel and Hezbollah may constitute war crimes. Arbour called for Israel to obey the "principle of proportionality" and said, "Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians.…Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged military significance, but resulting invariably in the killing of innocent civilians, is unjustifiable."

Evidence of U.S. made weapon use has been found 318 sites and since the ceasefire, eight people have been killed by submunitions left behind from the war.

Amnesty International

Amnesty International condemned both Israel and Hezbollah and called for UN intervention, stating early on that the region "has seen a horrendous escalation in attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure. Yet the G8 leaders have failed conspicuously to uphold their moral and legal obligation to address such blatant breaches of international humanitarian law, which in some cases have amounted to war crimes". Amnesty International later accused Israel of war crimes due to it's assault on Lebanese civilian infrastructure.

Amnesty International has also accused Hezbollah of war crimes due to “deliberately failing to distinguish between civilian and military targets, and of wrongfully seeking to justify its barrage by claiming to be retaliating for Israel’s attacks on Lebanese civilians.” Amnesty International is still researching Israeli charges that Hezbollah used the civilian population as “human shields” for its military activities.

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch condemned the indiscriminate use of force against civilians by both Israel and Hezbollah. They blamed Israel for systematically failing to distinguish between combatants and civilians, which may constitute a war crime, and accused Hezbollah of committing war crimes by the deliberate and indiscriminate killing of civilians by firing rockets into populated areas. The organization also strongly criticized Israel for using cluster bombs too close to civilians because of their inaccuracy and unreliability, and Hezbollah for filling its rockets with ball bearings, which "suggests a desire to maximize harm to civilians."

United States

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the war on Lebanon as part of "birth pangs of a new Middle East" and urged Israel to ignore calls for a ceasefire because it would be a "false promise if it simply returns us to the status quo."

United Kingdom

In response to American support and Israel's military tactics, Kim Howells, British Foreign Office minister, said in an interview with CNN, "I hope that the Americans understand what's happening to Lebanon: the destruction of the infrastructure, the death of so many children, and so many people. These have not been surgical strikes, and it's very, very difficult I think to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used. You know if they're chasing Hezbollah, well go for Hezbollah. You don't go for the entire Lebanese nation, and that's the difference."

Journalists

Robert Fisk, a correspondent for The Independent, said "Hezbollah is killing more Israeli soldiers than civilians and the Israelis are killing far more Lebanese civilians than they are guerrillas".

Jonathan Cook addressed Jan Egeland's criticism, saying that Hezbollah doesn't force itself on civilians, but rather mingles with supportive Shiite populations adding:

"The implication of Egeland’s cowardly statement seems to be that any Lebanese fighter, or Palestinian one, resisting Israel and its powerful military should stand in an open field, his rifle raised to the sky, waiting to see who fares worse in a shoot-out with an Apache helicopter or F-16 fighter jet. Hezbollah’s reluctance to conduct the war in this manner, we are supposed to infer, is proof that they are terrorists."[13]

Contrary to both arguments, Mitch Prothero, writing on Salon.com and cited by Norman G. Finkelstein's website, has argued: "My own reporting and that of other journalists reveals that in fact Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been."[14] He proceeds to note that the targeting of civilian facilities may be the result of liberal definitions within the Israeli military as to what constitutes a Hezbollah target; Hezbollah's civilian wing is Lebanon's second largest employer, and its facilities include hospitals and schools, among other non-military assets. While employees may be on the Hezbollah payroll, they are not often if ever participants in or knowledgeable about Hezbollah military activity.

Advance warnings

The Israeli Air Force issued warnings to civilians prior to military actions by way of leaflet droppings to evacuate areas in which it was intending to strike against Hezbollah strongholds. These leaflets indicate where and when it is unsafe to be in a particular area, giving civilian populations time to evacuate despite providing an early warning to the intended target, Hezbollah militants. The New York Times noted that "Israel has been careful to drop leaflets warning civilians in southern Beirut and southern Lebanon where it knows that Hezbollah keeps stores of rockets and launchers in apartment houses, garages and homes." Also, general leaflets explaining Israel's desire not to bring harm to the Lebanese populace have been dropped, asking civilians to "[r]efrain from being located in places in relation to Hezbollah."

However, the Israeli drops of leaflets before bombings have come under criticism for being used as an excuse to kill citizens who didn't leave. According to Human Rights Watch, "in Qana and other villages in southern Lebanon, thousands of residents have been unable to leave the area because they are sick, wounded, do not have the means to leave or they fear Israeli attacks on vehicles" .

The International Committee of the Red Cross said in a 30 July statement on the IDF's attack on Qana, "Issuing advance warning to the civilian population of impending attacks in no way relieves a warring party of its obligations under the rules and principles of international humanitarian law. In particular, the principles of distinction and proportionality must be respected at all times" .

In an opinion column in the International Herald Tribune online, Peter Bouckaert, Senior Emergencies Researcher for Human Rights Watch, went even farther in denouncing the Israeli policy, writing that "In Lebanon ... [t]ime after time, Israel has hit civilian homes and cars in the southern border zone, killing dozens of people with no evidence of any military objective."

On August 6, 2006, The Observer reported that "[a]t least two Israeli fighter pilots have deliberately missed civilian targets in Lebanon as disquiet grows in the military about flawed intelligence," however, this is only based on anecdotal evidence from "a former Blackhawk helicopter pilot dismissed from reserve duty after signing a 'refusnik' letter in 2004."

See also

• Cases before the International Criminal Court#Lebanon
• 2006 Qana airstrike
• 2006 al-Qaa airstrike
• 2006 Shiyyah airstrike
• 2006 Ghaziyeh airstrikes
• 2006 Marjayoun convoy

External links

Front-line photographs and videos

Warning: Extremely graphic wartime imagery

• Photographs — Lebanese civilian casualties and infrastructure damage.
• Photographs — Lebanese civilian casualties at the 2006 Qana airstrike.
• Photographs — Lebanese civilian targets and casualties.
• Photographs — Israeli military and civilian casualties.
• Satellite photograph — Haret Hreik neighborhood in the Dahieh district of Beirut, Lebanon, before Israeli airstrikes.
• Satellite photograph — Haret Hreik neighborhood, 22 July 2006.
• Video footage — Hezbollah using civilians as cover and human shields.
• Video footage — Damage in major Lebanese cities.

Unreviewed imagery (please add description or delete):

• http://www.bubbleshare.com/album/47671/1356651/thumbnails
• http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2006/07/you-will-know-them-by-their-fruit.html
• http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2006/07/qana-massacre.html