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Rights group says Israel, Hizbullah both target civilians

Country Map - Lebanon Naresh Newar/IRIN
Both Israel and the Lebanese Hizbullah militia – the two protagonists in the current crisis in the Middle East – must desist from targeting civilians, said US-based rights organisation Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a statement. On Monday, HRW called on Israel to provide details about a bombing raid that killed 16 civilians fleeing the Lebanese border village of Marwahin on 15 July. “Under international humanitarian law, all parties to an armed conflict must take all feasible precautions to protect civilians fleeing areas at risk,” HRW noted. Several families from Marwahin were fleeing from the village – following a warning by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) to evacuate – when their convoy was destroyed by Israeli missiles. “The IDF needs to investigate this attack on a civilian convoy and provide more details about the circumstances,” said HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson from Amman. “Having warned civilians to evacuate their village, Israeli forces should have been aware that civilians would be using this road and should have taken great care to avoid harming them.” In response, the Israeli military acknowledged that its air force had targeted an area near the southern city of Tyre that had been “used as launching grounds” for earlier Hizbullah missile attacks on Israel. “The IDF regrets civilian casualties while targeting the missile-launching area,” a military statement noted. According to HRW, eyewitnesses at the scene said that the bodies of the victims “were completely burned, and others were cut up”. Since fighting began on 12 July, the rights group pointed out, “Israeli attacks have reportedly killed 209 people in Lebanon, most of them civilians”. In another statement on Tuesday, HRW described Hizbullah’s artillery attacks on the Israeli city of Haifa as “indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas at best; at worst, the deliberate targeting of civilians”. “Either way, they were serious violations of international humanitarian law and probably war crimes,” HRW said. The rights group went on to allege that the ordnance used in the attacks suggested a desire to maximise harm to civilians. “Some of the rockets launched against Haifa in the past two days contained metal ball bearings that are of limited use against military targets but cause great harm to civilians and civilian property,” HRW noted. Reacting to HRW statements, Ghaleb Abu Zeinab, Hizbullah official in charge of political affairs, defended the group’s actions. “Its wasn’t Hizbullah that began targeting civilians, it was Israel. And any attacks of ours that killed civilians were not done on purpose. We clearly said that we were not aiming at civilians, but at military compounds,” Abu Zeinab told IRIN on Tuesday. “We’re ready to commit to an agreement not to target civilians as long as Israel stops targeting them in Lebanon.” According to HRW, Hizbullah has fired more than 800 rockets into Israel from southern Lebanon since 13 July, killing 12 civilians and injuring many more. “The vast majority of these rockets, as in past conflicts, have been Katyushas, which are small, have a range limited to the border area, and cannot be aimed with precision,” the rights group noted. HRW went on to point out that international humanitarian law prohibits the use of inaccurate artillery in civilian areas. “Such attacks can constitute war crimes,” HRW stated. “Deliberately attacking civilians is in all circumstances prohibited.” AR/SZ/AM

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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