Human Rights Watch: Israel Has Committed War Crimes
The watchdog group released a 50-page report detailing Israel's failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians in Lebanon, in one case wiping out an entire 12-person family because one member was merely suspected of being sympathetic to Hezbollah.The watchdog group released a 50-page report detailing Israel’s failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians in Lebanon, in one case wiping out an entire 12-person family because one member merely was suspected of being sympathetic to Hezbollah.
Rock Solid JournalismHuman Rights Watch:
Israeli forces have systematically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians in their military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said in report released today.
The pattern of attacks in more than 20 cases investigated by Human Rights Watch researchers in Lebanon indicates that the failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hezbollah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes.
The 50-page report, ?Fatal Strikes: Israel?s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon,? analyzes almost two dozen cases of Israeli air and artillery attacks on civilian homes and vehicles. Of the 153 dead civilians named in the report, 63 are children. More than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli fire since fighting began on July 12, most of them civilians.
?The pattern of attacks shows the Israeli military?s disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians,? said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. ?Our research shows that Israel?s claim that Hezbollah fighters are hiding among civilians does not explain, let alone justify, Israel?s indiscriminate warfare.?
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