Hezbollah 'war crimes' charge
2006-09-13 22:19
London - Hezbollah committed war crimes in its conflict with Israel by
targeting civilians with rockets packed with metal ball
bearings, rights group Amnesty International said on Thursday.
It said about a quarter of the nearly 4 000 rockets that
Hezbollah launched into Israel during the 34-day war were fired
directly into urban areas.
"The scale of Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli cities, towns
and villages, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used and
statements from the leadership confirming their intent to target
civilians make it all too clear that Hezbollah violated the laws
of war," Amnesty's secretary-general Irene Khan said.
"The fact that Israel has also committed serious violations
in no way justifies violations by Hezbollah," she said.
"Civilians must not be made to pay the price for
unlawful conduct on either side."
Similar charges against Israel
Amnesty's criticism of Hezbollah came three weeks after the
London-based group levelled similar charges at Israel.
It said the Jewish state purposely destroyed food shops by
shelling and air attacks, deliberately blocked aid convoys and
put hospitals and public utilities like water and power plants
out of action to force people to flee.
Israel says it did not target civilians and had warned
non-combatants to leave south Lebanon.
More than 1 350 people died during the war. Most of them
were civilians killed in southern Lebanon.
About 150 - mostly
soldiers - were Israelis.
The Hezbollah rocket salvoes forced between 350 000 and a
million northern Israelis to flee their homes, Amnesty said.
The
hundreds of thousands who remained behind spent much of the war
in bomb shelters.
A million Lebanese were also displaced.
Damage
The total damage to Israel from the rockets was $1.8bn, a parliament panel found.
The war damage to Lebanese
buildings and infrastructure was estimated at $3.5bn.
Amnesty said it had met Hezbollah members who argued their
rocket attacks on northern Israel were a reprisal for Israeli
attacks on civilians in Lebanon.
"This line is totally rejected by Amnesty International,"
Amnesty said.
The war was sparked by Hezbollah's seizure of two Israeli
soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
Amnesty has called for the United Nations to quickly set up
an independent inquiry into breaches of international
humanitarian law it says were committed by both sides.