Israel abused rights in Lebanon, Hezbollah must face probe: UN
GENEVA, Oct 3: Israel committed serious violations of human rights during its offensive in Lebanon but Hezbollah must also be called to account for its actions, which could constitute war crimes, four United Nations experts said on Tuesday.
In a report on their fact-finding mission to the region on Sept 7-14, the experts took Israel to task for “serious violations of both human rights and humanitarian law”.
“Available information strongly indicates that, in many instances, Israel violated its legal obligations to distinguish between military and civilian objectives,” they said.
The Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah was also to blame for, “in many instances”, violating humanitarian rules by targeting the civilian population of northern Israel.
Hezbollah’s extensive use of rockets packed with ball bearings, which caused maximum damage in heavily populated civilian areas, “constitutes a clear violation of humanitarian law,” they said.
“Whether it also amounts to a war crime is a determination to be made upon the basis of more detailed evidence as to intent than the mission was able to obtain, but the prima facie case is nevertheless a powerful one and the matter warrants careful investigation.”
The four experts are the UN Secretary General’s representative on internally displaced persons, Walter Kaelin; the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Philip Alston; the special rapporteur on the right to physical and mental health, Paul Hunt; and the special rapporteur on housing, Miloon Kothari.
They are due to submit their findings to the 47-member states of the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday.
In their report the four experts also pointed to Israel’s disproportionate use of force and a failure to take all feasible precautions to minimise injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects”. They accepted that the Israeli military had made considerable efforts to vet targets for its strikes in Lebanon to ensure that it complied with international law.
“In the absence of systematic evidence of any type, however, it is impossible to accept the validity of the claim that every target was a legitimate military objective or that the principle of distinction was repected,” they said. They urged Israel to provide full details of its use of cluster bombs, controversial munitions which, when they fail to explode on landing, leave a deadly legacy in the wake of a conflict.
“Despite claims that the relevant ‘maps’ have been provided to the Lebanese authorities, the evidence suggests that the information provided has been inadequate and largely unhelpful,” they said.
The experts welcomed an Israeli government probe of failings during the July 12-August 14 conflict but said that its mandate should be interpreted “to include the issue of whether violations of human rights and humanitarian law, as well as war crimes, were committed”.
They called on Hezbollah to state publicly that it is bound by international humanitarian law and renounce the targeting of civilians “in all circumstances”. The militant group should also be subject to an ongoing international probe, which currently focuses on Israel and was launched during the conflict by the UN Human Rights Council, they said.
The experts also urged the Lebanese government to ensure that efforts to rebuild the war-ravaged country genuinely took the interests of victims into account.
“There is an urgent need to tackle the issues of safety due to the existence of a large number of damaged homes, the affordability and availability of housing, and speculation in land and property that is making it difficult for low-income families — the majority of those affected — to find a place to live,” they said.—AFP
