HRW Report about Lebanon

[Elind]

For those who follow the current war in Southern Lebanon, Human Rights Watch has released a report, Fatal Strikes with the sub-title
Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon, in which they direct a scathing critique against Israeli attacks on civilians.

My apologies for starting a new thread on this before noticing yours, although mine was more specific on an inteview with their (HRW) spokesman.

It is however interesting that your "headline" matches part of what I wrote pretty exactly. You also manage to utterly miss the little fact that they are also scathing about Hizbullah's attacks on civilians, but that is presumably due to the fact that you don't expect as much from Arabs and Muslims as you do from Isaelis and jews.

You know what? I just realized that I agree with you on that last point.

 

[Leif Roar]

It is however interesting that your "headline" matches part of what I wrote pretty exactly. You also manage to utterly miss the little fact that they are also scathing about Hizbullah's attacks on civilians, but that is presumably due to the fact that you don't expect as much from Arabs and Muslims as you do from Isaelis and jews.

You presume wrong.

My post consisted of the name of the report, who had made it, the fact that it was available, that I thought it would be of interest to the people here who follow the Lebanon conflict and a one-line summary of the report.

I intentionally kept my description of the report as brief and concise as possible because I wanted to avoid inserting any bias into the following discussion. I did not bring up HRW's critique of Hezbollah simply because that was not the subject of this report.

You know what? I just realized that I agree with you on that last point.

Spare me the high-school rethorics.

 

[zenith-nadir]

12/27/2004 10:47 AM

Israel released 159 Palestinian prisoners Monday as a gesture to the new Palestinian leadership.

February 21, 2005

Israel releases 500 Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails, and promises to free an additional 400 in the next three months.

Thu, 02 Jun 2005 09:46:15 EDT

Israel has completed a pledge made in February's ceasefire agreement with the Palestinians by releasing hundreds of Palestinian prisoners Thursday.

The 398 prisoners were released at different checkpoints in the West Bank and at the Erez crossing into Gaza.

Prisoners? Israel has released hundreds. The part you'all are missing is the deal the Palestinians made with Israel. It went "we release Palestinian prisoners" and you - the Palestinian Authority - "end all Palestinian incitement to violence, such as official Palestinian TV and radio broadcasts that glorify suicide bombers and other attackers as well as stop all acts of violence against Israelis everywhere".

Well the Palestinian Authority did no such thing did it JREFers?

Then Israel removed over 8000 people and destroyed their homes in Gaza and still the Palestinian Authority didn't live up to their side of the deal. Infact the Palestinian people elected an internationally-recognized terrorist organization - by the US, EU, Canada and Israel - to rule the Palestinian Authority who allowed Qassam rockets to fired every single day from Gaza at civilians inside Israel.

So does this mean Hamas or Hezbollah are justified to engage in hostage-taking to get more prisoners released? No f-ing way! If you go down that road and release prisoners in exchange for hostages taken by Hamas and Hezbollah then that will obviously lead to further abductions and further waves of terror.

Remember that many - not all - of these prisoners are jihadists bent on the destruction of Israel, and a large part of the acts of terror committed in the past were carried out by terrorists released in the past in release deals.

Releasing prisoners in exchange for the kidnapped Israelis will lead terror organizations to turn abductions into a common method. Period. End of story.

{edited to add}

6:59 a.m. ET Jan 30, 2004

The leader of Hamas said Friday that his group is making every effort to seize Israeli soldiers as bargaining chips for the release of Palestinians in Israeli jails.

The declaration by Sheik Ahmed Yassin came a day after a prisoner swap between Israel and the Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah. Israel released more than 400 prisoners, the vast majority Palestinians, in exchange for an Israeli businessman and the bodies of three Israeli soldiers.

Yassin was held in jail from May 1989 until October 1997, when he was released. Arafat placed him under house arrest in Oct 1998 when Hamas tried to blow up a school bus of Israeli children. But once again the Palestinian Authority released another terrorist - Yassin - so that he may terrorize again.

The answer isn't "Israel releasing prisoners" it's the dismantling of internationally-recognized terrorist organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades , Hezbollah, Al Qaeda, etc....

 

[gumboot]

Best they said:

"We have tried to study the situation on the Lebonese side of the border and encounter many obstacles to obtaining true and accurate information. We can only conclude that there has been some significant loss of innocent civilian life, but can not make any inference about underlying circumstances that led to the victims being in the area of an Israeli attack. Neither can we draw any conclusions about the intent, nature, accuracy or validity of any such Israeli attacks"

My bolding added. This is all that matters. They cannot determine the intent of the IDF attacks, therefore their report has no relevance in any warcrime assessment.

It is not illegal to kill civilians in war. It is not illegal to destroy civilian buildings or vehicles. It is only illegal to INTEND to kill civilians or destroy their property.

Any person or property engaged in the conflict (be that transporting troops, storing weapons, spotting targets, whatever) is not civilian. It is combatant. It is a target.

-Andrew

 

[Leif Roar]

My bolding added. This is all that matters. They cannot determine the intent of the IDF attacks, therefore their report has no relevance in any warcrime assessment.

It is not illegal to kill civilians in war. It is not illegal to destroy civilian buildings or vehicles. It is only illegal to INTEND to kill civilians or destroy their property.

That's not the case, though. While it is always illegal kill a (known) civilian intentionally, it doesn't follow that it's legal to kill a civilian unintentionally. The principle of proportionality explicitly states that it's not always legal to kill civilians incidentally in the pursuit of military targets. In other words, the killing of civilians can be a warcrime regardless of intent.

 

[BPSCG]

The principle of proportionality explicitly states that it's not always legal to kill civilians incidentally in the pursuit of military targets.

Underlined bolding mine. Please provide a link to where it is "explicitly" stated. And while you're at it, please provide a link to any international agreement that says that the "principle of proportionality" is part of the rules of war.

 

[zenith-nadir]

That's not the case, though. While it is always illegal kill a (known) civilian intentionally, it doesn't follow that it's legal to kill a civilian unintentionally. The principle of proportionality explicitly states that it's not always legal to kill civilians incidentally in the pursuit of military targets. In other words, the killing of civilians can be a warcrime regardless of intent.

Israeli bombing of Lebanon has the intention of destroying Hezbollah assets, especially missles obtained from Iran. The indescriminate Hezbollah missle attacks on Israel have the sole intention of inflicting pain, suffering and death to civilians inside Israel. Some of the rockets launched against Israel contained hundreds of metal ball bearings... see: Hezbollah Rocket Attacks on Haifa Designed to Kill Civilians at HRW.

 

[Elind]

I did not bring up HRW's critique of Hezbollah simply because that was not the subject of this report.

I understand it was a significant part of the report, but largely unreported in the news except as a footnote from time to time. I thought it interesting that you also think it unworthy of mention, whether consciously or not.

 

[Leif Roar]

I understand it was a significant part of the report, but largely unreported in the news except as a footnote from time to time. I thought it interesting that you also think it unworthy of mention, whether consciously or not.

I suggest you read the report for yourself. HRW's stance on Hezbollah is mentioned briefly in the report's summary, but it is not the subject of the report nor is it a "significant part" of it.

To quote directly from the report: "While not the focus of this report, Human Rights Watch has separately and simultaneously documented violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah, including a pattern of attacks that amount to war crimes."

 

[zenith-nadir]

I suggest you read the report for yourself. HRW's stance on Hezbollah is mentioned briefly in the report's summary, but it is not the subject of the report nor is it a "significant part" of it.

To quote directly from the report: "While not the focus of this report, Human Rights Watch has separately and simultaneously documented violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah, including a pattern of attacks that amount to war crimes."

The part that bugs me is that many folks don't understand that this is a war like no other. It's not two states battling each other it is a internationally-recognized terrorist organization hiding amongst civilians vs an internationally-recognized state.

But, it seems, the "serious violations of international humanitarian law" apply only to "the state" with a sidebar that - (from the HRW report):

Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.

Huh? The Bint Jbeil District is an important weapons storage area for Hezbollah, with tunnels, bunkers and caves holding large supplies of missiles, rockets and launchers. It is ALSO home to many civilians. The Haret Hreik District - AKA a crowded Beirut neighbourhood - is a Hezbollah stronghold where Hezbollah has it's HQ and offices.

Just the other day Jan Egeland - The U.N. humanitarian chief - accused Hezbollah:

Mon Jul 24, 6:22 PM ET

of "cowardly blending" in among Lebanese civilians and causing the deaths of hundreds during two weeks of cross-border violence with Israel.

Yet Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields.

Therefore I am skeptical of HRW "conclusions" in the face of this evidence.

{edited to add}

Let's take a trip down memory lane..

21/02/2004

Perching on the edge of a chair in a darkened room in Beirut, seven-year-old Hassan el Zein takes aim with his pistol and pumps three bullets into the forehead of Ariel Sharon.

He leaves the Israeli prime minister for dead and moves into the next room, swiftly dispatching Shaul Mofaz, the defence minister of "the Zionist enemy", with a commando knife. Twenty more points.

"May Allah's blessings and peace be upon you," flashes across the screen in Arabic as stirring martial music urges Hassan on.

Welcome to Champions computer arcade in Beirut's southern suburbs, the urban stronghold of Hizbollah, Lebanon's self-styled "Islamic resistance fighters" and the heroes of young Shi'ite Muslims such as Hassan.

(emphasis mine)

 

[gumboot]

Yet Human Rights Watch found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields.

Therefore I am skeptical of HRW "conclusions" in the face of this evidence.

Not to mention more evidence in the form of IDF surveillance footage of Hizbollah operating in urban areas.

-Andrew

 

[Leif Roar]

Underlined bolding mine. Please provide a link to where it is "explicitly" stated. And while you're at it, please provide a link to any international agreement that says that the "principle of proportionality" is part of the rules of war.

Sorry, that was misphrased. I should have said "directly makes it illegal, in some situations, to kill civilians incidentally in the pursuit of military targets."

As for your second part of the question, the relevant part is article 51 of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention, paragraphs 4 and 5:

4. Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are: (a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.

5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: (a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and (b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

5(b) is formulation of the principle of proportionality.

 

[Elind]

I suggest you read the report for yourself. HRW's stance on Hezbollah is mentioned briefly in the report's summary, but it is not the subject of the report nor is it a "significant part" of it.

To quote directly from the report: "While not the focus of this report, Human Rights Watch has separately and simultaneously documented violations of international humanitarian law by Hezbollah, including a pattern of attacks that amount to war crimes."

I stand corrected on that item of detail. I missed that HRW specifically says Hizbullah violations are not the focus of this report, but they do say that is the focus of a separate report, which it seem to me to be insane to ignore in any discussion of this matter.

We hear a great deal of "proportionality" these days. For the purposes of fairness should one not evaluate the "proportionality" of the violations in these reports?

I heard the head of HRW, on TV, specifcally reference 20 cases of "deliberate" violations by Israel. Mistakes of war is not a concept known to HRW it seems.

How does that compare (assuming HRW is correct) with how many thousand Hizbullah double violations deliberately targeting civilians and with each firing of a rocket simultaneously creating a violation by doing so in their own civilian areas?

You want to focus on the details of legal wording. Be my guest.

 

[Leif Roar]

I stand corrected on that item of detail. I missed that HRW specifically says Hizbullah violations are not the focus of this report, but they do say that is the focus of a separate report, which it seem to me to be insane to ignore in any discussion of this matter.

It would, however, be even more insane to discuss the details of that report before it's published.

You want to focus on the details of legal wording. Be my guest.

I wanted to point out the existance of a document that would be of interest to the people here. Nothing more.

 

[Elind]

It would, however, be even more insane to discuss the details of that report before it's published.

.....and to publish one report first that is inextricably linked to another that has evidence available long before the former.

I wanted to point out the existance of a document that would be of interest to the people here. Nothing more.

OK.

 

[FreeChile]

I have a problem with HRW.

What problem is that? Reading this thread I can see that there are some problems with their methods. Is that what you are talking about? What other independent organizations would you recommend on these issues at this moment?

Where is the list? Has it been made available to the press? What names are on it?

If you find that to be so important, I suggest you pursue those questions and come back to us when you have the answers. You may even want to contact the IDF and inquire or contact the reporters involved. Don’t misunderstand me as being sarcastic here. It is not sarcasm. I really mean it. Also, send an e-mail to HRW and inquire about the list. But even if you find Hezbollah men on the list that does not mean that the IDF knew they were located there or that the names on the list were in the building. Maybe the Hezbollah men on the list were out fighting.

I was under the impression that the 'register' was a list of all people in that building, like a hotel register; when you check in, your name is recorded. I thought that Hezbollah provided the HRW with this register, since they had placed the people in the building the night before.

Where in the HRW report does it say that Hezbollah placed those people in the building? If that were true, it would be clear proof that Hezbollah was there.

This refers to my previous point --- was there a register being kept of all occupants of the building? It was not a proper 'shelter' nor a proper 'hotel', but was only a temporary refuge. Who led these people there?

Even if the place was simply a temporary shelter, it should not surprise you that whoever is administering it may want to maintain a list of people there for safety precautions to try to make sure that people are accounted for after an emergency. But precisely why there was a register and who led the people there remain open questions as far as we are concerned. If you don’t know who led those people there, then why do you think Hezbollah placed them there? Why do you prefer that answer? Would you really think differently had the place been a church or a “proper shelter”?

How is anyone anywhere in Lebanon identified as being "Hezbollah"?

You want to know from me? You tell us. You are the one who says that it is “really basic.”

That is why there are a lot of 'civilians' on the death rolls who are actually not 'innocents' but are actually Hezbollah.

Please tell us how that follows from the previous question. You seem to be saying that it is difficult to identify members of Hezbollah. Yet before you said it was basic. So in essence you are saying that civilians (which may be Hezbollah) are dying because it is difficult to tell the difference. You are almost agreeing with HRW.

I don't know what this means.

You are asking for someone to prove a negative and you are expressing that rhetorically. So I also responded rhetorically. The Israeli government is saying that there were Hezbollah men there and you seem to agree. Who do you think bares the burden of proof?

If they were Hezbollah men, then they were hiding among civilians and the IDF might have had intelligence information that there were Hezbollah men staying in that building overnight, and the air raid was ordered based on that intel.

Someone, somewhere, in the Israeli chain of command made a decision to bomb that specific building. Could it have been because they had been tipped-off about the presence of Hezbollah men there? (And the presence of women and children was not disclosed)?

Please read this over multiple times and hopefully you will see how it breaks apart on many levels. I have emphasized your level of uncertainty there in boldface.

As for the recommendations of HRW --- stuff them.

What are those recommendations and what is wrong with them? You could certainly make a very good case but your saying so does not make it so.

 

[BPSCG]

As for your second part of the question, the relevant part is article 51 of Protocol I of the Geneva Convention, paragraphs 4 and 5:

5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: (a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects; and (b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

5(b) is formulation of the principle of proportionality.

5(a) is interesting in light of the current situation, where the salient feature of Hezbollah's strategy is to blend seamlessly into the civilian population, making it therefore nearly impossible for the IDF to distinguish combatants from non-combatants.

The problem with that is that it is illegal for combatants to turn civilian populations into human shields.

5(b) strikes me as being mushy in the extreme. Let me quote it again and highlight the difficulties:
"an attack which may be expected to* cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive** in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage*** anticipated.****"

* Not "would," but "may be expected to." Expected by whom? What degree of certainty is required? "I expect the sun to get home by 6:00 tomorrow night," is a statement with a much different degree of certainty than, "I expect to get home by 6:00 every night next week."

** What is excessive? Who determines it?

*** What is a "concrete and direct military advantage"?

**** Anticipated by whom? And again, to what degree of certainy must they "anticipate" the advantage?

 

[webfusion]

BPSCG -- you are already well aware that questions such as those you raised do not have any bearing on the facts of the IDF targeting civilians and acting as terrorists just like Hezbollah --- so please stop bringing forward such minor legal details to refute the charges of War Crimes which have been clearly demonstrated by some of the JREF posters here at great length.



Thank you.


|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||

Free Chile -- The events of Qana, and the circumstances surrounding them, have already been superceded by other critical events. That case is "closed" and I have no interest personally in pursuing the details.

There are new questions surrounding the vegetable warehouse incident.
There are new questions surrounding the killing of Syrian nationals.
There are new questions surrounding the 57 people who remain trapped under the rubble of homes destroyed in Israeli strikes against the southern Lebanese village of Ayta a-Shab.


So, I am not going to move backwards --- I wish to remain focused forwards.

 

[New Ager]

Will Israel release its prisoners? Aside from the hatred due to Israel's very existence, a lot of anger is fueled by the fact that thousands of Palestinians are being held in Israeli prisons, many without even being charged (hmm, sounds familiar).

That's because Geneva Convention considerations only apply to war combatants. Not terrorists which would be exactly what those at Gitmo are.

Strange how we keep telling liberals this, but they never seem to listen. I guess politics is more important to them than the truth. What a shock.

 

[New Ager]

That seems to be the issue that has divided the US and France at the UN. The US believing that the fundamental causes need to be addressed satisfactorally in order to ensure a meaningful and sustainable end to this.

I must say I have a lot of sympathy for that view, but still wonder is there no way we can do that without the bombs and rockets flying?

No. Hezbollah is a terrorist organization whose only intent is the destruction of Israel.