[Peace-discuss] Dead civilians are Hezbollah's fault

[C. G. Estabrook]

   For Israel, innocent civilians are fair game
   By Peter Bouckaert
   International Herald Tribune

08/03/06 "IHT" -- -- TYRE, Lebanon Mideast -- The voice of
Mohammed Shalhoub, 61, a farmer from Qana, still quivers with
shock and exhaustion. He was in a basement shelter with more
than 60 relatives when two Israeli bombs hit, killing at least
28, including 16 children. As I interview him in hospital,
relatives arrive with more news of the victims. A woman starts
screaming as she looks at the pictures of the dead and
Mohammed's eyes well up with tears.

But his voice turns cold with impotent fury when I ask if
there were Hezbollah fighters near the home when the bombs
fell. "If the Israelis really saw the rocket launcher, where
did it go?" he asks. "We showed Israel our dead; why don't the
Israelis show us the rocket launchers?"

The world doesn't seem to put much credence in the testimonies
of Lebanese civilians, preferring to buy generic Israeli
statements about Hezbollah using civilians as human shields,
"precision strikes" at terrorist targets, and a
"proportionate" bombing campaign. But after days of
contradictory statements about Qana, the Israeli military was
reported as saying it had no indication of rocket fire or
Hezbollah presence in Qana on the day of the strike, and had
bombed the area in retaliation for rockets launched days earlier.

Israel's claims about pin-point strikes and proportionate
responses are pure fantasy. As a researcher for Human Rights
Watch, I've documented civilian deaths from bombing campaigns
in Kosovo and Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. But these
usually occur when there is some indication of military
targeting: high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's regime
present in a house just before it is hit, for example, or an
attack against militants that causes the collateral deaths of
many civilians.

In Lebanon, it's a different scene. Time after time, Israel
has hit civilian homes and cars in the southern border zone,
killing dozens of people with no evidence of any military
objective.

My notebook overflows with reports of civilian deaths. On July
15, Israeli fire killed 21 people fleeing from Marhawin,
including 13 children; no weapons, no Hezbollah nearby. On
July 16, an Israeli bomb killed 11 civilians in Aitaroun,
including seven members of a Canadian-Lebanese family on
vacation; again, no Hezbollah, no weapons. On July 19, at
least 26 civilians were killed in Srifa when Israeli bombs
flattened an entire neighborhood; no evidence of military
targets. On July 23, at least seven civilians were killed when
Israeli warplanes bombed dozens of cars trying to flee the
south after receiving Israeli instructions to evacuate
immediately; no indication of weapons convoys in the vicinity.
The list goes on, with about 500 civilians killed so far.

Israel says the fault for the massive civilian death toll lies
with Hezbollah, claiming its fighters are hiding weapons
inside civilian homes and firing them from civilian areas. But
even if the Israeli forces could show evidence of Hezbollah
activity in some civilian areas, it could not justify the
extensive use of indiscriminate force that has cost so many lives.

Not only has Israel failed to distinguish between military and
civilian targets; its own officials suggest that they have
decided any civilian still in the south is fair game. Last
week, Justice Minister Haim Ramon reportedly said, "All those
now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some
way to Hezbollah."

So if you are too frightened to flee southern Lebanon, or are
sick, injured or too poor to pay the more than $1,000 it now
costs to get out, you are a "terrorist" and eligible for
attack. As for those who heeded the Israeli warnings to flee,
the roads are littered with bombed civilian cars, many with
white flags still attached to their windows. After all, the
Israelis tell us, they could have been transporting arms.
Israel is prefabricating excuses to justify killing civilians.

Tragedies happen in the fog of war, but Israel's strikes on
civilians can't all be excused as accidents or mistakes. The
unacceptably high death toll is the natural result of Israel's
failure to distinguish between civilian and military targets,
and Israel is responsible for the deaths.

Israel must target its fight on Hezbollah, not Lebanese
civilians. To do otherwise is not only wrong, but may very
well be criminal, and Israel's leaders, and its friends
elsewhere in the world, must face up to this harsh reality.

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch,
is co-author of the report "Fatal Strikes: Israel's
Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon," released
Thursday.

Copyright © 2006 the International Herald Tribune