Human Rights Watch: IAF bombing in Lebanon is 'indiscriminate'

[Scurrilous]

<snip>

"An Israeli air raid on the Lebanese village of Qana which killed at least 56 civilians was the result of indiscriminate Israeli bombing which amounts to a war crime, Human Rights Watch said.

The New York-based rights group said Sunday's strike on Qana which killed 37 children suggested the Israeli military was treating southern Lebanon as "a free-fire zone".

"The Israeli military seems to consider anyone left in the area a combatant who is fair game for attack," Human Rights Executive Director Kenneth Roth said in a statement.

"(The Qana attack) is the latest product of an indiscriminate bombing campaign that the Israel Defence Forces have waged in Lebanon", the statement said.

"Indiscriminate bombing in Lebanon (is) a war crime", read the statement's headline."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/744765.html




Israel/Lebanon: Israel Responsible for Qana Attack

http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2006/07/30/lebano13881.htm

Indiscriminate Bombing in Lebanon a War Crime

<snip>

(Beirut, July 30, 2006)

"Responsibility for the Israeli airstrikes that killed at least 54 civilians sheltering in a home in the Lebanese village of Qana rests squarely with the Israeli military, Human Rights Watch said today. It is the latest product of an indiscriminate bombing campaign that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have waged in Lebanon over the past 18 days, leaving an estimated 750 people dead, the vast majority of them civilians.

“Today’s strike on Qana, killing at least 54 civilians, more than half of them children, suggests that the Israeli military is treating southern Lebanon as a free-fire zone,” said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch. “The Israeli military seems to consider anyone left in the area a combatant who is fair game for attack.”

This latest, appalling loss of civilian life underscores the need for the U.N. Secretary-General to establish an International Commission of Inquiry to investigate serious violations of international humanitarian law in the context of the current conflict, Roth said. Such consistent failure to distinguish combatants and civilians is a war crime."

[uppityperson]

1. k&r for Human Rights (now, about Iraq)

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. how can one argue that it is not indiscriminate or uneithical

i do not understand.

[atreides1]

3. It all depends on how a person sees things

What some here have called indiscriminate and unethical when done by US military personnel in Iraq or Afghanistan, seems to be perfectly acceptable when done by the IAF and the IDF.

So it depends on how a person sees things.

[Little Star]

11. atreides1, that statement reflects what has been

grating on my last nerve. It is just honky dory to join in with those of us who hate what the warmongers in the USA government are doing. But heaven forbid any call the Israeli government for the same kind of warmongering. This whole thing is so disproportionate that the right to exist excuse sounds about as plausible as Bush keeping us safe from the evil doers who want to kill Americans. Bottom line, Israel wants water and land and the USA wants oil and rule of the world. No difference between the two greedy nations!

[FlavaKreemSnak]

5. It is like when you are looking for a job

People will tell you, it is not what you know but who you know.

And with stuff like this it is not what was done, but who did it.

[Zhade]

8. Insanity? Evil?

I mean, what else can you say about those who don't consider the callous murder of little kids and elders to be a horrific war crime?

(Yeah, that goes for Hezbollah, too, as if we should even have to make that point.)

[Starfury]

4. "Free fire zone" is right - none of this is accidental

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon “said that in order to prevent casualties among Israeli soldiers battling Hezbollah militants in southern Lebanon, villages should be flattened by the Israeli air force before ground troops moved in. He added that Israel had given the civilians of southern Lebanon ample time to quit the area and therefore anyone still remaining there could be considered a Hezbollah supporter.

“All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah,” Mr Ramon said.

http://houseoflabor.tpmcafe.com/blog/peter_h/2006/jul/29/haim_ramons_chilling_words

[High Plains]

12. We'll remember that statement when he shows up at the Hague.

He is attempting to excuse mass murder.

[funnymanpants]

6. At least one DUer doesn't care wath Human Rights Watch Says

I posted what Human Rights Watch had already said in a debate with a pro-Israel-no-matter-what DUer and he told me he didn't care what Human Rights Watch said.

He then said that 40,000 people died in one battle in WWII, implying we shouldn't care about Lebonese deaths, and he then invoked the Holocaust. Never again, he said. But what that really means is "never again for the Jews." If is any other race, fuck em.

[Zhade]

7. Yeah, we who said this was indiscriminate were right.

Those who argued this was a proportionate, reasonable, or carefully-aimed response were wrong.

WRONG. Time to acknowledge the brutality of Israel's ongoing war crime in south Lebanon, all you collective-punishment fans out there.

Not that I'm holding my breath - those who support murdering innocent children to get at Hezbollah probably don't care what HRW has to say, in which case I hope they fall off the planet soon.

[Name removed]

9. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Nothing Without Hope]

10. It's state terror to incite wider war and take S. Lebanon's ***WATER***:

Destroy the southern villages, terrify the people into leaving or simply kill them: that will remove the consumers of the Lebanese WATER that Israel wants. For example, major springs about 3 miles on the Lebanese side of the border have been the subject of demands and threats from Israel for years; I predict that one of Israel's planned outcomes of this preemptive war against Lebanon will be an arrangement that allows Israel to grab this water from the southern area. Look for Israel’s ideas for a “secure peace” to include allowing them to do this with impunity.

Read the following brief description from the New York Times in 2002 and see if you feel chills down your neck too:

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9905E4D7103BF93BA35753C1A9649C8B63

World Briefing | Middle East: Lebanon: Water Dispute With Israel

Published: October 8, 2002

Senior officials from the United States Embassy in Beirut met Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri to try to defuse a dispute with Israel over Lebanon's plans to use water both countries say they need. Israel has said it takes a ''grave view'' of Lebanon's plan to pipe water to southern villages from the Wazzani Springs, three miles north of the Israeli border. The springs feed the Hasbani River, a tributary of the Jordan River, which is a major source of Israel's fresh water. Lebanon says that it is within its rights under international law and that it plans to open a pumping station soon.

Yes, they are ALSO trying to incite attacks from Syria and (especially) Iran, but people need to be aware that there is also a water dispute underlying this, with Israel demanding water from Southern Lebanese springs. Watch what they demand as necessary for a "secure peace." There will be overt or covert arrangements for Israel to take the water from those springs; Israel has claimed that water for years despite the inconvenient fact that it belongs to Lebanon.

DU threads on the significance in this war of Israel's desire for Lebanese water:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1696420
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1698430

Book on how those who seize water resources are set to become the new Big Oil:
http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/276