WASHINGTON, 19 July 2006 — Human Rights Watch said yesterday Hezbollah’s attacks on Israel with rockets in civilian areas violated international humanitarian law and most likely constituted “war crimes.”
The attacks Sunday and Monday were “at best indiscriminate attacks in civilian areas, at worst the deliberate targeting of civilians,” the New York-based group said in a statement.
“Either way, they were serious violations of international humanitarian law and probable war crimes,” it said.
Human Rights Watch on Monday called on the Israeli government to divulge details about a bombing over the weekend that reportedly killed 16 civilians in a convoy near the village of Marwahin.
In another development, American Muslims chafe at the US government’s hands-off approach to Israeli reprisals and worry about countless relatives and friends trapped by violence in Lebanon.
US officials say Israel “has the right to defend itself,” since its incursion into Gaza three weeks ago and air raids on Lebanon, but President George W. Bush’s stance offends Americans who are Muslims or of Arab descent.
Early last week, a coalition of 11 major Muslim organizations publicly called on Bush to forcefully condemn the attacks on Gaza and to designate as “war crimes” the destruction of Palestinian civilian infrastructure.
After the Israeli bombing of Lebanon, the appeals for denouncing Israel have multiplied.
“Once again America’s image and interests worldwide are being harmed by one-sided support for Israeli actions,” said Ibrahim Hooper, spokesman for CAIR, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, the largest US Muslim rights group. “We’re urging Muslims in America and other people of conscience to contact their elected officials to tell them that we have to have balanced foreign policy for the Middle East, one that is driven by American interests, not Israeli interests.” American Islamic Congress director Zainab Al-Suwaij had an even more immediate goal, urging the US to actively lobby for an end to violence.
“The policy for the US should be stopping the violence, period, and starting to solve the problem through negotiations.” The American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee announced a rally outside the White House yesterday to “protest Israeli military action in Lebanon and Gaza.”
Today, leaders of Arab-American communities around the United States plan to meet in Washington to discuss the crisis in the Midle East.
The Arab American Institute has posted on its website photographs of Arab-American vacationers, children and visitors trapped in Lebanon by the fighting.
“In many cases (there is) no way for them to leave, even if a plan were to be developed, they can’t go from one part of the country to the other to get out,” said James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute.
US helicopters flew 64 Americans from Beirut over the past two days, according to the military, without specifying whether they were embassy personnel, dual nationals or tourists.
Janah El Horr, a 24-year-old Lebanese who has been living in the US for three years, said she had been optimistic about Lebanon’s prospects after the end of the country’s devastating civil war in 1990.
“We were all happy with how (much) the country was able to achieve — and in such a short time after the (civil) war and how the Lebanese people always thrive and have the will to overcome their civil war,” said Horr, who recently returned from a visit to her native country.
“It brings chills all over to see what this country is going through, so much destruction and pain and being threatened with a new war,” she said.
