RAMALLAH/LONDON, 13 July 2007 — A year after the July war on Lebanon, Amnesty International censured the absence of steps, in both Israel and Lebanon and by the international community, to prosecute those “responsible for war crimes and other grave violations” committed during the conflict.
During and after the war, the organization investigated possible violations of international humanitarian law committed by both Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters and published its findings in three reports last year.
According to AI, in Israel the postwar investigations of the conduct of Israeli forces during the war was limited to military strategy and made no attempt to investigate violations of international humanitarian law or to establish a mechanism to bring to account those responsible for such violations.
In Lebanon, said the organization, no official investigation had been carried out at all. Furthermore, an inquiry appointed by the UN Human Rights Council was given a one-sided mandate, focusing only on evidence of violations by Israeli forces. Specifically, AI condemned Israel’s use of cluster bombs, alleging that the Israeli forces utilized them in an illegal manner during the war, a claim Israel has repeatedly denied.
The organization also noted the ongoing damage caused by remnants of this type of ordnance and criticized Israel for not sharing information about bomb placement.
“Amnesty International repeats its call on Israel to hand over maps detailing the areas its forces targeted with cluster bombs. These are vital to assist bomb clearance and avoid further casualties,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa program.
The organization also called on the Israeli government to impose a moratorium on the use of all cluster weapons and to provide maps of the locations of the land mines its forces laid in south Lebanon in past years. The AI press release criticized Hezbollah’s treatment of kidnapped Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, urging the group “to provide information about the two Israeli soldiers its fighters captured on July 12, 2006, and allow them immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross.”
“Israel, Lebanon and all other countries in a position to do so should investigate and prosecute those suspected of war crimes,” read a statement from the organization. “The Security Council should declare and enforce an arms embargo on both Israel and Hezbollah until effective mechanisms are in place to ensure that weapons will not be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law,” Smart was quoted as saying.
“Without a full, impartial UN-led inquiry that includes provision for reparations to the victims, there is a real danger of history repeating itself.” “The total lack of political will to hold to account those responsible for the indiscriminate killing of civilians, more than one thousand of whom lost their lives, is both a gross betrayal of the victims and a recipe for possible further civilian bloodshed with impunity,” he said.
While AI said it welcomed the establishment of the tribunal, it “continues to stress the urgent need for a comprehensive strategy to address past war crimes and human rights abuses in Lebanon, including those committed during the war in July-August last year.”
Earlier, Human Rights Watch said a full year after the Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon, violations of the laws of war have gone uninvestigated and unpunished. “Both sides in this conflict violated the laws of war, but a full year later, no one has been held accountable,” said a statement by Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
HRW regretted that neither Israel or the Lebanese government have investigated war crimes during the 34-day war started on July 12, 2006 and killed more than 1,200 people in Lebanon and more than 160 in Israel.
It said Israel’s Winograd Commission investigated shortcomings in the preparation and handling of the war but was not mandated to probe violations by Israeli soldiers, while Lebanon’s internal strife has sapped “both its will and, seemingly, the capacity to investigate” Hezbollah’s actions.
HRW also criticized the UN Human Rights Council, whose special commission “was compromised by a mandate limited to one party’s conduct (Israel) and an inability to enforce its own recommendations.” Whitson said “the Israeli and Lebanese investigations have failed, so the international community needs to step in.”
