Vikings, I think I would just highlight some the reports of the
Israel strikes
Attacks on Civilian Homes
Since July 12, when Hezbollah launched an attack on Israeli
positions initially killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing
two, Israel and Hezbollah have engaged in intense hostilities.
Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes against targets in
Lebanon, including extensive attacks against Lebanons
infrastructure, private homes and apartment buildings, as well as
vehicles moving on roads. Israeli strikes have been especially
heavy in Shia-dominated areas of Lebanon, considered to be
Hezbollah strongholds, including southern Lebanon, the southern
suburbs of Beirut, and the Beqaa Valley.
To date, the chief cause of civilian deaths from the Israeli
campaign is targeted strikes on civilian homes in villages of
Lebanons South. There has also been large-scale destruction of
civilian apartment buildings in southern Beirut, though most of the
residents of those buildings had evacuated prior to the attacks.
According to the Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs, the IDF
destroyed or damaged up to 5,000 civilian homes in air strikes
during the first two weeks of the war.6 As demonstrated by the case
studies below, Israel has caused large-scale civilian casualties by
striking civilian homes, with no apparent military objective either
inside the home or in the vicinity. In some cases, warplanes
returned to strike again while residents and neighbors had gathered
around the house to remove the dead and assist the wounded.
Israel claims that it is attacking homes belonging to Hezbollah
members, and that Hezbollah is responsible for putting civilians at
risk by placing their military positions inside or close to
civilian homes. On July 19, for example, the IDF stated that
Hezbollah terrorists have turned southern Lebanon into a war zone
and are operating near population centers there, using civilians as
human shields.7 On the same day, the Israeli ambassador to the
United Nations, Dan Gillerman, told CNN: We are trying to minimize
hurting civilians, but when Hezbollah uses civilians as human
shields, sometimes civilians will get hurt.8
Human Rights Watch research established that, on some limited
occasions, Hezbollah fighters have attempted to store weapons near
civilian homes and have fired rockets from areas where civilians
live. However, such practices do not justify the IDFs failure to
distinguish between combatants and civilians.
On July 15, for example, a group of villagers from Marwahin left
the area in a convoy, in part because Hezbollah was attempting to
store weapons behind their homes, and residents feared a
retaliatory IDF strike.9 Two rockets believed to have been fired
from Israeli helicopters struck a white pick-up and a passenger car
in the convoy on the road between the villages of Chamaa and
Biyada, killing twenty-one civilians (see Attacks on Fleeing
Civilians). A U.N. team trying to retrieve the bodies came under
fire from the IDF.10 While the villagers flight could be
attributed in part to Hezbollahs unlawful attempt to store weapons
in Marwahinthe main reason for flight was the Israeli warning to
evacuate within two hourHuman Rights Watch found no evidence to
suggest that Hezbollah fighters were near the civilian convoy when
it got hit.
Christian villagers fleeing the village of `Ain Ebel have also
complained about Hezbollah tactics that placed them at risk,
telling the New York Times that Hezbollah came to [our village] to
shoot its rockets.
They are shooting from between our houses.11
`Ain Ebel was a former stronghold for the Israeli-backed South
Lebanese Army (SLA), a force opposed to Hezbollah. According to an
official from `Ain Ebel, some villagers told him that Hezbollah had
fired at Israel from certain positions close to their houses,
although so far Human Rights Watch has heard no reports of
Hezbollah entering any village homes. No villagers have died but a
number have been injured (mostly from broken glass), and Israeli
fire had destroyed roughly eighty of 400 houses, he said.12
Human Rights Watch is hardly asserting that all Israeli strikes
have targeted civilians. There are obviously many cases in which
Israeli forces attacked legitimate military targets, such as rocket
launchers and dug-in military positions. However, in the cases
documented below, no apparent military objective existed in the
civilian houses that Israel attacked. Villagers interviewed
privately in one-on-one settings stated credibly and consistently
that Hezbollah was not present in their homes or the vicinity when
the attacks took place, and Human Rights Watch found no other
evidence to suggest that Hezbollah had been there.
Killing of Four Brazilian-Lebanese Civilians in Srifa, July
13
On two occasions, the IDF killed civilians in the village Srifa,
located twenty-five kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon border. The
first attack on July 13 killed four Brazilian-Lebanese dual
nationals. On July 19, another strike killed nineteen people (see
below).
The first took place at about 4 a.m. on July 13, around the same
time as other air strikes on the villages of Dweir and Baflay (see
below). Fatima Musa, a Srifa resident, described the strike to
Human Rights Watch:
First they hit a school building at night, from Wednesday to
Thursday, starting at around 3:30 to 4 a.m. Then, they hit the
house just behind us. We didnt hear the airplanes, we just heard
the rocket. We were sleeping and woke up when the house lit up from
the explosions. My son was shivering with fear.13
The air strike hit a home in the Ain neighborhood of Srifa,
demolishing the home and killing the family inside.
According to three witnesses, the four persons killed in the first
strike on Srifa were all Brazilian-Lebanese dual nationals who had
come to Srifa less than one month before to spend their summer
vacation in the village.14 The witnesses identified the dead as
Akil Merhi, 33; his wife, Ahlam Merhi, 25; their son, Abdel Hadi
Merhi, 8; and their daughter, Fatima Merhi, 4. Because the family
was only vacationing in Lebanon and normally resided in Brazil, it
is unlikely that their adult members were involved in Hezbollah
activities. The witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch also
denied there was a Hezbollah presence or fighting in the area at
the time of the attack
In a statement, the IDF claimed to have struck two Hezbollah
bases in Srifa on that day.15
The bodies of the four Merhi family members were covered with
rubble, and firing from Israeli war planes prevented the villagers
from digging them out. According to one witness:
The first time they tried to get the bodies out, some villagers
went to try and extract them from the rubble, but another rocket
fired on the home. Eventually they were able to get the bodies out,
but that was only about noon. The bodies were buried in the village
around 5 p.m.16
There was no Hezbollah activity around the home when the second
bomb struck, the villagers said.
Go thru ... every report... Please...
http://hrw.org/reports/2006/lebanon0806/5.htm
