Haaretz
Av 29, 5766
LONDON - In a report to
be released Wednesday, Amnesty International accuses Israel of war crimes,
saying it broke international law by deliberately destroying Lebanon's
civilian infrastructure during its recent war with Hezbollah guerrillas.
The human rights group said initial evidence, including the
pattern and scope of the Israeli attacks, high number of civilian
casualties, widespread damage and statements by Israeli officials
"indicate that such destruction was deliberate and part of a military
strategy, rather than 'collateral damage.'"
Amnesty International,
whose delegates monitored the fighting in both Israel and Lebanon, said
Israel violated international laws banning direct attacks on civilians and
barring indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks.
The group
urged the United Nations to look into whether both combatants, Israel and
Hezbollah, broke international law.
Amnesty International said it
would address Hezbollah's attacks on Israel separately.
A senior
Israeli government official, in Jerusalem, said his country acted legally.
"Israel conformed to every international law. We had attorneys in
every meeting, everything we did along the way we fully explored
international law," said the official, who was not authorized to speak to
the media on the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Israel suffered international condemnation when it attacked
targets in southern Lebanon hours after Hezbollah guerrillas operating
there killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two in a cross-border
raid July 12.
The Israel Defense Forces has said that between that
raid and the August 14 UN-brokered cease-fire, it launched more than 7,000
air attacks on Lebanese targets and the navy conducted about 2,500
bombardments.
The UN's children's fund, UNICEF, estimates that
some 1,183 people died, mostly civilians and about a third of them
children, while the Lebanese Higher Relief Council says 4,054 people were
injured and 970,000 displaced. UN officials reported that around 15,000
civilian homes were destroyed.
The Amnesty report cited "the
widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water
services, roads, bridges, factories and ports," which, taken with
statements by Israeli officials, "suggests a policy of punishing both the
Lebanese government and the civilian population in an effort to get them
to turn against Hezbollah," it said.
It accused Israel of applying
an overly broad interpretation of what constituted a military objective
when it attacked power plants, bridges, main roads, seaports and Beirut's
international airport, all of which are "presumed to be civilian."