10‏/02‏/2008

About Israeli violations of humanitarian international law



About Israeli violations of humanitarian international law
Report prepared by jurists of Lebanese university

DR KHALIL HUSSEIN
Professor of public law a Lebanese University
Director of studies at Lebanese Parliament

Since Wednesday 12 July 2007, the Israeli army is launching attacks on Lebanon, a country member of United Nations organization, on pretext of self defense in the aftermath of a limited operation that aimed at the release of Lebanese prisoners seized while they were fighting in the ranks of Lebanese and Palestinian resistance, over Lebanese soil, some of whom remain in Israeli prisons for the past thirty years.
Israel has refused to release those prisoners , though it had pledged the Lebanese resistance, through a third party, to release them.
The resistance has exchanged prisoners with Israel before and is prepared to do so again, Now Israel launched an act of aggression violating all principals of humanitarian international law. Consequently, Israel has the following crimes:
A. The Crime of terrorism:
Though there was no agreement on how to define it in a precise and acceptable way, by all parties, the treaties and the various decisions related to it speak about cases of fear among the people, through the weapons and explosives used against them, and which threaten them on land, sea and air, to achieve the special goals of the user of these weapons.
Raymond Aron described this crime by saying. "the fact that terrorism does not distinguish between an individual and another, helps to create this feeling of fear Paul Vagner limits terrorism to terror used to achieve a political objective. He says” terrorism is distinguished from other kinds of violence in that it has a political content “. The same position is adopted by Balget singh when he describes terrorism by saying ‘:political terrorism aims basically at terrorizing people, not the military machine itself.”
What the Israeli army is doing, mainly the air force and the marines incarnates very clearly this concept
If some politicians try to limit terrorism to individuals, there is also another view point which considers that it could happen at the hands of individuals or regular armies, and this is confirmed by Gregor ballod when he says:” terrorism is when an individual or a group or state carries violent act, designed to create a feeling of terror among civilians, and which causes suffering beyond the expected objectives of the act”, when a state carries it out, it is then called “ state terrorism”, and it is far more dangerous then the terrorism of individuals and groups .
Terrorizing Lebanese individuals, destroying their homes, bombing their vehicles on roads, and spreading their human shreds in heap is one of the most abominable terrorisms
B. violated the principal of proportionality between action and response, by destroying and the whole Lebanon and killing its people. This is what Louise Arbour, the UN High Commissioner for human rights has observed in an interview with the newspaper Le Monde on July 22, 2006.
C. It commits all kinds of crimes using its biggest military arsenal in the middle east:
1. The crime of aggression:
Which was not defined in a precise way in international law. in its simplest concept is: a state wages global war against another state, without any legal reason, and engages in global destruction and massive killing without distinction, and which constitutes a stark violation of international law principles, mainly the united nations charter either in its preamble in which peoples of the united nations decided to save future generations from the scourge of war, or in article 2/4 which stipulates that all UN members should refrain, in their international relations, from threatening to use violence, or its use against the safety of lands or the political independence of any state, or any other way which does not agree with the objectives of the united Nations.
2. War against humanity:
In the frame of a broad and concerted attack against civilians, the Israeli army is committing voluntary killing, as it is voluntarily targeting families in their homes: it was the case in Qana, Merwahin, Aintaroun, Ali Nahri, Nabi Sheit Ain Arab Nmeirieh Srifa Brital Qaa Chmostar and other Baalbeck villages, where the number of casualties, until August, 10, 2006, had risen to 1000 martyrs (50% of which are children, and 30%under 12 years) and more than a 3000 wounded, mainly amongst women and children. Human shreds are scattered amid destruction.
3. War crimes:
The Israeli army commits all kinds of crimes:
It commits horrible breach to Geneva Convention of 12 august 1949, and its First Protocol : art 85 of the First Protocol which refers to art: 50 of the first convention and 51 of the second convention and art 130 of the third., and 147 of the fourth
It commits:
- intentional killing
- taking of hostages as it happened in Baalbeck during the parachutage (night of august 1-2).
and it directs:
- raids from air, sea and land which cause destruction to all properties: industrial and commercial, and civil institutions, without specifying any military targets. It happened in the southern suburb of Beirut, Shtoura, Nabatieh, and in different areas of south Lebanon, Baalbeck, Bednayel, Ghaziyeh, and western Bekaa…

- Voluntarily attacking civilians, as Human Rights watch observed in its report published on august 3, 2006, in all the southern cities and Mount Lebanon and a large part of the north and the Bekaa. It is bombing Tyr, Bent Jbeil, Nabatieh and Sidon, as well as a large number of the villages surrounding these major cities, of more than a million inhabitants, Lebanon has 3.5 million inhabitants, without mentioning the southern suburbs, Shtoura, Zahleh Baalbeck, and hundreds of their surrounding villages.
- Heavy shelling and threats of heaviest shelling, , aimed at displacing civilian population from south Lebanon and southern suburb of Beirut. Nearly 1 million inhabitants have been displaced.
- Voluntarily targeting civilian sites such as factories, petrol stations, warehouses, electricity companies, places of worship, and health institutions.
- Voluntarily attacking civilian means of transport and even ambulances. It is also targeting central power generating stations, (as it happened in Gieh), destroy bridges in large numbers aiming at impeaching the basic relief material from reaching the victims. The main bridges hit by the Israeli attacks are: Qasmieh, Ouali, Dahr el baidar, (the highest bridge in the Middle East) Arca, Madfoun Fidar, Assi and over one 150 other bridges. The Israeli attacks targeted in Zahleh the ambulance sent by the United Arab Emirates and in Jbeil, Tarchich, it hit as well as trucks loaded with construction material also all means of transport and communication of big and average size, have been bombarded.
- Voluntarily bombing houses and buildings that are not considered in any case as military targets, even villages and cities that do not harbor military means.
- Voluntarily targeting buildings where sick and wounded are gathered as in Tyr when an Israeli rocket hit a health center, and a civil defense center, as well as other humanitarian organizations.
- Voluntarily trying to cause more harm by using phosphorus bombs as in Shebaa, and its surroundings. The Israeli army is sending ultimatums to the inhabitants of the villages, urging them to get out, and then hunting them on their way to a safe haven.
- Targeting all cultural possessions and places of worship in Tyr, and other villages of the south and Baal beck…
- Targeting media institutions and journalists: Al Manar , New TV, LBC, Télé Lumière, Future and others
- Targeting UN centers (Naqoura headquarter) The killing of UNIFIL officers and staff, in the south in the regions of Khiam, Tyr and Maroun El Ras.
- Aggression against elements and vehicles of the Red Cross, and delaying their movements by bombardments, which was repeated in article 85/4 of the First Protocol, and considered them as gross violations, and consequently war crimes.
4. Mass killing:
The Israeli army is causing killing, harm, and all sorts of damage to the Lebanese people, by breaking all rules of war:
· Rules of war (Hague 1907) that:
- Prevents from destroying personal possessions with no necessity to do so
- Prevents from destroying unprotected villages and cities
- Encourages taking all possible means to protect centers where the sick and wounded are gathered.
· Convention against mass killing (1948): The Israeli army is not respecting this convention by concertedly targeting civilians.
· The Geneva Conventions, art. 3 common, which prohibits taking of hostages, and also the Fourth Geneva Convention, that speaks about protecting all civilians, especially articles 12-26, that clearly insist on the protection of the sick and wounded.
· The first protocol annexed to the Geneva Conventions (1949) in the following articles:
- 35/2: forbids the use of weapons, bombs and means of war that might cause unnecessary harm and pain.
- 48: insists on the separation between civilian and weapon bearers, civilian sites and military targets.
- 51/2: prevents all violent acts that aim at spreading fear among civilians or target civilians as such.
- 54/1: forbids using starvation as a means of war.
- 54/2: prevents from destroying indispensable material as water and food, and forbids from targeting bridges and architectural sites.
- 57/2/b which state: that an attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian objects.
- 61-67: related to the protection of buildings of Civil Defense, their personnel, and their means of transport. This is exactly what they are exposed to, every day, in southern Lebanon and other regions, as has been reported in the mass media.
- 70-71: Which prohibits impeaching relief actions for civilians, as this was done by the Israeli forces during their current aggression against Lebanon.
- 79: which prohibits aggression against news reporters, and which was violated by the Israeli forces when they bombarded their convoys in the regions of Hasbaya and Aita El Chaab.
· The Hague convention (1954): Protection of personal belongings and places of worship repeated in art. 85/4/d which considered his violation as grave breach, and consequently a war crime: the Israeli army targeted mosques, churches, and ruins as in Tyr, Hasbaya…
· The Accord which prohibits the use of techniques of changing the environment for military objectives. (10 December 1976),. Which was confirmed by article 55 of First Protocol adjacent to the Geneva conventions as was the case in the sea in front of the Tyr region, where the Israeli bombing pushed quantities of oil to the sea, and which threatens the almost all Lebanese coast.
· The Geneva Convention (1980) and its protocol which state: “ with respect to minefields, mined are as, mines, body-traps and other devices laid by a party in areas over which it no longer exercises control such party shall provide to the party in control of the areas to the extent permitted by such party, technical and material assistance necessary to fulfill such resp0nsability”.
· Protocol of May 3, 1996 related to mines, and which stipulates in its article 10, that all minefields should be destroyed or removed, as well as the mine regions. The party which planted these things should shoulder the responsibility of providing technical and material assistance, in order to remove them. This necessitates before anything else the delivery of maps, which Israel continues to refuse to do, since the withdrawal of its army in May 2000.
The Israeli aggression against civilians, children, women and elderly, against civilian institutions, houses, schools and infrastructure (bridges, electricity companies, telephone networks, water, roads, health centers, red cross centers) is a violation of the international humanitarian law and all international costumes.
These war crimes committed by the Israeli army necessitate the creation of international penal tribunal in order to judge criminals.
We are laying before you all these facts and we count to use all possible means of pressure to put a term to the destruction targeting civilians and their belongings.
We are counting on you and thank you