Amnesty International: Israel / Lebanon: End immediately attacks against civilians

Puck78
Puck78 Posts: 737
edited July 2006 in A Moving Train
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE


AI Index: MDE 15/064/2006 (Public)
News Service No: 182
13 July 2006


Israel / Lebanon: End immediately attacks against civilians
The Israeli and Lebanese governments, and Hizbullah, must take immediate steps to end the ongoing attacks against civilians and civilian objects. Such attacks are a blatant breach of international humanitarian law and amount to war crimes.

It is vital at this time of rapidly rising tension that all parties observe the requirements of international humanitarian law, and that other governments take all appropriate steps to insist that they do so.

“Israel must put an immediate end to attacks against civilians and against civilian infrastructure in Lebanon, which constitute collective punishment. Israel must also respect the principle of proportionality when targeting any military objectives or civilian objectives that may be used for military purposes,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East Programme.

“Hizbullah must stop launching attacks against Israeli civilians and it must treat humanely the two Israeli soldiers it captured on 12 July and grant them immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross,” said Malcolm Smart.

The organization also called on the Lebanese government to take concrete measures to ensure that Hizbullah complies with these obligations under international law.


Background

Some 40 Lebanese civilians have reportedly been killed in Israeli air strikes and artillery shelling against villages in South Lebanon since yesterday’s cross-border attack by Hizbullah’s armed wing, in which two Israeli soldiers were captured and eight others killed.
Among the Lebanese victims were a family of ten, including eight children, who were killed in Dweir village, near Nabatiyeh, and a family of seven, including a seven-month-old baby, who were killed in Baflay village near Tyre. More than 60 other civilians were injured in these or other attacks.

Israeli forces have also launched deliberate attacks against civilian objects throughout Lebanon, including Beirut international airport, 10 bridges and an electricity power station, as well as against Hizbullah targets, notably the offices of its al-Manar television station in Beirut and its relay station in Baalbek.

At the same time, Hizbullah has been launching Katyusha rockets into Northern Israel. An Israeli woman was killed and dozens of other civilians were injured when a Katyusha rocket hit a house in the town of Nahariya earlier today.

The Fourth Geneva Convention, prohibits "collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism …" (Article 33). According to Article 147 of the Convention, "extensive destruction ... not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly," hostage-taking and "torture or inhuman treatment" are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and constitute war crimes. All state parties to the Convention are required to search for and ensure the prosecution of perpetrators of grave breaches of the said Convention.

Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions codifies the principle of distinction, a customary rule of international humanitarian law: "In order to ensure respect for and protection of the civilian population and civilian objects, the Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operation only against military objectives." (Article 48). International Humanitarian Law strictly prohibits attacks against civilians and civilian objects. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) includes as war crimes: “Intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population as such or against individual civilians not taking direct part in hostilities”, and “Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects" (Article 8 2 (b) (i) and (ii)).
www.amnesty.org
www.amnesty.org.uk
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Comments

  • thankyougrandma
    thankyougrandma Posts: 1,182
    it will work, expecting a cease fire around 1h in the afternoon... :rolleyes: . What the world need to do is disarm ISRAEL and Hezbollah...
    "L'homme est né libre, et partout il est dans les fers"
    -Jean-Jacques Rousseau
  • decides2dream
    decides2dream Posts: 14,977
    it's utterly disgusting that any country needs to be told it is wrong to purposefully choose to attack civilians. :(
    Stay with me...
    Let's just breathe...


    I am myself like you somehow


  • RockinInCanada
    RockinInCanada Posts: 2,016
    decides2dream wrote:
    it's utterly disgusting that any country needs to be told it is wrong to purposefully choose to attack civilians. :(

    You hit the nail on the head there d2d...couldn't have said it any better....and you would think we live in a civilized age....
  • rebornFixer
    rebornFixer Posts: 4,901
    Its nice to see Amnesty International actually mention all the sides in the conflict ... One thing that struck me was that nowhere there does it say that Hezbollah should actually release the captured IDF soldiers. Or did I miss it?
  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    reborncareerist wrote:
    Its nice to see Amnesty International actually mention all the sides in the conflict ... One thing that struck me was that nowhere there does it say that Hezbollah should actually release the captured IDF soldiers. Or did I miss it?

    Well, I think they know that Israel isn't going to release the arab prisoners. So to be fair they'd have to ask that too.
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • FiveB247x
    FiveB247x Posts: 2,330
    Well for a human rights group - do you really think that's necessary to state something so obvious? It'd be a bit silly - no?
    reborncareerist wrote:
    Its nice to see Amnesty International actually mention all the sides in the conflict ... One thing that struck me was that nowhere there does it say that Hezbollah should actually release the captured IDF soldiers. Or did I miss it?
    CONservative governMENt

    Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
  • rebornFixer
    rebornFixer Posts: 4,901
    Ahnimus wrote:
    Well, I think they know that Israel isn't going to release the arab prisoners. So to be fair they'd have to ask that too.

    Tit for tat, whatever. People are going to have to acknowledge, at some point, that prisoner release is going to be an important part of ending this current flare-up. By remaining silent on the matter, Amnesty International just looks biased. I mean, even more than usual.
  • rebornFixer
    rebornFixer Posts: 4,901
    FiveB247x wrote:
    Well for a human rights group - do you really think that's necessary to state something so obvious? It'd be a bit silly - no?

    Are you serious?! The whole fucking thing (killing civilians is wrong, terrorism is bad, Red Cross, yadda yadda) is dead obvious! You're cool with this whole write-up as something that needed to be said, but then you balk at one small omission as legit for being too obvious? Geez Louise!
  • Ahnimus
    Ahnimus Posts: 10,560
    reborncareerist wrote:
    Tit for tat, whatever. People are going to have to acknowledge, at some point, that prisoner release is going to be an important part of ending this current flare-up. By remaining silent on the matter, Amnesty International just looks biased. I mean, even more than usual.

    Well you do realize that the soldiers were captured to free arab prisoners, don't you?
    I necessarily have the passion for writing this, and you have the passion for condemning me; both of us are equally fools, equally the toys of destiny. Your nature is to do harm, mine is to love truth, and to make it public in spite of you. - Voltaire
  • rebornFixer
    rebornFixer Posts: 4,901
    Ahnimus wrote:
    Well you do realize that the soldiers were captured to free arab prisoners, don't you?

    You do realize that the Isreali counterattack on Lebanon is intended to free these soldiers, don't you?

    My point is, where does it stop?
  • FiveB247x
    FiveB247x Posts: 2,330
    So everytime they write a statement, they have to reiterate what they stand for?

    http://web.amnesty.org/pages/aboutai-statute-eng

    http://web.amnesty.org/pages/aboutai-udhr-eng
    CONservative governMENt

    Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
  • rebornFixer
    rebornFixer Posts: 4,901
    FiveB247x wrote:
    So everytime they write a statement, they have to reiterate what they stand for?

    http://web.amnesty.org/pages/aboutai-statute-eng

    http://web.amnesty.org/pages/aboutai-udhr-eng

    But my point was, why are they OK reiterating some pieces but not others? Is this a case of selective reiteration? It seems like a glaring omission to me. If they are going to release specific pronouncements like this, they open themselves up to the scrutiny of picky bastards like me. :)
  • FiveB247x
    FiveB247x Posts: 2,330
    Well all their doing is taking a current issue and event and trying to publically make a statement for what their org stands for. Sorry if you need all the obviously things stated for you and I'm sure if they did state the obvious, you'd be saying how assinine it is! haha
    reborncareerist wrote:
    But my point was, why are they OK reiterating some pieces but not others? Is this a case of selective reiteration? It seems like a glaring omission to me. If they are going to release specific pronouncements like this, they open themselves up to the scrutiny of picky bastards like me. :)
    CONservative governMENt

    Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
  • rebornFixer
    rebornFixer Posts: 4,901
    FiveB247x wrote:
    Well all their doing is taking a current issue and event and trying to publically make a statement for what their org stands for. Sorry if you need all the obviously things stated for you and I'm sure if they did state the obvious, you'd be saying how assinine it is! haha


    Hmmm ... Possibly. :)

    I do stand by my point, though. I think it would have been helpful to include.
  • FiveB247x
    FiveB247x Posts: 2,330
    Damn you Canadians! The US has the Stanley Cup! Reap it! haha
    reborncareerist wrote:
    Hmmm ... Possibly. :)

    I do stand by my point, though. I think it would have been helpful to include.
    CONservative governMENt

    Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
  • rebornFixer
    rebornFixer Posts: 4,901
    FiveB247x wrote:
    Damn you Canadians! The US has the Stanley Cup! Reap it! haha

    Low, you bastard ... LOW! ;)
  • FiveB247x
    FiveB247x Posts: 2,330
    You just got a standing 8-count! haha
    reborncareerist wrote:
    Low, you bastard ... LOW! ;)
    CONservative governMENt

    Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a law-breaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. - Louis Brandeis
  • keeponrockin
    keeponrockin Posts: 7,446
    decides2dream wrote:
    it's utterly disgusting that any country needs to be told it is wrong to purposefully choose to attack civilians. :(

    I agree. It's sickening.
    Believe me, when I was growin up, I thought the worst thing you could turn out to be was normal, So I say freaks in the most complementary way. Here's a song by a fellow freak - E.V
  • SundaySilence
    SundaySilence Posts: 537
    reborncareerist wrote:
    Its nice to see Amnesty International actually mention all the sides in the conflict ... One thing that struck me was that nowhere there does it say that Hezbollah should actually release the captured IDF soldiers. Or did I miss it?

    Well the title of the release is:
    End immediately attacks against civilians

    The civilian focus and immediacy of the statement may preclude a more complicated POW (noncivilian) release scenerio. They certainly address the soldiers and kidnappers though, even calling on the US (among others) to track and try them for war crimes:
    Puck78 wrote:
    “Hizbullah ...treat humanely the two Israeli soldiers it captured on 12 July and grant them immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross,”...

    hostage-taking ... are grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and constitute war crimes. All state parties to the Convention are required to search for and ensure the prosecution of perpetrators of grave breaches of the said Convention.
  • Eva7
    Eva7 Posts: 226
    reborncareerist wrote:
    You do realize that the Isreali counterattack on Lebanon is intended to free these soldiers, don't you?

    My point is, where does it stop?

    Hi reborn, nice to see you!

    Well... do you think that is a good reason to bomb a sovereign nation and its civilian population? (Or better.... there could ever be any good reason to bomb a sovereign nation???) ....I think the scary fact here is exactly that we have got to a point that we can justify war and state aggression, and that is sign of collective madness to me, by these times... Moreover, Israel is a state, a sovereign nation, and as such it is subject to the Geneva Convention. Hezbollah represent the lebanon state only partly, they are not a regular army, so you cannot treat them as they are. They are an islamic militant group, not exactly a regular army. It would be important that Amnesty or anyone else in the civil society demand the hezbollah to stop the violence and free the soldiers, but I think it would be a priority that the international community condemns and stops Israel, defined as a sovereign state and a democratic nation, for its continuous military aggression against civilians, its continuous violation of the international laws and the UN resolutions. We have to stop to see this behaviour by the Israeli government as something "justifiable" as self-defence, simply because they are a nation with a regular army of a democratic state who is constantly committing crimes against civilians, crimes that would not be allowed, and are not, if committed by any other nation in the world ('cept for the US, of course). Thanks God. (yeah, imagine what the world would be if any nation in the world would be allowed to do the same....) So, the point "where does it stop" to me gets to the only possible answer that it only can stop when the civilized world starts to deserve such name, and starts to respect the international laws and the civil cohabitation... and to do so to me it also means that the international community has to gain means, power and political strategy to assure such respect of the international laws. In few words, to become a civilized world, the international community should start to give up the priority of national interests and the economical interests tied to the diplomatic relationships, and make the values of peace and human rights as the inalienable priority. This, to me, would be the only way to stop and prevent all these massacres.
    http://www.myspace.com/stoikaestinta

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