New Human Rights Watch report on the Israel-Lebanon War

The Human Rights Watch (HRW) organization has issued another report on the Israel-Lebanon War, this one focusing on the actions of Hizbullah:  Israel/Lebanon: Hezbollah Must End Attacks on Civilians: Rocket Attacks on Civilians in Israel Are War Crimes 08/05/06

I discussed their earlier report on the war that focused more on Israeli actions in this post of 08/03/06.

The HRW report says:

Hezbollah must immediately stop firing rockets into civilian areas in Israel, Human Rights Watch said today. Entering the fourth week of attacks, such rockets have claimed 30 civilian lives, including six children, and wounded hundreds more.

“Lobbing rockets blindly into civilian areas is without doubt a war crime,” said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Nothing can justify this assault on the most fundamental standards for sparing civilians the hazards of war.” 
 
Hezbollah claims that some of its attacks are aimed at military bases inside Israel, which are legitimate targets. But most of the attacks appear to have been directed at civilian areas and have hit pedestrians, hospitals, schools, homes and businesses.

HRW reminds us that not all civilians have the practical option to flee an area under aerial attack:

Human Rights Watch said many of those who remain in northern Israel are unable to leave because they don’t have relatives elsewhere in the country or the resources to pay for alternative accommodation. Some stay behind to care for relatives who are disabled or infirm, or because they work as emergency and medical personnel. 
 
“Who is left here in Kiryat Shmona; the weakest part of the population,” Shimon Kamari, the deputy mayor of Kiryat Shmona, only a few kilometers from the northern border, told Human Rights Watch. “The elderly and those who can’t afford hotels, because to stay for such a long time is very expensive.” 

They state the legal status of attacks on civilians this way:

Under international humanitarian law – also known as the laws of war – parties to an armed conflict must not make the civilian population the object of attack, or fire indiscriminately into civilian areas.  Nor can they launch attacks that they know will cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects that exceeds the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.  Such attacks constitute war crimes.  (my emphasis)

HRW quotes this account from

Human Rights Watch interviewed Tzvia Tamam, who experienced a Hizbullah rocket attack in Israel on August 3, less than a week ago.  They quote her directly:

It destroyed our entire family. My husband is dead; his brother is dead; their sister [Simcha] is in a lot of pain. My disabled mother-in-law is devastated - Simcha also used to be her main caregiver. The kids are traumatized forever. 
 
We don’t have a bomb shelter in our building, so when the sirens started, we went to the shelter in my aunt’s building on Ben Shushan Street.  After the first rocket fell, and the siren stopped, we went out of the shelter to have a look.  My daughter was standing near me, at the entrance, but Ariyeh [her husband] went closer to the street.  Suddenly, there was another loud boom and pieces of metal flew everywhere.  I didn’t realize what had happened to me, but I rushed to the place where my husband was standing - all five people who were standing near the fence there were killed.  There was blood everywhere; I tried to drag him away, and was screaming, ‘Don’t die; please don’t die!’  My son threw himself over his body, and was also screaming, ‘Daddy, daddy, don’t die!’  Then the police and the ambulances came, and took us all to the hospital.
 
HRW also has available an 08/02/06 update of Questions and Answers on Hostilities Between Israel and Hezbollah.