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Questions and answers on hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah

17 July 2006


The following questions and answers set out some of the legal rules governing the various actions taken by Israel and Hezbollah to date in this recent conflict. Human Rights Watch sets out these rules before it has been able to conduct extensive on-the-ground investigation. The purpose is to provide analytic guidance for those who are examining the fighting as well as for the parties to the conflict and those with the capacity to influence them. This Q & A addresses only the rules of international humanitarian law, known as jus in bello, which govern the way each party to the armed conflict must conduct itself in the course of the hostilities. 

Israelis are dying: it must be an escalation

Jonathan Cook 17 July 2006


Here we go again — another “serious escalation” has begun in the Middle East, or so BBC World was telling audiences throughout Sunday. So what prompted the BBC’s judgment that the crisis was escalating once more? You can be sure it had nothing to do with the more than 130 Lebanese dead after five days of savage aerial bombardment from at least 2,000 sorties by Israeli war planes that are making the country’s south a disaster zone and turning Beirut into a crumbling ghost town. Those dead, most civilians and many of them women and children, hardly get a mention, their lives apparently empty of meaning or significance in this confrontation. 

Israel's latest attack on the poor

Maymanah Farhat New York, United States 17 July 2006


Residents of our village are leaving for fear of running out of food; water is scarce and there are only four small grocery stores for a population of about 15,000 people. This is common throughout the South, as most depend on the cities for commerce (cities they are now cut off from). My grandmother and aunt have left the safety of our family’s bomb shelter to stay in a village on the coast. What appalling choices they have been given — seeking refuge in a building with no bomb shelter, in closer proximity to Israeli war ships, or remaining in a village where food is running out. The death toll in Lebanon is now 150 civilians, with the number of injured rising to 350. 

From Haifa to Jerusalem: Thoughts While Getting Out of Missile Range

Am Johal Jerusalem 17 July 2006


People were hiding in bomb shelters or trying to find a way out of town yesterday as Hezbollah rockets rained down on Haifa. I couldn’t sleep all night; every noise sounded like a rocket landing. They came in like pop flies and you could hear the thwapping as they landed in the distance. As I jumped in to the shower at 9:00, something hit hard in Haifa near the water. The sirens went off and the streets became deserted. Thursday nights hit had only engendered a kind of black comedy amongst the residents - this time it was real. 

Day 5 of the siege

Rasha Salti Beirut 17 July 2006


A quiet night in Beirut, more or less, compared to what the inhabitants of Tyre and the south and the Beqaa and Tripoli experienced. They were shelled from the air and sea with little respite. Tyre is in a tragically dire situation. 30,000 are displaced; the mayor was on TV screaming for help, his voice choking with despair. They are out of supplies, they have more wounded than they can handle and the city’s reserves in fuel and other basic amenities are nearly depleted. (The IDF wants to “clear” three provinces in the South: Tyre, Marja’uyun and Bin Jbeil, in preparation for the “20 km buffer zone.”) The port of Tripoli was bombed, the port of Beirut was bombed. 

Nameless and faceless: The anonymous killed

Nora Barrows-Friedman Dheisheh refugee camp, Palestine 17 July 2006


There will be no statistics in this journal entry because what difference does 10 shredded children in Gaza, or 15 sliced children in Lebanon, or 40 smashed children in Iraq make to the international community anyway? What difference does it make when the twisted and sick US corporate media doesn’t even mention their names, or their ages, or their favorite color — something to put a human face on the mangled mess made by the latest US-manufactured, Israeli-fired missile that destroyed what used to be a nose, a mouth, two eyes, freckles, cheek, or forehead? 

Leaflet dropped on Beirut by Israeli forces

Israeli military 13 July 2006


This is the leaflet that was dropped on Beirut by Israeli planes on 13 July 2006, amidst the Israeli bombing campaign that has targeted the city and its infrastructure. Coming amid the killing of Lebanese civilians and the destruction of Lebanese infrastructure, including major portions of the Beirut airport, its tone of alleged concern for Lebanese “safety” and the “prevention of harm” is cruelly ironic: “For your safety and because we want to prevent any harm coming to uninvolved civilians, you must refrain from being present in places where Hizballah is deployed of from which it operates.” 

Leaving Lebanon - To What Fate?

Maddy Ryle Syria 17 July 2006


Like the majority of people, I am now following the development of events in Lebanon via the internet and the somewhat dubious coverage broadcast on CNN. But I am following them with a keener interest, one that is acute in its emotional as well as its political concern. Because until two days ago Lebanon was my home from home, as it had been for the last year. Over my time there I have lived with Palestinians in a refugee camp, with Shia Muslims and immigrant workers in a stronghold of Hezbollah and Amal support in South Beirut, among the mixed and often secular population of Hamra in West Beirut and finally among the largely Christian, often Armenian-descended community of Geitaoui, in East Beirut. 

Can You Describe Your Emotions when a Missile Falls Beside Your Baby?

Sami Abu Salem Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza Strip 17 July 2006


The three-day-old baby Mohammed and his 23-year-old mother Asam were sleeping in their room when an Israeli missile hit their house early this morning in the heart of Jabalia refugee camp, north Gaza. “I do not believe [it], the rocket fallen from the sky near sons and daughter; it is a miracle it did not blow up,” said Husseini Abu Salem, 46, the grandfather of Mohammed. Shadi Abu Salem, the father of the baby, said he has just entered his room when the rocket hit the house. 

IOF Occupy & Isolate Beit Hanoun, and Destroy the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

17 July 2006


Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) continued the aggression on the Gaza Strip for the 4th consecutive week, inflicting additional casualties among Palestinian civilians and destruction of civilian property. IOF continue to systematically target infrastructure and governmental institutions, to undermine the Palestinian political system. Further, IOF continue to hold nearly 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip hostages after closing all its borders, and prevent food and supplies from entering the Strip freely. The situation is the worst in years, and could escalate into a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe.