Israel rejects Amnesty International report

Well fancy that! Israel has rejected the idea that it committed war crimes in Lebanon. This flatly contradicts an Amnesty International report.

The 20-page report, the first comprehensive one issued by the human rights organization on the subject of the recent war, accused Israel of "indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks" which displaced one quarter of the civilian population.

The report alleges that "Israel's destruction of thousands of homes, and strikes on numerous bridges and roads as well as water and fuel storage plants, was an integral part of Israel's military strategy in Lebanon, rather than "collateral damage‚ resulting from the lawful targeting of military objectives."

That strategy, in Amnesty's assessment of Israeli official statements, was carried out in part in order to turn civilians against Hizbullah. The report noted that any Hizbullah use of civilians as a means of shielding their activities constituted a war crime. But, it said, "under international law such use does not release the opposing party from its obligations towards the protection of the civilian population." It calculated that more than 1,000 civilians died, some 7,000 strikes had been carried out by the Israeli Air Force, 15,000 residences had been destroyed and at least two hospitals wiped out.

Every time Israel kills children or other civilians some zionist or other claims that they were used as human shields. Now the idea of a human shield is that the other side will hold their fire so as not to kill the human shield. Since its inception, Israel has had no compunction about killing children so who is there in the whole of the Arab world who thinks to use a child, or any civilian, as a human shield?