Israel Used Arab Communities as Human Shields against Hezbollah in 2006
Israeli war tactics criticised
Jonathan Cook in Nazareth for Al Jazeera
9 January 2008
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The Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA) has accused the Israeli military of committing a war crime by placing military hardware, including artillery positions, inside Arab towns and villages during the war with Lebanon in July 2006. The Nazareth-based association last week published a report claiming Arab communities were used as "human shields" by the Israeli military.
The association argues that the danger this posed to the Arab population was far from "theoretical": Arab communities hit by Hezbollah’s retaliatory rockets were overwhelmingly those in which the Israeli army maintained a presence. A total of 21 Arab Israeli citizens were killed in these strikes.
The report said: "The study found that the Arab towns and villages that suffered the most intensive attacks during the war were ones that were surrounded by military installations, either on a permanent basis or temporarily during the course of the war."
The findings seem to support widespread complaints earlier voiced by Israel’s Arab legislators that their communities were used to deter the Lebanese Shia militia, Hezbollah, from targeting Israeli military positions. At the time the claims were dismissed by Israeli officials.
'Civilians in danger'
Hostilities between Israel and Lebanon erupted on July 12, 2006 when Hezbollah attacked an Israeli border post, killing three soldiers and capturing two. In response Israel launched a wave of air strikes and a more limited ground invasion.
In addition to 119 Israeli soldiers who died in these operations, the barrage of rockets fired by Hezbollah into northern Israel killed 44 civilians and injured hundreds more. The Shia militia was widely condemned for these attacks.
Hezbollah fired some 660 rockets at 20 Arab communities during the war, confounding expectations from Israeli officials and many observers that the militia would target only Jewish areas.
The main explanation until now has been that Hezbollah fired its rockets randomly into Israel, killing Jews and Arabs indiscriminately. However, the HRA report, "Civilians in Danger", says that Hezbollah may have targeted the permanent Israeli military bases, including army camps, airfields and weapons factories, located in or near Arab towns.
It also charged that the Israeli government failed to evacuate civilians from the area of fighting, leaving Arab citizens particularly in danger. Almost no protective measures, such as building public shelters or installing air raid sirens, had been taken in Arab communities, whereas they had been in Jewish communities.
'Solely operational'
But an Israeli military spokesperson told Al Jazeera the report's claims were unfounded and were designed to create a false representation of events which occurred during the fighting. He said: "The consideration applied in selecting the location of the [army’s] installations was solely operational and did not reflect any other consideration."
Tarek Ibrahim, a lawyer and the author of the HRA's report, insists that Hezbollah's rockets mostly targeted Arab communities where military installations had been located and in the main avoided those where no such military positions existed.
"Hezbollah claimed on several occasions that its rockets were aimed primarily at military targets in Israel. Our research cannot prove that to be the case but it does give a strong indication that Hezbollah’s claims may be true."