Accidental targeting

Intentional accidents


Following its ususal practice (adopted by the US in Iraq), Israel ignores the Geneva Conventions and targets ambulances. See Dahr Jamail for details about this photo.

According to Human Rights Watch (via Angry Arab), a new report, Fatal Strikes, Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon,

documents serious violations of international humanitarian law (the laws of war) by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in Lebanon between July 12 and July 27, 2006, as well as the July 30 attack in Qana. During this period, the IDF killed an estimated 400 people, the vast majority of them civilians, and that number climbed to over 500 by the time this report went to print. The Israeli government claims it is taking all possible measures to minimize civilian harm, but the cases documented here reveal a systematic failure by the IDF to distinguish between combatants and civilians.

Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have consistently launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military gain but excessive civilian cost. In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well as return strikes on rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians.

Perhap Gwynne Dyer should peruse this information, when pondering that awful-looking ``40:1 kill ratio''.