During the recent 34-day war between Hizbullah and Israel in which both sides committed serious violations of international humanitarian law, Hizbullah’s rocket attacks on northern Israel amounted to deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian objects, as well as indiscriminate attacks, both war crimes under international law. Its attacks also violated other rules of international humanitarian law, including the prohibition on reprisal attacks on the civilian population, Amnesty International charged Thursday.
Hizbullah fired several thousand rockets into northern Israel, killing 43 civilians, including four who died of heart attacks. The victims, among them seven children, included Jewish and Arab Israelis. Many other civilians were injured. Throughout the conflict, hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians remained in the north within range of the rockets, many seeking safety in underground bomb shelters for much of the time. Others – between 350,000 and half a million people – fled their homes and were forced to seek refuge elsewhere.
