Israel breached international law when it bombed southern Lebanon with cluster weapons during its campaign against Hezbollah in 2006, Human Rights Watch said yesterday.
The New York-based rights watchdog demanded an independent inquiry to determine whether individual Israeli commanders "bear responsibility for war crimes."
A 131-page report, Flooding South Lebanon: Israel's Use of Cluster Munitions in Lebanon in July and August 2006, claimed Israel violated international humanitarian law with hundreds of "indiscriminate and disproportionate cluster munitions attacks on Lebanon."
It released the report ahead of the opening today of a 120-nation conference in the New Zealand capital, Wellington, on a proposed convention to ban cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians.
The proposed treaty also seeks to set up a framework aimed at assisting survivors, clearing contaminated land of the unexploded munitions and destroying stockpiles of the weapons.
The convention was launched by Austria, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Peru and the Holy See at a conference in Oslo, Norway, last year. Some 41 of the 76 states in the world that stockpile cluster munitions are taking part in the negotiations, along with a majority of the weapon producers.
The US, Russia, China and Israel -- all important producers and stockpilers of cluster bombs -- oppose a ban on the weapons and have blocked efforts to negotiate one at the UN.
At a news conference yesterday, Human Rights Watch said Israel had rained as many as 4.6 million submunitions, or cluster bomblets, across southern Lebanon -- mostly in the final days of the war.
The report's lead author, Bonnie Docherty, said the UN must investigate whether Israel deliberately targeted civilians with the munitions.
"Ninety percent of the [bombing] strikes occurred in the last three days [of the war when] Israel knew a ceasefire was imminent," she told reporters.
"Many, many of those strikes occurred on towns and villages across South Lebanon. Munitions left behind by those attacks continue to kill civilians today," she said.
Steve Goose, director of the Arms division at Human Rights Watch, said unexploded cluster "bomblets ... have killed and maimed almost 200 people since the war ended."
"The Lebanon story is just the latest example of something we've have seen over and over again: whenever cluster munitions are used, large numbers of civilians get killed and injured," Goose said.
New Zealand Disarmament Minister Phil Goff said the meeting would be "a pivotal step" toward a meaningful international treaty on cluster munitions.
An Israeli report on the 2006 war in Lebanon released last month said Israel did not violate international law by dropping cluster bombs.
But it raised questions about the army's use of the weapons, noting a lack of "operational discipline, oversight and control."
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
RSS