Copyright © May 1996 by Human Rights Watch.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-76298
ISBN 1-56432-167-3

This report is jointly prepared by the Human Rights Watch Arms Project and Human Rights Watch/Middle East. It is based on three separate research missions. Joost R. Hiltermann, the director of the Arms Project, investigated laws of war violations committed during Operation Accountability during research in Lebanon in October 1993. He was assisted by Monette Zard, a research consultant for Human Rights Watch, and Ali Srour. Stephen Goose, program director of the Arms Project, and Eric Goldstein, research director of Human Rights Watch/Middle East, jointly conducted a parallel investigation into Hizballah violations in Israel in November 1993. Virginia N. Sherry, associate director of Human Rights Watch/Middle East, investigated laws of war violations in southern Lebanon in August 1995. She was assisted by Jamal Mahroum and Ali Srour. Elizabeth Wilcox, an intern at Human Rights Watch/Middle East, did research on Operation Accountability in preparation of the two field missions in fall 1993.

Joost Hiltermann, the principal author of the report, is responsible for writing the summary and conclusions (chapter 1), the background section (chapter 2), most of chapter 5 on Operation Accountability, and the section on the use of phosphorus in chapter 6. Monette Zard wrote early versions of chapter 3 on the July 1993 "understandings" and chapter 4 on recent violations of international humanitarian law; provided input on chapter 5; and also helped with legal analysis throughout the report. Stephen Goose wrote the section on Hizballah violations in chapter 5, as well as chapter 7 on weapons transfers, with input from Kathleen Bleakley, research assistant at the Arms Project. Ernst Jan Hogendoorn, research assistant at the Arms Project, provided research, writing and editorial assistance, and wrote the section on flechettes in chapter 6. Joe Stork, advocacy director of Human Rights Watch/Middle East, provided writing and editorial input. The report was edited by Joost Hiltermann and reviewed by Virginia Sherry and other members of the Human Rights Watch/Middle East staff. Selamawit Demeke, Arms Project associate, prepared the report for publication.

Human Rights Watch is grateful to UNIFIL officers and staff for providing valuable time to our investigators. We also wish to thank the residents of southern Lebanon and Israel who welcomed us into their homes and provided testimony and other information without which this report would not have been possible.

The Arms Project acknowledges with appreciation funding from the Compton Foundation, Ruth Mott Fund, Rockefeller Foundation, and Winston Foundation for World Peace. Human Rights Watch takes sole responsibility for the contents of this report. Chapter 1 (Summary and Recommendations) of the report is available in Arabic.

For over a decade, a conflict has raged on the border of Israel and Lebanon, where Israel occupies a large section of Lebanese territory. Civilians have been the principal targets and victims in this conflict. Both sides-Israel and its allied Lebanese militia, the South Lebanon Army, on one side, and guerrillas affiliated with Hizballah and a number of small Palestinian factions on the other-have exhibited a willful disregard for international humanitarian law (also known as the laws of war). Both sides have directly targeted civilians and indiscriminately lobbed shells and fired rockets at civilian population centers during various stages of the conflict.1 Israel, with its superior firepower, has caused by far the most civilian casualties, and the most damage to residential homes and civilian infrastructure.

Although the conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border has claimed casualties on a regular basis over the years, it has received scant attention outside of the Middle East, except at times of intense escalation. During the peace negotiations between Israel and Syria that followed the 1993 Oslo accords, the matter of South Lebanon has been placed on a back burner. The apparent assumption is that once Israel and Syria, which both have a significant influence over Lebanese affairs, agree to peace, they will put a halt to the fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border as part of the overall settlement.2

Short of a peace agreement between Israel and Syria, the potential for rapid escalation remains, as the Israeli assault on Lebanon in April 1996 demonstrates. Tensions are high; periods of relative calm are punctuated by sharp attacks. Since the mid-1970s, the fighting has spiraled into massive attacks back and forth on at least five occasions, gravely multiplying the humanitarian cost of the simmering conflict.3 During the intervals, barrages back and forth have led to a situation in which no one is ever secure. As one resident of southern Lebanon put it: "Today, you are not sure whether you will be living tomorrow."4 And referring to an intense one-week escalation in the conflict in July 1993, a resident of the Israeli town of Nahariya said: "God knows when, God knows where [the rockets] will fall next."5

Targeting Civilians

Civilians are not just the victims of this conflict but have been rendered pawns in the hands of the belligerents. Each side has publicly committed itself to refrain from attacking civilians, but always with a caveat-"unless the other side attacks our civilians." The threat inherent in this "unless" has been articulated on multiple occasions during the conflict and has been realized to devastating effect, turning civilians on both sides into a kind of security held in perpetual deposit. This has enabled each side to mold the enemy's behavior. Both sides have taken actions against civilians whenever the other side was seen as failing to live up to the terms of the "contract" that governed their relationship from July 1993 until April 1996.

The "contract" in question is an unwritten and informal set of rules that are based on a tacit agreement between Israel and Hizballah, brokered by the United States, that went into effect on July 31, 1993, as part of the cease-fire arrangement at the end of "Operation Accountability." They will be referred tohere as the "July 1993 understandings." The understandings supposedly prohibit attacks on civilians, but it is clear that both Israel and Hizballah have drawn a "red line." For Israel the red line is crossed if Hizballah fires Katyusha rockets across the Israel-Lebanon border, permitting the IDF-or so it is understood-to respond by shelling Lebanese villages north of the Israeli-occupied area. Hizballah has a similar red line: if the IDF or the SLA attack civilians in the south, then Hizballah would feel justified to retaliate by striking at civilian targets inside Israel. In August 1993, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin declared, in the words of a member of Knesset, that "Israel can only attack north of the security zone under two conditions. First, if Hizbullah violates the accord by firing Katyushas at the Galilee. In this case, Israel is not bound by any restrictions. Second, Israel can only strike north ofh the security zone...if hit first in the zone."6 Likewise, Hizballah's deputy secretary-general, Sheikh Na'im Qasem, threatened in April 1995 that "whenever te Israeli enemy shells and harms civilians in our villages, we will shell northern Palestine and the Israeli settlements."7 By this logic, understood by both sides to undergird their actions, both sides have accepted civilian casualties whenever their side had attacked civilians first.8

This report exposes the inherent fragility of this informal understanding, which is observed mainly in the breach. Rather than serving to protect civilians, the July 1993 understandings have created a situation in which civilians are caught in a web of retaliatory violence and in which the killing of civilians has become the ultimate threat and expected response for any transgression of the agreement by either side. Air assaults, intense shelling and rocket attacks, and the indiscriminate use of lethal weapons have caused unnecessary and disproportionate civilian deaths, injuries and destruction, often either excused as "unfortunate errors" or interpreted as "permitted under the July 1993 understandings." Reprisals against civilians are specifically banned under international humanitarian law.9

This report is based on three separate investigations by Human Rights Watch in the region-one in southern Lebanon in October 1993; a second in northern Israel in November 1993; and a third in southern Lebanon in August 1995-as well as on research of open-source material. Human Rights Watch has found that the conflict is often brought deliberately to civilian areas, and that combatants on both sides often employ weapons in a highly indiscriminate manner. Israel, in particular, has responded to attacks on its forces in the occupied zone with shelling barrages on civilian population centers in southern Lebanon. It has done so with impunity, as the international community has remained silent whenever civilians have been targeted. An Israeli colonel, making a comparison with IDF operations in the West Bank, described the IDF's freedom of action as follows: "In south Lebanon, there is nothing between you and God Almighty. The only question you ask yourself when you are going to blow up someone's house is whether to use 50 kilos of dynamite or 25 kilos."10 This report documents the toll taken among the civilian population, both in Lebanon and in Israel, by the frequent violation of the July 1993 understandings and the ability of both parties to act withimpunity. Since the summer of 1993, and before the massive Israeli assault of April 1996, there have been at least thirty attacks in which civilian areas were targeted by either side, often leading to loss of life and injuries.

Operation Accountability

While highlighting the impact of the fighting on civilians over the past three years, the report presents a case study of the Israeli assault on southern Lebanon in July 1993 in a military operation that is known variously as "Operation Accountability" in Israel and the "Seven-Day War" in Lebanon. Operation Accountability illustrates how the conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border can escalate and lead to great suffering among civilians. During that one short week, after a long period of relative calm, some 120 Lebanese civilians were killed and close to 500 injured by a ferocious Israeli assault on population centers in southern Lebanon, an assault which also temporarily displaced some 300,000 Lebanese villagers and Palestinian refugees.11 In Israel, two civilians were killed and twenty-four injured in retaliatory Hizballah rocket attacks.12 The cost of rebuildingdestroyed and damaged homes and the infrastructure in southern Lebanon was estimated at $28.8 million.13

According to statements made by Israeli civilian and military leaders, the purpose of the military operation was twofold. One was to punish Hizballah (and the militant Palestinian factions) directly. This was done through attacks on military targets, including bases, gun emplacements, and moving guerrilla groups, as well as on the homes of Hizballah leaders.14 The second purpose was to make it difficult for Hizballah to continue using southern Lebanon as a base for attacking Israeli forces in the area occupied by Israel. This was done, as a stated goal, by deliberately inflicting serious damage on villages in southern Lebanon, through massive shelling which would raise the cost to the population of permitting Hizballah to live and operate in its midst.15 The operation was also designed to create a refugee flow in the direction of Beirut so as to put pressure on the central government to rein in the guerrillas.16 To the extent that civilians were theimmediate targets of this military assault-to sow terror and induce behavior that would serve Israel's political goals-Israel was in grave violation of international humanitarian law. Hizballah, in retaliation, indiscriminately fired a number of Katyusha rockets across the border into northern Israel during that week, also in violation of international law.17

There is no doubt that civilians in southern Lebanon bore the brunt of Operation Accountability. The Lebanese authorities, local aid agencies, and international nongovernmental organizations all agreed that the vast majority of the casualties were civilians, not guerrillas affiliated with Hizballah or some of the militant Palestinian factions. The high incidence of children and older men and women on casualty lists obtained from hospitals in southern Lebanon supports this contention. The IDF has sought to justify the number of civilian casualties and the high rate of damage to civilian property by accusing Hizballah of shielding military targets with civilians. (See below). Even if guerrillas operated from within population centers, Israel is not freed from the obligation to minimize any civilian casualties resulting from its legitimate targeting of military objects. Human Rights Watch is concerned that IDF forces directed fire toward villages located closest to the source of Katyusha attacks during Operation Accountability without regard for possible civilian casualties, and possibly even as reprisal for military actions by guerrillas forces.

Moreover, although the first stage of Operation Accountability was marked by a number of precision attacks by the IDF on purported guerrilla targets, the IDF engaged in wide-scale shelling during the rest of the operation. The damage done during the shelling was then justified as necessary as a deterrent.18 One express aim of Operation Accountability was to punish the inhabitants ofsouthern Lebanon for Hizballah's activities. The extensive nature of the damage sustained in numerous southern Lebanese villages confirms this stated intent.19 Human Rights Watch has found that in addition to the large number of civilian homes damaged, the basic infrastructure of many villages had been targeted and destroyed. By the end of Operation Accountability, conservative damage estimates suggested that some 1,000 houses had been totally destroyed, 1,500 houses had been partially destroyed, and 15,000 houses had sustained light damage.20 Israeli forces cut civilian water and electricity supplies, damaged schools, mosques and churches, and targeted a number of cemeteries with shell fire.

Human Rights Watch is concerned that although Israel issued warnings to villagers in southern Lebanon to leave their homes, these warnings were ambiguous and therefore ineffective. The content of the warnings, especially those issued during the early stages of the operation, was such as to confuse civilians about the nature of the targets selected for attack. It was therefore reasonably foreseeable that a segment of the population might not flee, and it was entirely foreseeable that in particular the old and indigent would not be able to evacuate their homes, especially considering the brevity of time between the first warnings and the beginning of the shelling. The broadcasting of warnings in no way entitled the IDF to assume that villages would be empty of a civilian population,21 and in no way justified the conclusion of one senior Israeli officer that "as the civilian population leaves, a higher percentage of the people in the area are Hizballa [sic] terrorists as well as a few terrorists from the Palestinian organizations."22 Unfortunately, it was actually the weakest members of the population, the elderly and the poor, who were unable to flee their villages and thereby became the principal victims of the shelling operation.

Whether or not they chose to flee, the population of southern Lebanon became victims of the IDF's dual strategy. If they fled, they became victims of the IDF's scheme, in the words of the Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, to "put pressure on the Beirut government and hit those who collaborate with Hezbollah."23 But if they stayed in their homes, they fell victim to the other component of the campaign, the aim of which was, according to Gen. Yehosh Dorfman, commander of the artillery corps, "to destroy the villages and the houses of the activists and the locations from which the rockets are fired."24

While Israel has claimed that broadcast warnings to the civilian population in southern Lebanon were made with a view to protecting civilians from collateral injury in attacks on strictly military objectives, a number of factors make it reasonable to assume that the intention was in fact to sow terror among the civilian population. The SLA radio station broadcast threats of a general nature, warning anyone remaining in certain areas that they would be in danger of being hit. As the pattern of physical damage showed, the IDF/SLA then subjected entire villages to area bombardment. The threats and the nature of the attacks combined make clear that in significant areas in southern Lebanon whole populations-indeed anyone who failed to flee by a certain time-were targeted as if they were combatants. As the Israeli government's stated objective during Operation Accountability was to foment a refugee flow in order to put pressure on the Lebanese government to rein in Hizballah, the intention of the warnings that were broadcast and subsequent shelling is likely to have been to cause terror among the civilian population. The targeting of whole villages without distinction of specific military objectives constitutes a violation of international humanitarian law. Additionally, the issuing of warnings with the intent to cause terror also violates Article 51(2) of Protocol I, which states, in part: "Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited."

In addition to subjecting villages in southern Lebanon to a massive shelling barrage during Operation Accountability, the IDF also executed what appear to have been calculated direct attacks on purely civilian targets. One such series of attacks was carried out against Sidon's wholesale vegetable market, far from the front line in south Lebanon. These attacks were executed without warning, and were probably intended both to terrify local residents into leavingtheir homes and to push further northwards refugees who had sought safety in the Sidon area. At least two people were killed and six injured in the attacks on the market. The market itself was frequented by the public and the area had no apparent military or even political targets. The same intent-to instill fear-appears to have prompted the shelling attack on the adjacent Palestinian refugee camp of Ein al-Hilweh, where at least five persons were injured.

Human Rights Watch also obtained evidence suggesting that during Operation Accountability the IDF at times hindered and even attacked ambulances and vehicles of relief organizations, and carried out a number of attacks on persons attempting to flee the area. The SLA announced that the IDF would "hit all means of transportation moving on civilian and military roads" in three specified areas.25 At least three, possibly four or five, ambulances were hit during that week. On several occasions, the Lebanese Red Cross and other recognized relief agencies were rebuffed when they requested permission from the SLA's headquarters in Marja'iyoun in the Israeli-occupied area to evacuate civilians from villages, and sometimes, when permission was granted, the time given was not sufficient to do the job. When questioned by Human Rights Watch as to the existence of a policy of blocking the population's access to relief by ordering all vehicles off the roads on pain of attack, the IDF denied ever having targeted vehicles traveling on roads in southern Lebanon.26 Hospitals, ambulances and medical personnel are expressly protected in the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

Human Rights Watch is further concerned about the indiscriminate use by Israel of antipersonnel weapons in civilian areas. Some weapons, because of their large "kill radius," should not be used in populated areas. As this report shows, Israel has used tank-fired shells filled with flechettes in populated areas in southern Lebanon. A flechette shell is an antipersonnel weapon that contains ten to fourteen thousand 1.5-inch steel darts which, as they are released from the canister, spread out in an arc that can reach a maximum width of about ninety-four yards.27 TheIDF has reportedly used these shells in southern Lebanon for many years, but especially in the last two years there have been repeated reports of deaths and injuries from flechettes.28 Until recently, Israeli officials refused to acknowledge the IDF's use of these weapons, but earlier this year, after yet another Lebanese civilian was killed,29 the Israeli minister of health, Ephraim Sneh, a former commander in southern Lebanon, admitted that flechette shells were in fact used by the IDF.30

Likewise, Human Rights Watch is disturbed by eyewitness testimony suggesting that Israel may have used white phosphorus, or a similar incendiary ordinarily used for marking purposes, in an antipersonnel mode in populated areas in southern Lebanon. White phosphorus ammunition, according to experts, can cause severe burns and permanent scars. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, the Israeli shelling of villages in southern Lebanon in July 1993, and subsequent shelling attacks, there have been numerous allegations of Israeli forces using phosphorus against civilians. The available circumstantial evidence of the illegal use of phosphorus, and/or other incendiaries, by Israel against Lebanese civilians during the 1993 events and afterwards is so compelling as to warrant serious investigation and a public response by the Israeli government. Among other evidence, Human Rights Watch saw several civilians, including children, in southern Lebanon with burns that are likely to have been caused by phosphorus.

Hizballah also violated the laws of war, indiscriminately firing Katyusha rockets into northern Israel and the Israeli-occupied area in southern Lebanon, killing and injuring a number of civilians. Hizballah's stated objective during Operation Accountability was to inflict civilian casualties and damage, thereby causing Israel to halt its air and artillery attacks-in clear violation of international law.31 Despite the fact that overall the rockets have caused relatively limiteddamage, it is clear that attacks were intended to terrorize, and have terrorized, the civilian population in northern Israel. During Operation Accountability, tens of thousands of people fled to the south. Most people who remained were confined to community shelters or private "security rooms" for long periods of time. In some locations, women and children spent nearly twenty-four hours a day for a solid week in shelters, while men would come out only to perform essential tasks, such as feeding animals.

Although Human Rights Watch has not received any reports of civilian casualties in the Israeli-occupied zone during Operation Accountability, Hizballah appears to have fired a number of Katyushas at populated areas inside the zone. Apparently one of the main targets there was the town of Marja'iyoun. Reportedly, forty Katyushas fell in and around the town during what was described as "a week of terror." Rockets landed every day, but at different times, and people were very afraid. Schools were closed and most people stayed inside in secure rooms.

Human Rights Watch is also concerned that Hizballah may have endangered the lives of Lebanese civilians in the areas in which it has been operating. Israel's then-chief of general staff, Lt.-Gen. Ehud Barak, said on July 26, 1993: "We believe that those elements who...fire at us from within civilian settlements are responsible for the civilian casualties [and] Hizballah is responsible for the suffering caused to the civilian population which is being driven out of its homes because it continues firing at us from inside and from the outskirts of Lebanese villages."32 Human Rights Watch is not in a position to say whether Hizballah has fired from within civilian population centers, although we are aware of cases in which Hizballah appears to have fired from within the vicinity of civilian population centers. However, as the party that is shelling and bombarding these civilian areas, the IDF is obliged not merely to assert but to provide proof that Hizballah guerrillas and other combatants in southern Lebanon have in fact used villages as shields for military activities-just as it is obliged to show that the civilian damage inflicted in southern Lebanon was proportionate to the military advantage gained.

Moreover, there have been allegations that Hizballah has carried out military activity, including military planning, in villages, and Human Rights Watch has documented at least one case in which Hizballah had stored weapons in a house in a village in southern Lebanon. In doing so, Hizballah is probably in violation of the injunction in international humanitarian law to avoid, to the maximum extent feasible, locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas and theparallel injunction against using civilians as a shield for military objectives or operations.

International Support for Israel and Hizballah

In addition to highlighting the violations of the laws of war that have taken place during the ongoing conflict on the Israel-Lebanon border, this report also seeks to put the spotlight on those who have aided and abetted the conflict by providing military and economic support to the belligerents-Iran and Syria in the case of Hizballah; the United States in the case of Israel. The United States is the major military patron for Israel, and Israel is by far the number one recipient of U.S. military aid. In all, Israel has received more than $40 billion in military aid from the U.S. No other country is remotely close to Israel's level of military aid. For each of the past ten years, Congress has appropriated $1.8 billion in military grants for Israel. In the most recent fiscal year, FY1996, Israel's $1.8 billion represented 56 percent of all U.S. military aid. During the course of the 1990s, U.S. military assistance has been used primarily for the procurement of and follow-on support for F-15 and F-16 fighter aircraft, F-4 fighter aircraft upgrades, Apache attack helicopters, SAAR corvettes, and the Israeli-produced Merkava tank. Funds have also been used to enhance Israeli intelligence gathering and early warning capabilities.

Owing to this generosity of the U.S., Israel also ranks as one of the biggest customers for U.S. arms sales. Over the past five years, Israel has purchased nearly $4 billion in U.S. weapons, equipment and defense services. The U.S. Government estimates that over the next two years (FY1996-97), Israel will buy $890 million in arms through the government-to-government sales channel, and $1.4 billion through the private commercial sales channel. The weaponry that Israel has used most extensively in violations of the laws of war in southern Lebanon are fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, and artillery. As the supplier of much of this weaponry, the U.S. must share the responsibility for its misuse.

The European Union, too, has a share of responsibility for Israeli actions through its trade association with Israel. In November 1995, the Commission of the European Communities and Israel concluded an association agreement. Article 2 of the agreement stipulates: "Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement." Under this agreement, the member states of the European Union are enjoined to remind Israel of its human rights obligations, including in its conflict in southern Lebanon.

As for Hizballah, it is frequently alleged that it has received most of its weaponry from Iran, through Syria, although few details are publicly available. Hizballah's arsenal has been reported to include armored personnel carriers, multiple rocket launchers, rocket launchers, recoilless launchers, antitank weapons (including the AT-3 Sagger guided missile), antiaircraft guns, SA-7 antiaircraft missiles, and a wide range of light weapons and small arms such as rocket-propelled grenades, machine guns, assault rifles, grenades, and landmines.33 There are additional reports that Iran supplied Milan antitank missiles to Hizballah, and possibly also U.S. Stinger shoulder-fired antiaircraft missiles obtained from Afghanistan.34 Iran is also reported to have supplied Hizballah with BM-21 rocket launchers-commonly known as Katyushas-throughout the 1980s.35 According to Israel, the majority of Katyushas fired into Israel during Operation Accountability were from single round launchers "manufactured in China and North Korea as well as in Iran."36 While the "kill radius" of a single-round Katyusha rocket is small, a volley of forty rockets is clearly able to cover a large area. As employed by Hizballah in northern Israel, the Katyushas have had an indiscriminate effect, and its use by Hizballah therefore clearly violates the injunction against indiscriminate attacks in Article 51 of Protocol I.

Recent Events

The situation in southern Lebanon since 1985 has been one of stalemate. Syria maintains some 35,000 to 40,000 troops in Lebanon, and has since extended its political hegemony over the country. While no Syrian troops have beendeployed south of the Awali river, the Lebanese Army has gradually extended its presence throughout the south. Yet it has made no attempt to rein in Hizballah. Referring to military operations by Hizballah and other guerrilla organizations, the Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, has stated: "The resistance...is not made by the Lebanese government. It is made by the people. All we are saying is that the people have the right to fight the occupation."37 The Lebanese government has continued to call for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon. Hizballah, which has asserted the right to resist Israel's occupation,38 has begun to transform itself from resistance movement to opposition party with a defined political agenda and representation in parliament. By controlling Hizballah's prime access to arms, Syria appears to hold considerable influence over Hizballah's ability to remain an active military force in the South.

There is no indication that Israel and Hizballah have been in direct negotiation over their operations in southern Lebanon. Israel, however, has negotiated with Syria, arguing that Syria has been in a position to control Hizballah's operations in southern Lebanon. The issue of peace in Lebanon has thus been subordinated to an overall peace settlement between Syria and Israel. In the spring of 1996, negotiations between Israel and Syria were suspended, and no immediate agreement was expected prior to the Israeli national elections on May 29.

In April 1996, the de facto cease-fire that had ended the July 1993 fighting broke down under the weight of cumulative violations by both sides of the agreement not to target the adversary's civilian population. Between March 4 and April 10, five weeks of attacks and reprisals had killed seven Israeli soldiers, three Lebanese civilians and at least one Hizballah fighter.39 The tally of injured was sixteen Israeli soldiers, seven Lebanese civilians, and six Israeli civilians. The attacks came during the Israeli election campaign and brought extra pressure on theLabor Party-led coalition government to respond militarily against Hizballah without regard for the limitations implicit in the July 1993 understandings. On April 9, Israel's deputy defense minister, Ori Orr, warned Lebanese civilians, referring to the July 1993 understandings: "It is clear that these rules of the game are not good and cannot remain and it is necessary that the Lebanese population living north of the security zone will live under more fear than it lives today,"40 while Maj.-Gen. Amiram Levine declared: "[T]he residents in south Lebanon who are under the responsibility of Hizbullah will be hit harder, and the Hizbullah will be hit harder, and we will find the way to act correctly and quickly."41 Within forty-eight hours, Israel launched what it referred to as "Operation Grapes of Wrath."

On April 11, Israel launched air and artillery attacks against what it claimed were Hizballah military and infrastructural targets, including a helicopter gunship attack on a building housing the Hizballah consultative council, or shura, in a southern Beirut suburb.42 These attacks killed three Lebanese civilians and one Lebanese soldier. Following renewed Hizballah Katyusha attacks on northern Israel, Israel issued warnings, via the SLA radio station, to civilians in forty-four villages and towns in southern Lebanon, including the city of Nabatiyeh, to leave their homes by 2:30 p.m. the next day, April 12.43 U.N. sources in southern Lebanon reported that the attacks that commenced around 4:30 p.m. were heavier and less discriminating than the attacks with laser-guided weapons on Thursday.44 Attacks also continued against targets in Beirut and elsewhere, and one Syriansoldier was killed and seven wounded in an attack on a highway military post near Beirut's international airport.45

The next day, April 13, Israeli warships initiated a blockade against Beirut, Sidon and Tyre, Lebanon's chief ports of entry. The same day, an Israeli helicopter gunship rocketed an ambulance carrying fleeing civilians near Tyre, killing two women and four children and bringing the death toll to at least twenty-one people, by the estimate of Lebanese journalists.46 Israeli government spokesman Uri Dromi declared that "We gave the residents advance warning to clear out so as not to get hurt. All those who remain there, do so at their own risk because we assume they're connected with Hizbollah."47 On April 14, an army spokesman said: "Anyone remaining in Tyre or these forty villages [which had been named in warnings]...is solely responsible for endangering his life."48

By Monday, April 15, Israeli/SLA warnings to flee had been extended to a total of eighty-six Lebanese communities. As in July 1993, such warnings were in part designed to provoke a major humanitarian crisis by internally displacing upwards of 400,000 Lebanese civilians. "Even if you tie me up and whip me, I'mnot going to admit on-the-record that our policy is to force out civilians to put pressure on the Lebanese government," one Israeli official told the Wall Street Journal. "But let's just say we hope Lebanon understands the message."49

Meanwhile, Hizballah reprisals, in the form of Katyusha salvos into northern Israel, continued without respite. On Sunday, April 14, Israel attacked a electric power station in Jumhour, just outside Beirut, and on Monday, April 15, struck a power station in Bsaleem in the eastern part of Beirut, asserting that the attacks were in response to an earlier Hizballah rocket attack. An Israeli army spokesman characterized the Hizballah attack, which reportedly cut an electric cable to a synagogue in Kiryat Shemona, as an attack on "electrical infrastructure in northern Israel."50

On April 18, an Israeli strike on a village near Nabatiyeh destroyed a building, killing a woman, her seven children and a cousin. A few hours later, Israeli artillery shells hit a makeshift refugee compound at a UNIFIL post in Qana, some ten kilometers south of Tyre, killing more than 100 displaced civilians who had fled their homes.

Prior to the carnage on April 18, the death toll and destruction had been mounting, along with evidence that Israeli forces were carrying out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks against civilians in what had become virtual "free-fire" zones across large swaths of the south. The Jerusalem Post reported the "strong protest" that the U.N. had lodged with the IDF when "planes had dropped bombs in front of a clearly marked two-vehicle U.N. convoy trying to take essential items to refugees taking shelter in and around U.N. positions."51 The onslaught in the area southeast of Tyre was particularly ferocious. On April 15, over 700 shells and 30 air-to-surface missiles and bombs poured down in a four-hour period, the U.N.said.52 Journalists were unable to investigate the destruction in villages near Tyre "because of the intense bombing and shelling," Reuters reported on April 16.53 Reuters correspondent Haitham Haddadin filed a dispatch from Tyre that day, extensively quoting residents who had fled nearby villages. "It's random shelling....They are sparing nothing. They are hitting homes and fields and civilians," one said. Up to one hundred shells, bombs and rockets were landing every hour in the village of Mansouri, a resident claimed, noting that "about 20 big guns" overlooking the village were "firing incredibly fast."54

These attacks, and the stated positions that accompanied them, put Israel in violation of the laws of war, which impose upon the attacker the duty to discriminate at all times between civilians and military targets. Civilians who cannot or will not flee areas that an attacker has ordered evacuated-such as the elderly, the infirm, and women with newborn children-do not automatically lose their protection under the laws of war. Nor can the attacker simply assume that those left behind are combatants and therefore subject to attack as military targets. These long-recognized principles of civilian immunity are codified in the Geneva Conventions, and subsequent restatements of customary international humanitarian law, in compellingly clear terms.

The death toll from the April 18 attack on the peacekeeping base at Qana stood at 102 civilians as of April 24. According to The Independent, five of the shells that landed at the base on the afternoon of April 18 were believed to be 155mm shells fired by U.S.-made M-109 self-propelled howitzers.55 In a later report, citing the U.N., The Independent stated that six 155mm shells landed within the UNIFIL compound and between fifty and sixty shells landed in Qana on April 18. "According to U.N. sources in Lebanon, the Israeli shells were fitted withM732 radar fuses, which detonate them at [seven meters] off the ground, the most lethal possible height, blasting fragments downwards to amputate, maim and kill."56

Following the attack, Lt.-Gen. Amnon Shahak, Israel's chief of staff, defended the shelling by dismissing long-established, internationally accepted laws of war. "I don't see any mistake in judgment....We fought Hizballah there [in Qana], and when they fire on us, we will fire at them to defend ourselves....I don't know any other rules of the game, either for the army or for civilians," he said at a press conference in Tel Aviv on April 18.57

Gen. Shahak was referring to the provocation that brought on the protracted Israeli response. A U.N. spokeswoman had confirmed that, fifteen minutes before the attack, Hizballah guerrillas had fired mortars and Katyusha rockets from a position some three hundred meters from the base.58 Both the U.S. and Israel accused Hizballah of "shielding"-the use of civilians as a cover for military activities, which is a breach of the laws of war. "Hizballah [is] using civilians as cover. That's a despicable thing to do, an evil thing," the U.S. State Department spokesperson said.59 Prime Minister Peres cited shielding to shift blame for the massacre to Hizballah. "They used them as a shield, they used the U.N. as a shield-the U.N. admitted it," he said on April 18.60

Any acts of shielding committed by Hizballah violate humanitarian law. They do not, however, give Israel license to fire indiscriminately into a wide area that includes a U.N. base and concentrations of civilians. The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, which issues press releases only sparingly while international armed conflicts are raging, issued a strongly worded statement on April 19, in which it "firmly condemned" the Israeli shelling at Qana, and noted the "absolute ban" on indiscriminate attacks under the laws of war. The ICRC stated that Israeli orders for the evacuation of large areas of south Lebanon did not "exempt Israel from the obligation to respect the civilians still on the spot." The ICRC also noted the Israeli orders to evacuate "in this case [were] contrary to international humanitarian law."61

Article 58(b) of Protocol 1 instructs parties to a conflict to "avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas." The protocol does not specify the precise distance where a military target must be located in order not to be "near" a densely populated area. Nor does the protocol indicate proper locations for fixed military targets-bases, permanent artillery installations, command and control centers, etc.-compared to highly mobile military targets, such as Katyusha launchers, that can quickly be moved or abandoned after firing.62

Even if Hizballah was guilty of shielding its military operations in Qana on April 18, the laws of war did not give Israeli forces unlimited license to attack indiscriminately the general area from which the guerrillas fired mortars and Katyushas. The Israeli assault on the base and its environs must be judged against two key legal requirements. Parties to an armed conflict must refrain from indiscriminate attacks (defined as operations that are not directed at a specific military objective but that strike military targets and civilian without distinction), and from disproportionate attacks (those in which the military advantage to be gained is outweighed by excessive collateral damage to civilians). Israel violated these basic principles of the laws of war when it attacked the U.N. base and its environs.

Prime Minister Shimon Peres claimed that "We did not know that several hundred people were concentrated in that camp. It came to us as a bitter surprise."63 The claim itself is questionable. By the IDF's own account, its forces can track the movement of individual guerrillas after the firing of Katyusha rockets.64 Given Israel's air reconnaissance over south Lebanon during Operation Grapes of Wrath, it is difficult to imagine that the presence of over 800 civilians at a U.N. base went unnoticed.

Even if Israel did not know that civilians were housed there, its assault was nonetheless a violation of the laws of war. The base itself, with 200 Fijian peacekeepers, was not a legitimate military target. British journalist Robert Fisk, who was traveling nearby with a U.N. humanitarian convoy at the time of the attack, heard the first big guns fire into Qana just after 2 p.m. Then he heard, at 2:10 p.m., an anxious Fijian soldier report on the radio: "Our headquarters are being shelled." Two minutes later, someone from the U.N. operations headquarters in Naqqoura came on the air with these words: "We are contacting the IDF." TheFijian came back on the line, shouting: "Do you understand? They are firing on us now. The headquarters is hit." Fisk noted the time, 2:20 pm, and wrote: "There had been six incoming rounds, then more. The guns I had heard were firing a shell every five seconds. A Lebanese U.N. liaison man came on the line from the burning...headquarters. `People are dying here. We need help.'"65 The protracted Israeli fire at the clearly-marked base and its environs is a classic example of an indiscriminate attack under the laws of war, which forbid treating an entire area as a military target. The breach is signficant because throughout Operation Grapes of Wrath Israel widely publicized its capacity to execute surgical strikes against Hizballah.

Hours before the attack on Qana, Israeli fighter-bombers rocketed a two-story home in the southern village of Nabatiyeh al-Fowqa, killing a mother, her new-born child, six of her other children, and a relative. According to press reports, another house, thirty meters away, was also hit, injuring four children and their parents.66 Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres declared: "We don't fire at buildings for no reason. We only hit at those buildings from which Katyushas were fired....But naturally Nabatiyeh was supposed to be vacant."67 The IDF itself did not claim that Katyushas had been fired from the Nabatiyeh houses. Neither did it provide evidence to support its claim that guerrillas ran to these houses after attacking an IDF post.68 In either case, the civilians who remained in Nabatiyehal-Fowqa had not forfeited protection under the laws of war, as the IDF has the duty to exercise discretion when attacking civilian houses to avoid civilian casualties excessive of the anticipated military advantage.

As this report went to press (April 25) Israeli attacks and Hizballah reprisals were well into their fifteenth day, already exceeding the duration of the war of July 1993. The casualty toll of Operation Grapes of Wrath had reached about 150 Lebanese killed and some 300 wounded, almost all of them civilians. Casualties on the Israeli side were reported by the IDF to be twenty-six injured.69 The BBC World Service reported on April 25 that Israeli forces had destroyed sections of roads and bridges in order to impede Lebanese from attending a mass memorial gathering for those killed in Qana.

On the basis of its findings, Human Rights Watch is making a number of recommendations which focus on the need, absent a peace agreement between Israel and Syria, for public and written commitments by both Israel and Hizballah that they will not attack civilians or civilian objects during their conflict. We also remind those paying the bills and providing the hardware of their duty to make a good-faith effort to induce the warring sides to comply with their obligations under international humanitarian law.

To the Government of Israel

* Refrain from targeting or indiscriminately attacking populated areas in southern Lebanon.

* Publicly pledge to abide by the laws of war and fundamental human rights standards in the conflict in southern Lebanon, especially with regard to the targeting of civilians.

* Specifically, make a public, written commitment not to attack civilians or civilian objects, and not to make threats to do so, including in reprisal forattacks by guerrilla groups in Lebanon. This commitment, which Hizballah is asked separately to make as well, would replace the July 1993 understandings.

* Adhere to the internationally recognized principle of proportionality by only attacking targets with significant military value while weighing the civilian cost.

* Order the IDF to conduct a review of its operational guidelines used in the conflict in southern Lebanon. This review should be public and conducted by a special commission including members of the military, the Knesset and independent legal experts.

* Order the IDF to create new guidelines including strict rules on the use of air power, artillery and other potentially indiscriminate weapons. These rules should conform to internationally recognized standards.

* Investigate allegations of the use of flechette shells, white phosphorus and other incendiaries in populated areas in Lebanon, and make a public commitment to refrain from using such weapons in civilian areas.

* Investigate all alleged IDF violations of humanitarian law and international human rights. Persons suspected of violating the laws of war should be tried and sentenced. The trials and sentencing should be public.

* Ensure that the SLA, trained and supplied by Israel, is held to the same rigid standards as the IDF. The training of SLA soldiers should include intensive indoctrination in humanitarian law. The tactics, training and recruitment methods of the SLA should meet international requirements.

* Allow delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross free and complete access to the Israeli-occupied area in southern Lebanon.

To Hizballah

* Refrain from targeting or indiscriminately attacking populated areas in Israel and the Israeli-occupied zone in southern Lebanon.

* Publicly pledge to abide by the laws of war and fundamental human rights standards in the conflict in southern Lebanon, especially with regard to the targeting of civilians.

* Specifically, make a public, written commitment not to attack civilians or civilian objects, and not to make threats to do so, including in reprisal for attacks by Israeli military forces. This commitment, which the government of Israel is asked separately to make as well, would replace the July 1993 understandings.

* Ensure that attacks are not launched from populated areas.

* Refrain from carrying out any military activity, including military planning, that would put civilians at risk in the event of a legitimate and proportionate military attack against a Hizballah target by Israel or its allies. Specifically, ensure that all Hizballah military operations, including meetings, communications, equipment and stockpiles, are located away from populated areas.

* Ensure that members of Hizballah abide by the laws of war and fundamental human rights standards.

* Investigate all allegations of violations of humanitarian law and international human rights. Hold members of Hizballah accountable for violations of the laws of war.

* Review the tactics, training and recruitment methods of Hizballah's military wing. Ensure that Hizballah fighters undergo intensive training in humanitarian law.

To the Government of Lebanon

* Use all possible means to ensure that Hizballah implements the recommendations listed above.

* Stop the supply of Katyusha rockets to Hizballah until it publicly commits itself to refrain from targeting civilians.

To the South Lebanon Army (SLA)

* Refrain from targeting or indiscriminately attacking populated areas in southern Lebanon.

* Publicly pledge to abide by the laws of war and fundamental human rights standards in the conflict in southern Lebanon, especially with regard to the targeting of civilians.

* Specifically, make a public, written commitment not to attack civilians or civilian objects, and not to make threats to do so, including in reprisal for attacks by guerrilla groups in Lebanon.

* Ensure that members of the SLA abide by the laws of war and fundamental human rights standards.

* Investigate all allegations of violations of humanitarian law and international human rights. Hold members of the SLA accountable for violations of the laws of war.

* Review the tactics, training and recruitment methods of the SLA. Ensure that SLA members undergo intensive training in humanitarian law.

* Allow delegates of the International Committee of the Red Cross free and complete access to the area under SLA control.

To the Government of the United States

* Seek public and written assurances from the government of Israel that U.S.-supplied or U.S.-designed weapons are not used by Israeli forces indiscriminately in civilian areas in Lebanon.

* Monitor the use of all U.S. arms by Israel, and make annual reports of such use public.

* Halt the supply of, and funding or support for, F-4 and F-16 fighter aircraft, Apache attack helicopters, and any artillery to Israel until the government of Israel publicly commits itself to refrain from targeting civilians and civilian property in Lebanon.

* Publicly condemn both Israel and Hizballah for threats and attacks against civilians-immediately as they occur.

* Use all possible means, including linkages of aid and trade, to persuade Israel to implement the recommendations to the Israeli government above.

* Use all possible means, including linkage of trade, to persuade the government of Syria to halt the transshipment of Katyusha rockets through its territory until Hizballah publicly commits itself to refrain from targeting civilians.

To the European Union

* Urge the government of Israel, on the basis of Israel's human rights commitments under the E.U.-Israel Association agreement, to implement the recommendations stated above.

* Use all possible means, including linkage of trade, to persuade the government of Iran to stop providing Hizballah with Katyusha rockets until Hizballah publicly commits itself to refrain from targeting civilians.

* Use all possible means, including linkage of trade, to persuade the government of Syria to halt the transshipment of Katyusha rockets through its territory until Hizballah publicly commits itself to refrain from targeting civilians.

To the Government of Syria

* Use all possible means to ensure that Hizballah implements the recommendations above.

* Halt the transshipment of Katyusha rockets through Syrian territory until Hizballah publicly commits itself to refrain from targeting civilians.

To the Government of Iran

* Use all possible means, including linkage of aid, to ensure that Hizballah implements the recommendations above.

* Stop the transfer of Katyusha rockets to Hizballah until Hizballah publicly commits itself to refrain from targeting civilians.

The fighting on the Israel-Lebanon border dates from the 1970s. In those years, the villages of southern Lebanon were drawn into a vicious cycle of violence that was not of their own making.

Since 1948, Lebanon had played host to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees driven from their land in the war that accompanied the creation of the state of Israel.70 Living in sprawling encampments around the Lebanese coastal cities of Tyre (Sour), Sidon (Saida), Beirut and Tripoli (Tarablus), this population, dispossessed and destitute, spawned a generation of young fighters who were prepared to die as "martyrs" in confrontations with Israel's vastly superior military forces.

Guerrilla activity in southern Lebanon commenced in the mid-1960s, when disparate groups of Palestinian commandos began launching cross-border raids into Israel. Following the defeat of the Palestinian guerrilla organizations in Jordan in 1970-71 (known as "Black September"), the militias that managed to escape the bloodshed there moved to southern Lebanon. There they entrenched themselves among the local population, especially in the Sunni Muslim areas of the Arqoub region, joining other Palestinian groups assembled under the broad banner of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in attacking targets in Israel. During the years that followed, the Palestinian presence in southern Lebanon grew to become a virtual state within a state.

Israel retaliated against Palestinian raids with artillery bombardments, aerial strikes and even ground incursions. From the beginning, its targets included both Palestinian military and civilian sites: the guerrilla organizations' bases in the Arqoub, and the refugee camps along the Lebanese littoral from which the guerrillas drew their popular support. Gradually Israeli targets also began to include Lebanese villages, and the victims were often Lebanese civilians. In September 1972, for example, in the wake of the murder of the Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics in Munich, Israeli forces invaded southern Lebanon, reportedly killing some 140 people, including eighty civilians.71 The aim then, astoday, was to serve notice to the local population that a price would have to be paid for permitting the Palestinian commandos to continue to live in their midst.

The combination of the Palestinian organizations' increasingly indifferent, even arrogant, attitude toward Lebanese sensibilities and a mounting civilian casualty rate from Israeli retaliatory attacks led to a great deal of local resentment toward the Palestinians and produced political divisions in southern Lebanon that Israel exploited to great effect. In 1975, a civil war broke out in Lebanon that was to last for over fifteen years. Central power disintegrated to make way for sectarian-based militias that carved out areas of control throughout Lebanon.72 The PLO, for its part, dominated the Arqoub region in southern Lebanon. Building on the minority Christian population's fear of the Palestinians' growing power in the south, Israel helped establish a local militia under the command of a Christian Lebanese Army officer, Major Sa'ad Haddad, in 1976. The Haddad militia promptly set about clearing the border zone of both Palestinian guerrillas and its majority Shi'a population. In the process the villages suffered terrible destruction, and some were even razed.73 Ironically, in later years, the militia's rank-and-file would consist for a large part of young recruits from the remaining Shi'a villages who either joined for lack of employment or were pressed into service by the militia's Christian Maronite officers.74

An even more forceful Israeli response to Palestinian cross-border attacks was the so-called Litani Operation in March 1978, when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) pushed as far north as the Litani river. Again, as houses were blown up and thousands of villagers became displaced, it was the civilian population that suffered most from a military campaign whose purported targets were the Palestinian

guerrilla organizations.75 President Jimmy Carter later wrote that at the time he had prepared to notify Congress, "as required by law, that U.S. weapons were being used illegally in Lebanon, which would have automatically cut off all military aid to Israel."76 No Congressional action was ever taken, but the U.S. did play a key role in the drafting of two 1978 U.N. Security Council resolutions: Resolution 425, which called on Israel to "withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory," and Resolution 426, which established UNIFIL, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, assigned with the task of overseeing the Israeli withdrawal. Although the IDF did withdraw most of its regular forces from southern Lebanon, it handed control of the border zone (a strip about ten kilometers wide) over to the Haddad militia, which became known as the South Lebanon Army. Israel continued to support the SLA with military advisors and matériel. By the account of Avraham Tamir, former IDF general and former director-general of the foreign ministry, "huge sums of money were invested in fortifying and equipping the SLA."77 In April 1979, Haddad announced the formation of the Free and Independent Lebanese State in the enclave which the SLA had carved out with Israel's help. Israel never relinquished its control over this zone, and enlarged it in the 1980s.

The next round in the ferocious battle between Israel and the PLO (of which southern Lebanon was not the target as much as the stage) began in 1982. In June, after a year of calm on the border, the IDF launched a wide-scale invasion, called "Operation Peace for Galilee," which sought to smash the PLO's military and political apparatus in Lebanon once and for all.78 Thousands of civilians werekilled in aerial bombardments as the Israeli forces laid siege to Beirut. United Nations Security Council resolutions calling for a total, immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon were brushed aside in the interest of Israel's overriding political and military objectives, and Israel continued to occupy large parts of the country.79

The Israeli military presence in Lebanon soon bred a home-grown Shi'a resistance based primarily in the southern suburbs of Beirut, the Beqa' valley, and the villages of southern Lebanon. The main resistance organizations were the Amal movement and Hizballah (the Party of God), each with a military wing. In 1995, Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin summarized how the dynamics on the ground in the south had changed over the years of the Israeli occupation: "When the zone was established, the main problem was that of Palestinian terror groups. The main danger was the infiltration of terrorist squads into Israeli territory. Today, this problem is virtually nonexistent. This task the `security zone' has fulfilled successfully. There are virtually no infiltrations of terrorist squads into Israeli territory or settlements, unlike the situation six or seven years ago. The problem today is not with Palestinians but Hizbollah, an extremist Islamic element."80

By 1985, as the IDF's losses had grown to a politically unacceptable level, the Israeli government decided to withdraw its troops from most of Lebanon, while holding on through the SLA (now headed by Major General Antoine Lahd) to a self-declared "security zone."81 This zone was an expanded version of the enclave that Israel and the SLA had controlled jointly from 1978 to 1982, and included the sizeable Jezzin salient, a mountainous area that juts north from the Litani river into the Shouf mountain range, dividing the coastal plain to the west from the Beqa'valley in the east. Since 1985, the Israeli-occupied area has covered an area of approximately 850 square kilometers (332 square miles), or 10 percent of Lebanese territory. The border dividing the zone from the rest of Lebanon runs due east from the Mediterranean coast just above al-Naqoura along the ridge between the Tyre and Bint Jbeil districts before turning north to the Litani river, paralleling the Israeli border. A few miles west of the Israeli town of Metulla, it stretches further north, extending deep into Lebanese territory, separating the Jezzin salient from the coastal plain at Sidon to the west. It then curves east across the Shouf mountain range. Once it reaches the western flank of the Beqa' valley, it turns south again before bending east to meet the border with Syria on the slopes of Jabl al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon). The SLA's positions in the Jezzin salient enabled its gunners to reach the Mediterranean shores at Sidon and control the only two-lane highway leading to Beirut from the South. Control of the highway proved highly useful to Israeli strategists in the July 1993 fighting, when the IDF/SLA succeeded in causing an enormous bottleneck just north of Sidon (see below), thereby aggravating the fear and planned havoc that they created through its massive shelling in the preceding days.

The Israeli-occupied area, which is home to a population of 150,000 living in 162 villages and towns, serves as a virtual Maginot Line for the Israeli forces. The SLA deploys between 2,500 and 3,000 soldiers there, while the IDF maintains a regular presence of about 1,000 to 1,200 soldiers.82 Entry into the zone from the north through one of the SLA-manned checkpoints is restricted to those who have obtained a permit from the SLA. Fortified IDF/SLA observation posts, platoon-sized positions equipped with machine guns, mortars and ground surveillance radar, dot the hilltops along the dividing line. Some of these hilltop posts are as close as a mile from the nearest Lebanese village, well within the range of small arms fire.

The situation in southern Lebanon since 1985 has been one of stalemate. Israel continues to occupy part of Lebanon, facing Lebanese (and some smallPalestinian) resistance groups that are supported variously by Syria and Iran. The resistance groups frequently carry out attacks on IDF/SLA patrols and positions in the occupied area.83 In retaliation, the IDF rains bombs and shells on areas where the guerrillas are suspected to be hiding. Often, Israeli targets include the villages themselves, or their immediate surroundings, leading to loss of civilian life and a paralysis in agricultural activity in the areas contiguous to the occupied zone.84 Captured guerrillas are routinely taken to a prison camp in the village of Khiam in the Israeli-occupied area, where they are tortured at the hands of the SLA, sometimes assisted by officers of Israel's domestic intelligence service (the General Security Service, or Shin Bet).85 Ostensibly in response to Israeli attacks on civilian areas in Lebanon, Hizballah and other guerrilla groups, for their part, have fired Katyusha rockets indiscriminately into northern Israel, causing damage and injuries, sending civilians into air-raid shelters, and paralyzing economic life.

UNIFIL's mandate is renewed routinely every six months, but the U.N. force, currently consisting of close to 5,000 soldiers, never has had an opportunity to fulfill its stated objective of overseeing the U.N.-ordered withdrawal of Israelitroops.86 UNIFIL has probably had a mitigating effect on the scale and frequency of armed conflict, but has otherwise remained ineffectual in separating the adversaries. Without the mandate or the firepower to do more, UNIFIL has found itself in the unenviable position of watching the rockets and shells fly back and forth overhead, while on occasion falling victim to direct hits itself.87

The September 1989 Taif Accord brokered by the Arab League brought a cease-fire and gave international state sanction to a Syrian military presence in Lebanon. Following the defeat of Gen. Michel Aoun in October 1990, the Lebanese Army began to disarm the militias in the spring of 1991-with the notable exception of Hizballah whose presence in the south was seen as balancing the power of the SLA.88 Syria maintains some 35,000 to 40,000 troops in Lebanon, and with the May 1991 Syrian-Lebanese Treaty of Brotherhood, Cooperation and Coordination extended its influence over Lebanon. While no Syrian troops have been deployed south of the Awali river, the Lebanese Army has gradually projected its presence throughout the south. Yet it has made no attempt to rein in Hizballah. Referring to military operations by Hizballah and other guerrilla organizations, the Lebanese prime minister, Rafiq Hariri, has stated: "The resistance...is not made by the Lebanese government. It is made by the people. All we are saying is that the people have the right to fight the occupation."89 The Lebanese government has continued to call for a complete Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon.90 Hizballah,which has asserted the right to resist Israel's occupation,91 has begun to transform itself from resistance movement to opposition party with a defined political agenda and representation in parliament. It reportedly is supplied militarily by Iran via transshipment through Syria. By controlling Hizballah's prime access to arms, Syria appears to hold considerable influence over Hizballah's ability to remain an active military force in the South.92

There is no indication that Israel and Hizballah have been in direct negotiation over their operations in southern Lebanon. Israel, however, has negotiated with Syria, arguing that Syria has been in a position to control Hizballah's operations in southern Lebanon. The issue of peace in Lebanon has thus been subordinated to an overall peace settlement between Syria and Israel. The Syrian foreign minister, Farouq Chara', is on record as stating that "we are for calming things down" in southern Lebanon.93 Israel's prime minister, Shimon Peres, has taken the position that "[i]f there would be a real attempt on the part of the Lebanese government and the Lebanese army to guarantee that there will be just one government, just one army, and peace and security, Israel would not wait for the negotiations with the Syrians. We would withdraw before it [sic]. The problem is that in Lebanon you have armed groups which don't take orders from the central government, like Hizballah; that the central government and the army were unable to provide security, neither to the southern part of Lebanon and, for that reason, for the northern part of Israel. We are not here willingly, and we don't have any ambition to remain here."94 In the spring of 1996, negotiations betweenIsrael and Syria were suspended; no immediate agreement was expected prior to the Israeli national elections on May 29.

Meanwhile, the situation in southern Lebanon turned extremely tense again after two sets of attacks back and forth in late March and early April. The attacks came during the Israeli election campaign and brought extra pressure on the Labor Party-led coalition government to act "tough" against Hizballah and ignore understandings reached with Hizballah about the rules of the conflict three years earlier. On April 9, Israel's deputy defense minister, Ori Orr, warned Lebanese civilians: "It is clear that these rules of the game are not good and cannot remain and it is necessary that the Lebanese population living north of the security zone will live under more fear than it lives today,"95 while Maj.-Gen. Amiram Levine declared: "[T]he residents in south Lebanon who are under the responsibility of Hizbullah will be hit harder, and the Hizbullah will be hit harder, and we will find the way to act correctly and quickly."96 On April 11, Israel launched "Operation Grapes of Wrath" in what appeared to be a replay of Operation Accountability in 1993.

Since July 1993, an informal, unwritten set of rules has governed the conduct of the conflict between Israel and the SLA on one side and Hezbollah on the other. These rules are based on a tacit agreement between Israel and Hizballah that reportedly went into effect on July 31, 1993, as part of the cease-fire arrangement at the end of "Operation Accountability," and they will be referred to here as the "July 1993 understandings."97 The agreement was brokered by U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, and involved-directly or indirectly- the governments of Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Iran.98 The understandings supposedly prohibit attacks on civilians. Israeli housing minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, following a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem on August 22, 1993, described the agreement this way: "We have to continue to hit Hizbullah, every place and everywhere. But we have to do it in a way not to involve civilians."99 Hizballah had acknowledged as much in a statement it issued in Beirut when the cease-fire came into effect at the end of July: "[T]he group said it will halt its rocket attacks as long as Israeli forces do not fire on Lebanese civilians," Reuters reported.100

The agreement was put to the test on August 19, 1993, when Hizballah claimed responsibility for the killing of eight Israeli soldiers in two separatebombings that day in the security zone. Israel retaliated with "airstrikes...aimed at Hezbollah military targets in three unpopulated sites in the Bekaa Valley."101 Hizballah did not, in response, fire rockets into northern Israel, presumably because the Israeli reaction was limited to military targets.102

The various parties to the agreement have been reluctant to spell out their precise involvement in the bringing about of the "understandings" and their roles in enforcing the agreement's terms. Syrian president Hafez al-Asad has publicly acknowledged the existence of the agreement, but has stated that Syria is not a party to it.103 As for Israel, Lt.-Gen. Amnon Shakak, the chief of staff, has been reported as saying that Israel has no signed agreement with Hizballah but that "understandings at the time [July 1993] were reached with the United States, which talked with Syria, which talked with Hizballah, which again talked with the Syrians, who again talked with the Americans, who reported back to us."104 Itseems clear that the U.S. continues to serve as a broker between Israel and Hizballah, via the government of Hafez al-Asad in Damascus. Israeli military analyst Ze'ev Schiff, who writes for the daily newspaper Ha'aretz, noted recently that Israeli "apologies" for violations of the July 1993 understandings have been "delivered to Hizballah via Damascus through the Americans."105

Whatever the precise nature of U.S. and Syrian government involvement in orchestrating the agreement and its implementation, it is clear that both Israel and Hizballah have drawn a "red line." For Israel the red line is crossed if Hizballah fires Katyusha rockets across the Israel-Lebanon border, permitting the IDF-or so it is understood-to respond by shelling Lebanese villages north of the Israeli-occupied area. Hizballah has a similar red line: if the IDF or the SLA attack civilians in the south, then Hizballah would feel justified to retaliate by striking at civilian targets inside Israel.106 In August 1993, Israeli Prime Minister YitzhakRabin declared, in the words of a member of Knesset, that "Israel can only attack north of the security zone under two conditions. First, if Hizbullah violates the accord by firing Katyushas at the Galilee. In this case, Israel is not bound by any restrictions. Second, Israel can only strike north of the security zone...if hit first in the zone."107 Likewise, Hizballah's deputy secretary-general, Sheikh Na'im Qasem, threatened in April 1995 that "whenever the Israeli enemy shells and harms civilians in our villages, we will shell northern Palestine and the Israeli settlements."108 A month later he was interviewed as saying: "We repeatedly said then [during the July 1993 seven-day war] that we do not fire Katyusha rockets at Israeli settlements except in retaliation for the bombardment of villagers in our regions."109 Haj Husein al-Khalil, head of Hizballah's political bureau, likewise declared: "We spelled out our view of the so-called July understandings...namely that if the Israeli enemy hits civilian targets, he should expect us to retaliate against civilian targets. If the Zionist enemy widens the scope of his attacks to shell villages and towns, we will respond in the appropriate way....[A]ny attack on civilians or villages or homes will meet a comparable response."110

By this logic, understood by both sides to undergird their actions, it should therefore perhaps not be surprising that after Israel admitted that its aircraft had mistakenly bombed a home in the village of Deir al-Zahrani in August 1994, killing seven civilians (including three children) and injuring seventeen, it decided not to respond to two days of retaliatory rocket attacks on northern Israel by Hizballah. This was in some way regarded as "an acceptable case of an eye for an eye."111 More recently, on July 9, 1995, Hizballah fired Katyusha rockets into the western Galilee in retaliation for shelling by Israeli forces that killed three children in Nabatiyeh al-Fowqa on July 8.112 There were no Israeli casualties from the rocket attacks and, rather than ordering a military response in southern Lebanon, Israel's chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Amnon Shahak, issued a public apology of sorts on Israeli TV: "Yesterday we fired at the wrong place in Nabatiyeh, but that happens in the kind of war we are fighting there."113 Three months later, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin noted that Israeli forces had exercised restraint and upheld their side of the July 1993 understandings following the civilian deaths in Nabatiyeh: "Since July 9, not a single Katyusha rocket was fired against the Galilee," he said after a special cabinet meeting on the killing of nine IDF soldiers in south Lebanon between October 12 and October 15. "Our main aim was to allow the Israelis and the children on summer holiday to enjoy themselves. Because of the IDF activity, it was a peaceful summer and all the understandings were kept," Rabin added.114

The July 1993 understandings have proven to be inherently unstable. While theoretically designed to protect civilians from attack, in reality they have offered the civilian population on either side of the border no succor. Violations of the agreement, intentional or not, have prompted back-and-forth retaliations against civilian targets, sometimes lasting for days, turning civilians in Israel and Lebanon into virtual pawns of the warmakers.115 On June 23, 1995, for example,at least ten Katyusha rockets hit an Israeli Club Med resort in the northern town of Nahariya, killing a French cook and wounding nine other civilians. This attack was Hizballah's retaliation for the death of a young woman caused by an Israeli bombardment of the Lebanese village of Shaqra the previous day, itself precipitated by an earlier Hizballah attack from Shaqra's outskirts against a military SLA outpost in the Israel-occupied area.116 Israel responded to the June 23 Katyusha attack with further heavy artillery and air attacks on villages in southeastern Lebanon. The rationale for the latest wave of attacks was, according to Maj.-Gen. Amiram Levine, chief of Israel's Northern Command, that Hizballah was using Lebanese villages as cover: "If the Hezbollah thinks they will bring about a disaster for our citizens, I am convinced that in the end it will bring about a disaster on those very citizens whose welfare they seek."117

Interpretations of precisely what the rules are under the July 1993 understandings also may vary. On June 2, 1994, an Israeli attack on a Hizballah training camp in `Ein Kawkab in the eastern Beqa' valley resulted in the deaths of some thirty-five persons, all alleged by Israel to be Hizballah fighters. Most of those killed were 12-to-18-year-olds attending what Israel referred to as an indoctrination camp. This attack, described by Israel's deputy defense minister, Mordechai Gur, as a "pure and successful military strike," apparently came within the ambit of the informal agreement: no civilians were targeted, and therefore no retaliation against civilians would be justified. Hizballah, however, saw the attack as directed against a civilian target and retaliated against areas in northern Israel that same day, prompting Gur to threaten that Israel would respond "seven-fold" against Hizballah villages if these attacks continued.118

A similar conflict over interpretation occurred in March 1995, when Rida' Yassin, one of Hizballah's military commanders in the south, was killed in anIsraeli helicopter attack. Hizballah's secretary-general, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, declared that the July 1993 understandings were no longer binding.119 Hizballah then launched some thirty Katyushas into the northern Galilee. One Israeli civilian was killed and nine were wounded.120 Because the killing of Rida' Yassin should have been "acceptable"-by Israel's interpretation-in the broad context of the agreement, Israel complained that Hizballah's attack constituted a flagrant violation of the July 1993 understandings. A subsequent Israeli retaliation wounded seven Lebanese civilians.121 Tensions then abated. In an interview with the daily L'Orient le Jour, Sheikh Na'im Qasem qualified Hizballah's position by noting that the July 1993 understandings were still in effect, but that from then on the organization would consider the assassination of resistance officials within civilian surroundings a violation of the unwritten agreement.122

This adjustment in Hizballah's position then may explain the movement's response to the killing of another of its commanders on November 28, 1995, ostensibly by the IDF or Israeli agents. Hizballah fired some twenty Katyusha rockets toward Kiryat Shemona and areas north of Nahariya. A few Israeli civilians suffered light injuries, mainly from shock. In retaliation, according to a U.N. report, the IDF then "fired more than 600 artillery, tank and mortar rounds, causing minor material damage."123 Interestingly, Hizballah had fired an earlier salvo of Katyushas at northern Israel prior to the killing of one of its commanders on November 28. In an apparent fudge, it later justified this attack as a response to a variety of Israeli actions in southern Lebanon. According to the U.N. report: "Hizbullah issued a communique listing a number of grievances, including the prolonged shelling, air attacks, the blockade of Lebanese fishermen and thedemolition of houses in [the village of] Bayt Yahun, as the cause for its initial rocket salvo...."124

International law holds that forces must distinguish between civilians and combatants, and between civilian objects and military objectives. U.N. General Assembly Resolution 2444 (1968) expressly recognizes the customary law principle of civil immunity and its complementary principle requiring warring parties to distinguish civilians from combatants at all times, in affirming

...the following principles for observance by all government and other authorities responsible for action in armed conflicts:

(a) that the right of the parties to a conflict to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited;

(b) that it is prohibited to launch attacks against the civilian population as such;

(c) that distinction must be made at all times between persons taking part in the hostilities and members of the civilian population to the effect that the latter be spared as much as possible. 125

This principle is reiterated in Article 48 of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949.126 Article 50(3) of the Protocol moreover specifies that the "presence within the civilian population of individuals who do notcome within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character." In addition, the targeting of civilians as a reprisal for the enemy's attack on one's own civilian population-something implicitly envisioned by the July 1993 understandings-is clearly illegal under the laws of war. Article 51(6) of Protocol I declares: "Attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited."127 Despite these prohibitions, the IDF/SLA and Hizballah have deliberately targeted civilian areas and both sides have claimed the right to retaliate in kind.

To the extent that Hizballah may have fired weapons from within the vicinity of populated areas, or has otherwise used villages as a shelter for its guerrilla forces, it may have been in violation of the prohibition on shielding. Article 58(b) of Protocol I provides that parties to the conflict must "to the maximum extent feasible...avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas." Article 51(7) provides:

The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.

At the same time, even if Hizballah is found to have used civilians as shields, Israel is still bound by additional international law obligations. Article 51(8) of the Protocol provides:

Any violation of these prohibitions shall not release the Parties to the conflict from their legal obligations with respect to the civilian population and civilians, including the obligation to take the precautionary measures provided for in Article 57.

Article 57 stipulates that combatants must take proper care to ensure the safety of civilians.

In 1995, appearances were deceptive in places such as Kafr Tibnit, Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh, Kafr Ruman, Humin, or Shaqra, all villages in southern Lebanon close to the front line. Life appeared normal. Children played outside. Lush gardens bloomed with hibiscus, gardenia and jasmine. Fruit ripened on pomegranate and fig trees. Villagers were busy stringing deep-green tobacco leaves, which then dried in the sun until they turned a crisp golden brown. Women walked the narrow streets, and shops were open for business. Everywhere there was activity, and the semblance of normality.

But no civilian is safe in these villages. Shelling by Israel's nearby military forces or the SLA can cut you down with shrapnel anywhere, at any time. This is simply a grim fact of life in the south. An elderly farmer who was working in his fields in Kafr Tibnit was killed by a direct hit several hours after dawn in July 1995. A twenty-three-year-old university student was killed instantly in Kafr Ruman when shelling started before dawn in February 1995. In the same attack, a thirty-seven-year-old father of six was killed in a nearby house when a shell exploded on the verandah; three of his children were injured. In May 1995, a twelve-year-old girl who was at a friend's house at the wrong time was killed, while her friend was injured.

It is the unpredictability of these attacks that is the most jarring aspect of life in the south. But residents have become so accustomed to the violence that they use the Arabic word 'adi-ordinary, or normal-to describe military tactics that, measured against internationally accepted laws of war, constitute serious violations.

From January 1995 to mid-March 1996, sixty-four IDF and SLA soldiers were killed and 200 wounded in south Lebanon.128 Israeli military officials claim that between 1994 and 1995 there was a sharp increase in the number of attacks on IDF/SLA military targets in south Lebanon. Israel's chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Amnon Shahak, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee on April 25, 1995, that there were some fifty to sixty attacks monthly in the south: "[T]he numbers are twice what they were this time last year. Not a day passes without an attack."129 Hizballah attacks are routinely followed by IDF/SLA retaliation in the form of shelling or bombing of areas in which the guerrillas are said to be operating. This has included Lebanese villages. In the period since OperationAccountability in July 1993, both sides to the conflict in southern Lebanon not only have carried out attacks on each other's forces but also against areas of civilian population. The following is a sampling of incidents based on a field investigation conducted by Human Rights Watch in southern Lebanon in August 1995.

Indiscriminate shelling and rocket attacks continue to take their toll of civilian casualties. Both sides frequently resort to long-range attacks, and the sound of artillery, mortar and rocket attacks is common throughout much of the region adjoining the Israel-Lebanon border. Israel's chief of staff, Lt.-Gen. Amnon Shahak, told Israeli military correspondents on October 15, 1995 that Israeli forces do not target civilian areas in south Lebanon: "We have no problems whatsoever in operating against Hizballah. The [understanding reached in July 1993] does not prevent us taking the initiative against Hizballah. We do not target civilian villages."130 Despite this assertion, IDF/SLA shells, fired deliberately or otherwise, have landed in populated areas and caused civilian casualties. UNIFIL has estimated that 37,000 artillery, mortar and tank rounds were fired by the IDF/SLA in 1995.131 In 1995 some seventeen Lebanese civilians lost their lives and dozens more were wounded as a result of IDF/SLA shelling.132 Similarly, Hizballah fired Katyusha rockets into northern Israel on several occasions in 1995, causing two civilian deaths and thirty-one injuries.133

"We're used to it," said Ghassan Tabaja, as he showed Human Rights Watch an unexploded shell that had landed in his backyard in the village of Kafr Tibnit at 8:30 a.m. on August 21, 1995. The shell was embedded in the red soil less than twenty meters from the verandah where his children were playing. He pointed to a nearby house that was hit by another shell in the same barrage. He said that over one hundred shells had landed in and around the village during aninety-minute period that morning.134 In the village of Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, a father of eleven children said that over the years "every house in this village has been shelled, sniped at, or had people killed or injured." He recalled that three shells fell around his own house at 3:00 p.m. on October 20, 1994. One landed on the street in front of the house, one in front of the veranda, and the third at the rear of the house. Fortunately, no one was physically injured in that attack.135

In another attack, on the morning of June 17, 1995, Muhammad Tabaja, an elderly farmer in Kafr Tibnit, was killed when shells fell on agricultural land where he was working. According to his nephew, Ghassan Tabaja (quoted above), a Lebanese policeman:

At about 6:15 in the morning, my uncle went to his farm as usual to pick seeds. There was an operation by the resistance nearby. At 7:30 exactly, there was one large explosion. Then, minutes later, the Israelis started shelling hard at and around the village [from their position at Ali Taher], and firing with machine guns everywhere. There was shelling everywhere. All of us ran to our houses, looking for shelter. It lasted for one hour. I was at my uncle's house as a car passed by very fast. It was a relative of mine, who signalled us to follow in our car. We went to the government hospital. It was then that I found out that my uncle was in that car. He was mutilated, his back was open and it was empty inside, and his right leg was missing.

The nephew said that three shells had landed where his uncle had been working. "The first one hit my uncle. Twenty sheep and goats were killed as well."

A month earlier, May 30, 1995, Amal Maruneh, a girl of twelve, was killed while her friend Maisa Ismail, also twelve, was seriously injured (her left leg had to be amputated above the knee) in the shelling of Shaqra, close to the Israeli-occupied area. According to Maisa's mother:

There were no [military] operations going on. It was 6:30 or 7:00 at night. We were sitting here, in the living room. My sons were drinking tea on the roof and the children were playing outside the house. One of Maisa's friends asked her if she wanted to go to the husseiniya [a religious gathering place] and she said no.136

Maisa stayed with her mother in the house, along with her friend Amal. According to the mother:

Right after that, the first shell fell. I saw a lot of smoke and went downstairs. I saw that Amal was dead. I did not know then that my daughter had been struck as well. I was about to run out of the house when the second shell came down. Then I saw that my daughter had been injured. We started screaming for cars to come, but everyone was at the husseiniya.

Earlier that month, May 4, one civilian, Hassan `Ali Karaki, was reportedly killed during an IDF/SLA shelling of Jarju', and two, Rida' Ibrahim Darwish, fifty-five, and his wife Latifah Darwish, were injured.137 Hizballah responded by firing five rockets at the town of Kiryat Shemona in northern Israel, slightly wounding three civilians. This attack was described as "a first warning" to Israel that the resistance was still willing to retaliate against Israeli civilians when Lebanese civilians were hit.138

Civilian areas in south Lebanon sometimes come under indiscriminate fire within minutes of attacks by Lebanese guerrillas on Israeli or SLA military targets inside the security zone. For example, at 5:30 a.m. on February 19, 1995, Hizballah guerrillas launched a coordinated attack, with rockets, mortars andmachine guns, on twelve SLA and IDF positions in the occupied area.139 Retaliation was swift, according to testimony taken by Human Rights Watch, resulting in two civilian deaths in the village of Kafr Ruman: Khaled Midlij, thirty-seven and a father of six, and Lana Abu Zeid, twenty-three, a university student, were killed in a shelling barrage.140 Mr. Midlij's wife said that there had been no military activity by guerrilla forces in the village prior to the attack: "They started shelling at about 5:30 in the morning, all throughout the village. Our house was hit at about 7:00. The first shell struck the wall, the second landed on the road outside the house, and the third landed on our verandah." She said the shells followed closely upon one another: "We didn't have a chance to run away." Shrapnel from the last shell came into the house through the window above the verandah, killing Mr. Midlij and injuring three of his children.141 Lana Abu Zeid, who was visiting the village from Beirut to attend the funeral of a relative, died when two shells exploded at the rear of the house where she was staying. Ms. Abu Zeid's mother, Samira Salameh, forty-two, was injured in the attack.142 Hospital records indicate that Ms. Salameh was brought into the emergency room at 8:10 on February 19, semi-conscious and in shock, with "a large foreign body in her lower right abdomen."143

Residents of Kafr Ruman, interviewed in August 1995, said that the shelling had been more frequent in 1994 than in 1995, but that the sporadic nature of the shelling of the village in 1995 had brought uncertainty and tension rather than relief. "Today, you are not sure whether you will be living tomorrow," one resident said. "Two days ago, we were sleeping and they started shelling at about 11:30 at night. It lasted for four or five hours, then they started firing with machineguns at houses, trees, and cars."144 Residents also said that there are no warning signs to indicate when shelling will begin. On October 22, 1995, machine gun fire from Israeli forces injured five-year-old Husein Alloush, also in Kafr Ruman, in the head. According to Reuters, bullets "rained down on the village" in retaliation for a guerrilla attack on IDF positions in the occupied area.145 In two separate attacks on the village of Nabatiyeh al-Fowqa, seven civilians were killed and seven others injured by tank-fired antipersonnel shells that spread thousands of steel darts, called flechettes, over a wide area.146

Other attacks against civilians in southern Lebanon have been carried out by the Israeli Air Force (IAF). On August 4, 1994, at approximately 5:00 p.m., in the village of Deir al-Zahrani, a three-story house, home to seventeen people in four families, was hit by a rocket fired by an Israeli aircraft. Six residents were killed in the attack, while others were injured. The house, located in a residential area, was the only building in the village that was hit. Residents said that first a missile was fired at a nearby mountain and then, less than fifteen minutes later, the house was struck. "There was nothing military near the house," one resident said, as neighbors nodded in agreement. "They never hit this area before."147 Residents said that about a month after the attack, another missile landed in the village at 9:00 in the evening, causing some damage but no injuries.

In addition to civilian casualties, the damage done by the fighting in southern Lebanon imposes an enormous financial burden on civilians of the region. The widow of Khaled Midlij in Kafr Ruman said that it cost $2,000 to repair thedamage and construct the protective wall around the exterior of her home. This was an enormous investment for her. When asked if she considered leaving the village, she replied, "we [her family] have nowhere else to go."148

Hizballah is also responsible for indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas. On July 30, 1995, at least ten Lebanese civilians were wounded when a shell fired by Hizballah guerrillas hit the village of Rihan in the Israeli-occupied area.149 On November 28, 1995, Hizballah forces fired at least twenty-four Katyusha rockets at the Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, injuring eight people.150

Both parties continue to terrorize and harass civilians in contravention of international law. Threats of attacks from both the IDF/SLA and Hizballah, many of which never materialize, send terrorized people anxiously searching for shelter and cause much distress. Israel often mounts mock raids and breaks the sound barrier over southern Lebanon and Beirut. These attacks disrupt daily life and cause a constant state of anxiety. Intermittent and unannounced shelling and rocket attacks kill, maim and injure. There is little, if any, sense of security and the inhabitants of southern Lebanon and northern Israel must live in a world where their safety is based on the actions of others they cannot control. This is especially the case in southern Lebanon, where the inhabitants are unable to influence the actions of either Hizballah or the IDF/SLA. Article 51(2) of Protocol I provides in part: "Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." (See also the section on warnings in chapter 5 below).

In addition to incursions into Lebanese airspace and the occupation of the self-described "security zone," Israel has also, since February 1995, imposed a blockade on Lebanese territorial waters that exacts a heavy price on Lebanese fishermen. Attempts by fishermen to evade the blockade have been met with direct attacks by Israeli forces against the fishermen. The blockade was in apparent retaliation for what Israel claimed was a Lebanese army policy of harassment of residents of occupied southern Lebanon at checkpoints between Lebanese-controlled territory and the Israeli-occupied area.151 The blockade was initially imposed on the coastline around Tyre on February 10, 1995 and then extended a few days later to Sidon. On February 21, the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Berri, who is also the leader of the Amal movement, charged that Israel had notified the Lebanese army command that the blockade on Tyre would be lifted if the policy of searching cars crossing from Israeli-occupied Lebanon into Lebanon at army checkpoints were ended. Berri termed the offer "extortion," noted that one reason for the searches was fear of booby-trapped cars, and added: "It is our right to take all measures to shield our security and protect stability from any setback at the hands of the saboteur networks working for Israel."152 On February 25, the blockade was further extended northwards to encompass the port of Damour, eighteen kilometers (eleven miles) south of Beirut. On March 2, Lebanese foreign minister Fares Bouez sent a letter of protest to U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, claiming that the blockade had been extended north to the ports of Sarafand, Sidon and Damour the previous week, affecting 1,800 fishermen.153

Israel has enforced the blockade with vigor. For instance, on March 16, 1995, Israeli gunboats fired on fishermen off the coast of Tyre. On another occasion, March 27, an Israeli gunboat fired on fishermen fishing four kilometers off the coast of Sidon, forcing them to abandon valuable equipment.154 In another confrontation, on May 9, Israeli gunboats chased thirteen fishing boats near theTyre shore and forced them to return to shore.155 Tyre fishermen working within the one-kilometer zone have been harassed by Israeli gunboats that patrol the waters. "Three weeks ago, they started shooting at us," one fisherman told Human Rights Watch. "We were putting out our nets. They put a spotlight on us and started shooting without warning over our heads." He said that the Israeli boats were fifteen to twenty yards away. The fishermen left their nets and returned to shore. He said that in another incident, a bullet grazed the plastic hood of a fisherman's raingear, and another time an Israeli gunboat rammed a wooden fishing boat and damaged its side. Fishermen at the port showed Human Rights Watch a red plastic container riddled with bulletholes; such containers are used as buoys to mark the nets at sea. "Every time we leave the port, we feel danger," one fisherman said. "When they attack us, we cut the nets and try to escape."156

Farouq, a fisherman, claimed he had been fishing for twenty-five years. "Two months ago, they started to shoot at my boat at sunrise," he said. "There was no warning. They turned on their lights and started firing." He said that dozens of bullets were fired, but that his boat was not hit. "I turned around and came back. I am scared. I will go out for one day and then not go out for twenty days."157 Other Tyre fishermen said that about 250 fishing boats leave the port daily between midnight and 2:00 a.m., and return at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning. The one-kilometer restriction substantially affects their livelihood. "I go out every day," one fisherman said. "I used to bring back fifteen or twenty or thirty kilograms; now, I bring back only two kilograms."158

Harassment and detention of Lebanese fishermen continued during the six-month period from July 1995 to January 1996. According to a U.N. report:

As before, Israeli naval vessels patrolled Lebanese territorial waters in the south and imposed restrictions on the local fishermen. At times, this involved firing at or near fishing boats and temporary detention of Lebanese fishermen. UNIFILintervened with the Israeli authorities repeatedly for the release of those detained.159

According to witnesses, IDF/SLA troops have also fired shots at farmers working their fields in villages close to the front line, and have fired phosphorus shells or other incendiaries, such as tracer rounds and smoke grenades, at these fields, setting them on fire, in efforts to clear the suspect population from the region, halt economic activity there, and enforce an unofficial no-man's land between the two sides. A farmer in Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh told Human Rights Watch: "The [Litani] river is two kilometers away from [our] fields. They will not let anyone near the river. They say it is a military area."160 Farmers wanting to till their land or harvest their crops have been fired at. "We cannot go into the fields because they shoot at us," one Shaqra resident told Human Rights Watch. Farmers said that they are demanding compensation from the Lebanese government for the substantial agricultural losses they have incurred. They complain that attacks have wiped out harvests of wheat, other grains, and olives. "People have had to take UNIFIL soldiers with them to harvest olives," one resident said.161 UNIFIL confirmed this: "We go with an armored personnel carrier, raise the U.N. flag, and stay with them while they harvest," a spokesman said.162 Shaqra residents said that, in the case of their village, the shelling comes mainly from the Israeli military position at Hula.

Such tactics have had an impact over the last eleven years, forcing residents who depend heavily on agriculture for their livelihoods to leave. "The Israelis are destroying houses, burning crops, forcing civilians to leave. Every year, they burn the same land here," the farmer in Zawtar al-Sharqiyeh, whose family owns six to seven dunums of land, said.163 He added that the now-forbidden agricultural lands used to yield about US$200,000 annually in crops forthefamilies that farmed there, and that he was losing about $5,000 to $6,000 a year in income that he would normally have received from the harvest of olives and tobacco. "About a third of the families in the village have left in ten years," he said. "Originally there were 300 families. Now there are 200."164 In neighboring Zawtar al-Gharbiyeh, a resident who was born in the village in 1935 said that he refuses to leave. But he added that for the last ten years his family has forfeited the income from its twenty dunums of agricultural land in the "forbidden" zone planted with olive, fig, and orange trees, and huboub [grains]. He said that of 300 families with agricultural land in the "forbidden" area, some fifty-five have left the village.165 Residents of Shaqra village also told Human Rights Watch that the burning of agricultural land had forced many families, dependent on agriculture, to leave the area.166

Operation Grapes of Wrath

In April 1996, the de facto cease-fire that had ended the July 1993 fighting broke down under the weight of cumulative violations by both sides of the agreement not to target the adversary's civilian population. Between March 4 and April 10, five weeks of attacks and reprisals had killed seven Israeli soldiers, three Lebanese civilians and at least one Hizballah fighter.167 The tally of injured was sixteen Israeli soldiers, seven Lebanese civilians, and six Israeli civilians. The attacks came during the Israeli election campaign and brought extra pressure on the Labor Party-led coalition government to respond militarily against Hizballah without regard for the limitations implicit in the July 1993 understandings. On April 9, Israel's deputy defense minister, Ori Orr, warned Lebanese civilians, referring to the July 1993 understandings: "It is clear that these rules of the game are not good and cannot remain and it is necessary that the Lebanese population living north of the security zone will live under more fear than it lives today,"168while Maj.-Gen. Amiram Levine declared: "[T]he residents in south Lebanon who are under the responsibility of Hizbullah will be hit harder, and the Hizbullah will be hit harder, and we will find the way to act correctly and quickly."169 Within forty-eight hours, Israel launched what it referred to as "Operation Grapes of Wrath."

On April 11, Israel launched air and artillery attacks against what it claimed were Hizballah military and infrastructural targets, including a helicopter gunship attack on a building housing the Hizballah consultative council, or shura, in a southern Beirut suburb.170 These attacks killed three Lebanese civilians and one Lebanese soldier. Following renewed Hizballah Katyusha attacks on northern Israel, Israel issued warnings, via the SLA radio station, to civilians in forty-four villages and towns in southern Lebanon, including the city of Nabatiyeh, to leave their homes by 2:30 p.m. the next day, April 12.171 U.N. sources in southern Lebanon reported that the attacks that commenced around 4:30 p.m. were heavier and less discriminating than the attacks with laser-guided weapons on Thursday.172 Attacks also continued against targets in Beirut and elsewhere, and one Syrian soldier was killed and seven wounded in an attack on a highway military post near Beirut's international airport.173

The next day, April 13, Israeli warships initiated a blockade against Beirut, Sidon and Tyre, Lebanon's chief ports of entry. The same day, an Israeli helicopter gunship rocketed an ambulance carrying fleeing civilians near Tyre, killing two women and four children and bringing the death toll to at least twenty-one people, by the estimate of Lebanese journalists.174 Israeli government spokesman Uri Dromi declared that "We gave the residents advance warning to clear out so as not to get hurt. All those who remain there, do so at their own risk because we assume they're connected with Hizbollah."175 On April 14, an army spokesman said: "Anyone remaining in Tyre or these forty villages [which had been named in warnings]...is solely responsible for endangering his life."176

By Monday, April 15, Israeli/SLA warnings to flee had been extended to a total of eighty-six Lebanese communities. As in July 1993, such warnings were in part designed to provoke a major humanitarian crisis by internally displacing upwards of 400,000 Lebanese civilians. "Even if you tie me up and whip me, I'm not going to admit on-the-record that our policy is to force out civilians to put pressure on the Lebanese government," one Israeli official told the Wall Street Journal. "But let's just say we hope Lebanon understands the message."177

Meanwhile, Hizballah reprisals, in the form of Katyusha salvos into northern Israel, continued without respite. On Sunday, April 14, Israel attacked a electric power station in Jumhour, just outside Beirut, and on Monday, April 15,struck a power station in Bsaleem in the eastern part of Beirut, asserting that the attacks were in response to an earlier Hizballah rocket attack. An Israeli army spokesman characterized the Hizballah attack, which reportedly cut an electric cable to a synagogue in Kiryat Shemona, as an attack on "electrical infrastructure in northern Israel."178

On April 18, an Israeli strike on a village near Nabatiyeh destroyed a building, killing a woman, her seven children and a cousin. A few hours later, Israeli artillery shells hit a makeshift refugee compound at a UNIFIL post in Qana, some ten kilometers south of Tyre, killing more than 100 displaced civilians who had fled their homes.

Prior to the carnage on April 18, the death toll and destruction had been mounting, along with evidence that Israeli forces were carrying out indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks against civilians in what had become virtual "free-fire" zones across large swaths of the south. The Jerusalem Post reported the "strong protest" that the U.N. had lodged with the IDF when "planes had dropped bombs in front of a clearly marked two-vehicle U.N. convoy trying to take essential items to refugees taking shelter in and around U.N. positions."179 The onslaught in the area southeast of Tyre was particularly ferocious. On April 15, over 700 shells and 30 air-to-surface missiles and bombs poured down in a four-hour period, the U.N. said.180 Journalists were unable to investigate the destruction in villages near Tyre "because of the intense bombing and shelling," Reuters reported on April 16.181 Reuters correspondent Haitham Haddadin filed a dispatch from Tyre that day, extensively quoting residents who had fled nearby villages. "It's random shelling....They are sparing nothing. They are hitting homes and fields and civilians," one said. Up to one hundred shells, bombs and rockets were landingevery hour in the village of Mansouri, a resident claimed, noting that "about 20 big guns" overlooking the village were "firing incredibly fast."182

These attacks, and the stated positions that accompanied them, put Israel in violation of the laws of war, which impose upon the attacker the duty to discriminate at all times between civilians and military targets. Civilians who cannot or will not flee areas that an attacker has ordered evacuated-such as the elderly, the infirm, and women with newborn children-do not automatically lose their protection under the laws of war. Nor can the attacker simply assume that those left behind are combatants and therefore subject to attack as military targets. These long-recognized principles of civilian immunity are codified in the Geneva Conventions, and subsequent restatements of customary international humanitarian law, in compellingly clear terms.

The death toll from the April 18 attack on the peacekeeping base at Qana stood at 102 civilians as of April 24. According to The Independent, five of the shells that landed at the base on the afternoon of April 18 were believed to be 155mm shells fired by U.S.-made M-109 self-propelled howitzers.183 In a later report, citing the U.N., The Independent stated that six 155mm shells landed within the UNIFIL compound and between fifty and sixty shells landed in Qana on April 18. "According to U.N. sources in Lebanon, the Israeli shells were fitted with M732 radar fuses, which detonate them at [seven meters] off the ground, the most lethal possible height, blasting fragments downwards to amputate, maim and kill."184

Following the attack, Lt.-Gen. Amnon Shahak, Israel's chief of staff, defended the shelling by dismissing long-established, internationally accepted laws of war. "I don't see any mistake in judgment....We fought Hizballah there [in Qana], and when they fire on us, we will fire at them to defend ourselves....I don't know any other rules of the game, either for the army or for civilians," he said at a press conference in Tel Aviv on April 18.185

Gen. Shahak was referring to the provocation that brought on the protracted Israeli response. A U.N. spokeswoman had confirmed that, fifteen minutes before the attack, Hizballah guerrillas had fired mortars and Katyusha rockets from a position some three hundred meters from the base.186 Both the U.S. and Israel accused Hizballah of "shielding"-the use of civilians as a cover for military activities, which is a breach of the laws of war. "Hizballah [is] using civilians as cover. That's a despicable thing to do, an evil thing," the U.S. State Department spokesperson said.187 Prime Minister Peres cited shielding to shift blame for the massacre to Hizballah. "They used them as a shield, they used the U.N. as a shield-the U.N. admitted it," he said on April 18.188

Any acts of shielding committed by Hizballah violate humanitarian law. They do not, however, give Israel license to fire indiscriminately into a wide are that includes a U.N. base and concentrations of civilians. The Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, which issues press releases only sparingly while international armed conflicts are raging, issued a strongly worded statement on April 19, in which it "firmly condemned" the Israeli shelling at Qana, and noted the "absolute ban" on indiscriminate attacks under the laws of war. The ICRC stated that Israeli orders for the evacuation of large areas of south Lebanon did not "exempt Israel from the obligation to respect the civilians still on the spot." The ICRC also noted the Israeli orders to evacuate "in this case [were] contrary to international humanitarian law."189

Article 58(b) of Protocol 1 instructs parties to a conflict to "avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas." The protocol does not specify the precise distance where a military target must be located in order not to be "near" a densely populated area. Nor does the protocol indicate proper locations for fixed military targets-bases, permanent artillery installations, command and control centers, etc.-compared to highly mobile military targets, such as Katyusha launchers, that can quickly be moved or abandoned after firing.190

Even if Hizballah was guilty of shielding its military operations in Qana on April 18, the laws of war did not give Israeli forces unlimited license to attack indiscriminately the general area from which the guerrillas fired mortars and Katyushas. The Israeli assault on the base and its environs must be judged against two key legal requirements. Parties to an armed conflict must refrain from indiscriminate attacks (defined as operations that are not directed at a specific military objective but that strike military targets and civilian without distinction), and from disproportionate attacks (those in which the military advantage to begained is outweighed by excessive collateral damage to civilians). Israel violated these basic principles of the laws of war when it attacked the U.N. base and its environs.

Prime Minister Shimon Peres claimed that "We did not know that several hundred people were concentrated in that camp. It came to us as a bitter surprise."191 The claim itself is questionable. By the IDF's own account, its forces can track the movement of individual guerrillas after the firing of Katyusha rockets.192 Given Israel's air reconnaissance over south Lebanon during Operation Grapes of Wrath, it is difficult to imagine that the presence of over 800 civilians at a U.N. base went unnoticed.

Even if Israel did not know that civilians were housed there, its assault was nonetheless a violation of the laws of war. The base itself, with 200 Fijian peacekeepers, was not a legitimate military target. British journalist Robert Fisk, who was traveling nearby with a U.N. humanitarian convoy at the time of the attack, heard the first big guns fire into Qana just after 2 p.m. Then he heard, at 2:10 p.m., a