More on the Marjayoun convoy, Israel’s attacks on civilians

Bob Fisk, writing in today’s Independent, gives these details about the fateful “Marjayoun convoy” of August 11:

“They went so slowly, I was enraged,” a relief worker recalls. “People at friendly villages would come out and give the refugees food and water and want to talk to them and people would stop to greet old friends as if this was tourism. The convoy was only going at five miles an hour. It was getting dark.” The 3,000 refugees now trailed up the Bekaa after nightfall and were approaching the ancient Kifraya vineyards at Joub Jannine when disaster struck them at 8pm.
“The first bomb hit the second car,” Karamallah Dagher, a reporter for Reuters, said. “I was half way back down the road and my friend Elie Salami was standing there, asking me if I had any spare gasoline. That’s when the second missile struck and Elie’s head and shoulders were blown away. His daughter Sally is 16 and she jumped from the car and cried out: ‘I want my Daddy, I want my Daddy.’ But he was gone.” Speaking of the killings yesterday, Dagher breaks down and cries. He tried to carry his arthritic mother from his own car but she complained that he was hurting her so he put her back in the passenger seat and sat beside her, waiting for a violent death which mercifully never came. But it arrived for Collette Makdissi al-Rashed, wife of the mukhtar, who was beheaded in her Cherokee jeep, and for a member of the Tahta family from from Deir Mimas, and for two other refugees, and for a Lebanese soldier and for 35-year-old Mikhael Jbaili, the Red Cross volunteer from Zahle, who was blasted into the air when a rocket exploded behind him.
“There was panic,” the Marjayoun mayor, Fouad Hamra, said…

(Hat-tip to Judy for sending that link.)
I haven’t heard any more yet from Colette’s family… I imagine they’ve been busy arranging the funeral and many other things.
Colette was originally from Zahleh, just a few miles further up the Beqaa Valley from the Joub Jannine vineyards. I imagine Zahleh was where the convoy was headed, since the town traditionally had many links with Marjayoun.
I fully support all efforts to conduct an in-depth investigation into how exactly Colette, Elie, and the others were thus murdered, and by whom. In the piece linked to above, Fisk writes:

There are those who break down when they recall the massacre at Joub Jannine – and there are the Israelis who gave permission to the refugees to leave Marjayoun, who specified what roads they should use, and who then attacked them with pilotless, missile-firing drone aircraft. Five days after being asked to account for the tragedy, they had last night still not bothered to explain how they killed at least seven refugees and wounded 36 others just three days before a UN ceasefire came into effect.

(In fact, at that point on that Friday evening, the negotiations for the ceasefire were already very far advanced, indeed, almost at completion.)
Fisk tells us it was “pilotless, missile-firing drone aircraft” that fired on the convoy. “Pilotless” is a bit of misnomer. Drones don’t have pilots sitting in them; but they do have pilots who sit safely back in some home base and give the drones all their orders, including where to steer to, how to take pictures, and when and where to fire their weapons. It’s not like the Israelis (or Americans, over in Iraq) simply send out squads of killer drones and sit back and let them do whatever they want.
So who were the pilots or controllers of those drones, that evening? On what basis did they command the drones to fire their lethal missiles? What were the “rules of engagement” (or “standing orders”) on the basis of which they fired? Who had defined those standing orders or ROEs? That is what we need to know.
We need to know these things so we can understand more fully the mindset of people who would fire on a completely pre-arranged convoy of civilians heading north up the Beqaa, (with, yes, ahead of them, Lebanese Army people retreating north as per agreement with the IDF, rendering them hors de combat, i.e. under international law ‘noncombatants’.)
Has it become quite “normal” for people in the Israeli armed forces– particularly, their Air Force– to fire on civilians and other noncombatants who are clearly fleeing the battle zone? What does this tell us about the ethics and value of the Israeli armed forces and the society they claim to represent and defend?
Amnesty International has just published an excellent-looking report on the attacks the IDF (and particularly the IAF) launched during the 33-day war against Lebanon’s civilian infrastructure. It is certainly worth reading in full.
In a separate campaign, Amnesty is also calling for immediate investigation of all attacks launched against civilian persons during the war. It notes that,

In Lebanon, hundreds of civilians were killed by Israeli forces in attacks on residential areas causing massive destruction. Others were killed in attacks on vehicles as villagers were heeding the calls by the Israeli army to leave their homes in South Lebanon… In Israel, some 40 civilians were killed in attacks by Hizbullah on towns and villages, including Haifa, Kiryat Shmona, Nahariya, Safed, Ma’alot and Acre…”

Yes, it would be good to have a broad, even-handed international investigation into the killing of civilian persons (and the destruction of civilian infrastructure) by both sides. There are, of course, a number of issues involved in any such consideration of “evenhandedness”. One is the massive disproportionality between the lethality and the general destructive capability at the disposal of each side. I would love for someone to come up with rough figures for e.g. the total (kilo-)tonnage of TNT-equivalent that was delivered by each side… All we ever hear about in the US is the “thousands” of Hizbullah rockets that zoomed into Israel– without any easily comparable reference to either the number or the explosive capacity of the Israeli munitions (air-dropped, sea-delivered, artillery, etc) that were targeted onto Lebanon.
And when I say “targeted” onto Lebanon, that brings up an additional disparity in capacity between the two sides: the one regarding targeting capability. On the one hand, we have Israel, whose spokespeople routinely claim they are able to bomb with “pinpoint accuracy”– a claim that is, indeed, generally a credible one, even when, say, they’re boming a convoy of noncombatants driving north up the Beqaa, a vital bridge or a power station north of Beirut, or a gathering of other refugees in Qana, etc…
And then there’s Hizbullah.
I know that Hizbullah was able to target one anti-ship missile onto an Israeli navy ship fairly early on, and it also has a very primitive drone capability (not used much, I think, during the recent war.) But the vast majority of those much-hyped “thousands of Hizbullah rockets” launched against israel were (a) of very low explosive power, and (b) barely targettable at all.
“Pipsqueakers”, as Michael Totten has called them.
Here’s what Totten, a strongly pro-Israeli commentator from Oregon, wrote after he toured one of the worst affected “front-line communities” in Israel last Friday:

I drove to Hezbollah’s most targeted city of Kiryat Shmona to do a little post-war analysis of what had just happened. It looks surprisingly intact from a distance, and even up close the damage is less severe than what I thought it would be.
I expected to see at least one destroyed house. There may be a destroyed house in there somewhere, but I drove all over and couldn’t find one.
Katyusha rockets are pipsqueakers. They don’t feel like pipsqueakers when they’re flying in your direction. But they are. They can’t be aimed worth a damn, and they’ll only do serious damage if they ignite something else after impact, like the gas tank of a car. They have almost no military value at all unless they are fired in barrages at a reasonably close range. From a distance they can only be counted on to break a few things almost at random in the general direction they’re aimed.
They do break a few things, especially because Hezbollah is clever enough to pack them tight with ball bearings. Kiryat Shmona looks like a city that recently suffered street fights between roving militias with automatic weapons.
Katyusha shrapnel kills people who aren’t wearing body armor, and wounds those who are. No one wants to be hit with this stuff. But if the side of your building is hit, you can call a repair guy and have it taken care of in one day.

A little different from those entire city-blocks of densely packed high-rises in southern Beirut that were reduced to a level field of smoking rubble by the IDF’s stand-off weapons, don’t you think?
Well, back to Amnesty’s report on Israel’s deliberate destruction of civilian infratsructure (including infrastructure literally vital to the survival of civilians, like water plants, etc.) It included this:

Deliberate destruction or ‘collateral damage’?
During more than four weeks of ground and aerial bombardment of Lebanon by the Israeli armed forces, the country’s infrastructure suffered destruction on a catastrophic scale. Israeli forces pounded buildings into the ground, reducing entire neighbourhoods to rubble and turning villages and towns into ghost towns, as their inhabitants fled the bombardments. Main roads, bridges and petrol stations were blown to bits. Entire families were killed in air strikes on their homes or in their vehicles while fleeing the aerial assaults on their villages. Scores lay buried beneath the rubble of their houses for weeks, as the Red Cross and other rescue workers were prevented from accessing the areas by continuing Israeli strikes. The hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who fled the bombardment now face the danger of unexploded munitions as they head home.
The Israeli Air Force launched more than 7,000 air attacks on about 7,000 targets in Lebanon between 12 July and 14 August, while the Navy conducted an additional 2,500 bombardments.(1) The attacks, though widespread, particularly concentrated on certain areas. In addition to the human toll – an estimated 1,183 fatalities, about one third of whom have been children(2), 4,054 people injured and 970,000Lebanese people displaced(3) – the civilian infrastructure was severely damaged. The Lebanese government estimates that 31 “vital points” (such as airports, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities) have been completely or partially destroyed, as have around 80 bridges and 94 roads.(4) More than 25 fuel stations(5) and around 900 commercial enterprises were hit. The number of residential properties, offices and shops completely destroyed exceeds 30,000.(6) Two government hospitals – in Bint Jbeil and in Meis al-Jebel – were completely destroyed in Israeli attacks and three others were seriously damaged.(7: Report of the Council for Development and Reconstruction.)
In a country of fewer than four million inhabitants, more than 25 per cent of them took to the roads as displaced persons. An estimated 500,000 people sought shelter in Beirut alone, many of them in parks and public spaces, without water or washing facilities.
Amnesty International delegates in south Lebanon reported that in village after village the pattern was similar: the streets, especially main streets, were scarred with artillery craters along their length. In some cases cluster bomb impacts were identified. Houses were singled out for precision-guided missile attack and were destroyed, totally or partially, as a result. Business premises such as supermarkets or food stores and auto service stations and petrol stations were targeted, often with precision-guided munitions and artillery that started fires and destroyed their contents. With the electricity cut off and food and other supplies not coming into the villages, the destruction of supermarkets and petrol stations played a crucial role in forcing local residents to leave. The lack of fuel also stopped residents from getting water, as water pumps require electricity or fuel-fed generators.
Israeli government spokespeople have insisted that they were targeting Hizbullah positions and support facilities, and that damage to civilian infrastructure was incidental or resulted from Hizbullah using the civilian population as a “human shield”. However, the pattern and scope of the attacks, as well as the number of civilian casualties and the amount of damage sustained, makes the justification ring hollow. The evidence strongly suggests that the extensive destruction of public works, power systems, civilian homes and industry was deliberate and an integral part of the military strategy, rather than “collateral damage” – incidental damage to civilians or civilian property resulting from targeting military objectives.
Statements by Israeli military officials seem to confirm that the destruction of the infrastructure was indeed a goal of the military campaign. On 13 July, shortly after the air strikes began, the Israel Defence Force (IDF) Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Dan Halutz noted that all Beirut could be included among the targets if Hizbullah rockets continued to hit northern Israel: “Nothing is safe [in Lebanon], as simple as that,”(8: The Times, “Our aim is to win – nothing is safe, Israeli chiefs declare”, Stephen Farrell, 14 July 2006) he said. Three days later, according to the Jerusalem Post newspaper, a high ranking IDF officer threatened that Israel would destroy Lebanese power plants if Hizbullah fired long-range missiles at strategic installations in northern Israel.(9: Jerusalem Post, “IAF continues attack on Lebanon”, 17 July 2006). On 24 July, at a briefing by a high-ranking Israeli Air Force officer, reporters were told that the IDF Chief of Staff had ordered the military to destroy 10 buildings in Beirut for every Katyusha rocket strike on Haifa.(10: Jerusalem Post, “High-ranking officer: Halutz ordered retaliation policy”, 24 July 2006.) His comments were later condemned by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.(11) According to the New York Times, the IDF Chief of Staff said the air strikes were aimed at keeping pressure on Lebanese officials, and delivering a message to the Lebanese government that they must take responsibility for Hizbullah’s actions. He called Hizbullah “a cancer” that Lebanon must get rid of, “because if they don’t their country will pay a very high price.” (12: New York Times, “Israel Vowing to Rout Hezbollah”, 15 July 2006.)
The widespread destruction of apartments, houses, electricity and water services, roads, bridges, factories and ports, in addition to several statements by Israeli officials, suggests a policy of punishing both the Lebanese government and the civilian population in an effort to get them to turn against Hizbullah. Israeli attacks did not diminish, nor did their pattern appear to change, even when it became clear that the victims of the bombardment were predominantly civilians, which was the case from the first days of the conflict.
International humanitarian law and war crimes
International humanitarian law governs the conduct of war, and seeks to protect civilians, others not participating in the hostilities, and civilian objects. In an armed conflict, military forces must distinguish between civilian objects, which may not be attacked, and military objectives, which, subject to certain conditions, may be. The principle of distinction is a cornerstone of the laws of war.
Military objectives are those that: “by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.” Civilian objects are “all objects which are not military objectives”. Objects which are normally considered “civilian objects” may, under certain circumstances, become legitimate military objectives if they are “being used to make an effective contribution to military action”. However, in case of doubt about such use, the object must be presumed to be civilian.
Direct attacks against civilian objects are prohibited, as are indiscriminate attacks. Indiscriminate attacks are those which strike military objectives and civilian objects without distinction. One form of indiscriminate attack is treating clearly separate and distinct military objects located in a city, town, village or concentration of civilians, as a single military objective. If two buildings in a residential area are identified as containing fighters, bombardment of the entire area would be unlawful.
Disproportionate attacks, also prohibited, are those in which the “collateral damage” would be regarded as excessive in relation to the direct military advantage to be gained. Israel maintains that the military advantage in this context “is not of that specific attack but of the military operation as a whole”.(13)
This interpretation is too wide. Overbroad interpretations of what constitutes a military objective or military advantage are often used to justify attacks aimed at harming the economy of a state or demoralizing the civilian population. Such interpretations undermine civilian immunity. A legitimate military advantage cannot be one that is merely “a potential or indeterminate advantage”. If weakening the enemy population’s resolve to fight were considered a legitimate objective of armed forces, there would be no limit to war.
Israel has launched widespread attacks against public civilian infrastructure, including power plants, bridges, main roads, seaports and Beirut’s international airport. Such objects are presumed to be civilian. Israeli officials told Amnesty International that the potential military use of certain items, such as electricity and fuel, renders them legitimate military targets. However, even if it could be argued that some of these objects could qualify as military objectives (because they serve a dual purpose), Israel is obligated to ensure that attacking these objects would not violate the principle of proportionality. For example, a road that can be used for military transport is still primarily civilian in nature. The military advantage anticipated from destroying the road must be measured against the likely effect on civilians, especially the most vulnerable, such as those requiring urgent medical attention. The same considerations apply to electricity and fuel, among other items.
Similarly critical is the obligation that Israel take “constant care to spare civilians, the civilian population, civilian objects, from attack”. This requirement to take precautionary measures in launching attacks includes choosing only means and methods of attack “with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects”.
It is also forbidden to use starvation as a method of warfare, or to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population. Some of the targets chosen – water pumping stations and supermarkets, for example – raise the possibility that Israel may have violated the prohibition against targeting objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population.
Israel has asserted that Hizbullah fighters have enmeshed themselves in the civilian population for the purpose of creating “human shields”. While the use of civilians to shield a combatant from attack is a war crime, under international humanitarian law such use does not release the opposing party from its obligations towards the protection of the civilian population.
Many of the violations examined in this report are war crimes that give rise to individual criminal responsibility. They include directly attacking civilian objects and carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. People against whom there is prima facie evidence of responsibility for the commission of these crimes are subject to criminal accountability anywhere in the world through the exercise of universal jurisdiction…

So, “universal jurisdiction”, huh? It would be interesting to see a court somewhere in the world try to take on these cases.
But mainly, I believe these war crimes need to be uncovered, fully discussed, and reflected upon within the “court” of Israeli public opinion itself. What has Jewish Israeli society become that its members would allow– or even, as in Imshin’s infamous recent “Lebanon has to burn right now” rant, openly call for– acts as inhumane as destroying water plants and other vital infrastructure, and the apparently deliberate targeting of noncombatants fleeing from a war zone?
Look at yourselves, friends. Look at what your society has become. And while you’re about it, you might consider taking a lesson from those white South Africans who undertook just such a reflection some 15-20 years ago, when they saw what their society had been doing to its neighbors, and decided to step away from continued pursuit of militarist domination of those neighbors and to start to treat them in a spirit something closer to one of respectful human equality.
And yes, they did this even while some very powerful forces in their own society continued to excoriate all their opponents as “terrorists”, and to whip up a frenzy of hatred and anger against them…
But luckily for all South Africans, White, Bl;ack, and “Colored”, the calm advocates within the White community of egalitarianism and peaceful coexistence with their non-White neighbors finally won the day in their arguments against the frenzy-whippers. And a majority of White South Africans came to judge that that trying to treat their neighbors decently might well be a more prudent path toward ensuring the wellbeing of White South African society than continued militarist domination could ever be– and also, a path more in line with the deepest beliefs they held about their own intrinsic goodness.
How many of you Israelis have come even anywhere close to this conclusion at this point? Don’t you think the events of the past four years in Iraq and Lebanon have shown that the continued pursuit of colonial-style military adventures is just plain counter-productive at the dawn of the 21st century? Decolonization, a true respect for the national independence and national soveriegnty of all other peoples, peace negotiations with them, and the withdrawal (and downsizing) of imperial-style armies: surely these kinds of policies are truer to the “liberationist” mantle that so many of you Jewish Israelis claim for yourselves than continuing to try to be a modern-day Sparta?