Amnesty International on Thursday accused Israel of wiping out families in its strikes on Lebanon during its war with Hezbollah, calling for these attacks to be investigated as war crimes.
Amnesty analysed three strikes on civilian homes between March 6 and 13, in which 24 civilians were killed, 12 of them children.
The London-based rights group accused Israel of “wiping out families” in those strikes and called for them to be treated as “war crimes”.
The group said it reached out to Israeli authorities, who said that some of the attacks “were carried out against Hezbollah military objectives”, while others were “referred for examination”.
The authorities told Amnesty they were “committed to mitigating harm to civilians during operational activity”.
“Despite follow up, the Israeli military did not provide specific information regarding the three attacks… including what the targets may have been,” Amnesty added.
Its findings in the investigation were based on interviews with 15 people, including survivors, relatives, paramedics, journalists who visited attack sites and local officials.
“Based on the evidence gathered, in each of these air strikes, Amnesty International has reasonable basis to conclude that Israeli forces violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, by carrying out attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects, or by failing to take all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians,” the report read.
