Israel in Lebanon: Report of the International Commission to Enquire into Reported Violations of International Law by Israel During Its Invasion of T (Jerusalem Studies Series) 0903729962, 9780903729963

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ISRAEL IN

LEBANON T h e R e p o r t o f th e I n te r n a tio n a l C o m m is s io n to e n q u ir e in to r e p o r te d v io la tio n s o f I n te r n a tio n a l L a w by I s r a e l d u r in g i ts in v a s io n o f th e Lebanon

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^ISRAEL IN LEBANON^ R eport o f the International Com m ission to enquire into repo rted violations o f International Law by Isra el during its invasion o f the Lebanon Chairman Sean MacBride, S.C. Vjee Chairman ProfessorJ&iehard Falk De^n^Cader Asmal Dr BrlapBercusson Professor Geraud de la Pradelle Professor Stefan Wild

London

28 August 1982 - 29 November 1982

Israel in Lebanon The Report o f the International C om m ission Ithaca Press

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Copyright © 1983 The International Commission The publishers gratefully acknowledge the kind permission of the following organisations to reprint copyright material: BBC, LBC, The Guardian, Le Monde, The Sunday Times.

First published in 1983 by Ithaca Press 13 Southwark Street London SE1

ISBN 0903729 96 2

Typeset by Carlton Photosetters Westcliff-on-Sea Printed in England by Biddles Ltd Guildford Surrey

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Contents

Members of the International Commission Terms of Reference Preface by Seim MacBride, SC General Introduction

xi

Section I The Recourse to War 1. Israel’s Justification for the Invasion 2. Israel’s Real Aims 3. International Law and the Invasion of the Lebanon 4. Legal Status of Liberation Movements 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12.

Section II The Conduct o f the War Conduct: Introduction Military Necessity Civilian Objects Civilian Population Precautions in Attack: Civilian Objects and Population Proportionality Discrimination in Targets Humanity

1 6 14 23 27 30 36 49 66 77 87 99

Section III The Israeli Occupation 13. Israel’s Occupation Policy 14. The Siege of Beirut 15. The Massacres at Sabra and Chatila

113 143 162

Conclusion Recommendations

187 191

Appendix 1 Genocide and Ethnocide Appendix 2 Witnesses and Organizationswhich gave evidence to the Commission Appendix 3 Chronology of Events Appendix 4 Maps Appendix 5 Selected Testimony and Reports Note of Acknowledgment

194

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M embers o f the International Com m ission

Chairman: Sc6n MacBride, SC President, International Peace Bureau, Geneva Member of International Commission of Jurists former Minister for External Affairs, Ireland former Assistant Secretary-General, United Nations former UN Commissioner for Namibia Nobel Peace Prize, 1974 Lenin International Prize for Peace, 1977 America Medal for Justice, 1978 Dag Hammarskjold Award, 1980 Commission:

Richard Falk Albert G. Milbank Professor of International Law and Practice, Princeton University and Vice-Chairman of the International Commission Kader Asmal Senior Lecturer in Law and Dean of the Faculty of Arts (Humanities), Trinity College Dublin Brian Bercusson Lecturer in Laws Queen Mary College, University of London Geraud de la Pradelle Professor of Private Law University of Paris Stefan Wild Professor of Semitic Languages and Islamic Studies, University of Bonn

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Term s

of

Reference o f the International Com m ission o f Enquiry

The terms of reference of the Commission, as agreed at its constituting session in London on 28 August 1982, are to answer, among others, the following questions, which seem to be the principal questions arising from the invasion of the Lebanon by Israel: 1.

Has the Government of Israel committed acts of aggression contrary to international law?

2.

Have the Israeli armed forces made use of weapons or methods of warfare forbidden by international law, including the laws of war?

3.

Have Palestinian and Lebanese, or other, prisoners been subjected to treatment forbidden by international law, including inhuman or degrading treatment? Has there been a violation of international law arising out of the classification of or denial of status to Palestinian prisoners or detainees?

4.

Has there been deliberate or indiscriminate or reckless bombardment of a civilian character, for example: hospitals, schools, or other nonmilitary targets?

5.

Has there been systematic bombardment or other destruction of towns, cities, villages or refugee camps?

6.

Have the acts of the Israeli armed forces caused the dispersal, deporta­ tion, or ill-treatment of populations, in violation of international law?

7. Has the Government of Israel valid reasons under international law for its invasion of the Lebanon, for the manner in which it conducted hostilities, or for its actions as an occupying force? 8. To what extent, if any, were the Israeli authorities or forces involved, directly or indirectly, in the massacres or other killings that were reported to have been carried out by Lebanese militia men in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in the Beirut area between the dates of 16 and 18 September? In examining these questions the Commission will consider and determine whether any acts which they may find to have been committed are such as may be characterised as crimes under international law.

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PREFACE by the Chairman of the Commission

Following upon the horrors of World War II, and the breakdown in the laws of humanity that had taken place, the nations of the world adopted, in San Francisco on 26 June 1945, the Charter of the United Nations. It proclaims the aims of the United Nations: ‘We, the peoples of the United Nations, determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person . . .* It goes on to outlaw aggression, the use of force, or the threat of the use of force. To give more effective recognition of, and protection for, human rights, the nations of the world next adopted, on 10 December 1948, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which provides, inter alia, that ‘if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, human rights should be protected by the rule of law*. The Declaration then proceeds to identify the rights and the protection to which each human being is entitled. Subsequently, the Rule of International Law was extended to cover these rights by two major international conventions: the United Nations Covenants for the Protection of Human Rights, 1966. But, despite these important developments to strengthen the international rule of law, so as to conform with ‘the dictates of the public conscience*, genocidal massacres and gross violations of human rights and of humanitarian law continued to be perpetrated by governments; many governments seemed to have lost all sense of moral and legal responsibility. Despicable crimes continued to be committed against innocent people in different parts of the world - particularly in areas of Indo-China, Latin America and Southern Africa. By reason of power politics, and of the breakdown in the standards of public morality, the United Nations was precluded from dealing with horrendous crimes committed by governments in defiance of international law. Accordingly, the victims remained unprotected and those responsible escaped punishment. Often these dreadful deeds even remained unexposed;

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governments sought to conceal their criminal conduct. Thus slowly the international rule of law became eroded and the public conscience blunted. It is for these reasons that the practice grew up of setting up independent non-governmental tribunals or commissions of enquiry. They became the only form of protection available to protea the defenceless. Because of the growing force of international public opinion, such non-governmental tribunals and commissions of enquiry have acquired an important status and recognition in world affairs. It is in these circumstances that a small group of concerned and influential persons in the United Kingdom came together in July 1982 and decided to constitute and invite an International Commission to enquire into reported violations of International Law by Israel during its invasion of Lebanon. This group then appealed for sponsors and for funds to defray the cost involved in the setting up of such a Commission. It was after these preliminary steps had been taken that I was approached by the Chairman of the Convening Committee, Mr Ernie Ross, MP, and invited to act as Chairman of this Commission of Enquiry. I agreed to accept this assignment on the strict understanding that the Commission to be appointed would consist of independent and qualified persons of standing and that there would be no attempt to interfere, in any way, with the Commission in the course of its work. Mr Ross gave me these assurances and discussed with me the membership of the proposed Commission; the list of the members chosen and their qualifications will be found in the pages that follow this preface. They are professional men of standing in the academic world; five of the six members are lawyers from the United States, Canada, France, South Africa and Ireland. The sixth, Professor Stefan Wild, is Professor of Semitic Languages and Islamic Studies at the University of Bonn. I myself have participated in a great many enquiries of this nature. As soon as the Commission was set up, I wrote to the Prime Minister of Israel, His Excellency Menachem Begin, on 16 August 1982, informing him of the circumstances surrounding the setting up of the Commission and its membership. In the same letter I invited the Government of Israel to be represented at the hearings of the Commission and to tender such evidence as it might desire to the Commission. On 26 August 1982, the Israeli ConsulGeneral in London, Mr Sinai Rome, wrote informing me that the Government of Israel would not be able to co-operate with the Commission because they regarded the terms of reference of the Commission as being too limited and one-sided. In his letter, the Consul-General also took exception to two of the five members of the Convening Committee on the grounds that they were ‘pro-Arab and anti-Israel propagandists’. It may well be that some of the sponsors and members of the Convening Committee are sympathetic to the Arabs, as also it may well be that other sponsors are sympathetic to Israel but disapprove of the methods used by the present Israeli administration. However, it is not the sympathies of the sponsors or of the

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PREFACE

Convening Committee that really matter; it is the objectivity, independence, qualifications and standing of the members of the Commission that count. In the letter from the Israeli Consul-General, no exception was taken to any of the members of the Commission. I have myself, on at least two occasions, carried out investigations of complaints of anti-Semitism made against the Soviet Union by Jewish organisations. The fact that I carried out such investigations at the request of Zionist organisations, did not, I trust, impair my objectivity. In such cases, it is inevitably the aggrieved party that initiates the complaints that are to be investigated. While it is proper and right that the Israeli Government should have set up a judicial Commission of Enquiry to investigate the massacres that took place in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila on 16-18 September 1982 inclusive, it must be noted that the role of the Israeli Commission of Enquiry is limited to the massacres at Chatila and Sabra. It will also be noted that it is an investigation carried out by the party whose conduct is impugned. Having regard to the fact that the subject matter of this enquiry involves the integrity and legality of the actions of the Israeli Government, authorities and army, it is desirable that the investigation should be carried out by a tribunal or commission which is independent of the authorities of the State of Israel. In the absence of an official United Nations international investigating authority, it is essential that in times of major crisis, independent international tribunals or commissions to investigate complaints that are made, should be set up. In this case, the invasion of the Lebanon by Israeli forces and the subsequent execution of the military policy of Israel in the Lebanon led to many complaints of grave and most fundamental breaches of the international legal order. The terms of reference of the International Commission were originally agreed to at the Constituting Session of the Commission held in London on 28 August 1982. These terms of reference were contained in seven questions that were formulated by the Commission. These terms of reference were arrived at before the massacres took place at the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in the Beirut area between the 16 and 18 September 1982. Following upon these massacres, the Commission met on 23 October 1982 and added an additional question, thus enlarging the terms of reference to eight questions. Accordingly, these eight questions, together with the concluding paragraph at the end of the eight questions, constitute the terms of reference of the Commission. The Commission held its initial plenary meeting in London on 28 August 1982, and decided on how to proceed with its enquiry. It was realised that while it was very important that the Commission should carry out its mandate as carefully as possible, it was also important to complete the tasks of the Commission as rapidly as possible; it was decided to seek every kind of evidence available, both oral and written. The Commission, or SubCommissions thereof, received evidence in London, in the Lebanon, in

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PREFACE

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Jordan, in Syria, in Israel, and in Oslo; particulars of the hearings of the Commission will be found in the Appendix to the Report. Members of an Commission interviewed a wide array of observers and participants in the conflict and received much relevant documentary evidence; they visited hospitals, refugee camps and other places where the impact of the conflict was most heavily felt. Members of the Commission had talks with prominent officials in the Lebanon, including the Prime Minister and the then Foreign Minister, and met with an array of political leaders representing the spectrum of Lebanese opinion. They also met officials of the Palestine Liberation Organisation. In Israel, Commission members had an opportunity to meet with a variety of Israeli military personnel, journalists and intellectuals, who gave accounts of their participation and experiences of the war in the Lebanon. Those interviewed included Israelis who supported the Begin-Sharon policies, as well as Israelis who opposed these policies. Those met included Palestinians from the Occupied Territories. Members of the Commission also visited Nablus for the purpose of meeting with Bassam Shaka, the deposed Mayor of Nablus. However, the members of the Commission were denied access to him by a detachment of Israeli soldiers, apparently acting on the orders of higher authority. While members of the Commission were not interfered with or hindered while in Israel, the Israeli authorities had advised Israeli citizens not to co-operate with the Commission and not to give evidence before it. In Jordan, members of the Commission met with high officials including the Crown Prince Hassan Ali and influential Palestinian exiled personalities; in Syria, members of the Commission met with high officials and refugees. In Oslo, public hearings had been organised by a number of Scandinavian Palestinian groups. While not involved in any way in the organisation of these public hearings, members of the Commission took advantage of the fact that a large number of potential witnesses were assembled in Oslo, to receive evidence there, independently of the public sessions which had been organised. The hearings by the Sub-Commission in Oslo were held quite independently of these public sessions. The Commission sat in plenary session to consider evidence and its findings for eleven days. In addition, the taking of evidence occupied a total of 22 days. The Commission had at its disposal the assistance of a secretarial staff and a team of researchers who undertook research in different fields of the Commission’s mandate. I should like, in particular, to pay a special tribute to the Vice-Chairman of the Commission, Professor Richard Falk, who presided over the hearings in the Middle East, and to Dean Kader Asmal, who undertook to co­ ordinate and edit the various portions of the Report. The team of researchers who were at the disposal of the members of the Commission made a valuable contribution to our work. Their assistance and dedication made our task much easier.

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PREFACE

The Commission has operated under constraints involving limited time, resources and access. The Commission did not possess any subpoena or police power and it received no co-operation from the Israeli authorities. It was impossible, for instance, to ascertain the conditions under which thousands of detainees were being held by the Israeli authorities. Despite these constraints, the Commission is satisfied that sufficient evidence was available to enable the Commission to reach the firm conclusions that it has reached. Where the evidence is either insufficient, or less than compelling, this is indicated in the course of the Report. The majority of the members of the Commission took the view that the actions of the Israeli authorities amounted to a form of genocide. Two members of the Commission, however, took the view that while the conduct of the Israeli authorities and armed forces did constitute grave violations of international law, these violations did not amount to the crime of genocide which requires a special intent. In any event, the eight terms of reference of the Commission did not necessitate a finding as to the issue of genocide; accordingly the Commission did not include a finding of genocide in its conclusions. However, the Commission has suggested that an authoritative international institution should be requested to examine the extent, if any, to which the policies and conduct of the Israeli Government, administration and armed forces in regard to the Palestinian people does or does not amount to the crime of genocide. T he Commission also decided to include in an appendix to this Report a note of the views of the majority of the members of the Commission on this question. I should like to avail myself of this preface to pay a tribute to the sense of public responsibility and diligence of each member of the Commission in the course of this arduous task. They are all busy professional men, with very heavy academic and professional activities. Yet, unpaid, they agreed to accept the very considerable burden which membership of the Commission involved, in order to serve the cause of justice and peace in the world. They worked unsparingly and conscientiously in the taking of evidence and in the preparation of this Report. To do this, they had to sacrifice, not only their professional commitments, but also their leisure hours and family commitments. At the conclusion of our work, I must apologise abjectly to them, their families and their friends for having been a very hard taskmaster in the course of the last few months. I also wish to extend my apologies to all the members of the Convening Committee, the Research Staff and the Secretariat, for the often impossible demands that we made on their services. The only justification I can offer for the dictatorial demands that I made on my colleagues of the Commission, the Convening Committee, and the team of researchers, is the hope that the Report of this Commission may, in some small way, serve to prevent a recurrence of the terrible deeds which we have had to investigate. Se£n MacBride, SC Chairman, International Commission

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GENERAL INTRODUCTION

It is easy to become cynical about the relevance of law to the conduct of war. Our sensibilities are by now flooded with images of massacres and atrocities committed in the name of this or that cause. These most gross, barbaric features of warfare, as present in modern times as in ancient, remind us also that international society lacks any consistent means of law enforcement. When it comes to war the attempt to have law without government often seems, indeed, like grasping at straws. Even the few notable instances of enforcement of international law have been tainted by elements of hypocrisy. After World War II German and Japanese leaders were prosecuted at Nuremberg and Tokyo with great fanfare; numerous lesser figures from the defeated countries were pursued by subsidiary tribunals and domestic courts. In the midst of war, Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin joined in the issuance of the Moscow Declaration on German Atrocities, solemnly promising to prosecute and punish all those implicated in German outrages associated with the war. The allies included this plea in their 1943 Declaration: ‘Let those who have hitherto not imbrued their hands with innocent blood beware lest they join the ranks of the guilty, for most assuredly the three allied powers will pursue them to the uttermost ends of the earth and will deliver them to their accusers in order that justice may be done*. And, indeed, these general threats were carried out. At the same time, the prosecutions were flawed in many respects. First of all, they appeared to many as ‘victor’s justice*. Not only the defeated states had strayed in the course of the war well beyond the limits of law. The atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are remembered along with Auschwitz and Treblinka as prime instances of barbarism. Terror bombing by conventional means of German and Japanese cities was never scrutinised by a legal body. Secondly, the main defendants seemed helpless and broken by the time they were brought to trial. What was the point, so long after the gruesome events, of hauling these individuals before judicial tribunals? At that stage, the defendants themselves, quite pathetic in most instances, often seemed like victims and elicited some public sympathy. And thirdly, the law struck many as composed to please the victors. The defendants had acted to carry out state policy, normally executing orders from the top. T o impose

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accountability on them for acts performed in the line of official duty seemed unrealistic in a world of sovereign states. These are formidable criticisms, but only one small part of the story. The basic justification for Nuremberg was that it was a serious start of the foundations of a more serious framework of law and responsibility bearing on the subject-matter of war. Furthermore, the prosecutions after World War II did perform a valuable educative role. The public became aware, especially in the German cases, of the full extent of Nazi depravity in and out of war. And most important of all, the broad issues of individual responsibility for violations of law in relation to war were fully explored. The General Assembly of the United Nations at its first session unanimously endorsed a set of principles drawn from those judicial proceedings; these formulations were then put in more authoritative form in 1950 by the expert legal body of the United Nations, the International Law Commission. Principle VI usefully specifies the scope of this Commission’s undertaking, conceived in its broadest sense: (a) Crimes against peace: (i) Planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances; (ii) Participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplish­ ment of any of the acts mentioned under (i). (b) War Crimes: Violations of the laws or customs of war which include, but are not limited to, murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of, or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war, of persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity. (c) Crimes against humanity: M urder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and other inhuman acts done against any civilian population or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds, when such acts are done or such persecutions are carried on in execution of or in connection with, crime against peace or any war crime. The distinguished American prosecutor at Nuremberg, Robert H. Jackson, formerly a US Supreme Court Justice, made this famous assertion in his opening statement: ‘And let me make clear that if this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment.* This crucial promise to the future has not

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been kept. There have been no serious consistent efforts since 1945 to apply these legal standards, at official levels, despite the numerous occasions on which the law of war has been flagrantly violated by one or another participant. Governments have failed to carry out their responsibility. It is with a keen sense of this failure that this Commission proceeds to report and analyse allegations of legal violations in the context of a single war. The motivation here is to build public pressure for law enforcement against Israel as a violator of the international law of war and, more broadly, to create a climate in which public opinion insists upon adherence by all states and political movements to the international law relative to war. Again sceptical reactions are bound to arise. Some will say this is play­ acting, or an arbitrary singling out of Israel for condemnation on purely political grounds. Others will echo the famous reflections on war by Prince Andre, Tolstoy’s great character in War and Peace, that the only way to proceed is to make war so hellish that distaste for its reality will finally so disgust the public and its leaders as to produce a sufficient movement for permanent peace. In Prince Andre’s words, ‘Take no prisoners but kill and be killed! . . . If there were none of this magnanimity of war, we should go to war only when it was worthwhile going to certain death, as now . . . War is not a courtesy, but the most horrible thing in life; and we ought to understand that, and not play at war . . . ’ Of course war has become more terrible than when Tolstoy was alive, and yet wars occur with an increasing frequency in international life. Even Tolstoy, later in his life, came to realise that brutalising war was not a path to peace, but only a path to greater brutality. In his later writings, Tolstoy consistently emphasised the ethos of absolute pacifism - war is so terrible that there can be no ethical justification for participation or endorsement, regardless of circumstances. In our time, many people believed that the development of nuclear weapons, whatever else, would make the world too dangerous for war. Now almost four decades later we know better. Since 1945 there have been at least 125 major wars causing somewhere between 10 and 20,000,000 deaths, as well as untold suffering and physical devastation. We cannot say that warfare is outmoded in the current practice of states. In fact there is an unprecedented arms race and arms build-up going on in virtually every comer of the planet, extending even to the ocean depths and to the far reaches of space. $600,000,000,000 was consumed on war preparation in 1982, and the figure is expected to go still higher in ensuing years. Rising military budgets have a general effect of heightening tensions, each side justifying its diversion of resources by reference to the terrible intentions and awesome capabilities of one or more foreign ‘enemy*. A political dynamic centring on hatred can, and does, easily spill over into warfare, especially at a time of world economic stagnation and recession, with its accompanying mass misery. these circumstances, it seems more necessary than ever before to protect th e public’s well-being to whatever extent possible by working for

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more effective implementation of the existing law of war. Further extensions by way of legal codification and procedures can come later, and would provide useful clarification and authority. For now, what counts is the law on the books, and there is plenty. In essence, the fundamental effort of law in this area is to prohibit aggressive recourse to war in the first instance, and then should war occur, to regulate the conduct of the war to protect the innocent, minimise the suffering caused to combat personnel and restrict overall damage. The basic effort of international law has been to prohibit all recourse to war except in compelling circumstances of self-defence. Article 51 of the UN Charter embodies this conception in its authorisation that force can only be used by a state in self-defence against a prior armed attack, and even then only provisionally until the Security Council gives its stamp of approval. The central importance accorded to the outlawry of aggression was well stated in the Nuremberg Judgment: ‘To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole’. Once war ensues, regardless of which side should be viewed as aggressor, the role of law relative to combat circumstances is pervasive. Hugo Grotius, the founder of modern international law, was inspired in the early seventeenth century to write his great treatise on war by the various outrages committed in the name of war that he directly observed in the Thirty Years’ War, then raging in north-central Europe. It is that resolve to resist unrestricted violence and cruelty, even if justified by the State in the name of war and military necessity, that continues today to give force and authority to the case for upholding the law of war, for publicising violations as a form of censure, and for calling upon states and international institutions to do their legal and moral duty to apprehend and punish those responsible for violations so as to build a tradition of greater respect for law. There is one kind of contemporary war that particularly tempts the militarily more sophisticated side to depart from the more elementary, minimum content of the laws of war - namely, wars fought in the Third World against movements of national revolution. In these wars, the high technology tactics and weaponry of the counter-revolutionary or status quo actor is almost inevitably directed against the people themselves. This process became very evident in the course of the American involvement in the Vietnam war. This Commission believes it is a salient feature of the Israeli campaign in Lebanon, and culminated in complicity by Israeli military and civilian officialdom in the massacres carried out by the Lebanese militias (Phalange, Haddad) in the Beirut camps of Chatila and Sabra between 16 and 18 September 1982. These massacres were lowtechnology sequels to earlier high-technology saturation bombardment by Israel from land, sea and air of every major Palestinian camp situated anywhere near the combat zone throughout southern Lebanon. The

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underlying Israeli objective seems clearly directed at making the Palestinian camps uninhabitable in a physical sense as well as terrorising the inhabitants and thereby breaking the will of the Palestinian national movement, not only in the war zone of Lebanon, but possibly even more centrally, in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. This kind of war effort tends to obliterate the very idea of innocence as fully in its own way as does nuclear war. Here, often the belligerent objective is ‘the people’ as a whole; in truth ‘the fighters* are not posing much o f a threat and in purely military terms are hardly a match, at least not until late in a national struggle when the government and its allies are confronting a fully mobilised and hostile population. This was the situation late in 1978 during the last stages of the Iranian revolution. The Shah had, finally, no option but to relinquish power or to engage the armed forces in the mindless slaughter of the Iranian people. His abdication may have saved, at the time, several hundred thousand lives. It must also be understood that the liberation side may contribute by its tactics and methods to the erosion of ‘innocence’, if not in war itself, then assuredly in its background. Recourse to ‘terrorism’ by liberation groups, especially to the extent it is relied upon within a framework of struggle and war is relevant to an understanding of charges and counter-charges. In this instance, we are mindful of attributions o f terrorism to the Palestine Liberation Organisation, as well as allegations that the PLO was using Lebanese soil to train a wide array of foreign terrorist groups. We note these arguments, but would separate their assessment from our enquiry into the main allegations arising from the Lebanon war, that is, those directed against Israel. We will take into account allegations concerning PLO conduct to the extent they bear on a specific line o f defence by Israel. The point here is that the traditional law of war needs to be brought to bear with particular strength in relation to this species of war. States have been slow to adapt the law of war explicitly to the subject matter of national revolution, and yet ‘wars of national liberation’ enjoy a special legitimacy as a result of their endorsement by law-making United Nations resolutions. The Algiers Declaration of the Rights of the People (1976) furthermore expressly asserts in its Article 29 that ‘Liberation movements shall have access to international organisations and their combatants are entitled to the protection of the humanitarian law of war*. The scope of the Commission's enquiry embraces both recourse to war and the conduct of war (including the occupation of any territory acquired). T he initial, basic allegation considered by the Commission concerned Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. Did this invasion satisfy the requirements of international law governing recourse to force across an international boundary? The international law here is quite simple, although its application can often be controversial, given different appreciations of the underlying facts and variant interpretations of the content of the basic legal ideas. In essence, by virtue of the Pact of Paris (1928) states renounced the

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right to use force in international disputes except for purposes of selfdefence. This obligation was originally a treaty rule binding only on the parties to the Treaty but has since been construed by virtually all commentators on international law as having acquired the status of general law, and even more of having acquired the status of what international lawyers call jus cogens (a rule that takes precedence over other valid rules of international law and can never be changed). This underlying conception has been embodied in the Charter of the United Nations which is itself a treaty binding on all members, including Israel, Lebanon and Syria. Article 2(4) of the Charter contains a general prohibition on recourse to force and Article 51 affirms the right of self-defence in the limited circumstance of response to a prior armed attack. The legal argument is somewhat more complicated than this distinction between aggression and self-defence, but not much more so. In essence, the first concern of the Report involves an investigation of the central allegation that Israel’s invasion of and attacks upon the Lebanon on 6 June 1982 constituted the initiation of aggressive war for which no adequate legal defence is available. What is most necessary is to restore the basic framework of law to govern the conduct of all combatants in war, but especially the high technology combatants. This basic framework consists of a long list of treaties that try to set down basic rules applicable to conflicts with res p e a to tactics; weaponry; treatment of prisoners, wounded and civilians; belligerent occupation. These treaties balance off the pressures to accommodate military necessity with the protection of innocents, civilian values and artefacts and the human rights of soldiers. Putting the law of war in the form of written declaration or agreement commenced in the mid-nineteenth century and has proceeded continuously up to the present time: the 1864 Geneva Convention on wounded and sick; the famous 1868 St Petersburg Declaration on the laws and customs of war. The most celebrated series of treaties comprising the law of war were negotiated at the two Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907, which in all produced sixteen agreements and four declarations, dealing with a variety of topics, including the means of conducting warfare and detailing, in particular, the law of land and maritime warfare. There were additional treaties negotiated in the 1920s that have some importance, including the 1925 Geneva Protocol on gas and bacteriological warfare, the 1929 Geneva Convention on wounded and sick, the 1929 Geneva Convention on prisoners of war, the 1930 London Treaty on naval armaments and warfare, and the 1936 London Proces-Verbal on submarine warfare. Each of these agreements was signed and entered into force. After World War II, a further series of agreements and declaratory documents pertaining to the law of war have been concluded. In 1948 the Genocide Convention was adopted. Then in 1949 at a large diplomatic conference the four very basic Geneva Conventions dealing with humanitarian law were drafted after eleborate negotiations and finally adopted: I, II relating to the treatment of the wounded and sick; III relating

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to prisoners of war; IV relating to treatment of civilians. Additional steps to codify the modern law of war occurred subsequently. Especially notable were the two 1977 Geneva Protocols on victims of armed conflicts and the 1981 UN Convention on specific conventional weapons. The rapid development of the international law of human rights and the passage of numerous United Nations resolutions and declarations bearing on the law of war have also clarified guidelines for permissible behaviour. It is important to note the continuity of judgment by major governments that it has been worthwhile to put in writing the obligatory content of international law pertaining to war. As a result, a vast corpus of rules, principles and guidelines now exists. Virtually every government acknowledges the obligatory character of the law of war and none claims the authority to conduct a war without adherence to this legal framework. That is, the law of war enjoys a universal acceptance, at least on an ethical and psychological level, and this acceptance has formal significance. Governments, regardless of ideological or cultural background, do not claim discretion to interpret state sovereignty in absolute terms when it comes to war, and have even endorsed the revolutionary idea that the leaders of sovereign states responsible for serious breaches of the law of war should be held personally and criminally accountable. It is necessary to point out that there are special problems associated with wars involving at their core issues of national revolution. Governments that designate their enemies as ‘terrorists* or ‘criminals* tend to treat the conflict as outside the law. The irony here is very great because it is in these conflicts where the need for law is the greatest - that is, where battlefield tactics often tend to concentrate their firepower on civilians, civilian sanctuaries (hospitals, churches, schools) and cultural centres, and to ignore the distinction between military and non-military. This refusal to be bound by law partly reflects the ideological struggle for legitimacy that lies at the centre of such conflicts and, partly, it involves a perverse or extremist view as to the requirements of ‘military necessity* for the high technology guarantors of the status quo. Such an orientation is pertinent to our enquiry into the general denial by Israel of the applicability of the laws of war in its warfare with the PLO. This refusal by governments to be bound by law in a certain category of conflicts underscores the extent to which we are still dealing with a ‘voluntary* system of law at the state level. If the perception of mutual selfinterest is not present, then either the legal guidelines cannot be negotiated or states will ignore them under the pressures of expediency. This generalisation is illustrated by the failure of the law of war to restrict technological innovations in weaponry and tactics during this century: submarine and air warfare, rockets and projectiles, and nuclear weapons are the most spectacular instances. T he only record of success, and even this is mixed, is the effort to restrict the use of poisons and bacteria as battlefield weapons. Governments have become creatures of their doctrines about the

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primacy of state interests when it comes to national security policy. Everything gives way to the effort to prevail in war, the true heritage o f Machiavelli, Hobbes and Clausewitz. Yet, even the law itself upholds a reaction against such excess. There is built into the idea and history of the law of war a powerful influence from natural law thinking that preceded the specific agreements. The just war tradition on recourse to war and the ancient and mediaeval ideas of decency and chivalry regarding the conduct of war recognise certain elementary principles of justice and fairness as immutable, binding on all human activity quite independently of any further show of governmental consent by way o f explicit agreement. One task of citizen groups and international organisations is to insist that this natural law content not be abridged by states. This Commission has acted on the basis of this understanding o f international law. In actuality, customary international law provides the bridge between specific agreements and natural law. Even governments accept the view prevailing among specialists that agreements on the laws of war generally reduce to more precise written form principles of law already deemed binding through a combination of diplomatic practice, expert commentary, consensus as to natural law content and, more recently, the acts and resolutions of international and private bodies, especially the General Assembly of the United Nations, expressing the collective will and conscience of the international community. Agreements may reflect their tendency to embody pre-existing law by their textual language. For instance, in Article 1 of the Genocide Convention the parties to the agreement ‘confirm that genocide. . . is a crime under international law* (emphasis added), adverting to the fact that genocide was a crime before it was textually declared to be so. This organic link between written and unwritten guidelines for the law of war has a number of consequences. For one thing, it may make the signature and ratification of a particular agreement by a given government less important, or even unimportant, in relation to the assessment of obligations to be bound. Secondly, it can make new subject-matter - conflicts, tactics, weapons - subject to legal guidelines prior to explicit agreement. For instance, Article 36 of the Geneva Protocol I of 1977 declared: ‘In the study, development, acquisition or adoption of a new weapon, means or method of warfare, a High Contracting Party is under an obligation to determine whether its employment would, in some or all other circumstances, be prohibited by this Protocol or by any other international law to the High Contracting Party.* Thirdly, it means that some issues are more susceptible to modification or control by expression of objections to proposed guidelines or prohibitions by governments of states. It is crucial to understand, however, the extent to which customary international law provides a comprehensive framework for assessing all aspects of contested behaviour in a war. This special reliance on the general background of international law to

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complete what has been written and accepted in treaty forms was explicitly recognised in the so-called Martens Clause, appearing in the Preamble to the 1899 Hague Convention II: Until a more complete code of the laws is issued, the High Contracting Parties think it right to declare that in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, populations and belligerents remain under the protection and empire of the principles of international law, as they result from the usages established between civilised nations, from the laws of humanity, and the requirements of the public conscience, (emphasis supplied) Note the three sources of supplementary content for the international law of war enumerated above. The status of this general conception was reaffirmed in an extraordinary manner in 1949 by the inclusion of a treaty provision in each of the four Geneva Conventions on the humanitarian dimension of the law of war adopted at that time, declaring that even if a state denounces the agreements this shall in no way impair the obligations which the Parties to the conflict shall remain bound to fulfill by virtue of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilised peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of public conscience. (The same language is repeated in the preamble to the 1977 Geneva Protocols and the 1981 UN Weapons Convention). The more specific and applied content of the law of war can be deduced from four basic principles that comprise the content of general international law (that is, the three Martens categories and customary international law): 1. Principle of Necessity A prohibition upon methods, tactics and weapons calculated to inflict unnecessary suffering, death or destruction; the content of necessity is associated with the belligerent destruction of enemy armed forces and military targets; 2. Principle of Discrimination A requirement that methods, tactics and weapons employed are used in such a way as to discriminate between military and non-military targets and between combatants and civilians; the emphasis on discrimination is designed to uphold in the course of war the ideas of innocence and of sanctuary or protected places; 3. Principle of Proportionality A requirement that the military means used bear a reasonable relationship to the military ends being pursued; this requirement is designed to give real force to the prohibition upon excessiveness in the use of force;

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4. Principle of Humanity An absolute prohibition upon methods, tactics and weapons o f w arfare that are inherently cruel and that have been identified as such b y a n international ethical consensus; this prohibition is unconditional to underscore the forbidden status of certain practices (e.g. to rtu re ), regardless of alleged battlefield justifications. It should be obvious that such broad principles of law are not self-defining. A considerable battlefield and command discretion as to what is necessary and proportional is allowed. At the same time, it needs to be understood th a t claims o f ‘military necessity* do not enlarge upon this discretion or abridge other requirements and prohibitions of the law of war. The doctrine o f military necessity has been taken into account in fashioning treaty rules a n d crystallising the general principles of customary international law. H ence, no separate grounds exist for the suspension of legal obligations due to political or military pressures. N or are conduct rules and appraisals influenced by the legality, or not, of the underlying or initiating use of force. The aggressor and the victims of aggression are on the same legal footing when it comes to the conduct of war, and the applicability of its rules. International law, like all law, develops through experience. Its specific content needs to be assessed in the context of controversy and concern. It is up to those making the legal appraisal to exhibit objectivity, respect for th e evidence, for adverse perceptions of law and fact, and for the complexities o f circumstances. This Commission has sought to be especially sensitive to these considerations in view of its special character. Our claim in this Report is that we have made every effort to gather evidence now available, to appraise it fairly and to balance the incompleteness of the evidence against the importance we attached to the issuance of a report at the earliest possible time. The Commission operated within constraints of skills, resources and capabilities. Unlike, for instance, the Israeli Judicial Enquiry into the Chatila and Sabra massacres, our Commission lacked any formal competence to compel testimony or even to administer oaths. Our proceedings were not shaped, either, by any technical conception of the admissibility or the relevance of testimony. At the same time, we sought to validate the information available to us, partly by obtaining confirmatory evidence from distinct and diverse sources whenever possible, partly by checking with a vast corpus of documentary and journalistic material (a task facilitated by the Research Staff and the Commission Secretariat in London), partly by extensive cross-questioning of witnesses by Commission members, and partly by a requirement that any major witness or presentation of evidence be heard by two or more Commission members. The Commission also refused to validate certain allegations despite receiving uncontested evidence (e.g. an alleged use by Israel of weapons designed to be picked up as ‘toys’) because the nature of the charge could not

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be substantiated sufficiently to satisfy our sense of its having been established as true beyond a reasonable doubt; one element operating here was our inability to confirm in a tangible way the allegations made. An additional concern arose out of the tense atmosphere surrounding our evidence-taking in both Lebanon and Israel. We granted witnesses whatever confidentiality they requested. Many witnesses or potential witnesses were fearful of recriminations or punishments that might be visited upon them at a later stage if it became known that they contributed to the work of the Commission. In some situations, the Commission has withheld the identity of a witness despite the absence of such a request because of our own sense that jeopardy could result. As the official policies of the State of Israel were the centre of our concern we sought in every way to give the Israeli authorities a full opportunity to be heard. As noted in the Preface, the Chairman of the Commission wrote a letter to Prime Minister Begin, formally requesting Israeli cooperation with the work of the Commission. The request was denied and the Israeli Foreign Ministry issued a statement advising Israeli citizens not to cooperate. Hence, the Commission was unable to obtain direct testimony from leading Israeli officials. The Commission did advertise its existence in leading newspapers in Israel, inviting anyone in Israel with any evidence bearing on the allegations or their refutation to come forward. Several Israeli witnesses favourable to government policies in the Lebanon War did come forward and were fully heard. The Commission also developed contacts of its own to receive as full a presentation of Israeli perspectives as possible. We do not pretend that the Commission’s hearings cover fully the official lines of Israeli defence against the allegations covered in our Report. Extensive documentary and journalistic sources were available and used widely to complete the picture. The Commission has considered the best legal defences open to Israel with respect to these allegations, regardless of whether such a defence has been in fact directly relied upon by Israel. In this respect the Commission has proceeded by giving Israel as much protection as possible against these very serious allegations. A commission without a formal mandate from a government or an international institution is a very specific kind of legal creature. It owes its legitimacy to its performance and to the integrity of its sponsoring and disseminating process, as well as to the reputation and abilities of its members and sponsors. In the fullest sense, all peoples share an interest in achieving a more lawful world. The failure of governments to uphold the law of war, either with respect to recourse to war or to its conduct, creates a normative vacuum in relation to the most serious questions confronting humanity. This Commission, through its Report, seeks to tell the legal story of one notable war directly involving Israel, Lebanon, Syria and the Palestine Liberation Organisation. The Commission has ambitions that are even broader. In calling attention to serious Israeli violations of international law, we believe

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that public opinion and official bodies should not only support the Conclusions and Recommendations we put forward, but also become alert to the urgency of bringing law far more effectively to bear on the initial decision of a government to use force as an instrument of national policy, and then on the subsequent use of force in the course of combat. We regard these wider ambitions of our Commission’s Report to be a fulfilment of the original intentions of the United Nations Charter, as well as carrying out the solemn promise to the future contained in the Nuremberg Judgment and Principles. The Commission is painfully aware that it lacks any capability to implement its Recommendations. International law as a whole is notoriously weak when it comes to sanctions and enforcement. This Commission makes no pretence to enforce anything. Its Report is in the nature of a public document, an international citizens’ White Paper: that is - in the final analysis - an appeal to the conscience and wisdom of the governments involved, of international society as a whole, and of the conscience and concerns of peoples throughout the world. Finally, the Commission is concerned with peace and justice for all the parties to this conflict. Its Report is offered as a contribution to this end.

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Section I The Recourse to War

Chapter One

Israel’s justification for the Invasion

T h e terms of reference of the International Commission of Enquiry oblige it to discuss and evaluate Israel's justification ‘under international law for its invasion of the Lebanon, for the manner in which it conducted hostilities, or for its actions as an occupying force'. But more important than the Commission's terms of reference is the fact th at, by the very nature of international society, with its decentralised process of decision-making and the absence of international machinery for assessing claim and counter-claim automatically, it becomes necessary to tu rn to a state's reasons in order to enable it to explain contested actions so th a t the justifications can be tested against the appropriate rules of law, especially in relation to the plea of self-defence under the Charter of the U nited Nations. In pursuit of these obligations, the Chairman of the International Commission has explained, in the Preface, the way in which the Commission set about its work. In addition to these activities, the Commission has also endeavoured to establish the intentions and aims of the Israeli Government from the official statements, interviews and correspondence of Israeli officials and diplomats in order to distil Israeli motives or justifications that may justify, under international law, the invasion of Lebanon. T he Commission is mindful that the pattern of justification put forward on behalf of Israel is deeply influenced by the Israeli perception of Arab hostility to Israel's existence as a State and Israel's supporters point to the armed attacks after the 1948 partition of Palestine and the subsequent refusal of those Arab states to establish peaceful relations with it. This approach is strongly reaffirmed by Israeli feelings concerning the Palestine Liberation Organisation's continued adherence to the goals of the Palestine National Covenant. It is in this context that the Israeli justifications have been put forward in relation to the invasion of the Lebanon. Following the attempt on the life of the Israeli Ambassador to Britain, M r Shlomo Argov, on 4 June 1982, Israeli jets struck at Palestinian positions in southern Lebanon and in West Beirut. On the following day, Israeli jets and gunboats bombed and strafed PLO positions along the highway between Beirut and South Lebanon. For the first time since July 1981, artillery

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battles began between PLO and Israeli forces at the border. On 6 June, a few minutes before the invasion, the Israeli Chief of Staff informed the Commander of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon that Israel intended to launch a military operation in order th a t4Israel would no longer be within PLO artillery range*.1 But before the invasion took place, the Security Council of the United Nations discussed the renewal of bombing by Israel and passed Resolution 508 on 5 June demanding a cessation of hostile activities by Israel in Lebanon.2 During the debate, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations, M r Yehuda Blum, related the measures taken by Israel to the PLO ’s ‘constant terrorist provocations since July 1981* which included ‘150 acts of terrorism instigated by the PLO, originating in Lebanon, against Israelis and Jews in Israel and elsewhere: in Athens, Vienna, Paris and London’.3 In this list of alleged PLO activities, there was no reference to the PLO launching hostile acts from Lebanese territory on to the territory of Israel as no such activity had in fact taken place during the period. Lebanon, in the view of the Ambassador, was to be held responsible for all of these acts referred to above. The official Israeli Cabinet statement justifying the invasion of 6 June was issued on the same day and the Israeli armed forces were instructed ‘to place all the civilian population of the Galilee beyond the range of the terrorists* fire from Lebanon, where they, their bases and their headquarters are concentrated*.4 The military operation was described as ‘Peace for Galilee* and the Israeli forces were not to attack the Syrian forces (stationed in Lebanon as part of the Arab Deterrent Force since 1976). Finally, the Cabinet statement referred to the continued Israeli aspiration ‘to the signing of a peace treaty with independent Lebanon, its territorial integrity preserved*. On the same day, the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations justified the invasion to the Security Council by referring to Israel’s right to selfdefence as a ‘fundamental and inalienable right of any State, which is also recognised by the United Nations as the inherent right of Members of the Organisation.*5 The ostensibly limited nature of the land invasion was explained by the need ‘to protect the lives of [Israeli) citizens and to ensure their safety and the threat posed by the presence* of “terrorists” in the Tyre pocket and “ nests’* within the U N IF IL area of operations in southern Lebanon.1 But his conclusion seemed to anticipate a wider Israeli demand which emerged fairly quickly when, within a few days, the Israeli land forces reached the outskirts of Beirut. No longer was it merely a question of PLO forces being withdrawn from southern Lebanon, or from within artillery range of Israel. ‘As long as these non-Lebanese elements are allowed to operate within and from Lebanon, no real progress will be achieved towards a return of the effective authority of the Government of Lebanon, throughout the length and breadth of the country’, M r Blum said. It was soon evident that the first set of justifications were meant to induce

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a feeling of acceptability internationally, in order to minimise the full effect of the Israeli motivation and actions in embarking on the war. The major desire was to remove the PLO, not only from the south, but also from the whole of Lebanon, with particular reference to Beirut, the political centre of Palestinian resistance. The first four days of the invasion saw a correlation between the military means and the Israeli aims. Besides the attacks on Palestinian refugee camps, the general direction of the invasion was to capture and destroy the physical and fighting potential of the PLO. But the air-raids on Beirut from 10 June onwards and the failure to land airborne troops at Beirut airport showed that the political aim was to direct large-scale air, sea and artillery attacks on Beirut in order to drive the city into submission. The justifications accordingly changed, in order to fit the invasion into a wider political context. On 8 June 1982, Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations, while disavowing any territorial ambitions in Lebanon, demanded that ‘proper arrangements be made so that Lebanon should no longer serve as a staging ground for terrorist attacks . . . We are entitled to demand that concrete arrangements be made that would permanently and reliably preclude hostile actions against Israel’s citizens from Lebanese soil’.6 The wider political aim of neutralising Lebanon by the installation of an amenable Christian government, which was reportedly M r Sharon’s aim in the first week of the invasion7, now involved the question of removal of all ‘foreign* troops in Lebanon, which effectively meant the elements of the Syrian deterrent force. The need to remove all Palestinian influence in Lebanon, and not merely the military presence, began to be articulated as the invasion became bogged down in the siege of Beirut. The Chief of Staff of the Israeli Army, General Rafael Eitan, is reported to have said that the Israeli ‘stay in Lebanon is part of the struggle over Eretz Israel. That is the point. This whole battle in Beirut - it is the struggle over Eretz Israel, a war against the main enemy that has been fighting over Eretz Israel for a hundred years*8 (‘Eretz Israel’ is a reference to Biblical Israel). The relationship between the invasion and the need to obtain the submission of the Arab population in the Occupied Territories was clearly delineated by the Israeli Minister of Defence, Ariel Sharon, when he referred to this other basic aim of the war: ‘The bigger the blow and the more we damage the PLO infrastructure, the more the Arabs in Judea and Samaria and Gaza will be ready to negotiate with us and establish co­ existence’.9 (The West Bank, in the eyes of the present administration in Israel, is part of the Biblical Judea and Samaria.) As the invasion developed into a war of attrition by the middle of July, with Israel consolidating its military positions in the south, around Beirut and in the Chouf Mountains, there was an escalation in the reasons for the Israeli intervention. The Syrian factor was brought more to the fore. This is

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borne out by the reply to the invitation issued by the Chairman of the International Commission to the Israeli Government to give evidence before the Commission. In its official reply, the Israeli spokesman referred to a ‘war of aggression [which) has been waged by the PLO and Syria in Lebanon since 1975, a war which has wreaked (sic) destruction in that State and undermined the normal functioning of its government. The Syrian army, still in Lebanon to this very day, is there illegally, as the Lebanese Government did not extend the mandate of the “ Arab Deterrent Force” when it expired towards the (end of June), a mandate which has served as a cover for the Syrian occupation*. Somewhat inconsistently, the Syrian factor had not occupied the same degree of prominence a few weeks earlier when the Israeli Minister of Defence, Mr Sharon, had written in the London Times10 in mid-July 1982 that Israel did not ‘get into war to remove the Syrians from Lebanon. We went to war to eliminate Palestinian terrorism from Lebanon . . . The goal was to push them 45 kilometres away from our Northern border in order to establish an area which would prevent any future terrorist activities*. But by now, the original purpose of the ‘Peace for Galilee* operation began to recede into the background because M r Sharon emphasised that Israel had not given any ‘guarantee to the terrorists beyond this line. When we mentioned this security belt, we never said that we were going to leave the terrorists beyond this line*. In brief, the Israeli ‘defence* was therefore based on the assimilation of the idea of Israeli security with self-defence. Beginning with the initial premise that the Lebanon had served as, or allowed itself to be used for, a launching pad for attacks on Israel via the Galilee, the argument was generalised to cover a wider dimension: that Lebanon was a base for terrorism, in that attacks against ‘Jews and Israelis* throughout the world had been organised in and launched from Lebanon. Israeli intervention was therefore likened to ‘police action* such as that undertaken against pirates and piracy under traditional international law where any state has jurisdiction to remove such an incubus. Therefore, although Article 51 of the Charter assets the right to selfdefence only ‘if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations’, the Israeli view is that the right to self-defence goes beyond the idea of protecting borders implicit in Article 51 of the Charter and permits a state to take action, given the decentralised nature of international society, against a ‘centre of terrorism*. In any event, part of the Israeli argument is that Israel’s interest in the Lebanon is not territorial but consists simply of a desire to remove a threat to its security. Therefore, this argument contends that the Charter of the United Nations prohibits, under Article 2(4), any threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. Israeli intervention in the Lebanon, or elsewhere for that matter, ensures the return of a state’s sovereignty to its lawful administration which was not able to

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protect its sovereignity from armed groups, and cannot be considered to be contrary to Article 2(4) of the Charter as the attack is not against Lebanon, in this instance. It had also been contended by Israel and its supporters that since the United Nations system has effectively broken down, there has therefore been a return to the pre-Charter concepts of discretionary behaviour, entitling each state to determine when it has a right to intervene. The Commission rejects these approaches as they would lead to a validation of the most aggressive manifestations of State behaviour.

References 1.

Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, 11 June 1982. 2. Resolution 508 adopted by the Security Council at its 2,374th meeting on 5 June 1982. 3. The speech of the Representative of Israel, Prof Y. Blum, to the U N Security Council meeting on 5 June 1982. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. D ino, 8 June 1982. 7. The Jerusalem Post, 10 June 1982. 8. Ha’aretz, 9 July 1982. 9. The Times, 5 August 1982. 10. The Times, 14 July 1982.

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Chapter Two

Israel’s real Aims for the Invasion

The professed and declared aims of Israel have been described earlier in th e previous chapter of this Report. They embrace two aspects. Firstly, there is the clear objective to extirpate the PLO from the south of Lebanon, then from the whole of Lebanon, together with the Syrian forces. This later embraced General Eitan’s call for the disarming and expulsion of local radical militia, such as the Mourabitoun, even though they are Lebanese in nationality and in their political role.1 There was then no reference to the disarming of the Phalange or the Haddad militia. Associated with this aim has been the articulated demand for a security zone to the north of the Galilee. The second aim, professed only after the invasion had got under way, was the demand for a peace treaty between Lebanon and Israel which, on the Camp David formula, would have neutralised Lebanon by removing it from the Arab camp, led to the dispersal of the civilian Palestinian population and established a friendly, preferably Christian, government in a country where Muslims and non-Maronite Christians constitute nearly 80% of the population. But it has been obvious that there were deeper and more fundamental objectives associated with the invasion. Witnesses in Israel and Lebanon, in particular, drew the attention of the Commission to different strands in the thinking and strategy of the present Israeli leadership. Confirmation of these views can be found in the testimony of witnesses, the statements of Israeli leaders and the commentaries of analysts, particularly from the West.1 The original and announced objective of clearing the guerillas from a 25mile zone was soon shown to be a smokescreen for the real advance to Beirut, which had always been in the minds of the military and political planners. The operation was not a limited one. Its first objective was to exterminate Palestinian nationalism.2 It became evident to the Commission that the invasion of Lebanon was designed to secure not Israel’s northern front but its eastern and to cow the Palestinians there into fleeing to Jordan as their predecessors in Israel fled during the early days of Israel’s creation. It is therefore by their proclaimed policies in the West Bank (the Palestinians’ only remaining home) that M r Begin, M r Sharon and the extreme Israelis have to be assessed. They proclaim these territories to be a permanent part of the true Israel and their non-Jewish inhabitants to be entitled only to the autonomy of the tribal reserve. This, as many commentators have remarked, is the real aim of the

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invasion, the act of aggression is motivated by a desire to destroy Palestinian nationalism in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This strategy is part of a continuing campaign to deny a nationality to the Palestinians. From Mrs Golda Meir*s statement in 1969, ‘There was no such thing as Palestinians . . . They did not exist*, to M r Sharon’s June 1982 response: ‘But they have a homeland. It is the Palestine that is called Jordan*,3 there has been a continuum in ideas and policy. The Occupied Territories This continuity in policy is determined by a policy of driving Palestinians away from the Occupied Territories by various administrative and legal measures, so as to ensure that the ‘proper* balance in the population of the area between Israeli and Arab is maintained and through the policy of establishing new Jewish settlements. But the overall objective has always been the same: the Palestinians have no right to an independent homeland as they have never constituted a nation. The details of the application of such policies fall outside the remit of the Commission but have been exhaustively described elsewhere, especially in the reports of the United Nations Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices affecting the Human Rights of the Population of the Occupied Territories, established by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1968, and from the deliberations of the UN Palestinian Rights Committee set up by the General Assembly in 1975. The International Commission of Jurists* publication entitled The West Bank and the Rule of Law and published in 1980 is specially valuable concerning changes by Israel in the judicial and legal systems in the West Bank. But in the context of increasing local and international pressure for an Israeli recognition of the rights of the population of the Occupied Territories in recent months, Israel sought to frustrate this momentum, which was closely associated with the recognition of the PLO, by intensifying the pressure on the inhabitants of the Occupied Territories. The relationship between the invasion and the intensification of repression in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and Gaza was drawn to the attention of the Commission. There are many examples to bear this out. As far as new Jewish settlements are concerned, the Israeli authorities announced a governmental decision to establish 23 settlements in the Occupied Territories, 15 of these to be in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.4 On 10 August, it was announced that four more settlements were to be established in the West Bank, and on 29 August, it was decided that a new settlement was to be erected on newly confiscated land in the Ramallah district.5 These developments are in the context of seven settlements which have already been built in the West Bank. While Israeli settlements are being expanded, the introduction by the West Bank*s Military Governor of a new law for organising cities has the desired effect of reducing residence areas for Palestinians in the occupied towns and cities.

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Land confiscation - one of the chief instruments for creating hardship and tension among the Arab population - was intensified during the invasion. Although many thousands of dunums were confiscated, it has only been possible to establish authoritatively that between June and August 11,000 dunums were confiscated in the Nablus, Bethlehem and Ramallah regions.7 Central to the Israeli policy of by-passing the city and village councils who continue, together with their mayors, to adopt an independent position, is the pressure being generated to obtain acceptance by the inhabitants of the West Bank ‘Civil Administration* and the Israeli-sponsored and initiated ‘village leagues*. Uncooperative local authorities were sacked in a number of village and city areas between June and August 1982, and pressure by way of restraints on freedom of travel was used to obtain co-operation from other councils.8 Persons wishing to travel to the East Bank (Jordan) are now being compelled to have their permits stamped by the civil administration of the village leagues.9 The consequences of delay in obtaining permits has had disastrous consequences for different groups, especially farmers whose livelihood has been affected. Transfer of authority to issue permits to village leagues is an attempt by Israel to legitimise these bodies. Another example was the ruling that villagers in the Nablus area were not allowed to travel for two months unless they established a village league in the area.10New village leagues have been established and arms distributed among their members. New administrative and political measures have recently been introduced which strengthen Israeli control and power in the Occupied Territories. These range from changes in the rights of residence to ordering public sector employees to open accounts in Israeli banks operating in the Occupied Territories. Hundreds of people, especially university students, have been arrested in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Shops have been closed down in the West Bank by the military authorities, while in Gaza Israeli soldiers used force to compel the re-opening of shops in order to terminate the general strike in the town. The universities and other educational institutions have felt the force of harassment and pressure during the invasion.11 Bethlehem University was closed down on 13 June 1982 by the Israeli authorities until further notice; Bir Zeit University was closed for three months from 9 July because most of the students had demonstrated against the occupation. They were not allowed to continue their studies at other institutions in Jerusalem and Ramallah after the closure of the university. 200 teachers in the Golan Heights were sacked on 22 June for participating in a strike and Al-Najah University was closed for 12 days in June. Students in the Gaza Strip were not allowed to travel freely in order to get to Egypt to sit entrance examinations and many young people, especially girls, were harassed by interviewing officers when they sought permits to leave. Various economic measures were introduced to raise money to finance the invasion and, in particular, Arab workers in Israel had part of their salaries

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deducted for this war fund.12 In August, Arab farmers were prevented from marketing their products in Israel in order not to compete with Israeli farmers. This was done by the blocking of several roads and preventing Arab farmers from travelling to Israel. The settlement policy in the occupied areas has been seen as part of the military pacification strategy, first developed by M r Yigal Allon, former Defence Minister, and accelerated by M r Begin’s government. The new Minister for Science and Technology in the Israeli Cabinet, Professor Yuval N e’eman, appointed in July 1982, claimed that Israel has embarked on a ‘battle against time to ensure that rapidly increased Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip would ensure that there was no possibility of establishing an independent Palestine state there’. A situation must be created ‘in which there would practically be nowhere, no place left to create a Palestinian state other than in Jordan - where there is one already’.13 The ceasefire of July 1981 There is general agreement that the ceasefire negotiated by M r Habib, the special US envoy between the PLO and the Israeli Government had been successful in ensuring that the PLO did not attack Galilee. For nine months, there was no evidence of any Israeli casualties caused by PLO gunners firing into Israel. When Israeli planes bombed Lebanon on 21 April 1982 for the first time since the truce started, the PLO did not respond. After another bombing on 9 May, there was a limited response: about 100 rockets that caused no damage or casualties. Then, after the massive Israeli bombing (early in June), the PLO responded with fullscale barrages. Effectively, therefore, the ceasefire kept the Galilee safe until Israel bombed Lebanon.14 Various commentators have suggested that Israel could no longer bear the strain of this successful ceasefire which indicated that the PLO was pursuing diplomacy, not war. Professor Yehoshua Porath, the well-known Israeli historian, has suggested that Yasser Arafat’s success had serious implications for the Israeli administratjon.15 The ceasefire had the effect of enhancing the legitimacy of the PLO as a responsible political body. The dynamics of such a development could well have brought on world­ wide pressure at some future date for negotiations between Israel and the PLO on the future of the Occupied Territories. The Israeli Government analysis therefore saw the PLO as standing in the way of the eventual absorption of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in which the Palestinians would submit to Israeli domination and eventual Israeli sovereignty and accept a degree of communal autonomy without national independence. The backbone and spirit of the Palestinians had to be broken in Lebanon, so as to put into practice the Israeli version of autonomy in the Occupied Territories.

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Long-term military and ‘security’ strategy Israeli witnesses before the Commission testified to the extent to which th e Israeli national consensus which had existed in 1956,1967 and 1973 over th e wars with the Arab world had been ruptured over the Lebanese invasion.16 The treatment of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians had had a serious effect and the siege of Beirut, with its inevitable escalation in bombing, indiscriminate violence and hardship, had an even greater effect on Israeli public opinion. But it was the aim and objective of the war which also disturbed many Israelis. Professor Hans Kxeitler - a friend of Jabotinsky, whose teachings Begin has followed - is reported to have said: ‘All our wars from 1948 to 1973 were over the very existence of statehood. For all Israelis, the issue of statehood is existentialist. This was the first time that this was not the case.* Many Lebanese witnesses referred to the existence of Lebanon as a democratic state with a free press and a co-existence of different groups establishing a Lebanese ‘mosaic*, but as part of an Arab community.17 It was suggested that Israel’s interests were better served by weak, divided and confessional states around it. There is considerable evidence to confirm the view that Israel’s interests are served by a divided Lebanon in which sectarian strife is actively fomented. Israel’s intervention in the civil war o f 1975-1976 firmly illustrated this aspect of their strategy. The Lebanon provided a rich field for the overt and covert activities of the Israeli armed forces and intelligence services for the promotion of ethnic and religious divisions between Lebanese groups and between the Palestinians and Lebanese. It has also been contended that Israel is increasingly exploiting the ethnic and religious divisions of some of its Arab neighbours. Another aspect of the long-term strategic interests of Israel was clearly identified by the Minister of Defence, Mr Sharon, in a candid analysis presented to the University of Tel Aviv’s Centre for Strategic Studies in December 1981.18 Having identified the two main external threats to Israel, her integrity and her sovereign rights, as arising from two sources in the ‘Arab confrontation’ and ‘Soviet expansion which both builds on the Arab confrontation and at the same time provides it with its main political and military tools’, General Sharon referred to what he called the ‘strategic hinterland of Israel’. This geographical area of Israeli strategic interest comprises those ‘external countries whose political strategic status and orientation can dangerously influence Israel’s national security’. In order to understand the reason for the ‘pacification* of Lebanon, there must be an understanding of the area covered by Israel’s need for security. For M r Sharon, apart from the ‘Arab countries in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and the Red Sea, Israel’s sphere of strategic and security interest must be broadened to include in the ’80s countries such as Turkey, Iran and Pakistan and regions

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such as the Persian G ulf and Africa, particularly the countries of North and Central Africa*.19Presumably, South Africa has been excluded from this list as it is already safe within the area of security because of close military, economic and political links with Israel. Israel plays a vital role in the geo-political arrangements of the Middle East in partnership with the United States. The relationship with the United States allows Israel to receive nearly half of the total foreign and military aid provided each year by the United States. It is also the recipient of large-scale military hardware, the most sophisticated of which was intensively tested and used in the Lebanon. With the weakness of the Arab world, the Lebanon campaign was an important step towards securing Israel’s strategic objectives. Economic Interests A number of Lebanese witnesses referred to Lebanon’s banking, tourist, communications and food resources and their advantages over Israel’s.20 Lebanon did not constitute a military threat to Israel but it was a centre of economic, financial and commercial vitality for the entire Arab world. Lebanon was also the centre of Arab educational, remedial and medical services, a great deal of which was comprehensively destroyed by the bombing in a manner that could not be explained by Israel’s other combat objectives. This discrepancy has naturally led Lebanese leaders of various persuasions to report to the Commission their suspicion that one of Israel’s main objectives is the substantial destruction of the Lebanese economy. The war has led to serious dislocation from which Lebanon may not recover but from which Israel may obtain serious advantages in the battle-torn and weary situation. D uring the invasion, there were some clearly and publicly attested examples of economic pillage.21 One was the removal of the computer terminal, telephones, electronic equipment and even an aircraft, from Beirut Airport to Israel by the Israeli Army. Another was the removal of a large quantity o f steel bars from the South, allegedly because they belonged to the PLO. Witnesses in Lebanon, including senior and respected politicians, gave evidence to the Commission concerning the economic motives for the invasion22 and some concentrated on the removal of equipment from plants and factories, including the destruction of much of Lebanon’s touristic facilities upon which they depended heavily for earning foreign exchange. There was also concrete evidence that factories and installations were destroyed after the fighting had ended, for which there could be no military justification. This was confirmed by independent sources, such as a former Prime Minister of the Lebanon, M r Saeb Salam. The Minister of Agriculture of Lebanon gave evidenoe that agricultural research stations in areas under Israeli occupation were either destroyed or pillaged, and tractors and other equipment diverted to Israel. The Commission has not been able

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to establish the validity of the charge that there was an organised and systematic attempt by Israel to destroy the economy of Lebanon, because of the limited number of examples provided, although the evidence presented to the Commission gives strong grounds for concern. Israel's Territorial Aspirations The Commission received evidence that Israel harboured certain territorial aspirations towards Lebanon, the most significant of which may have been its intention to obtain access to or possibly control over the waters of th e Litani River, the major sweet water source in Lebanon, which makes th e southern Beka’a valley the richest agricultural area of Lebanon. T h e Commission’s attention was drawn to Israel’s urgent need for access to water as its needs cannot be met even after appropriating the water resources of th e Occupied Territories. The territory up to Sidon has sometimes been described as part of Eretz Israel - biblical Israel - an approach recently supported by an Israeli Cabinet Minister, Professor N e’eman, who has advocated that the Israeli army should remain in southern Lebanon for a ‘period of years rather than months’. He has advocated Israeli control of the country up to the Zahrani River which lies north of the Litani, ‘Because that area touches on us from every point of view*.23 Most important, he would press for a project for the joint use of the resources of the Litani River a few miles north of the present border. The implications of this for Lebanon are enormous. If even a ‘joint project’ is established, it would be necessary to control an area up to Lake Karaoun, which would give Israel control up to the Beirut-Damascus Road. Significantly, it has been disclosed that the Israeli Defence Minister does not dispute that ‘senior reserve officers were told on the day of the June invasion that the objective of the campaign was to cut the Beirut-Damascus road and set up a new regime in Lebanon’.24 This was not a totally unreal hope as Moshe Dayan earlier had suggested a Christian regime in Lebanon ‘which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel’.25 Israel, since 1978, has in effect established a ‘security zone’ in South Lebanon. Following the invasion, it has become clear that in the absence of a treaty similar to the Camp David arrangements with Egypt, Israel either intends to retain direct control over the area or act through M r Haddad’s forces, which for the past four years have acted as Israel’s agents. The invasion of Lebanon, therefore, had larger and more important reasons and motives. To establish the legal legitimacy of the invasion, both the professed and real motives will have to be taken into account.

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References I. 2.. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

9. 10. I I. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22.

23. 24. 25.

Monday Morning, 6-12 September 1982; & A1 Ittihad, 31 August 1982. International Herald Tribune, 25 June 1982. The Times, 28 August 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Crown Prince Hassan Ali, Amman, 12 September 1982; & A1 Talia, 1 July 1982 and 29 June 1982. A1 Ittihad, 31 August 1982. Testimony to the Commission o f Mohamed Milhem, deported Mayor of Hebron, Amman, 10 August 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Crown Prince Hassan Ali, Amman, 12 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Rouhi al-Khatib, deported Mayor of Jerusalem, Amman, 11 September 1982; & The New York Times, 7 July 1982; & The Guardian, 10 July 1982. Testimony to the Commission o f Mohamed Milhem, deported Mayor of Hebron, Amman, 10 September 1982. A1 Talia, 29 July 1982. The New York Times, 9 July 1982. A1 Talia, 15 July, 17 June, 14 July, 22 July & 13 August 1982. The Times, 29 July 1982. International Herald Tribune, 23 April 1982, 11 May 1982 & 8 June 1982. Ha’aretz, 25 June 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Gideon Spiro and Yehuda Melzer, Jerusalem, 8 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Saeb Salam, Beirut, 3 September 1982 and Prime Minister Shafik Al-Wazzan, Beirut, 2 September 1982. Lecture by Ariel Sharon to Tel Aviv University Centre for Strategic Studies, December 1981. The Observer, 8 August 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Walid Joumblatt, Beirut, 3 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Walid Joumblatt, Beirut, 3 September 1982; Moustafa Durnaiqah, Minister of Agriculture, Beirut, 3 September 1982; and Radwan Mawlawi, Beirut, 31 August 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Radwan Mawlawi, Beirut, 31 August 1982; Georges Howi, Beirut, 1 September 1982; Saeb Salam, Beirut, 3 September 1982; and Walid Joumblatt, Beirut, 3 September 1982. The Times, 29 July 1982. The Guardian, 20 October 1982. From Moshe Sharett’s Diary, quoted in Guardian Weekly, 27 June 1982.

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Chapter Three International Law and the Invasion of the Lebanon The legal regulation of the resort to force has occupied the attention of states and publicists for the best part of this century. From the period at the beginning of this century when the international legal order considered recourse to war to be a matter of discretion, within the sovereign competence of a State, we have now arrived at a formal situation where customary international law and the system established under the Charter of the United Nations impose severe restraints on the extent to which a State may have recourse to force to settle disputes. The principal restriction before the second world war on the undiluted right to war was that imposed by the Kellogg-Briand Pact, or the General Treaty for the Renunciation of War of 1928, where the High Contracting Parties declared ‘in the names of their respective peoples that they condemn recourse to war for the solution of international controversies, and renounce it as an instrument of national policy in their relations with one another*. This treaty formed one of the bases of the prosecution of the Nazi war criminals at the Nuremberg Trials, as the Nazi war machine had embarked on an aggressive war, contrary to the provisions of the Pact. However, it was generally accepted, without express mention, that the pact permitted recourse to war in self-defence. In the Nuremberg Judgment, the Tribunal rejected the defence argument that Germany was the sole judge as to whether, under the Kellogg-Briand Pact, the occasion demanded preventive action and that Germany’s judgement was conclusive. The Tribunal laid down the important rule that ‘whether action taken under the claim of self-defence was in fact aggressive or defensive must ultimately be subject to investigation and adjudication if international law is ever to be enforced . . The Charter of the United Nations provided a more complete regulation of the use of force in inter-state relations, by removing the loopholes whereby States actually resorted to war without the formality of a declaration of war by embarking on ‘forcible measures short of war*, such as reprisals, intervention or ‘pacific* blockades. These important provisions of the Charter are to be found in Article 2, paragraphs 2 and 3 o f the Charter which, firstly, oblige States to settle all international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security and justice are not endangered and, secondly, impose the serious obligation on Member

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States to ‘refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any State, or in any manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations’. The legitimate use of force is therefore limited under the law of the international community to self-defence, as specified by Article 51 of the Charter and by general international law, and to the occasions when the United Nations embarks on enforcement action under Chapter VII of the Charter where it decides that there is a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or an act of aggression. The Charter prescription on self-defence imposes important restrictions on the actual recourse to self-defence measures. First of all, there must be an armed attack against a Member of the United Nations. Secondly, the action taken must be restricted in time ‘until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security’. Thirdly, measures taken in self-defence ‘shall be immediately reported to the Security Council’ and it was anticipated in 1945 that this body would then exercise the principles of collective security on which the Charter system was based. The Commission is aware that, despite these important legal prescriptions, there have been widespread breaches of these norms since the adoption of the Charter and state practice has been largely of a negative variety. However, the Commission is concerned to assert on behalf of peoples the validity of these basic legal rules, if lawlessness is not to be permitted a blank cheque. Israeli publicists have referred to the use of the phrase ‘inherent right’ in Article 51, in the context of the right to individual or collective self-defence, as if this widened the power of a State to have recourse to force, especially in the context of a preventive war, otherwise known as anticipatory selfdefence. To accept this view would be to destroy the real and important restrictions imposed by the legal system, whatever its practical defects, and would fly in the face of the development of customary international law and the evolution of legal practice in the past forty years. Even if it is accepted that Article 51, which anticipates an armed attack, has not restricted the wider definition of the occasion for self-defence, which Israel contends allows for preventive or police action, it must be remembered that nearly 150 years ago, certain principles were laid down that limit such so-called preventive or self-defence measures as understood in 1841. These principles are often referred to as the ‘Caroline Rules’. They have been widely accepted by authoritative international tribunals and highly respected commentators. Under these rules, it is for the State having recourse to self-defence ‘to show a necessity of self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation*.*In addition, the State must show that it ‘did nothing unreasonable or excessive; since the act, justified by the necessity of self-defence, must be limited by that necessity*. Either on the basis of the Charter obligations or on the Israeli version of

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the classical international law, there can be no convincing justification for the invasion which began on 6 June. From the official reports of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, reviewing the work of U N IF IL in southern Lebanon - and not contradicted by any party - there was virtually total observance of the Habib-negotiated ceasefire of July 1981. There are no reported serious breaches of the ceasefire from the Lebanese side throughout this period. However, in April 1981 there was serious bombing of Beirut by Israel, which did not evoke a significant response by way of retaliation from the P L O .1 In this period, four Israelis were killed and 21 injured but there was no evidence that this was due to PLO artillery from Lebanon or activities actually launched from Lebanon. On occasions in the past, certain States have supported the idea that a reprisal could be justified, not because of a single illegal act but because of an ‘accumulation of events’, especially in relation to guerrilla activities where infiltration from a base or bases in another country is the pattern of activities. But the Security Council, as the competent body, has rejected such an approach on-a number of occasions. In any event, Israel’s actions from the beginning of the invasion to the end of August 1982, when the siege of Beirut was lifted, were too extensive and widespread to be classified as a reprisal. The next issue which has to be discussed in relation to Israel’s justification is the question of correspondence. Even if the occasion for self-defence exists, there is the legal rule which refers to the need for a correspondence between the original wrong and the necessity for a reaction by way of selfdefence. The Security Council, through Resolutions 508 and 509, implicitly rejected such a correspondence by demanding that Israel withdraw its forces from Lebanon, but it is necessary for the Commission to come to its own independent conclusion. Israel has raised the basic argument that Lebanon, by refusing to suppress hostile activities against Israel and, by extension, against Israel’s citizens and Jews in other parts of the world, has become a ‘centre of terrorism’, thus affecting the security of the State of Israel. This ‘security* argument bears a close relationship to the discredited idea of ‘self-preservation*, whereby a State becomes the sole judge of what actions are necessary in order to protect its integrity or vital interests. ‘Security* is a broad political concept in which all States have an interest but which cannot be equated with self-defence, without a degeneration into a licence to use force whenever a State feels threatened, not necessarily militarily but also economically and politically. The ‘security* argument is closely related to the arrangements which Lebanon made to allow the Palestinians to settle in Lebanon and to exercise certain functions, including embarking on military activities against Israel. This was established under the Cairo Agreement of 1969, amended from time to time. The Israeli contention is that Israel was faced by a ‘vast terrorist arsenal of thousands of tons of weapons, ammunition, missiles and heavy artillery equipment, all of which constituted a direct, immediate and actual threat to

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Israel's security. The magnitude and immediacy of the threat, and the actual use of fire-power against civilian objectives both within Israel and in southern Lebanon, as well as the murderous terror operations against Jews and Israelis throughout the world, left no alternative but to remove that threat and to neutralise the scope of operations, including the headquarters, stores and infrastructure, so as to prevent its reappearance in the future.*2 (emphasis added). But as this ‘arsenal* had not been used against Israel for nearly a year during the ceasefire, the Israeli action could only be justified on the basis of removing a future or potential threat to Israel. Israel, of course, had no legal right to intervene in Lebanon because purely Lebanese interests were affected and it also had no warrant to sit in judgment on whether Syria had violated the terms of the 1976 Arab League Agreement under which Syria was invited into Lebanon. Whether the PLO or Syria had violated the respective agreements with Lebanon was a matter for the legal sovereign, Lebanon, however tenuous or precarious its hold. Israel cannot autonomously and unilaterally interpret agreements to which it was not a party, and the maintenance and enhancement of Lebanon’s sovereignty is a matter between Lebanon and the Security Council of the UN. The wider issues raised by Israel have been rejected by the international community through successive Security Council Resolutions which have refused to accept a linkage between the activities of the PLO and the retaliatory actions of successive Israeli Governments. In the particular context of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon Israeli voices have been raised against a war which has been seen as a war against the Palestinian people. One of the most notable legal opponents of the war has been Professor N athan Feinberg, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who concluded that a preventive war is not an exercise in self-defence.3 Evidence was presented to the Commission, in Israel and elsewhere, to the effect that preparations for the invasion had been undertaken long before the attempted assassination of Ambassador Argov in London. It was pointed out by Israeli witnesses that if the operation was simply to remove Palestinian firing positions in South Lebanon then this should have been the function of Israeli artillery. Israeli prowess in the use of precision-guided missiles and artillery was amply demonstrated during the invasion of Lebanon. Artillery capacity of 25-30 miles is commonplace for Israel, as the Israeli Minister of Defence has pointed out to Syria in referring to Israel’s capacity to strike at Damascus. General Rafael Eitan, the Chief of the Israeli Defence Staff, has disclosed that the ‘Israeli invasion of Lebanon had been planned to take place in July 1981 and had been postponed after a ceasefire had been arranged by Philip Habib, special US envoy*.4 The evidence to the Commission of a reserve officer in a paratroop regiment of the Israeli army who had served in Lebanon was specially significant. He informed the Commission that ‘we knew the plans of the war a couple of months before it started but it was too

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fantastic to believe*.5 The plan was known because his brigade had been called up for manoeuvres a couple of months before June 1982. The contingency plan was to get to Beirut as soon as possible. The witness informed the Commission that when the contingency plan was presented to the officers, it seemed ‘too fantastic* because ‘we know as paras that the price for this plan by way of casualties would be enormously high, and we knew what this entailed*. The Israeli defence of the invasion therefore turns on a wider entitlement to remove a ‘centre of terrorism*. Ignoring the apprehended or potential threat to Israel’s ‘security*, it would be useful to attempt an assessment of the actual violence perpetrated by the PLO or alleged to be committed by it, this being important in establishing a proportionality in Israel’s response. The figure for the number of Israeli victims caused by ‘Palestine terror* has been authoritatively given by General Sharon, the Israeli Minister of Defence, at the beginning of the invasion. In the 15 years prior to 1982, General Sharon stated that 1,392 Israeli lives had been lost through PLO violence. This figure was part of the justification he gave for the invasion and ‘to alleviate the extent of feelings concerning the victims of the Israeli army in Lebanon*. The independent Israeli newspaper, Ha *aretz, then scrutinised this figure and came to a remarkable conclusion. According to Israeli police archives, the number of Israeli victims of the PLO in those 15 years was 282 Israeli citizens who had died in Israel and in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Included in General Sharon’s figures were: 285 Israeli soldiers who had died in combat; 392 Palestinians from the Occupied Territories, including alleged bombers whose bombs went off prematurely, and 326 individuals from various countries ‘in all parts of the world who have been killed in some place by some terror group’.6 If the Israeli argument is that it is entitled to ‘eliminate’, ‘cleanse* and ‘purify* areas of violence and terrorism, its reactions have always been overwhelming, premeditated and out of all proportion to any initial ‘wrong*. Israel has used overwhelming force, from the raid on Beirut airport in 1968 and the attacks on refugee camps in 1978, 1980 and 1981, to the massive bombing of April 1982. In this process, thousands of Palestinian and Lebanese lives have been lost. The Israeli over-reaction has been direct and intentional, as the PLO military establishments in Lebanon have never represented a serious threat to Israel’s security. The general war policy was directed mainly at Palestinian civilians and ‘protected* targets such as schools, hospitals and refugee camps which are regarded by international law as ‘innocent*. If the essence of terrorism is intimidation, then not only the use of massive state power by Israel to destroy the infra-structure of the Palestinians but also the attempts to coerce the Arab world into submission are vivid illustrations of State terrorism. The use of State terrorism and the lack of proportionality can be illustrated by reference to damage to buildings and the destruction of property in Lebanon from 4 June to 2 September 1982. A

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number of sources have estimated such damage to total 12 billion dollars. As for the number of lives lost, before the massacres at Sabra and Chatila, according to hospital returns and police reports, 17,835 people were killed between 4 June and the end of August.7This figure does not include bodies not found or not reported either to police or to hospitals, or those buried in communal or mass graves. These figures are probably an underestimate. T he quoted figure of those injured is 30,103 but it does not include those who were not treated in hospital. With the effective breakdown of the Lebanese administration and a wariness on the part of the Palestinians to deal with the remaining organs of the State; as well as allegations, which the Commission could not substantiate, that the Israelis dumped bodies in the sea or covered them up by the use of tractors, the figures for the dead and injured could be much higher. As for the refugees, in the middle of August th e United Nations Relief and Works Agency estimated that there were nearly 100,000 Palestinian refugees outside Beirut who had either been deported or were in need.8This ignores Lebanese refugees. Other estimates o f Lebanese and Palestinian refugees vary between 500,000 and 800,000 persons who have been directly or indirectly displaced because of the invasion. The Israeli argument that such vast economic damage and the loss, after Chatila and Sabra, of more than 20,000 lives can be justified on grounds of self-defence lacks credibility. Their aggression can only be politically justified by a desire to re-draw the political map of Lebanon by restructuring the government and administration of that country, to remove the political presence of Palestinians under the guise of extirpating the ‘terrorists* of the P L O and to break the Palestinian national will in the Occupied Territories. Both of these approaches and motives are unsustainable in law. Since 1969, the General Assembly of the United Nations has adopted three major declaratory resolutions, none of which has met with Israel's dissent. The resolutions are considered to be part of international law becasue of the manner in which they were adopted, the extent of consensus and agreement by States and the fact that they were intended to provide an authoritative interpretation of the Charter of the United Nations and State practice. The Declaration on the Inadmissibility of Intervention in the Domestic Affairs of States, 1965 (adopted by 109 votes to 0, with 1 abstention, Resolution 2131 (xx)) condemned direct or indirect intervention, for any reason whatever, in the external or internal affairs of any other State and armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State. In addition, there was an important reference to the need for all States to respect the right to self-determination o f peoples and to the need to ‘contribute to the complete elimination of racial discrimination and colonialism in all its forms and manifestations’. In the important Friendly Relations Resolution, passed in 1970 without a vote (Resolution 2625 (xxv)), the General Assembly reiterated the Charter provisions concerning the threat or use of force and provided specific

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examples of obligations of States, including respect for existing international boundaries, the duty to refrain from the threat or use of force to violate international lines of demarcation such as armistice lines and, on this point, without prejudicing ‘the positions of the parties concerned with regard to the States and effects of such lines under the special regimes or as affecting their temporary character*. In this respect, Israel has been in serious breach of the Israeli-Lebanese Armistice Agreement of 1949. The reference to the right of self-determination in this resolution was sharper and more clearcut, compared to the earlier resolution and w ith a specific reference to the duty of every State ‘to promote, through joint and separate action, the realisation of the principle of equal rights and selfdetermination of peoples, in accordance with the provisions of the C harter, and to render assistance to the United Nations in carrying out th e responsibilities to it by the Charter regarding the implementation o f th e principle . . .* The right to render assistance to those peoples combating colonialism was spelt out more clearly, m keeping with the development of the practice o f States, by the important Resolution on the Definition of Aggression adopted in 1974 (Resolution 3314 (xxix)) by consensus. The first use of armed force by a State in contravention of the C harter shall constitute prima facie evidence of an act of aggression. A num ber o f acts, ‘regardless of a declaration of war*, qualify as an act of aggression and these include most of the activities Israel has been involved in in Lebanon, including an invasion, blockade of ports and bombardment. As far as motives for aggression are concerned, the Declaration is quite specific in th at ‘No consideration of whatever nature, whether political, economic, military or otherwise, may serve as a justification for aggression*. As far as the consequences of aggression are concerned, the Declaration, reflecting rule of jus cogens, refers to the impermissibility of acquiring th e titles to territory ‘special advantage’ as a result of aggression. A war o f aggression is described as a crime against international peace, which aggression gives rise to international responsibility. As the Israeli Government has referred to Lebanese toleration of th e activities of the PLO and a lack of a specific reference in the Charter to th e right of liberation movements to use force in pursuit of the right to selfdetermination, it is necessary to refer to the provisions of Article 7 of th e Declaration. This excludes from the enumerated acts of aggression the struggle of peoples forcibly deprived of the right to self-determination referred to in the Friendly Relations Declaration. The rights of these peoples, ‘particularly peoples under colonial and racist regimes or other forms of alien domination’ to struggle for self-determination and to seek and receive support, in accordance with the principles of the Charter and in conformity with the Friendly Relations Declaration is specifically protected. The right to revolt in colonial situations therefore is a part of international practice. In no vote at the Security Council or the General Assembly has

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there been a successful attempt to use guerrilla activity to provide a basis for a valid claim for the exercise of self-defence when retaliatory action has been taken by the colonial power. This ‘linkage* between guerrilla action and retaliation was the basis of the United States veto when South African aggression was denounced at the Security Council in August 1981, and the same State argued that condemnation of Israel over the Lebanese invasion ‘lacked balance* because ‘other parties* were not criticised. This approach, not supported by other states, owes more to strategic and political considerations than to respect for law. In fact the repertory of practice of both the Security Council and the General Assembly denies such ‘linkage*. Whatever the background or the provocation, if any, these organs have unreservedly condemned violations of ceasefire agreements and acts of reprisal9. The Security Council strongly condemned reprisals through ‘premeditated air attack by Israel on villages in southern Lebanon in violation of its obligations under the Charter and Security Council resolutions*;10 demanded that Israel ‘immediately desist and refrain from any ground and air military actions against Lebanon and forthwith withdraw all its military forces from Lebanese territory*.11 Following the destruction by Israel in 1968 of a number of civilian aircraft at Beirut Airport as a reprisal, the Security Council considered that ftie attack was ‘premeditated and of a large scale and carefully planned nature*, condemned Israel and opined that ‘Lebanon is entitled to appropriate redress for the destruction it has suffered, responsibility for which has been acknowledged by Israel*.12 In these and other resolutions, the two principal organs of the United Nations have been at pains not to confuse the cause with the consequence. The lack of clarity of the Security Council resolutions associated with the present invasion of Lebanon and their refusal to name states,13have more to do with the desire to forestall a US veto than the legal niceties of the situation. Previous Security Council UN I FI L resolutions14 have called for ‘s tr ia respect for the territorial integrity, sovereignty and political independence of Lebanon within its internationally recognised boundaries* and specifically called upon Israel immediately to cease its military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory. The Israeli justification, therefore, ignores the law as it has developed, not only in relation to aggression but also in relation to the right to selfdetermination. The rights of the Palestinian people, as a collective entity, as distinguished from their individual problems as refugees, follow from the 1967 war, when, a few years later, the principles of the Decolonisation Resolution of I96015 were applied to the Palestinians of the Occupied Territories. As they were under foreign occupation, their right to independence was equated with the struggles of colonial peoples, represented by a national liberation movement. What Israel in fact does by dismissing the PLO as a ‘terrorist* organisation

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is to dismiss the legitimacy of the demands of the Palestinian people, as articulated by their representative organ. Once the Palestinian people and the public organ are reduced to such a dehumanised status, a policy of nonrestraint can be flagrantly followed. The rejection of the national and cultural identity of the Palestinians results in a rejection of the Palestinian flag, the non-recognition of their Red Crescent Society, the destruction of their schools, the censorship of their books, the refusal to grant prisoner-ofwar status for their combatants, and the outlawing of their songs. Since Palestinians as an organic group cannot be tolerated, any overt sign that they are capable of building a national movement must first be resisted and then destroyed. The reduction of Palestinians to the status of wandering and hapless refugees is consistent with the pattern of warfare adopted in the Lebanon; this is the only rational explanation for the way in which the war in Lebanon was conducted. The attempted destruction of the national existence of the Palestinians in Lebanon is, therefore, a rejection of their right to self-determination. The right to self-determination is an incontestable legal right in contemporary international law and is one of the basic rights, described by lawyers as part of jus cogens. The continued refusal by Israel to recognise this right is the basis for the tension and violence in the Middle East. The PLO, with its alleged ‘vast arsenal of terror' could have unleashed the kind of intimidatory violence on which terrorism thrives. Israel refuses to acknowledge the position and status of the Organisation because such an acknowledgement would be inconsistent with the diplomatic and political role of the PLO as the representative of the people of Palestine. But such a recognition for the PLO has in fact been obtained from the United Nations, which has consistently rejected the equation of the struggles of national liberation movements, such as the PLO, with terrorism. States, which do not share common ideological and philosophical assumptions, have also recognised this role of the PLO.

References 1. 2.

International Herald T ribune,23 April & 8 June 1982. Israeli Government Briefing, 18 July 1982 (emphases added by the Commission). 3. Ha'aretz, 6 September 1982. 4. Financial Times, 3 July 1982. 6. Ha’aretz, 16 July 1982. 7. L ’Orient-le Jour, 2 September 1982. 8. UNWRA Report, mid-August 1982. 9. Security Council Resolution 248, 1968, in relation to Jordan. 10. Security Council Resolution 270, 1969. 11. Security Council Resolution 313, 1972.

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Security Council Resolution 262, 1968. Security Council Resolution 508,5 June 1982 and 516,1 August1982. Security Council Resolution 501,25 February 1982. Decolonisation Resolution, 1514 (XV), 1960. U N General Assembly Resolution on the Partition of Palestine 1947, Res. 181 (II).

Chapter Four

Legal Status of Liberation Movements

The right to self-determination is a recognition of the collective national entity which is accorded rights under the Charter and under international law. The recognition of the rights of a people is equally important as it presupposes that such rights will be or can be pursued through the instrument of a public body known as a national liberation movement and that the struggle itself is thereby accorded a legal status in international law. The consequences of this evolution of the law are far-reaching because it represents an important movement away from the old view under which international law rights pertain only to States and Governments and not to groups of individuals. Liberation movements recognised by the United Nations have, therefore, the capacity of existence at the level of international law as they are the legally prescribed instruments for the vindication of the right of self-determination. Without such a recognition, the right to resistance, which must be connected with a viable entity and accompanying political institutions, is devoid of meaning. The creative development of international law in support of the rights of subject peoples fighting against colonialism, racism and alien domination shows that international law adopts empirical tests as far as personality is concerned and the early statement of the Secretary-General of the UN that, ‘Practice has abandoned the doctrine that States are exclusive subjects of international rights and obligations’, has been upheld by subsequent practice concerning national liberation movements. In jurisprudential terms, this development has had extraordinary effect. ‘Colonial* issues are removed from the restrictions of the domestic jurisdiction clause of the Charter (Article 2 (7)); sovereignty vests in the people of the territory and not in the colonial power and the liberation movement has interim personality, as the representative of the peoples of the territory in question. The impetus for this development came from the struggles of the peoples of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau in the sixties and the formula

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used by the General Assembly and to a lesser extant the Security Council was applied to other situations. At the twentieth session in 1965, the General Assembly for the first time recognised the ‘legitimacy of the struggles by the peoples under colonial rules to exercise their right to self-determination and independence’ and, at the same time, it invited ‘all States to provide material and moral assistance to the national liberation movements in colonial territories’. The following year, the General Assembly went one step further and stated that the preservation of colonialism and its manifestations, including racism and apartheid, were incompatible with the Charter and the Declaration on Decolonisation. It further declared that colonialism threatened international peace and security and that the practice of apartheid constituted a crime against humanity, a characterisation which was to have important legal repercussions in the years ahead. As far as Palestine was concerned, recognition of the status of a Palestinian organisation depended on a whole range of unresolved issues in the fifties and sixties. For a number of years following the resolution of the General Assembly in 1947 to partition the former Mandated territory,16 the international community through the United Nations treated their expectations in a limited fashion. The human rights aspects were relegated to the important, but in terms of law, secondary issues of the rights of the Palestinian refugees and the application of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 to the conflict. The legal recognition of their right to self-determination lagged behind the social facts. Historically, the association of the people of Palestine with the territory now described as Israel and the Occupied Territories has been clearly established, and their role during the Ottoman Empire in opposing the idea of a Zionist National Home is part of the historical record. TTie conclusion of the First World War led to the excision of a number of territories from the Ottoman Empire and the transfer of territories in the Middle East to mandatory states such as Great Britain and France. No transfer of sovereignty to Britain took place when in 1922 the mandate over Palestine was created. Although the mandate incorporated the terms of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, with its promise of a national home for Jews, there was implicit recognition of the national rights of Palestinians. This was even more clearly identified when the ill-fated Partition Plan of 1947, under Resolution 181 (II), was adopted by the General Assembly, with its idea of partition into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, with a separate status for Jerusalem. The wars of 1948, 1956 and 1967 created the vast problem of refugees to which the UN turned. But the central fact of the rights of the Palestinians, as a national unit, had to await developments following the 1967 war. Resolution 242, adopted by the Security Council following the end of hostilities, lacked a recognition of the Palestinian right to nationhood. While the international right of Israel to exist as a state has by now been established and recognised, especially through its membership of the United Nations,

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th e re is a certain ambiguity about its status because a state of war exists b etw een Israel and several Arab states. However, the primary issue of Palestinian rights was consigned to the ‘problem' of refugees, who merely h a d a right to equitable treatment. Various Security Council Resolutions had underpinned Israel's legitimacy behind the frontiers of 1967 and, in accordance with international law , had denied legitimacy to territorial acquisitions in breach of international law, especially in relation to the Golan Heights and Jerusalem. Israel, as a juridical fact, had an entrenched existence. T h e changes in the world balance of forces, especially reflected in the composition of the United Nations, and the increasingly aggressive policies o f th e state of Israel led to important legal and political developments. The work o f the Commission on Human Rights of ECOSOC was specially valuable in establishing the breaches of the Geneva Conventions and deprivation of human rights in Israeli-occupied territories. But it was not until Resolution 3236 was passed by the General Assembly at its 29th Session in 1974 that the collective rights of the Palestinian people were fully and properly recognised. This resolution recognised that the people of Palestine were entitled to self-determination in accordance with the Charter and re-affirmed the people's inalienable rights, including: (a) (b) (c) (d)

the right to self-determination without external interference; the right to national independence and sovereignty; the inalienable right of the Palestinians to return to their homes; the right of the Palestinian people to be a principal party in the establishment of a just and durable peace in the Middle East.

Subsequently, even those States which abstained on or voted against Resolution 3236 began to recognise that the rights of the Palestinian people formed the ‘core' of the crisis in the Middle East. The next step, following the recognition of the rights of the Palestinian people, was the recognition of the right of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, formed in 1964, to represent the people of Palestine. Through General Assembly Resolution 3375 in 1975, the General Assembly called for the PLO, ‘the representative of the Palestinian people', to participate in all efforts, deliberations and conferences on the Middle East which are held under the auspices of the United Nations, on an equal footing with other parties on the basis of Resolution 3236 which, of course, refers to the right of self-determination. The PLO's status as a national liberation movement was recognised even more concretely when the General Assembly invited it (through Resolution 3237 (XXIX) 1974), ‘to participate in the sessions and work of all international conferences convened under the auspices of the General Assembly, and its organs', which it had done even before 1974. The PLO was admitted as afu ll member of the Economic Commission for West Asia, a

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UN organ, at the 63rd session of the ECWA in 1977, having enjoyed observer status from 1975 onwards. Even more significant for the status o f the PLO was the fact that it participated, as early as December 1975, in the debate on the Middle East at the Security Council, ‘as a concrete entity with the attributes of a sovereign Government*, when the Security Council invited it to participate under Rule 37 of its draft rules of procedure which apply to Member States. The PLO, in common with other liberation movements recognised by the U N , signed the Final Act of the Geneva Conference on Humanitarian Law, which updated the Geneva Conventions of 1949 through the adoption of two Protocols, and was given a formal status at the Law of the Sea Conference. These developments and the cumulative effect of resolutions providing a special status for the PLO at the United Nations and its organs mean that the PLO , although it is not a State, Government or territory, enjoys a special status in international law reflecting the perfect practical expression of the general principle of self-determination as it applies to the particular situation obtaining in the Middle East. By the end of 1981, 117 States had recognised the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people and many states had elevated a PLO office to diplomatic status. These developments have focused international attention on the fundamental aspect of the Palestinian issue which is central to an understanding of the conflict, viz. the right of the Palestinian people to a homeland where the right of self-determination can be exercised. ‘More than thirty years after their dispersal’, as one writer has put it, ‘the world has at last agreed that the injustice done to the Arabs of Palestine must be rectified. It has finally accepted that the Palestinians constitute a separate people and should have their own home - not a Bantustan patrolled by the Israeli army but a proper home. They must have a state, not one that displaces Israel but one that can live alongside it.’ Israel’s judicial right to exist has been confirmed and established by international law and reiterated by Security Council and General Assembly resolutions, especially those concerned with the right of States in the Middle East to exist within secure frontiers, that is, frontiers established de facto by 1967. The exercise of the right to self-determination by the Palestinians in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967 is a pre-requisite for peace in the area. Such a recognition is articulated in the resolution of the Palestine National Council of 19 April 1981 where the securing of the ‘inalienable rights of the Arab people’ of Palestine is associated with the establishment of their own State, in the context of ensuring the Security and sovereignty of all States in the region, including those of Israel*. The Arab Peace Plan of 9 September 1982, adopted at Fez and to which the PLO is a party, associates the Security Council of the United Nations as a guarantor of peace ‘of all States in the region, including the Palestine State’.

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Section II The Conduct o f the War

Chapter Five

Introduction

The conduct of war violates most of the precepts by which societies are governed in time of peace. Destruction of property, killing and wounding and imprisonment become the norms governing human relations during armed conflicts. The first reaction of some witnesses and commentators during our enquiry was to exclaim that ‘there is no law in war but to stay alive*. Not only international lawyers will deny this assertion. However, a little thought will lead rapidly to the conclusion that wholly unrestrained violence to persons and property is not the norm in the conduct of war. Those directing the military forces will normally constrain their activities so as to achieve economy and precision in the application of force and avoid the risk of annihilating reprisals. The political leaders will normally seek to avoid the adverse consequences for future peace of unbridled violence and destruction. Alongside these considerations of enlightened self-interest are the humanitarian impulses outraged by the conduct of war, which demand that restraints be placed on inhuman behaviour. The declared restraints on the conduct of war which result from these different motivations have emerged from various activities: States binding themselves through treaties, the actions of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the United Nations and those of other bodies. There has arisen from these activities a binding customary international law governing the conduct of war. This law is applicable to the conflict resulting from the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The legality of the conduct of war is a question wholly separate from the legality of the Israeli invasion itself. The legal standards governing the conduct of war apply regardless of whether Israel was or was not justified in invading Lebanon. More particularly, the following instruments lay down legal standards of conduct: Hague Convention IV Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land 1907 - considered as embodying rules of customary international law and hence binding on all States. H ague Convention IX Tim e o f War 1907.

Concerning Bombardment by Naval Forces in

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Hague Rules of Aerial Warfare 1923 - correspond, to a great extent, to the customary rules and general principles underlying the conventions on the law of war on land and sea. Geneva Convention IV Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War 1949 - signed by Israel, 8 December 1949; ratified, 6 July 1951. Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict 1954 - signed by Israel, 14 May 1954; ratified, 3 October 1957. ICRC Draft Rules for the Limitation of the Dangers Incurred by the Civilian Population in Time of War 1956 - to a large extent, corresponds to customary international law. ICRC Resolution on Protection of Civilian Populations against the Dangers of Indiscriminate Warfare 1965 - statement of four principles of the international law of armed conflict. Resolution 2444 (X X III) of the UN General Assembly, adopted 19 December 1968: Respect for Human Rights in Armed Conflicts declaratory of existing customary international law. Resolution X X III adopted by the International Conference on Human Rights, Teheran, 12 May 1968: Human Rights in Armed Conflicts reaffirmed the de Martens clause in Hague Convention IV of 1907. Resolution adopted by the Institute of International Law, Edinburgh, 9 September 1969: The Distinction between Military Objectives and NonMilitary Objects in General and Particularly the Problems Associated with Weapons of Mass Destruction - intended to state the existing law. Resolution 2675 (XXV) of the UN General Assembly, adopted 9 December 1970: Basic Principles for the Protection of Civilian Populations in Armed Conflicts - restates rules of international law. Geneva Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts 1977 - a detailed elaboration of the basic rules in the Hague Regulations, which has passed into customary law; its provisions assert themselves as the proper interpretation of the Geneva Conventions. UN Convention on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons which may be deemed to be Excessively Injurious or to have Indiscriminate Effects 1981 - derived from fundamental customary principles of the laws of war. In sum, the customary international law governing the conduct of war embodies principles which can conveniently be reduced to the following:

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A. Military Necessity - a justification for otherwise intolerable violence and destruction, which is itself curbed by special protection for (i) civilian objects and (ii) civilian population, and (iii) entails the taking of certain precautions. B. Proportionality - a prohibition on acts of violence which may be expected to cause civilian casualties or damage disproportionate to the military advantage sought. C. Discrimination - a prohibition on acts of violence which strike or affect indiscriminately the civilian population or combatants and civilian objects or military objectives. D. Humanity - a prohibition on acts of violence which cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering and behaviour which contravenes minimal standards of humanity. Each of these principles will be examined in its relation to the conduct of the war in Lebanon.

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Chapter Six

Military Necessity

The Law The conduct of the Israel Defence Forces (ID F) in its acts of violence and destruction are assessed, under international law, by reference to the military necessity of its actions. Thus Hague Convention IV of 1907 prohibits destruction of enemy property unless ‘imperatively demanded by the necessities of war’ (Art. 23(g)). Hague Convention IX on Naval Bombardment 1907 allows for bombardment o f ‘Military works, military or naval establishments, depots of arms or war material, workshops or plant which could be utilised for the needs of the hostile fleet or army, and the ships of war in the harbour* (Art. 2). The Hague Rules of Aerial Warfare 1923 prohibit aerial bombardment to destroy property ‘not of military character’ or to injure non-combatants (Art. 22), but declares such bombardment ‘legitimate only when directed at a military objective, that is to say, an object of which the destruction or injury would constitute a distinct military advantage to the belligerent’ (Art. 24(1)). Even ‘In the immediate neighbourhood of the operations of land forces, the bombardment of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings is legitimate provided that there exists a reasonable presumption that the military concentration is sufficiently important to justify such bombardment, having regard to the danger thus caused to the civilian population’ (Art. 24(4)). The ICRC Draft Rules 1956 allow for destruction confined to ‘military resources’ (Art. 1), and attacks directed against ‘military objectives’, i.e. those ‘generally acknowledged to be of military importance’; however, this must ‘in the circumstances ruling at the time* offer a ‘military advantage* (Art. 7). The Institute of International Law, Edinburgh, 1969 ‘considered as military objectives only those which, by their very nature or purpose or use, make an effective contribution to military action, or exhibit a generally recognised military significance, such that their total or partial destruction in the actual circumstances gives a substantial, specific and immediate military advantage to those who are in a position to destroy them’ (Art. 2). The Geneva Convention IV (Civilians) 1949 prohibits destruction of property ‘except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations* (Art. 53). Finally, Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977 provides: ‘Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. Insofar as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an

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effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralisation, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage’ (Art. 52(2)). The Facts There is no doubt that much of the military action of the IDF was aimed at military objectives and that much of this action is justified by the principle of military necessity: armed combatants, military vehicles, weapons, fuel and munitions depots and fortified positions. It is also true, however, that many objectives of IDF action were not of a character normally associated with a military objective. These latter include: Refugee Camps The massive bombardment of Rashidiyeh, Ain el Hilweh, Bourj el Brajneh, Sabra, Chatila, Bourj el Shamali, Al Bas and others is a horrific fact. These camps often contained combatants and stores of munitions. Yet they rarely qualify as ‘fortified positions’ (though Rashidyeh did have fortifications on the side facing the sea). Most of their inhabitants were civilians, largely women and children. The IDF advance in the South and up to Beirut was swift and rapidly surrounded and by-passed these camps. The overwhelming superiority in numbers and materiel of the IDF ensured that no military threat was posed by these camps and their inhabitants. There is a need to show some definite, direct and concrete military advantage to be gained by massive bombardment of refugee camps. The extent of the damage to the camps has been assessed by the Commission through personal visits, written evidence from various sources and oral testimony of witnesses to the bombardment. These reveal the following degree of destruction, by way of example: Ain el Hilweh - totally destroyed; Al Bas - % destroyed; Bourj el Shamali - % destroyed; Rashidiyeh - almost totally destroyed; Bourj el Brajneh - totally destroyed. The extent of the threat posed by these refugee camps to the Israeli forces makes it at least questionable whether the IDF was justified in treating them as military objectives, and whether the bombardment was covered by the principle of military necessity. In some cases, the strength of military resistance, the quantity of munitions stored and the location relative to the battlefront (e.g. the camps in the southern suburbs of Beirut) might provide some justification. But not in all cases and not to the extent of the destruction achieved. Hospitals, schools, cultural, religious and charitable institutions These are not military objectives per se, but on the contrary, are specially protected by law. Their contribution to military action or the military advantages their destruction offers will depend upon whether they are used for military purposes. For example, the IDF has justified the destruction of the mosque in Ain el Hilweh on the grounds that it was used as a fortified

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position by armed combatants. But the extent of the damage to such buildings in general throughout the country requires the drawing of one of two conclusions: (i) the massive and indiscriminate use of these institutions by the armed combatants of the Lebanese militias and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) for military purposes; or (ii) the ID F failing or refusing to distinguish these institutions from genuine military objectives in their bombardment. For example, the initial report of a Lebanese Technical Commission appointed to investigate the damage done to buildings as a result of the Israeli invasion of Tyre found the following:1 Damage to: Tyre Primary School Tyre Official Primary School A1 Jaafariya School Teacher Training College St Joseph Convent School St Thomas School The Anglican School A1 Ittihad School First Official Secondary School Second Official Secondary School A1 Najat al Ramali School (completely destroyed) Government Hospital (completely destroyed) Jabal Amel Hospital Palestine Red Crescent Hospital (not allowed to enter) Dr Ismail Bahr Hospital (completely destroyed) Damage to this degree leads the Commission to support the latter of the two possible conclusions stated above: military necessity does not justify the destruction wrought on these institutions. Urban areas The large urban areas of Lebanese cities and towns - Tyre, Sidon, Beirut and others - are populated mainly by Lebanese and Palestinian civilians. I f an entire town were to be organised as a defensive position or used as a stage for military operations, it might legitimately be considered a military target. It is clear to the Commission that these cities were not of such a military character. It may be that some senior ID F commanders shared this view. In an article in the Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) of 20-26 June 1982, Abraham Rabinovich reports that ‘Prime Minister Menachem Begin said last week that most of the senior officers, in a staff meeting at Northern Command headquarters he had attended, had opposed bombing of the cities on humanitarian grounds; military considerations had prevailed in the end* (p. 13). The consequences of this policy are revealed in a United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Report on Sidon, dated 12 July 1982. Some of the findings, summarised under various headings, are:

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I Residential damage: 1,000 houses completely destroyed; 1,500 houses damaged needing repairs; II Damage to commercial centres and trading: (1) Office buildings - 80 offices burned or destroyed; 150 needing repairs; (2) Shops, companies and small trades - 100 small shops; 100 small industries and artisanats; 100 large shops; 50 pastry and foodstuff shops; 50 supermarketswarehouses and 2 co-operatives; III Municipality buildings and equipment; IV Schools - a list of 16; V Hospitals - a list of 9; and so on, including destroyed or damaged roads, water systems, electricity networks, sewage systems, telephone networks, etc., as well as an estimated 200 trucks and 2,000 private cars. (Ain el Hilweh was excluded from this survey.) The bombardment of cities with the resulting horrendous destruction cannot be justified under the laws of war. C om m ercial and industrial prem ises It is obvious that certain manufacturing establishments may, through their production of munitions or other materiel, contribute effectively to military activities and their destruction offers a definite military advantage. Equally clearly, however, factories which do not make such a military contribution are not military objectives - unless the premises in question are used for military purposes. A few examples from the many commercial and industrial premises in Beirut which were destroyed or damaged should suffice: the Mediterranean Bank, Hamra; the Lebanese French Bank, Verdun; the Hassan Centre, Comiche el Mazra; the Gefinor Building; the Sabbagh Centre; the Moscow Narodny Bank; the Drugstore Samadi; the Summerland Hotel complex; Beau Rivage, Carlton, Riviera and King’s hotels; the Nasr, Ariche, Carbatella and di Babo restaurants in Raouche; a clothing factory in Talat Khayat; a furniture factory in Haret Hreik; etc. As in the case of hospitals and social institutions, the Commission is driven to conclude that the large scale destruction of commercial and industrial premises indicates that the ID F refused or failed to distinguish such establishments from genuine military objectives in their bombard­ ment. Lebanese Governm ent and PLO Offices Organisations providing administrative or logistical support to military operations - if they do make an effective contribution to military action and if their destruction offers a definite military advantage - are legitimate military objectives. But the ID F bombardment, particularly in Beirut, appears to have struck the premises of Lebanese Government and PLO organisations regardless of any military connection. The Fakhani district of Beirut was saturated. Buildings housing PLO political offices, trade union

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organisations, social welfare institutions, Lebanese Government offices (the Ministry of Information, the Ministry of Tourism) were damaged or destroyed. The Commission concludes that this was done without the justification of military necessity, and as such violates the laws of war. D iplom atic prem ises The sanctity of these premises is inviolate save when they are used for military purposes. Yet the number of embassies destroyed or damaged goes beyond any reasonable explanation by way of perfidy. The list includes among others the embassies of France, the USSR, the People's Republic of China, Kuwait, Turkey, Iran, Algeria, Iraq, Morocco, Bahrain, South Yemen, Yugoslavia, the German Democratic Republic and Canada. Explicit warnings and advance notice to the ID F authorities by, for example, the French ambassador, did not prevent this destruction.2 Conclusion The answer to the questions posed in our terms of reference numbers 2, 4 and 5 is in the affirmative. In many cases the methods of warfare used by the ID F were not justified by the principle of military necessity. Targets were destroyed whose destruction was not militarily necessary and from the destruction of which no military advantage was obtained. The bombardment of West Beirut and of the Palestinian camps in the southern suburbs of the city during the last week up to the cease-fire of 12 August is, in the Commission's view, unjustifiable. A number of authoritative witnesses before the Commission testified that the principle of the evacuation of the PLO from Beirut was agreed in the first days of August as in the evidence of M r Saeb Salam,J former Prime Minister of Lebanon, and an active participant in the negotiations. Bargaining continued over the precise timing and route, but the principle of evacuation had been resolved. The continued ID F bombardment, on a scale which exceeded any which preceded it, culminating in a 10-hour non-stop bombardment on 12 August which wrought heavy destruction on civilian objects and population, should be judged in this light. It is lawful to bombard in preparation for imminent assault. But such attack seems not to have been intended. Rather, it was the expressed view of many witnesses that the bombardment was designed, at worst, to terrorise the population, or, at best, to exert pressure on the PLO in the negotiations over the evacuation. This latter objective was publicly declared by ID F spokesmen. As early as the first weeks of July, the ID F Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, was quoted as saying that Israel might use military means to increase the political pressure on the PLO in West Beirut, but that because of the civilians there, diplomatic channels would be tried first.4 In tht Jerusalem Post of 12 August, the reporter cites Israeli officials arguing ‘that the most effective means of convincing the PLO to leave is to keep continued military pressure on the strongholds in West Beirut. They insist that Israeli shelling and aerial strikes are actually designed to back up

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Habib’s mission* (p. 1). On 13 August, the Jerusalem Post reported that ‘Official military spokesmen were hard put last night to explain the massive bom bardm ent. . . “our job is not to question policy, but to implement it*** (p. 1). The ID F Chief of Staff was quoted as saying: ‘Israel’s military actions in Beirut are not designed to defend individual soldiers against the terrorists, but rather to accomplish the goals set by the government, particularly the evacuation of the terrorists from the city.*5 Bombardment for the purpose of terrorising the population is not justified by the principle of military necessity and is unquestionably a violation of the laws of war. Bombardment for political ends is similarly unjustifiable. The use of bombardment simply as an instrument of negotiation is not permissible, and most particularly not bombardment directed against a city. Similar conclusions were reached when the US Air Force bombed Hanoi during the negotiations in Paris in December 1972: ‘any destruction that is not primarily and predominantly designed to weaken the enemy militarily is unlawful. When its foremost purpose is to coerce an immediate political settlement, it is illegal per se, even though military objects are targeted.*6 The Commission concludes that the ID F bombardment of Beirut during the period of early August 1982 was a violation of the laws of war wholly unjustified by the principle of military necessity.

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Chapter Seven

Civilian Objects

The Law The international law of war has long contained express provisions on the protection of civilian objects. As mentioned earlier when discussing the rules on ‘military necessity’, the Hague Convention IV of 1907 ‘especially’ forbids the destruction of property ‘unless imperatively demanded by the necessities of war* (Art. 23(g)). Article 25 prohibits the attack or bombardment of undefended ‘towns, villages, dwellings, or buildings*. Article 27 provides: ‘In sieges and bombardments all necessary steps must be taken to spare, as far as possible, buildings dedicated to religion, art, science, or charitable purposes, historic monuments, hospitals, and places where the sick and wounded are collected, provided they are not being used at the time for military purposes.* Hague Convention IX on Naval Bombardment 1907 forbids the bombardment o f ‘undefended ports, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings* (An. 1), though it permits that of military objectives in such places even if ‘unavoidable damage* results, provided the naval commander takes ‘all due measures’ to minimise harm to undefended places. (Art. 2). The Hague Rules of Aerial Warfare 1923 reiterate the prohibitions on destruction or damage of ‘private property not of military character’ (Art. 22), and the requirement to take all necessary steps to spare public buildings (Art. 25). The ICRC Draft Rules 1956 assert that ‘it is forbidden to attack dwellings, installations or means of transport, which are for the exclusive use of, and occupied by, the civilian population’ (Art. 6). Similar injunctions are laid down by the Institute of International Law, Edinburgh, 1969, which also includes as protected ‘the means indispensable for the survival of the civilian population* and objects which serve ‘primarily humanitarian or peaceful purposes’ (Art. 3); UN General Assembly Resolution 2675 of 1970 (Arts. 5 and 6); and the UN Convention on Excessively Injurious Weapons 1981, which also prohibits the making of ‘forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other

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military objectives, or are themselves military objectives* (Protocol III, Art. 2 .4 ). The Geneva Convention IV (Civilians) 1949 protects civilian hospitals (Arts. 18 and 19), and the Hague Convention on Cultural Property bans ‘any act of hostility directed against such property* (Art. 4( 1)). Israel is a party to both these Conventions. Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977 reiterates this protection for cultural property (Art. 53). It also includes protection for medical units generally (Arts. 12 and 13), including medical vehicles (Art. 21). Article 52 states the principle of general protection of civilian objects: 1. Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in para. 2. 2. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. Insofar as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralisation, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage. 3. In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used. The import of customary international law is that civilian objects must not be attacked so long as they retain their civilian character and are not used for military purposes. Even in the latter case, certain procedures are laid down before attacks can be made. For example, attacks on hospitals must be preceded by warnings, with a reasonable time limit which goes unheeded.7 Also, the civilian character of hospitals is not lost by minor military associations; e.g. medical personnel armed for their own defence, the presence of armed sentries as guards, the presence of small arms of the wounded, etc.8 However, it is acknowledged that collateral or incidental damage may result to civilian objects in the course of attacks on military objectives. Such unintentional and unavoidable damage is not unlawful. The actions of the ID F need to be assessed to see whether the damage to civilian objects was collateral or incidental, unintentional or unavoidable. T h e Facts T he preceding chapter listed under various headings objectives of attack for which the principle of military necessity might have provided some justification. The Commission concluded that in the vast majority of cases there was no such justification, and that, therefore, the destruction of these objects was a violation of the laws of war.

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In testimony before us and in numerous written sources the point has been noted that much, if not all of this damage might be incidental to attacks on military objectives; that it might be indirect and unintentional; that it might have been unavoidable. We have also had testimony and evidence to the contrary. The following represents our views on these conflicting claims. Refugee camps There can be no doubt that the bombardment of the refugee camps was direct and intentional. These camps were the homes of thousands and tens of thousands of civilians. There is also evidence that in some camps there were stores of arms and ammunition.9 Also that they were the homes of many of the armed combatants of the PLO. The presence of these stores of materiel is a violation of customary international law as expressed, for example, in ICRC Draft Rules 1956: ‘Similarly, the Parties to the conflict shall, so far as possible, avoid the permanent presence of armed forces, military materials, mobile military establishments or installations, in towns or other places with a large civilian population* (Art. 11). There is evidence, however, that the ID F did attack targets in refugee camps which were clearly entitled to the presumption of being civilian objects.10 For example, the bombing of shelters in which the civilian population of the camps took refuge during hostilities is striking. In an article by Dani Rubinstein in the Israeli newspaper Davor of 3 September 1982 an Israeli spokesman is quoted as having said that the total destruction of the camps was caused by bombing the many bunkers that were in them. To this the reporter quotes the answer of an old man at Ain el Hilweh: ‘Why bunkers? They were shelters we built to hide from the Israeli bombardments’. For a similar confusion, see the comment of the ID F spokesman who justified the blowing up of buildings in Rashidiyeh camp: ‘One house in every three had a “ bunker or air-raid shelter” \ I! And see the explanation by D r Zvi Lanir of Tel Aviv University’s Centre for Strategic Studies who draws attention to ‘the curious unwillingness of the ID F to recognise that there was an authentic need for shelters in (Rashidiyeh), and even though some of them may indeed have contained weapons or even explosives, the primary purpose of most of them was clearly to protect civilians when the camps came under bombardment*.12 The massive destruction of the refugee camps is only explicable in terms of such direct and intentional bombardment. The thesis that it was incidental to military activity and unavoidable is unsustainable. Some of the bombardment may have been justified on such grounds. Most of it was not and thus a clear violation of the laws of war. Hospitals, schools, cultural property and social institutions The Commission visited many destroyed and damaged institutions and received evidence, written and oral, from responsible persons who had first hand knowledge and experience of this destruction. The numbers of

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institutions affected (even in relation to surrounding areas) indicates at best a lack of concern on the part of the ID F - a disregard of the laws of war which require that these civilian objects be protected. At worst, there is evidence of direct and deliberate anacks upon such institutions. Hearsay evidence was given by an Israeli Army Officer (Yaron Pik) that PL O military forces had occupied the mosque in Ain el Hilweh camp at the tim e of the ID F attack on the camp. The Hague Convention on Cultural Property 1954 requires that parties refrain from use of such religious buildings ‘for purposes which are likely to expose it to destruction or damage in the event of armed conflict’ (Art. 4(1)), though such obligation ‘may be waived only in cases where military necessity imperatively requires such a waiver’ (Art. 4(2)). The Convention requires parties to refrain ‘from any act o f hostility directed against such property’, but again waives this obligation where military necessity is invoked. This prohibition on hostilities directed against cultural objects is reflected also in the Hague Convention IV 1907, Art. 27. The requirement to refrain from acts of hostility against or use of cultural objects in support of military efforts is reiterated in Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977 (Art. 53). Although it does not include the waiver provision, the Protocol is expressed to be without prejudice to the 1954 Convention. The prohibition on use of such cultural objects for military purposes needs to be enhanced by the utmost rigour in applying the exception by way of ‘imperative’ military necessity. It may be that even that test was satisfied in Ain el Hilweh, and that the Israeli attack on the mosque was similarly not unlawful. This incident, however, does not distract the Commission from its general conclusion as to the reckless or deliberate destruction o f civilian objects in other cases. At the level of a lack of concern, for example, it is established to the Commission’s satisfaction that in Beirut the ICRC representative conveyed to the ID F on at least two occasions a list of the medical establishments (hospitals, clinics, etc.) protected by the laws of war. The law requires that such objects, in the words of Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977, ‘be respected and protected at all times and shall not be the object of attack’ (Art. 12). The Commission both witnessed itself and received ample evidence of bombardment which damaged or destroyed medical establishments in Beirut - Lebanese Government, private and charitable and Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS) hospitals and clinics. These included: the Makassed Hospital, the Barbir Hospital, the Ras Beirut Hospital, the Makassed Home for the Elderly, the A1 Kafayat School for the Disabled, the Akka Hospital, the Gaza Hospital, the Islamic Mental Hospital, the Dar al Ajazy Handicapped Centre and the Haifa Hospital, as well as numerous clinics. These establishments had the required display of Red Cross insignia and were regularly inspected by the ICRC representatives to ensure compliance as far as weapons and military use were

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concerned. They nonetheless sustained heavy damage from the ID F bombardment during daylight. The renowned accuracy of ID F bombardment allows for no other conclusion but that these were direct and at least reckless, if not intentional attacks. With respect to such targets, it has been said that armed personnel were present and weapons were to be seen on the premises - which would justify their being treated as military targets. The law is clear that: (a) the presence of such arms and armed personnel is permissible to a specified extent (light weapons, armed sentries); (b) prior to attack warnings must be given setting a reasonable time limit. Only if such warning remains unheeded may an attack be launched. The Commission is satisfied that the vast majority of medical establishments were not put to any military use, and received no evidence of warnings being given prior to attack. The damage and destruction wrought is a clear violation of the laws of war. One specific illustration of a direct attack upon a civilian object was the subject of testimony given to the Commission in Beirut by M. Mohammed Barakat, Director of Social Welfare Institutions, Lebanon (formerly the Muslim Orphanage). The organisation had three main Centres in Beirut and south of Beirut. It had fifteen institutions specialising in needy children and cared for some 3,000. M. Barakat’s testimony concerned primarily the Development Organisation for Human Abilities (DOHA). This was a Centre located at Aramoun, south of Beirut, constructed in 1981 during the International Year of the Handicapped. It housed four institutions for the blind, deaf, physically handicapped and mentally retarded in a number of buildings. There were 650 handicapped children at DOHA. It was very well known and indeed almost unique in the region. M. Barakat supplied us with photographs of the Centre as it was before the Israeli invasion. The DOHA was a target of ID F bombardment. There were nine raids over the 10 and 11 June. There were 650 children at the beginning; all but 62 were evacuated. These 62 stayed in an underground car park. Other people from the area fled to the Centre because they thought it would be a safe area. No one, staff or children, saw any soldiers or weapons during the two days. The Centre was completely destroyed. At the time of the Commission’s visit, there were still unexploded bombs on the premises. M. Barakat supplied us with photographs of the Centre as it was after the bombardment. The Israelis arrived 4-5 days after the bombing. The staff and 62 children had fled. Nobody had returned. He was the first person to visit it, and the Israelis were already there. M. Barakat testified that the DOHA Centre is unmistakably marked and well-known. The organisation was very far from PLO or other political or military activity. It was and is totally non-political. All during the civil war of

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1975-1976 there had been no external interference. ‘If even a policeman comes in, he removes his weapon.' The buildings of the Centre had the IC R C signs on them. They had the Red Cross flag. The nearest Syrian army post was 400-500 metres away on the main road. There was no military activity near the buildings. The organisation chose the area because it was a first class residential district. There are villas and houses around the DOHA. T hey themselves were bombed. M. Barakat's view is that the DOHA was the target, and that the other houses were attacked because of their proximity to th e Centre. The damage to the DOHA is estimated to be about 7-8 million dollars. T he organisation’s second Centre is the Al Ramadhan Orphanage in ElOuzai. It is near Ouzai mosque, so there are two minarets near the Orphanage. It is situated right next to the sea. The Orphanage was directly bombarded from the sea. The place was burnt out. The children were evacuated to the organisation’s third Centre in Beirut. That Centre was only indirectly attacked by artillery. Other illustrations abound: the Lebanese Minister of Agriculture, M. Moustafa Dumaiqah, testified to the Commission that a number of Agricultural Research Centres in the south had been destroyed by the ID F. T h e head of the Amal movement, M. Nabih Berri, testified to the Commission that the Director of the Movement’s orphanage and crafts training centre in the Bourj el Shamali camp near Tyre (comprising 7 floors and 400 children) was threatened with destruction of his institution by the Israelis. The Director, M. Mohammed Saad, and some of the older children lay down on the dynamite placed by the Israelis to blow it up. They were beaten (M. Saad had a disc in his back broken), but the building was not blown up. D r Abourahman Laban, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs and Chief Medical Officer of the Islamic Psychiatric Hospital in Beirut (800 patients, 270 staff) testified to the commission that this hospital was repeatedly bombarded and hit. M. Hassib Abdul Jawad, a senior trade union official in Sidon, testified to the Commission on the destruction of the trade union co-operative and health centre in that city by bombardment. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) Report on Sidon, dated 12 July 1982, lists schools and hospitals in Sidon (excluding Ain el Hilweh) destroyed or damaged in the attack on that city: Schools: St Joseph School Makassad Secondary School (completely destroyed) Sidon Takmilieh Government School Al Madkhal el Shamali Government School ‘Al Zein’ Elementary Government School ‘Shehab’ Al Madkhal El Janoobi Government School Government Teachers* Training College Al Ittihad Secondary School ‘Ste. Nafisseh’ (completely destroyed)

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Sidon School Majdelyoun Alexandra School, Old Sidon Vocational Training School Faisal School Government School Khan el Frenj - French School and Orphanage, Old Sidon Morjan Government School Aisha School - Ryad el Solh Street Hospitals: Rashid Khoury Hospital Labib Medical Centre Shoaib Hospital Elias Elia Hospital Ramzi Shaab Hospital Dalaah Hospital Hammoud Hospital A1 Hajj Hospital Osseiran Hospital The list of destroyed and damaged schools and hospitals in Tyre has already been given above. The Commission concludes that the attacks on these civilian objects were direct and avoidable, that the damage and destruction resulting was at best reckless and at worst deliberate. It constitutes a clear violation of the laws of war by the IDF. Urban areas The quantity of damage to and destruction of civilian objects - buildings, means of transport, etc. - in the urban areas of Lebanon is beyond dispute. It does not approximate to the near total destruction inflicted on many refugee camps, but accounts for a sizeable proportion of the civilian structures in the urban areas. Efforts are now being made to chart the precise extent of this damage. The damage was a result of two principal forces: (a) bombardment from long range by air, sea and land forces; (b) fire from forces engaged in actual combat, e.g. tanks. Each of these needs to be looked at separately, but it is important to emphasise that the law does not condone destruction of civilian objects from long range and prohibits the same damage done by weapons at close range. Military authorities must observe the legal requirements to protect civilian objects in all circumstances. The moral implications of this legal principle

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are spelled out in an article by Mr Amnon Dankner in Ha 'aretz of 5 August, 1982: . a distinction between two sorts of brutality. The first kind . . . are th e personal atrocities, committed face to face. This is condemned by all. T hus, for example, it is forbidden to kill prisoners of war, forbidden to shoot civilians once you can see them with your eyes. On the other hand, th e brutality that is far from sight, is accepted and regarded as proper (though “ unpleasant” ). The pilots throw bombs, the rest of the soldiers use long range cannon against the civilian population and they are not brutal, they are not performing atrocities, because they are not emotionally involved, they cannot see the "clients” of their actions with their naked eyes. So you should say: a soldier who shoots an old Palestinian woman from a distance of 2 metres is a brute who has lost his human image and should be tried. On the other hand, the Phantom pilot who releases a 250kg bomb over a civilian quarter or a soldier who fires a phosphorous shell that bums women and children, is not cruel but a good soldier. This attempt to distinguish between two kinds of war acts, which are both immoral, is an artificial attempt that can be accepted only by the meek minds that have been brainwashed by the sticky mixture of Israeli piety.* Long range bombardment Members of the Commission personally undertook extensive tours of urban areas affected by the conflict and, in particular, in Beirut, Sidon and Tyre. We heard extensive testimony and received much evidence as to the extent o f the damage to civilian objects in these and other urban areas. It is clear to the Commission that most of the damage was a result of long range bombardment by land artillery, naval and air forces. We were particularly struck by the extent to which residential buildings were destroyed or damaged. A substantial proportion of the housing in the cities of Tyre and Sidon was damaged or destroyed. In Sidon, the United Nations High Commission for Refugees the (UNHCR) Report, dated 12 July 1982, presented the following findings: 1 1,000 houses completely destroyed Surface of 1,000 houses as follows: - 500 houses from 50-200m2 per unit and from 50- 100m2 per unit - 250 houses from 100- 150m2 per unit - 150 houses from 150-175m2 per unit - 100 houses from 200m2 every unit

75 125 165 200

X X X X

500 250 150 100

= = = =

Total of surface:

37,500m2 31,250m2 24,750m2 20,000m2 113,500m2

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1,500 houses damaged need to be repaired Surface to be repaired: 75x 750 units = 56,250m2 - 125x 375 units = 46,875m2 - 165x 225 units = 37,125m2 - 200 x 150 units = 30,000m2 Total surface to be repaired 170,250m2

A member of the Israeli Knesset, M r Imri Ron, who was with a paratroop unit in Sidon, estimated that roughly one in every ten buildings in Sidon was damaged or destroyed.13 In Tyre, the initial report of a Lebanese Technical Commission appointed to investigate the damage done to buildings as a result of the Israeli invasion found the following:14 Houses: Completely destroyed One half destroyed One quarter destroyed Slight damage

310 250 300 100

houses houses houses houses

The Commission relies upon the observation of its own members and carefully gathered assessments rather than any general newspaper reporter’s impressions to substantiate its conclusion as to the extent of the destruction. In Beirut we observed during our tours hundreds of high-rise, m ulti­ storey apartment blocks which had suffered varying degrees of damage total destruction, burned out, heavily or lightly damaged. In addition, there were urban belts around Beirut, primarily of poorer residents, where the structures were of one to three storeys along streets including not only residences, but shops, markets, artisans’ workshops, etc. These too varied widely in the damage sustained - with entire rows being obliterated, or only isolated burned and bombed-out sites in a row of buildings. There is no doubt that some of these civilian objects were adapted to military purposes by the PLO and Lebanese militias (e.g. the Cit6 Sportif), and others were on or very near the front lines of engagement so as to be directly in the zone of combat. These zones sustained heavy damage from bombardment, but this is justifiable insofar as the principle of ‘military necessity’ applies. What is unjustifiable is the infliction by long-range bombardment of total destruction or damage on civilian objects harbouring no military presence whatsoever and nowhere near the scene of any military activity. Members of the Commission personally observed sites of destruction and damage which were indubitably civilian in character - houses, shops, offices, etc. We heard oral testimony from many who were present during the bombardment of urban areas (e.g. M r Hassib Abdul Jawad and other trade

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union colleagues in Sidon - one of whom had himself been pulled from the rubble of shelter having lost his mother, his brother-in-law and two children; only he and his wife survived); in Beirut, from responsible Government officials (e.g. M r Radwan Mawlawi, Director-General of the Ministry of Information, who was present in the Ministry building throughout the bombardment, itself hit by the shelling); representatives of relief organisations (e.g. M r David MacDowell and Mr Derek Cooper and Mrs Pamela Cooper); the Prime Minister, M r Shafik Al-Wazzan, and many others. We have scrutinised the accounts of the bombardment and destruction by reputable reporters of events at the time (e.g. those by Mr Robert Fisk on the blitz on Abu Chaker Street15 and the destruction of Iskandar Street;16 by M r Hugh Davies on the removal of a live bomb from a block of flats in Tyre).17 In another report M r Hugh Davies states categorically that: ‘According to reports from Beirut, the August 4 onslaught was the first time since the war [began]that the Israelis dropped any pretence of trying to distinguish between military and civilian targets'.18 M r Thomas Friedman, the New York Times Bureau Chief describes on 11 August ‘the decision by the Israeli general command to no longer restrict its bombardments to Palestinian neighbourhoods, camps and suspected gun positions, but to rain shells all over civilian West B eirut. . .*'• In particular, the Commission notes the statements by the US Ambassador to Lebanon, M r Robert S. Dillon, in a cable quoted in The Sunday Times of 8 August 1982: ‘Simply put, tonight's saturation shelling was as intense as anything we have seen. There was no “pinpoint accuracy” against targets in “open spaces” . It was not a response to Palestinian fire. This was a blitz against West B eirut. . . The magnitude of tonight's action is difficult to convey. The flare of exploding shells reflected against the cloud of smoke was an awesome sig h t. . . a city burning.' T h e Canadian Ambassador, M. Theodore Arcand, was reported to have spoken from his bomb-damaged flat in West Beirut: ‘It is unbelievable that people are treated like this'. He pointed through a glassless window frame to th e eight-storey building opposite which had crumpled into the street after an Israeli bombing raid. ‘Eighty people were killed, so much for pinpoint bombing' (Financial Times, 29 July 1982). In another account, the Canadian Ambassador was reported to have said to AP that he and his staff had surveyed fifty-five separate areas in West Beirut that were hit in Israel's air, land and sea bombardment on 1 August. He said he considered none of them Palestinian military targets.21 These statements are corroborated by many accounts of reporters on the scene of the non-stop bombardment.22 The Commission’s view is that the scale and extent of the destruction of civilian objects in urban areas, and the evidence, written and oral, that we have received, dictate the following conclusion: that there was at best a

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disregard for civilian objects; that on many occasions, the ID F was careless in its bombardment of any distinction between military and civilian targets; and that at least some of the damage and destruction wrought was a consequence of deliberate and intentional bombardment of objects which could only have been perceived as civilian in nature (especially in the light of the presumption which applies under Art. 52(3) of Protocol I Additional to the Geneva Conventions 1977). There were, therefore, clear violations of the laws of war. Fire iqi combat It is not always easy to distinguish damage done to civilian objects by fire in actual combat (from tanks and hand weapons) from that caused by artillery, naval and air bombardment. Evidence before the Commission did not indicate that infantry and tank commanders fired upon civilian targets as such (but see below as to whether PLO offices were considered ‘civilian* or ‘military’ targets). There was considerable evidence of damage by small arms fire and tanks to civilian objects. But it is notorious that civilian objects in the front lines of combat are often used as part of a battle position, and when so used may be lawfully fired upon by the commander if he honestly concludes that they are military targets, e.g. when fire is directed at him from such positions. The evidence we received from Israeli combatants and from other sources appeared to indicate that the ID F had by and large complied with the requirements of the laws of war in this respect. For example, a commander of a Patton tank in the assault on Tyre was explicit and clear about the quality, accuracy and correct use of his weapon.25A paratroop captain in the assault on Sidon was aware of the need to respect civilian objects.24 Both were equally blunt about the overriding need to preserve themselves and their fellows. But such is the balance accepted by the laws of war in combat. On the other hand, there was direct evidence given by an Israeli combatant that civilians had been forced to advance before Israeli forces as shields in some instances, when these approached positions suspected of containing snipers or other hostile forces.24 Lebanese Government and PLO Offices Many such offices are of a purely civilian character, providing many of the services to Lebanese and Palestinian people that are expected of governmental organisations. For example, on the PLO*s social welfare role in Rashidiyeh, see the statement by Dr Zvi Lanir of Tel Aviv University Centre for Strategic Studies that ‘It was extremely important that the effect on the local population of Israeli attacks on PLO targets in the camp be minimised as much as possible, to avoid the kind of resentment that occurred in Nabatiyeh and other towns in South Lebanon, where the local populations were not provided with adequate protection’.25 Apart from

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social services, the PLO had a considerable network of other organisational activities. It appears to have been the avowed purpose of the ID F to ‘destroy the infrastructure of the PLO*. This was stated as being accepted even by those who did not approve of the decisions of the Israeli Government.26 There was ample evidence in our tours of devastated areas and from testimony that PLO premises had been attacked regardless of their civilian or military nature - but simply as PLO targets. Thus the commander of a tank which participated in the assault on Sidon stated bluntly: ‘You know that in such a specific place there was a headquarters of one PLO organisation so that is a target. That’s a military target to us'.27 Newspaper reports provide numerous illustrations. For example: ‘Another target appeared to be what the (Lebanese security) sources described as a PLO headquarters on the western coast road’.28 Or: ‘intermittent artillery fire has been directed against PLO targets - all this intended to weaken the PLO psychologically’ (article by M r Hirsh Goodman, Defence Correspondent in the Jerusalem Post).29 Frequent aerial attacks on and destruction o f‘terrorist headquarters’ in the Fakhani district of Beirut were reported.50 One particularly graphic incident may be used to illustrate what appears to have been ID F policy. A number of reputable reporters were near or at the scene of the destruction by bombing of an eight storey complex of flats near the Sanaya Gardens in West Beirut on 6 August 1982.31 The Commission visited the site, now a large empty crater, and heard oral evidence from witnesses who had visited the scene immediately after the bombing (e.g. M r Rashid Khalidi, Professor of Politics at the American University of Beirut). M r John Bullock reported: ‘In a city at war, where nothing is clear, it seemed at the end that a building used by the Palestinians had been hit. But it did not appear to be one of their major headquarters; nor did it seem to be the central operations room where Arafat spends much of his time’. M r Robert Fisk wrote: ‘Somewhere in the narrow thoroughfare there had been an office of the PLO .’ T ht Jerusalem Post of 8 August 1982 carried a picture of the ruins on its front page and called the building a ‘PLO headquarters’. No ranking PLO official was in the building. On the contrary, we received evidence that the apartment block was of a civilian nature and that the number of civilians who died in the ruins was estimated at 250. The bombing attack appears to have been aimed at the building in question. M r John Bullock, only 200 yards away, notes only two bombs hit w ith precision. A Congressional delegation member, Ms Susan Hedges, was only a block away interviewing refugees in the Sanaya Gardens.32This was, therefore, a direct attack on what appears in fact to have been a civilian object which, at best, might have had some association, however vague, with the PLO. The implications of a policy which sought to attack any and every manifestation of the PLO, regardless of its military or civilian nature, are portrayed in an article by M r Uri Avneri (Ha-Olam ha-Zehy 4 Aug, 1982):

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‘Every morning (Israeli newspapers) announce that: “ terrorist nests have been bombed and shelled in Beirut” . Every journalist who writes so, knows it is a lie. First of all, the terrorists have no “ nests” . Animals have nests, birds too. People - good or bad - have houses, offices, headquarters. But that is not the main point. The main point is that every messenger boy at a newspaper knows that the “ terrorists” have long ago cleared all their permanent installations in Beirut. The PLO leaders change their positions daily. They are on the alert. Afraid of an Israeli commando operation from the sea, air and land, knowing that the Israelis may try to kidnap or kill their leaders. They know that at any moment a shelling or a bombardment may begin. And most important, that the great attack may begin. Therefore they do not remain in static positions or permanent offices. We visited the office of the PLO spokesman Mahmud Labadi in West Beirut. It was an empty flat with only one table and three chairs in it. No doubt, the next day the “ office” was another flat. Therefore anyone talking about bombing “terrorist nests” or “terrorist headquarters” is simply lying. The bombs hit civilians, women, men, children and the aged. This is killing. This is murder. It has no military aim.’ The Commission's conclusion is that such bombing of PLO offices was a violation of the laws of war.

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Chapter Eight

Civilian Population

The Law T he Preamble to the Hague Convention IV of 1907 contains what has come to be known as the ‘de Martens Clause* (reiterated in Resolution X X III adopted by the International Conference on Human Rights, Teheran, 12 May, 1968): ‘Until a more complete code of the laws of war has been issued, the High Contracting Parties deem it expedient to declare that, in cases not included in the Regulations adopted by them, the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilised peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience.* T he Geneva Convention IV (Civilians) 1949 made explicit this protection (Part II - General Protection of Populations Against Certain Consequences of War). Article 13 covers ‘the whole of the populations of the countries in conflict*. The Convention singles out for special protection certain categories: e.g. the wounded and sick (Art. 16); persons working in civilian hospitals (Art. 20). It provides generally (Art. 27): ‘Protected persons are entitled, in all circumstances, to respect for their persons, their honour, their family rights, their religious convictions and practices, and their manners and customs. They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against insults and public curiosity.* Article 28 does provide, however, that ‘The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations’. The general customary rules of international law protecting civilians are expressed in a number of instruments. The ICRC Draft Rules of 1956 direct the parties to the conflict to ‘leave the civilian population outside the sphere o f armed attacks’ (Art. 1). Article 6 prohibits attacks directed against the civilian population, as such, whether as individuals or groups. It forbids

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attacks against ‘dwellings, installations or means of transport which are for the exclusive use of, and occupied by the civilian population’. It reiterates, however, that should members of the civilian population ‘be within or in close proximity to a military objective they must accept the risks resulting from an attack directed against that objective*. ICRC Resolution 1965 and UN General Assembly Resolution 2444 (1968) both repeat that ‘it is prohibited to launch attacks against the civilian population as such*, and insist ‘That distinction must be made at all times between persons taking part in hostilities and members of the civilian population to the effect that the latter be spared as much as possible*. The Institute of International Law, Edinburgh, 1969 declared that the civilian population cannot be considered as a military objective, nor the means indispensable for the survival of the civilian population (Art. 3). It affirmed that ‘Existing international law prohibits all armed attacks on civilian populations as such* (Art. 4). U N General Assembly Resolution 2675, 1970 insists that ‘a distinction must be made at all times between persons actively taking part in the hostilities and civilian populations’ (Art. 2) and that ‘In the conduct of military operations, every effort should be made to spare civilian populations from the ravages of war’ (Art. 3). The UN Convention on Excessively Injurious Weapons 1981 provides specific protection of civilians from the effects of certain weapons (mines, booby traps and other devices - Protocol II, Art. 2; and incendiary weapons - Protocol III, Art. 2). Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977 expresses the principles of international law relative to civilian protection as follows (Arts. 50, 51(1-3, 6-7)): ARTICLE 50 DEFINITION OF CIVILIANS AND CIVILIAN POPULATION

1. A civilian is any person who does not belong to one of the categories of persons referred to in Art. 4(a)(1), (2), (3) and (6) of Convention III and in Art. 43 of this Protocol. In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian. 2.

The civilian population comprises all persons who are civilians.

3. The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character. ARTICLE 51 PRO TEC TIO N OF THE CIVILIAN POPULATION

1. The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations. To give effect to this protection, the following rules, which are additional to other

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applicable rules of international law, shall be observed in all circumstances. 2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited. 3. Civilians shall enjoy the protection afforded by this Section, unless and for such time as they take a direct part in hostilities . . . 6. Attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited. 7. 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.' The law thus prohibits making the civilian population or individual civilians the object of attack. On the other hand it is recognised that incidental or collateral civilian casualties may be an indirect and unavoidable consequence of a lawful military operation. As with civilian objects, the actions of the ID F need to be assessed to see whether the civilian casualties which resulted from its actions were indirect, incidental and unavoidable consequences of military operations directed at military targets. T h e Facts T he evidence is overwhelming that there was a very large number of casualties during the conflict. There are considerable difficulties in the way of arriving at any precise figures. Some of these were outlined to us by the members of a group of professional statisticians, sociologists and demographers in Beirut carrying out a study of casualties. An exhaustive and careful study of hospital records gives some indication, but there are the problems of calculating those victims who never reached hospitals, e.g. those who were buried in graves alongside the site of a building destroyed in bombardment, or buried within the rubble of a collapsed structure, or collected together from an area and buried in mass graves. On 2 September 1982, two Beirut newspapers published figures for the number of victims based on the records of Lebanese hospitals and civil defence and police reports (an-Nahar and L 'Orient le Jour): Dead - 17,825 Wounded - 30,203

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Various other calculations abound in the reports of the in tern atio n al press and those of Lebanon and Israel. The former tend to assess the casu a ltie s in the thousands; the Israeli sources, in the hundreds. Estimates of casu a ltie s in particular areas may be obtained by a detailed survey of the daily new spaper coverage of the conflict in Beirut newspapers. This has been d o n e b y the Commission and the results confirm casualties in the thousands. Those collected by authorities in particular localities also offer a g u id e . For example, the figures issued by the Municipality of Sidon, based o n a survey reaching only 65-75% of the Greater Sidon population (excluding A in el Hilweh), were as follows (dated 12 July 1982): Dead and Lost - Lebanese - 666 registered by families + 300 burned bodies Victims and Lost - Lebanese and Palestinians Wounded - Lebanese and Palestinians

=96 = 1,000 = 2,800

M r David MacDowell, an Oxfam representative testifying before the Commission in Beirut on 2 September said his figures fro m the Municipality of Sidon for Lebanese citizens only were 1,278 dead an d 600 missing, presumed dead. For the purposes of the international law of war, the precise figures are secondary to the number and proportion of civilians among the casualties. The figures quoted above, published in the two Beirut newspapers, give a partial breakdown of the casualties as between civilians and combatants outside Beirut. For example, the detailed breakdown in an-Nahar (2 Sept, 1982) is: A1 Chouf, Aley and West Beka’a: Lebanese civilians: 458 killed 797 wounded Joint Forces - Palestinians and Syrian Army: 3,348 killed 5,169 wounded Khalde, Ouzai, A1 Naame: Lebanese civilians: 346 killed 589 wounded Joint Forces - Palestinians and Syrian Army: 587 killed 989 wounded Sidon, Mieh Mieh, Ain el Hilweh, Rmila, Jiyeh, Saadiyat, Damour, Siblin, Wadi al Zeine, Al Dalhamiya: Lebanese civilians: 1,239 killed 1,588 wounded Joint Forces - Palestinians and Syrian Army: 4,137 killed 6,851 wounded Tyre, Al Bas, Bourj el Shamali, Rashidiyeh, Adloun, Tyre village region: Lebanese civilians: 470 killed 697 wounded Joint forces, Palestinians: 1,725 killed 2,384 wounded

w ot hr—nsc tMT~Tcr least ooe ?cc rr'rcwnv 11 T o rid T a-L 5 * s a r i Korejc T ir- WS. mm a: killed « npTi>^ n ~

Again, in a xrrxK . t z ID F j; 3,000 people were t i e : = = e n n r r a = s e r a si casualties were PL O te r.-c rss oe l arar.re s i « e r a r ; jr tii c t ' T ar same report goes o q m sj* s s t i e ~^a~n a o i c i n r-m rra -: _^ c previous week. Joshua BrTract r ty o r s A J x~ rr c a c k i t a i departm ents of th e American l ' » m n H o v rc * — X eK Be r . r » c Jerusalem P ox their morgue ram am rri :oar o n a a see et-eri ^v— - H s estim ate tallied with the calculations o f a B n ts h reporter wi*j — W est B eirut throughout the fighting and who said SWi at toe c as^ iiiD wi civilia*’. I t should be noted further that the a e x ten t that Palestinian ci c asualties so as to inflate 1 nanese

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Various other calculations abound in the reports of the international press and those of Lebanon and Israel. The former tend to assess the casualties in the thousands; the Israeli sources, in the hundreds. Estimates of casualties in particular areas may be obtained by a detailed survey of the daily newspaper coverage of the conflict in Beirut newspapers. This has been done by the Commission and the results confirm casualties in the thousands. Those collected by authorities in particular localities also offer a guide. For example, the figures issued by the Municipality of Sidon, based on a survey reaching only 65-75% of the Greater Sidon population (excluding Ain el Hilweh), were as follows (dated 12 July 1982): Dead and Lost - Lebanese - 666 registered by families + 300 burned bodies Victims and Lost - Lebanese and Palestinians Wounded - Lebanese and Palestinians

=966 = 1,000 = 2,800

M r David MacDowell, an Oxfam representative testifying before the Commission in Beirut on 2 September said his figures from the Municipality of Sidon for Lebanese citizens only were 1,278 dead and 600 missing, presumed dead. For the purposes of the international law of war, the precise figures are secondary to the number and proportion of civilians among the casualties. The figures quoted above, published in the two Beirut newspapers, give a partial breakdown of the casualties as between civilians and combatants outside Beirut. For example, the detailed breakdown in an-Nahar (2 Sept, 1982) is: A1 Chouf, Aley and West Beka'a: Lebanese civilians: 458 killed 797 wounded Joint Forces - Palestinians and Syrian Army: 3,348 killed 5,169 wounded Khalde, Ouzai, A1 Naame: Lebanese civilians: 346 killed 589 wounded Joint Forces - Palestinians and Syrian Army: 587 killed 989 wounded Sidon, Mieh Mieh, Ain el Hilweh, Rmila, Jiyeh, Saadiyat, Damour, Siblin, Wadi al Zeine, Al Dalhamiya: Lebanese civilians: 1,239 killed 1,588 wounded Joint Forces - Palestinians and Syrian Army: 4,137 killed 6,851 wounded Tyre, Al Bas, Bourj el Shamali, Rashidiyeh, Adloun, Tyre village region: Lebanese civilians: 470 killed 697 wounded Joint forces, Palestinians: 1,725 killed 2,384 wounded

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T h is produces the following proportions:

Dead (ratio) Wounded (ratio) Total Casualties (ratio)

Lebanese Civilians 2,515 1 3,666 1 6,181 1

Military and Palestianians 9,797 3.89 15,393 4.19 25,190 4.07

T hese figures register the magnitude of the civilian casualties among the Lebanese population alone - for the Palestinians, civilians and combatants w ere lumped together. They thus indicate that for every four combatants, at least one (but probably more) Lebanese civilians died or were wounded. (In W orld War I, 5% of the killed were civilians; in World War II, 50%; in the Korean War, 60%; and according to the estimates of the US Government for killed and wounded in the Vietnam War, 70%).13 A contrast may be made with the report of an ID F spokesman on the num ber of civilian casualties in Lebanon: 65 Lebanese citizens and Palestinians were killed in the Tyre area, 256 in Sidon and 10 in Nabatiyeh; 95 were injured and hospitalised in the Tyre area, 1,000 in Sidon and 15 injured in Nabatiyeh. The report did not account for civilian casualties in the Hasbayya, Jezin, A1 Chouf, Aley, Beka’a and Rashaya regions, but the spokesman said the figures there were no more than marginal: ‘Only little damage was caused in the eastern sector’.*4 It needs to be noted that these figures do not include the casualties in Beirut. These were stated in an-Nahar (2 Sept, 1982) to be: Dead: 5,515 Wounded: 11,139 Again, in contrast, an ID F spokesman in Beirut estimated that ‘fewer than 3,000 people were killed in the fighting in Beirut since 6 June, and 80% of the casualties were PLO terrorists or members of other armed groups’.” The same report goes on to say that this claim contradicts figures mentioned the previous week. Joshua Brilliant reports that ‘A doctor in the surgical departments of the American University Hospital in West Beirut told the Jerusalem Post their morgue contained four civilians for every fighter. His estimate tallied with the calculations of a British reporter who had been in West Beirut throughout the fighting and who said 80% of the casualties were civiliart’. It should be noted further that the an-Nahar figures are distorted to the extent that Palestinian civilian casualties are lumped together with military casualties so as to inflate these latter, instead of being added to the Lebanese

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civilian casualties. Given the intensive bombardment of Palestinian refugee camps, districts and PLO offices, it is to be expected that the tru e ratio of civilian to combatant casualties is much higher than 1:4. The Commission concludes that the evidence indicates that the n u m b er of civilian casualties during the conflict registered in the thousands, an d that the proportion of civilian to military casualties was also high. The next step is to establish whether these civilian casualties were the consequence of violations by Israel of the laws of war. Civilian and Combatants The prohibition on attacks directed against civilians implies that care must be exercised by the attacker in distinguishing between civilian and combatants. The distinction needs to be directed at two levels: (a) that of individual civilians, where the operating principle is as stated in Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977, Article 50(1): ‘In case of doubt whether a person is a civilian, that person shall be considered to be a civilian*. (b) that of civilian populations generally, where the principle expressed in Protocol I, Article 50(3) applies: ‘The presence within the civilian population of individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians does not deprive the population of its civilian character*. The degree of care needed to be exercised by the attacker is contingent upon the ease or difficulty with which civilians can be distinguished from combatants, and to this extent is dependent upon whether combatants take steps to distinguish themselves from civilians (see, e.g., Art. 44(3) o f the Protocol I). Lack of care in the attacker, coupled with lack of such steps on the part of combatants will lead to disastrous consequences for the civilian population. Individual civilians Insofar as in the zone of actual combat care is not taken by the combatants to distinguish themselves from civilians, the attacker will be hard put to avoid civilian casualties where the decision to direct fire needs to be made quickly. See, for example, the account of an ID F soldier involved in the battle for Ain el Hilweh refugee camp.*6 ‘We were shooting and shooting and suddenly these two old men popped up 20 yards away with a crate of Pepsi-Cola. They told us they were bringing us drinks. Had they been 200 metres away, they would have been targets. We would have shot them and been glad to have hit them. At what distance does a human being become a target? Is it a question of distance? It brought home to you the problem of toar hanesh>k (the purity of arms)*.

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A lso the cvidcncc of L t Yaron Pik to the Commission in Jerusalem: ‘I feel bad because they (fellow soldiers) might be mistaken by firing too early and then it’s too late. And it doesn’t help me to talk to them to try to convince them because eventually, the person who is going to fire is doing it instinctively. He doesn’t have much control over what he thinks. Because you are in such a difficult situation, you have to do it the best in order to survive. And I know that sometimes you do it and you cause bad consequences, but as a whole I don’t think it does . . . I know that I’m extra careful. And I expect the other side to be just the same. It not always help’. T h e Commission nonetheless concludes that, on the evidence presented to it, there were a number of instances where individual civilians may have been the subject of direct attack, either intentional or due to lack of care on the part of the ID F. Dr R (who requested anonymity) gave testimony to the Commission about the entry of ID F tanks into Sidon. He testified that the tanks fired indiscriminately; not distinguishing civilians from combatants. In one incident, a D r Ahmed Ghader was coming out and when he saw the tanks was frightened and tried to run away. He was shot dead. A Mr Shouhari, a 65-year-old man, lost both his legs in a similar incident. The Chief of Staff of the Palestine Liberation Army in Amman, Lt Col Mohamed Qudsia, described to the Commission the strafing by the Israeli Air Force of a long line of civilian vehicles on the Beirut-Damascus road. Members of the Commission subsequently witnessed large numbers of burned out civilian vehicles on this road. C ivilian population These individual civilian casualties are vastly overshadowed by the evidence of ID F attacks which caused enormous casualties to civilian populations generally. The evidence before the Commission was indisputable that the ID F bombardments caused death and injury to thousands of people, Palestinians and Lebanese. Were these casualties the result of violations by the ID F of the laws of war? Palestinians: combatants, civilians and ‘terrorists' Acts of violence are permitted against combatants. Combatants are those who are ‘members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict’, i.e. ‘have a right to participate directly in the hostilities’ (Protocol I of 1977, Art. 43(2)). The Commission received evidence that the PLO carries out extensive military training for the Palestinian people - men, women and children. The Commission also has evidence that similar training is the rule amongst the population of Israel. That does not, of course, transform all those individuals into combatants who are subject to lawful attack. Many of the casualties were caused by ID F bombardment of civilian areas - refugee camps, urban

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centres, etc. (described above). The vast majority of the population o f these areas was not, in any sense, participating directly in hostilities. The Commission received considerable evidence that bom bardm ent was directed on Palestinian centres of population without regard to w h eth e r the targets were combatants or civilians. The objective appeared to be to destroy not combatants, but ‘terrorists*. This term, as used by ID F spokesm en and their political oommanders, does not appear to distinguish between combatants and civilians. The Commission’s review of transcripts o f Israeli broadcasts reveals innumerable references to: e.g. - ‘annihilation of the PLO terrorists* - M r Yitzhak Shamir, Israeli Foreign Minister, ID F radio, 8 June, 1982. - ‘destroy the terrorist infrastructure* - General Rafael Eitan, ID F Chief of Staff, interview of 14 June, 1982. - ‘destruction of the terrorists’ infrastructure’ - M r Ariel Sharon, Israeli Minister of Defence, on Israeli television, 14 June, 1982. The objective to be destroyed was clearly not confined to combatants. E.g.: - the ID F Deputy Chief of Staff, Moshe Levi, in an interview w ith the Israel Home Service, 10 July, 1982: ‘It seems to me that we are dealing with an organisational-military establishment which conducted a wide range of activities, beginning with acts of sabotage or incitement and demonstrations which, although not involving weapons, disturb life in our territories through acts of terror and has relations with terrorist organisations throughout the world’. - Director-General of Israel’s Foreign Office, M r David Kimche, on the Israel Home Service, 19 July, 1982: ‘this terrorist movement called the (PLO) is a security risk, has been active in subversive activities, in undermining regimes, and therefore it has to be dispersed and dismantled and broken as a military and terrorist machine*. - Israel’s Foreign Minister, M r Yitzhak Shamir, on 11 August, 1982: ‘the PLO which should be liquidated and removed from the political are n a. . .* Nor were these sentiments confined to the upper echelons. Their effects are revealed in an interview given by an Israeli soldier to M r Robert Fisk and quoted in The Times of 17 June, 1982: ‘Listen, the Israeli said, I know you are tape-recording this but personally I would like to see them all dead. I would like to see all the Palestinians dead because they are a sickness wherever they g o . . . Seeing dead children and women here is not really nice but everyone is involved in this

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kind of war, the women too, so we can't always punish exactly the right people because otherwise it would cost us a lot of deaths. And for us, I guess, I hope you understand this, the death of one Israeli soldier is more important than the death of even several hundred Palestinians.’ T h e Commission heard detailed evidence from M r Gideon Spiro in Jerusalem, a reserve sergeant in the paratroops, as to the ‘dehumanisation of th e Palestinians’ in Israeli society and the Hebrew language itself. The view that the Palestinians, including civilians in Lebanon were deserving of the punishment inflicted upon them was expressed by Prime M inister Menachem Begin in a debate in the Israeli Knesset on 12 August: \ . . the distinguished speaker who preceded me, M r Hayim Bar Lev, my dear friend and distinguished rival, tried to accuse the Government of not paying any attention to the casualties among the civilian population. I want to promise you, M r Speaker, that the ID F - following the Government’s orders - did not even once deliberately harm the civilian population. I will not deny that civilians were also hit in the fighting. However, the entire fighting has been aimed against military targets, either those of the Syrian army or the terrorists who possess weapons such as those used by a regular army . . . However, the enemy must first be accurately identified. A soldier does not have such a problem. The problem is whether we go to war or not. Question: But what happens when we meet a civilian population? M r Begin: It is a civilian population known to have provided active aid to the terrorists; that is a historical fact, and it will not help, post facto, to call them beautiful people . . . Why has that population of southern Lebanon suddenly become such a great and just one? Question: Your claim is that that population should be punished. M r Begin: And how! I am using Sabra language: And how! Not even for one moment did I have any doubts of this, that the civilian population deserves punishment. Are you asking me about the population of Naqurah, from where Katyushas were fired at Nahariyya and inside which, with all its terrorists, I saw, from an observation point, how the terrorists sat in a central house with a green roof and were nourished by the population around them. I will continue: The decision to enter southern Lebanon in such power was a political-strategic decision which I approved . . . a decision to use planes and artillery and tanks. I knew what I was doing. When I said . . . bring in tanks as quickly as possible and hit them from far off before the boys reach a face-to-face battle, did I not know what I was doing? I gave that order. Question: M r Begin:

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ISRAEL IN LEBANON O f course that was not the first time that I h ad given that order. For 30 years, from the war of independence to this day, we have been fighting against a population th a t lives in villages and in towns and the question that accom panies us endlessly each time from the beginning is w hether or n o t to hit the civilians . . . We have never aimed fire, th e ID F , under our orders, against a civilian population.

These were by no means the views o f all the soldiers who took p art. See the statement by a soldier who took part in the battle for Ain el H ilw eh: ‘In the six day long battle for Ain el Hilweh, he acknowledged th a t there were orders from above not to harm civilians, but claimed th a t w hen ordered to advance, firing, into a refugee camp which looked m o re like the suburb of a town, these became meaningless, particularly w h en the camp had been mercilessly shelled and bombed beforehand. “ T h ere was purity o f light weapons but not purity o f artillery” , he said, voicing doubts now being expressed by Israeli opponents of the w ar a bout the latest heavy shelling o f West Beirut. “We made the moral calculation, our superiors did not.” Although the bombing had been directed a t PLO targets, he said, the guerillas had been safe in their bunkers, leaving innocent civilians as the main casualties.’,,

1

*

i

The Commission concludes that in its bombardment of targets the I D F did not attempt to distinguish combatants from civilians. Rather, it considered as legitimate targets ‘terrorists’ associated in whatever capacity w ith the PLO. This was a clear violation o f the laws o f war. Civilian population as ‘incidental’ victims It is a clear principle o f customary international law that, as expressed in Protocol I of 1977, Art. 51(2): ‘T he civilian population, as such, as w ell as individual civilians, shall not be the object of attack.’ At the same tim e, it is accepted that unavoidable collateral civilian casualties may result from attacks against military targets. I t is clear that the presence of combatants among the civilian population jeopardises the safety and security o f th a t population, since combatants are a legitimate target o f attack. There are clear international legal obligations on parties to a conflict to avoid subjecting the civilian population to such risks. For example, as expressed in Article 51(7) above. This is aimed at one party intentionally using civilians as a shield for military objects. Additional to this is the principle expressed in Article 58: ‘T he Parties to the conflict shall, to the maximum extent feasible: (a) without prejudice to Article 49 of the Fourth Convention, endeavour to remove the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity o f military objectives;

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(b) avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas; (c) take the other necessary precautions to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control against the dangers resulting from military operations.* T h is is an obligation rather less strict than the absolute injunction contained in Article 51(7). Nonetheless, it needs to be noted that a failure by one party to the conflict to observe even the latter principle docs not mean the other party is free to harm civilians (Art. 51(8)). Also applicable are the restraints imposed by the principles of proportionality and discrimination (see below). T he Commission has much evidence of the assertion by the ID F that the intermingling of combatants with civilians and the location of military targets within civilian areas made civilian casualties unavoidable, an indirect an d collateral result of attacks upon those legitimate military objectives. As stated above, there is no doubt that stores of arms were located in civilian areas - and the Commission condemns this as a violation of customary international law. However, this transgression does not justify the massive attacks upon civilian objects. The temptation to presume that such objects w ere legitimate targets appears to have been all too easily succumbed to. See e.g., the report of the Defence Correspondent of thc Jerusalem Post: ‘The Palestinians and the Lebanese looked the same and shared the same environment. Villages were arsenals and hospitals fortresses. A terrorist hiding in a house with an RPG was as deadly as a Syrian tank, and like a Syrian tank the house had to be destroyed.’ The ID F position was explained in that article as follows: T he war was against the terrorists, but it was understood from the outset that there would also be civilian victims. There was no way of avoiding it. T he PLO had turned refugee camps and helpless Lebanese towns into fortresses. And it was these fortresses the ID F set out to destroy . . . Bringing about the death of the terrorists would not have been a problem. Israel has huge forces in the area, not to mention the resources of its air force, navy and artillery . . . However, the indiscriminate destruction of an area of a town was not an act a Jewish army could perpetrate. The terrorists would have to be fought on a house-to-house basis. This was not possible either. Too many lives had been lost already. A compromise had to be found, and by definition this meant both Israeli and civilian casualties. Artillery was used, the army says selectively. But how selective can a shell be when it is fired from several kilometres away? The ID F was ordered into unfamiliar territory to flush out an enemy familiar with every nook and cranny. The terrorists had unlimited quantities of RPG anti-tank bazookas and the finest personal infantry weapons in the world.36

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That the ID F opted for a solution by way of long-range bombardment by artillery and aerial bombing is evident (see the above-quoted Knesset debate). Testimony on this was given to the Commission by an Israeli reserve soldier, M r Shimshon Roth, in Jerusalem on 8 September, 1982. M r Roth was in service in a heavy artillery battery in the Eastern district during the war in Lebanon. He testified that he was ordered to shell a populated village. The reason given was that an Israeli unit had been attacked in the vicinity of the village, and that there was a military presence in the village. The village, at a distance of perhaps some 20-30 kilometres, was hit by very heavy shelling. M r Roth appeared before the Commission because he ‘felt so strongly that it was improper*. When asked why, he said it was ‘very obvious . . . If you fire on somebody who did not do anything to you, it’s improper*. He testified that the orders were that the shelling was in retaliation for the attack on the Israeli unit. M r Roth was extremely reticent about the details and conscious of the need not to reveal information of a military character. This reinforced the impressiveness of his evidence as to the nature of the bombardment. The consequences of this policy of bombardment are apparent in the enormous numbers of civilian casualties resulting. The implications in terms of the legal principles of proportionality and discrimination are examined below. Here the Commission takes the view that the ‘dilemma’ facing the ID F is not unique. Recent history is replete with instances of guerrilla warfare - where a technologically advanced and superbly equipped military force is confronted with a resistance or liberation movement some members of which are resident in civilian areas and intermingle with the civilian population. The consequence will be that a number of combatants legitimate targets of attack - present in the midst of a much larger civilian population. That that population does not lose its civilian character is indisputable, as expressed in Protocol I of 1977, Article 50(3). If this injunction is ignored, the civilian population will be at grave risk. If the further assumption is made (as described above) that all Palestinians associated with the PLO are ‘terrorists’ and thus legitimate targets, the consequences are truly horrendous. As it was put by Prime Minister Begin: ‘I f, in World War II, Adolf Hitler had taken shelter in some apartment along with a score of innocent civilians, nobody would have had any compunction about shelling the apartment even if it endangered the lives of the innocent as well.*39 The Commission concludes that in the circumstances described above, bombardment of the relatively few PLO combatants and military objectives in the midst of a very large civilian population is a direct attack upon the civilian population as such, and thus violates the laws of war. Three further points may be made in support of this conclusion. First, the Commission is supported in this view by the awareness that such bombardment often preceded any military engagement or the launching of any attack by the PLO combatants. The Commission would

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c o n s i d e r the bombardment of combatants located in civilian areas who were v i s i b l y deploying for an attack or embarked upon a military engagement not t o v io la te the laws of war (compare Article 44(3) of Protocol I of 1977). Such m i l i t a r y actions by the combatants do obviously expose the civilian p o p u l a t i o n to grave danger. S eco n d ly, this exposure of the civilian population to danger of incidental d a m a g e is, in part, catercd for by the prohibition in Article 51(7) of Protocol I . T h e Commission is not satisfied from the evidence it received that the P L O did use the physical presence of civilians for the purpose of protecting m il ita r y operations. Allegations to this effect were made by the ID F. For e x a m p le , Col Amos Nee man, the military spokesman for the Israeli forces s ta tio n e d outside Beirut is quoted as blaming the heavy civilian casualties on t l i e guerrilla practice of putting their positions inside towns, refugee camps a n d civilian homes.40 These claims are belied by, for example, the regular 1 C R C inspection of hospitals bearing the Red Cross insignia, which did not p re v e n t them being hit. A large number of dvilian casualties is attributable, i n th e Commission’s view, to the ID F ’s policy of long-range intentional and d ire c t bombardment of individual combatants within a dvilian population, regardless of the consequences to that population. In the Commission's v iew , this is a violation of the laws of war. T hirdly, the Commission has received evidence that direct bombardment o f civilian populations may have been deliberately intended to achieve different objectives. Mention has already been made of the punitive quality o f th e bombardment. Other testimony before the Commission indicated an intention to alienate the civilian population from the military presence. For example, the Chief of Staff of the Palestine Liberation Army, L t Col M ohamed Qudsia, testified to the Commission in Amman on 12 September, 1982. He gave evidence as to the bombardment in the eastern sector and referred specifically to villages beween Baalbek and Shtura. He stated with respect to some of this bombardment: ‘There was no military target whatsoever, and I don’t understand because there was a very small military presence in Shtura, but this was not bombarded; what was bombarded was the dvilian targets around it. And it was psychological warfare, that they would bombard and hit the civilian targets so that those civilians would not accept any military presence amongst them.’ Similarly, M r Kasim Saleh, the representative of the Lebanese National Movement in the south of Lebanon testified to the Commission in Beirut on 6 September, 1982 that the bombardment was extremely intense. His party’s military presence in the south was very minor - they had few arms and were ineffective in the face of ID F military superiority. The ID F bombardment was, in his view, an attempt to annihilate the military presence of his party’s militia. T he bombardment, for example, on Sarafand was, in his view, a

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psychological attack. Civilian areas were hit so as to alienate the population from the militia, to discredit progressive elements. The population would tend to blame the PLO and the militias for the bombing. Insofar as the intention behind the ID F bombardment was not so much to destroy military targets, but to punish civilian supporters and to seek to alienate them from the PLO and Lebanese militias, such bombardment was a violation of the laws of war. Bombardment of Centres of Population Evidence before the Commission indicates overwhelmingly that the number and proportion of civilian casualties were highest where centres of population: refugee camps and urban areas were bombarded, particularly Beirut. The Commission heard testimony from doctors, nurses, civil defence and relief workers, and many responsible and indeed eminent professionals, officials and others to this effect. Many of these witnesses were present during the bombardments and bore personal eye-witness to the events they describe. D r Ameen Ramzy, a general surgeon/traumatologist, trained in the USA, arrived as a volunteer in Beirut on 12 August and was interviewed by the Commission at the PRCS Gaza Hospital in Beirut on 2 September, 1982. He stated that he had treated a number of women and children with severe bums and many patients (including women and children) had high velocity, high energy wounds. There was no doubt in his mind that many civilians were hit. Dr Amal Shamaa, responsible for emergency services, and M r Marwan Anis, Director of the Barbir Hospital (a private institution) in Beirut testified to the Commission on 1 September 1982 as to the many civilian casualties treated at the hospital until it was closed due to damage suffered from bombardment. D r Abourahman Laban, a psychiatrist and Chief Medical Officer of the Islamic Psychiatric Hospital in Beirut (and Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in the Lebanese Government) testified to the Commission on 3 September, 1982 that his hospital had been hit by some 20-25 shells, that nine patients had died and 32 were injured, of whom two later died. Ms Mary Jean Grove-Hills, a nurse from New Zealand arrived in Beirut at the beginning of August and worked at the Lahout Hospital in Beirut. She estimated that at a minimum 70% of the patients she treated were civilians. M r X (whose anonymity is requested), a student aged 23, was head of a Red Cross refugee/first aid clinic in West Beirut throughout the siege. He testified to the Commission as to the various cases his centre had treated and estimated that 90% of them were civilians. M r Derek Cooper, a Beirut representative of a relief organization and his wife, Mrs Pamela Cooper, were present in Beirut throughout the siege. M r Cooper had been a major in the British Army and had seen action and witnessed bombardment, e.g. in Normandy during World War II. He testified to the Commission as to the intense nature of the bombardment of

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B e i r u t and elsewhere: ‘saturation’, ‘creeping barrage*, etc. Both he and his A rife visited many hospitals and clinics in Beirut during the bombardment m d su b m itte d to the Commission the detailed manuscript and typewritten n o t e s they had kept of their visits. Through these and in their testimony to t h e Com m ission it is stated that about 80% of the casualties were civilian. O t h e r prominent witnesses to the Commission who testified from p e r s o n a l experience as to the extensive civilian casualties included Professor K a m a l S alibi of the American University of Beirut, and Mr Georges Howi, a m e m b e r of the Lebanese Parliament, both of whom were present in Beirut th r o u g h o u t the siege; M r Hassib Abdul Jawad, a prominent trade union o f fic ia l, and other trade unionists in Sidon, and Dr R (who requested a n o n y m ity ), who worked as a surgeon in a Sidon hospital. We also heard te stim o n y in Jerusalem from an officer (who requested that he not be n a m e d ) in the ID F Civil Assistance Unit. He had entered Tyre two days a f te r the beginning of the war. He testified that he estimated about 20% of t h e buildings were destroyed; that there were many corpses under these buildings; that he was responsible for digging out some 80-odd corpses (u sin g tractors, etc.); that he did not know if they were military or civilian corpses; and that other corpses had been buried by the Muslim religious authorities. I t is scarcely necessary to cite the enormous coverage by the international press of the destruction wrought on the Lebanese centres of population and o f the consequences in terms of civilian casualties. In the International Herald Tribune of 17 June, 1982, M r David B. Ottaway of the Washington Post recounts the destruction of the apartment building at 44 Farshoukh Street in West Beirut where 72 persons died and 12 others were reported missing. He quotes M r Francesco Noseda of the ICRC as saying there was ‘certainly a disproportion* between the heavy losses among civilians and those believed to have been inflicted on Lebanese and Palestinian combatants. A report from Beirut by M r John Kilner of ihcNew York Times in the International Herald Tribune of 16 August, 1982 states as follows: ‘What is apparent, however, is that the overwhelming majority of those killed were civilians. Doctors at the existing hospitals and makeshift field shelters say nearly all their patients are civilians, many of them victims of cluster bombs, which throw tiny shards of metal. Guerrilla leaders say they have lost relatively few men because they have been in shelters. Their casualties have usually come at such clear and relatively exposed targets as heavy gun positions. Indeed, virtually every street in West Beirut swarms with gunmen when the shelling stops. Palestinian civilians, however, are for the most part unable to escape from West Beirut because the checkpoints on the single crossing area to East Beirut are manned by militiamen of the Lebanese rightist Christian force, the Phalange, who turn back Palestinian civilians.*

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Reports by Christopher W tlker and Robert Fisk in The Times of 17 June, 1982 and 19 June, 1982 respectively describe their experiences of civilian dead in Sidon, as does a report by Ian Black of the Guardian o f 11 July, 1982. Detailed figures on casualties are reported by Robert Fisk in The Times of 21 June, 1982. A special report in the London Sunday Times of 8 August, 1982 quotes M r John de Salis of the ICRC as claiming that civilian casualties are far out of proportion to the military presence in West Beirut: ‘Between one and four per cent of the population could be considered combatants. But at least 80% of the casualties were civilian, both Lebanese and Palestinian'. The same report quotes Dr A. Tonneson, a Norwegian orthopaedic surgeon with one of the teams in West Beirut, as saying that over 90% of the casualties he treated are civilians and that many of them had either multiple burns or shrapnel injuries. A report by David Adamson o f t he Daily Telegraph of 14 August, 1982 cites doctors at hospitals saying that at least six civilians were admitted for every wounded PLO fighter. The implications of the policy of bombardment of population centres was not entirely lost on the Israeli press. In A I ha-Mishmar of4 August, 1982, M r Yehoshua Sobol writes: ‘He who sends dozens of planes daily to drop hundreds of tons of bombs on a town populated by 400,000 people, among whom are also 6,000 fighters, is actually daily executing hundreds of civilians'. Again, in Ha'aretz of 16 June, 1982, M r Michael Lotan writes: \ . . there is no justification for a total war against the population that was host to the terrorists, a war that goes as far as occupation and destruction of towns with hundreds of thousands of inhabitants.' In an interview by Yigal Sameh with retired colonel and Israeli military historian, Meir Pa'il, published in Kol H a'iry a Jerusalem Friday paper, on 10 August, 1982, a comparison was drawn between the siege of Beirut in 1982 and that of Jerusalem in 1948: — How many casualties did the shelling of the city cause? — 2,000 Jews - soldiers and civilians - were killed in the battle for Jerusalem, and that is about a third of all those killed in the War of Independence. One thousand of them were soldiers, mainly from ‘Harel' and ‘Etzioni' Brigades and some were from the Etzel and Lehi units, and 1,000 were civilians, 600 of whom were killed by shelling. Contrary to what is happening today in Beirut, there were no tanks in Jerusalem in 1948, no air force and no cannons over the size of 3.7. Beirut today is shelled from the sea, by missiles and tanks, the Israeli Air Force throws on it whatever it has, the Israeli tanks shell the city with 105mm guns and all sorts of artillery - the standard one being 155mm - are used and that is a healthy shell that weighs over 40kg and there are others and heavier ones which are used. Ten thousand shells were fired in one day - these are far heavier masses than what Jerusalem suffered in '48.

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— Comparing the fire on Beirut and on Jerusalem, how would you estim a te the number of those killed in Beirut? — I f out of the 100,000 Jerusalem inhabitants 1,000 were killed during t h e siege, i.e., one per cent of the population - then with the 400-500,000 inhabitants of Beirut we reach 5,000 killed civilians, and that is a m inim um figure. F in ally , in an article in Davar of 5 September, 1982, Mr Y. Smilanski, one o f th e senior men of letters in Israel, writes about the announcement of c a s u a ltie s amounting to tens of thousands on the radio: ‘T he real question now is: what kind of a government Israel has. How a government can exist, knowing all this, accepting the responsibility of killing and wounding ten thousands, such masses of humanity, as a method of doing politics, and as a possibility, accepted 8s reasonable and not denied, of achieving political and military aims, including the removal of PLO from the borders of Israel* T h e Commission’s conclusion is that the bombardment by the ID F of cen tres o f population in Lebanon was a violation of the laws of war.

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attack:

Civilian

The Law In addition to requiring that attacks be directed only against military objectives and that civilian objects and population be spared, the international law o f war imposes obligations relating to the taking of precautions in attack, with the object of preventing damage to or destruction of non-military objects and civilians. For example, Hague Convention IV of 1907 requires: ‘The officer in command of an attacking force must, before commencing a bombardment, except in cases of assault, do all in his power to warn the authorities’ (Art. 26). In sieges and bombardments ‘all necessary steps must be taken to spare’ various civilian objectives, hospitals, monuments, cultural institutions, etc. (Art. 27). Similarly, Hague Convention IX on Naval Bombardment 1907 required commanders to take ‘all due measures in order that the town may suffer as little harm as possible (Art. 2); that again ‘all the necessary measures’ be taken to spare as far as possible various civilian objects (Art. 5); and ‘If the military situation permits, the commander of the attacking naval force, before commencing the bombardment, must do his utmost to warn the authorities’ (Art. 6). The ICRC Draft Rules 1956 enjoin the ‘person responsible for ordering or launching an attack’ to make sure the objective is duly identified as military in nature; if there is a choice, to ‘select the one, an attack on which involves the least danger for the civilian population’; and ‘whenever the circumstances allow, warn the civilian population in jeopardy, to enable it to take shelter’ (Art. 8(a) & (c)). Article 9 requires that ‘all possible precautions shall be taken’ to minimise civilian losses or damage. Article 11 requires the parties to ‘take all necessary steps’ to remove civilians subject to their control from the danger of exposure to attack, and Article 13 prohibits parties from placing or keeping civilians near military objectives so as to induce the enemy to refrain from attack. ICRC Resolution of 1965 and the UN General Assembly Resolution 2444 of 1968 reiterate the injunction to spare the civilian population as much as possible. UN General Assembly Resolution 2675 of 1970 states that ‘every effort should be made’ and ‘all necessary precautions should be taken’ to avoid civilian loss or injury or damage (Art. 3).

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I n particular, with regard to hospitals, Geneva Convention IV (Civilians) 1 9 4 9 , provides (Art. 19): ‘T h e protection to which civilian hospitals are entitled shall not cease u n le ss they are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harm fu l to the enemy. Protection may, however, cease only after due w arning has been given, naming, in all appropriate cases^ reasonable tim e limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded.' W ith respect to weapons, UN Convention on Excessively Injurious W e a p o n s 1981 requires, with regard to mines, booby traps and other devices a n d incendiary weapons, that ‘all feasible precautions’ be taken to protect civ ilian s. T h e principles and rules of conventional and customary international law a r e codified in Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977: ARTICLE 57 PRECA U TIO N S IN ATTACK

1. 2.

In the conduct of military operations, constant care shall be taken to spare the civilian population, civilians and civilian objects. With respect to attacks, the following precautions shall be taken: (a) Those who plan or decide upon an attack shall: (i) do everything feasible to verify that the objectives to be attacked are neither civilians nor civilian objects and are not subject to special protection but are military objectives within the meaning of para. 2 of Art. 52 and that it is not prohibited by the provisions of this Protocol to attack them; (ii) take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimising, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects; (iii) refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. (b) An attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one or is subject to special protection or that the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. (c) Effective advance warning shall be given of attacks which may affect the civilian population, unless circumstances do not permit.

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3. When a choice is possible between several military objectives fw obtaining a similar military advantage, the objectives to b e selected shall be that the attack on which may be expected to c a u se the least danger to civilian lives and to civilian objects. 4. In the conduct of military operations at sea or in the air, e a c h Party to the conflict shall, in conformity with its rights and d u tie s under the rules of international law applicable in armed co n flict, take all reasonable precautions to avoid losses of civilian lives a n d damage to civilian objects. 5. No provision of this Article may be construed as au th o risin g any anacks against the civilian population, civilians or civilian objects.

| 1 J *

The Facts The Commission concludes above that the ID F attacked objectives which were in large part not military objectives, and that acts o f violence were directed either intentionally or at best recklessly against civilian objecrs and population. Such a conclusion renders unnecessary a consideration of whether the precautions required by international law were tak en by the ID F in those cases. But the Commission has received evidence o f claims by the ID F and the Israeli political authorities that the ID F did deeply consider the question of the civilian population and ‘agreed not to shell an d not to bomb built-up areas, unless it was absolutely crucial’.41 (

Intention and Carelessness ! The general principle of customary international law, as expressed in I Protocol I of 1977, is that ‘constant care shall be taken to spare th e civilian population, civilians and civilian objects* (Art. 57(1)). The evidence before the Commission establishes that there was a massive amount of damage to built-up areas, and that, as a consequence, there were very large num bers of civilian casualties. The Commission concludes that the ID F violated this general principle of the international law of war. The evidence cited in this Report alone suffices to establish beyond any reasonable doubt that, as many witnesses put it in their testimony to us: even if the bombardment was nor intentional, it is evident that the Israelis did not care whether they hit civilians or not, and to that extent the destruction and the casualties were inevitable. Precautions in Bombardment One aspect of the legal principle requiring precautions in attack is that those who plan or decide upon an attack should do everything feasible to: (1) (2) (3)

verify that the objective is a military one; avoid civilian casualties and damage; refrain from attacks which may cause civilian damage or casualties disproportionate to the military advantage anticipated. (see Protocol I of 1977, Art. 57(2)(a)).

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T h e Commission has been presented with overwhelming evidence that t h e r e was extensive bombardment causing civilian casualties and damage. J P rim a facie, this indicates a violation by the ID F of its obligations as listed a b o v e . The ID F spokesmen and Israeli political leaders frequently insisted t h a t only military targets were aimed at. For example, a broadcast on ID F r a d i o of 6 September, 1982 claimed that buildings were hit mainly in the s o u th e r n part of West Beirut, in the area of the (Palestinian) camps. Only 40 b u ild in g s in the northern part of West Beirut were said to have suffered hits. T h e targets bombed and shelled were said to have been identified as ‘te rr o r is t' headquarters or bases. Similarly, claims were made as to the a c cu rac y of ID F bombardment. For example, M r Moshe Yegar, Assistant D irector-G eneral of the Israeli Foreign Ministry was quoted as saying: ‘It is accepted, I think, that our Air Force is very accurate.*42 T h e dilemma that results was stated by a Lebanese health official in a r e p o r t in The Sunday Times: ‘I f attacking civilian sites is the Israelis' intent, t h e n their public statements about going only for military targets are lies. If it is not intentional, then their claims of accuracy are grossly over-rated. T h e y cannot have it both ways.'43 This was a sentiment expressed to the Com mission on many occasions by witnesses who testified in Lebanon. T h e obligation to do everything feasible to verify that the objective is a m ilitary one requires that target intelligence be of the highest possible quality in the circumstances prevailing. Only if target information is gathered, evaluated and utilised effectively may the attack be both militarily successful and comply with the legal obligation of taking precautions in attack. The questions that arise in the wake of the ID F operations were posed by the Defence Correspondent of the Jerusalem Post, M r Hirsh Goodman:44 ‘The battle for Beirut and the application of Israeli air power to that battle will become a compulsory subject for military historians. The strikes were relentless, the aircraft used ultra-sophisticated, the ordnance dropped highly destructive, the delivery systems the most modern in the world. Yet the 11,000-13,000 terrorists and Syrians under siege in the city managed both to survive and to retaliate. Why, then, was the air force used so extensively, especially given the diplomatic considerations and the human suffering caused by urban aerial bombardment? The air force was necessary to help bring the terrorists to agree to leave the city; but why was it used after they had agreed to do so? Sharon has claimed that the goal was to strike at the PLO leadership; but not a single leader of known position or name was killed. There was a rumour that Abu Iyad, Arafat’s deputy, was injured in one strike, but the rumour was quashed when he made a public appearance a few days later. If killing off some key PLO leaders was an important enough goal to risk jeopardising the agreement and plummet Israeli-American relations to breaking-point, why did the defence minister wait until the end of the

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war to achieve that goal? And why through an almost indiscrim inate use of force which left hundreds of casualties among civilians b u t noneofan\ real significance among the terrorists?'

The Commission’s view is that, in the light of the evidence it h a s received, the answer to the questions posed lies in the violation by th e I D F and its political masters of the principles of international law. They d id n o t care to verify that objectives were military ones; they did not care to a v o id civilian » casualties or damage; and they did not care to refrain from a tta c k s which caused civilian damage or casualties disproportionate to a n y military advantage anticipated. Precautions in Strategy The military objectives of the ID F from the inception of the o p e ra tio n codenamed ‘Peace for Galilee’ were the subject of much evidence b e fo re the Commission. The strategy would differ depending upon w h eth er a 40km zone was perceived as the limit, or whether entry into West Beirut w as aimed at. Whatever the initial objectives, the facts were that the I D F advanced rapidly northwards, one column proceeding along the coast th ro u g h Tyre, Sidon and up to Beirut. It was this advance through heavily populated urban centres and refugee camps which caused the greatest civilian casualties and damage. The strategy was described in the following terms by retired Colonel Meir Pa’il, a military historian interviewed in the Jerusalem Friday paper Kol Ha Vr:45 ‘In modern warfare one tries to evade “knocking the head against the wall” , i.e.: to try to fight as little as possible in urban areas. In the modern era one always tried to evade attacking large cities. It is easy to defend a city and difficult to break into it. The accepted conception is to surround the city and keep moving onwards hoping that the city will surrender! Warsaw, which was in the hands of the Nazis, was surrounded by the Soviets but they did not break in. The same happened with Budapest and Belgrade. In '67 in our thesis of conquering East Jerusalem we did not plan fighting in it, but only surrounding it. The city fell mainly thanks to the surrounding from the north by brigade No 10, led by Uri Ben Ari. There was fighting in urban areas only on the margins. Yitshak Sadeh held the same thesis in the War of Independence: not to break into a city. I think that our strategical thought is that the Arabs will always behave as they did in the past. Whenever we surrounded a city and put on some pressure - they raised a white flag. This is what happened with Beit Shean, Jaffa, Beer Sheva and Haifa in 1948 and in 1967 it happened with Jenin, Nablus, Ramallah. In '73, the town of Suez, things were already different, and in this war it was different in Damour, Tyre and Sidon. Beirut is a megalopolis, an enormous town and here they were

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d isa p p o in te d . Now when they bit into Bourj el Brajneh, the Hippodrome a n d the airport, they are still waiting for the white flag - but in vain. A h e a v y disappointment.* T h e im plications of a failure to secure an immediate surrender by the forces le f e n d in g the population centres on the coast make it necessary to have a t r a t e g y for securing this objective. Moreover, an Israeli reserve major, Mr ! m r i Ron, a Member of the Knesset, was quoted as saying that the ID F : o l u m n driving north past Tyre and Sidon before they were cleared was i m b u s h e d frequently by sallies from these towns: ‘It was costing us too m a n y needless casualties. We had to go in and clear the towns.*44 T h e evidence before the Commission is that the ID F adopted a number of m e a s u re s in its strategy for occupying the population centres. These in c lu d e d bombardment of the cities and camps, aerial dropping of leaflets w a r n in g the inhabitants of impending bombardment, and announcements th r o u g h megaphones when an assault by ground forces was imminent. What is o f crucial importance, though difficult to establish in fact, is the order in w h ic h these measures were implemented, and the extent to which they were p la n n e d for in advance. The answers to these questions affect the issue of w h e th e r there were violations of the laws of war requiring the taking of precautions in attack. T h e Commission has evidence that in Tyre leaflets were dropped over the city by Israeli aircraft warning of the attack, and that as a consequence many o f th e city’s inhabitants fled to the ‘Casino’ beach southwest of the city (estimates of those on the beach range from 30-50,000).47 The final assault was delayed by two hours while further loudspeaker messages were broadcast. There was an intense artillery and air bombardment before the infantry assault began on 7 June. There was very light resistance to the occupation. The extent of the civilian damage to Tyre has been described above (and see also the report by a senior Oxfam representative, M r Peter Coleridge.48 Some 20% of the city was destroyed, with at least 80-odd corpses removed subsequently, according to the evidence of an officer with the Israeli Civil Assistance Unit who testified before the Commission in Jerusalem. Others were buried in the ruins, or elsewhere. In Ain el Hilweh, the sequence of events as presented in evidence before the Commission was that bombardment of the area around the refugee camp began on 5 June, 1982. The bombing continued to hit targets near to the camp - apparently various gun emplacements - during 6 June, but gradually it approached the camp, with some bombs striking it. During the night of 67 June, the camp itself came under bombardment from artillery, naval and air forces. The bombardment continued during 7,8 and 9 June. Only at 4pm on 9 June were leaflets dropped in the camp warning that bombardment of the whole area would commence in two hours (the testimony of D r Steiner Berge, a Norwegian physician, aged 33, one of a medical team working in a rehabilitation centre and clinic in Ain el Hilweh, who was present

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throughout this period, given to the Commission in London on 28 August, 1982; also written evidence of other members of the team). According to one newspaper report, following the leaflets a large number of civilians left.49 The effect of the leaflets is described by D r Chris Giannou, a Canadian surgeon who was working with the PRCS in Sidon at the time. In a statement to the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Europe and the Middle East of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, dated 13 July, 1982, he states: ‘I have been a witness to the reign of confusion amongst the civilian population in and around the camp. Leaflets had been dropped from Israeli airplanes telling people to cross over Israeli lines to get out of the zone of hostilities. Very few of the leaflets fell into the camp itself. Israeli authorities later stated that they had also used loud speakers, but we in the hospital never heard them. It was never clear where exactly the people were supposed to go, up into one set of hills or another, down to the sea shore, or even to re-group in the Government Hospital itself. A t one point, on 9 June, between 3,000 and 4,000 civilians had taken refuge in the hospital: entire families, the elderly and those that had been separated from their families. And the shelling of the hospital continued w ith all these people in it.’ The next stage is described by M r Yaron Pik, a lieutenant commanding an Israeli tank: ‘Now, there was the first time we tried to enter, there was infantry tried to get inside and they had heavy casualties so they pulled back. And then we decided we are going to have a psychological war, because we don’t want to have any more casualties.' There followed attempts to induce the remaining inhabitants to surrender - delegations of religious leaders and civilian government officials were sent but were unable to persuade the inhabitants to surrender. Loudspeakers failed to have any effect. There followed a massive bombardment of the camp for a number of days. The Commission visited the camp and saw for itself that no structure was left untouched; that the vast majority of buildings were reduced to rubble; and that the only remaining buildings were heavily damaged, mostly single storey structures.50 This was a camp which had contained an estimated 60,000 inhabitants. It is still not known how many casualties resulted from the bombardments - estimates range from hundreds to thousands. As a record o f the events in Sidon, the Commission has had presented in evidence the detailed diary of a reputable representative of a relief organisation who was present in the city throughout the period. This records that air strikes occurred beginning on 6 June and continued throughout the day. Only at 2.30pm on 7 June were leaflets dropped telling people they had two hours to evacuate. This does not seem to have produced much response from the population.51 The population remained in shelters (some twothirds of the population stayed in shelters according to one resident).52

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T h e r e was a very heavy bombardment which lasted until 9 June, when more l e a f l e t s were dropped at 8.30 in the morning. The events were described by a p a r a t r o o p captain who was among the first troops to enter Sidon:55 *. . . we were the first unit that had to open, to take hold of the main street o f Sidon. At first our troop was attacked in the junction, in the main ju n ctio n in Sidon itself, near the hospital. It was attacked by three or four sm a ll troops of the Palestinians. And we were stuck there for the whole n ig h t because the way of fighting was that because we didn’t want too m a n y casualties from our side, and we want to save them and we were v e ry big troops against what we attacked, so the system was to fight very slow , very easy, to use all the ammunition behind us, it means airplanes, a n d artillery. And of course as a soldier that you know you are going to attack this street, every bomb and every airplane that comes to bomb this m ain strip was for us something that we were happy because that is to save o u r lives. So in this situation the morality problem that you have is you d o n ’t think about it too much. You know that you have a mission and you w ant to get out alive. To finish that. So we have some people from this fight in the junction, we have some of our soldiers killed there, about four soldiers, one of our vehicles was get an RPG and all the soldiers there was killed, and, of course, we prepared ourselves for a very strong fight. We heard that there is about 7,000 Palestinians there in Sidon and, in the morning, we called the people to get out from the houses and to concentrate them on the beach. They, in the first hour, nobody went out, so the artillery and the airplane really made a strong job there on the two main roads and after another hour we called them and again nobody went out and after an hour we called them another time to get out and we promised them nobody will be hurt by our troops and after three hours, they suddenly, you know, in the vacuum system, one went out and after him another and suddenly all the streets there was full and crowded with people, that was very afraid. They actually didn’t believe that we are not going to kill them, and we sent all of them to the beach.’ T h e destruction of civilian objects that resulted from the bombardment has been described above. M r Hassib Abdul Jawad in his testimony estimated that not more than 15% of the houses in Sidon were destroyed. He said he could easily name 40 families in Sidon who were killed. Most of the victims died in shelters. He said that some 800 people had died of whom they had the identity cards. There are some 3,000 missing. Many people thought that these persons were in prison or had fled. In his view they were dead. The Commission was particularly impressed by the evidence of Mr Shmuel Rubinstein. The following two key points emerged from his evidence. First, when questioned closely about the method of occupying the city, the following exchanges took place (as recorded at the time):

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Q:

You said that part of that training exercise, you know, the two months earlier, had included the plan of how you conquer just this sort o f city? W ouldn't that have involved separating (civilians from the military objective)? No, it was a local decision to use the microphone that, I think that that is wonderful, the best weapon that we ever used. It was a local decision, it wasn’t a system that you train on, that you learn or study how to deal with this kind of war. There must have been some experience 24 hoursearlier or 48hours earlier in Tyre, because in Tyre they were called outtoo onto the beaches. I was a commander, but I wasn’t the head. I don’t know about the system. But I never trained or know about this kind of how you are going to conquer a big city like Sidon, I mean, in the terms o f the citizens and people that live. I know how to fight in buildings, but what to do with the people, I didn’t know. But you knew about the ‘Casino* (beach) business before you got to Sidon. We saw that. Did that give you the idea to do the same thing? I don*t know. I think so. All the time we were very afraid about what is going on with the people. But in the moment we know that we are going to conquer Sidon so we asked for the most and the stronger bom b with artillery and the air force that we can in order to make it easier for us to conquer it. This is before they went to the beach? This was before they went to the beach . . .

A:

Q: A:

Q: A: Q: A:

Q: A:

According to another witness later on: Q: Can I just explain so it can help me to understand why things happened the way they did? You say, before you started you had seen plans to go all the way to Beirut. A: Yes. Q: Presumably, these'plans included how to deal with Tyre and Sidon along the way? A: You mean how — Q: — how to get around them or to go through them — A: No. To go through them. We actually, we did exactly the plan th at we thought. Q: But the important thing to me is that obviously there was som e deviation from the plan because you — A: What? Q: Change. Because you used microphones (megaphones). That was no t in the plan.

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T hat was not in the plans. How was the problem of civilians dealt with in the plans? Was it just ignored completely? I didn’t heard about the citizens’ problems. Civilians. The civilians at all. In the plan. Yes, in the plan. We know that we look at ourselves as a professional soldier, maybe the best soldier that this army has. We know what is a city. A city is houses. The house you take, you put here fire, you take it from the left, you take it from the right. We know about it. I didn't realise the problem of citizens living there and stuck in the middle of the fire.

I t emerges from this that there was no previous training or preparation for an assault upon and occupation of centres of population inhabited mainly by civilians beyond the storming of buildings and bombardment. There appears to be nothing in the way of precautions in attack required by the international law of war. The second point arises from the questioning of Mr Rubinstein about the military necessity of occupying the city. He was categorical that it was a military necessity - arising out of the existence of stores of arms and ammunition and fighters in Sidon itself. As he put it: ‘I mean the situation was that you had to hold the main roads. The main road is the main important road in order to give any chance to all the troops behind you to continue to Beirut, so you have to hold very strong, without any interfere the main road. T hat’s why you had to go through the houses and to clean the city from any resistance.’ What M r Rubinstein objected to was the following: ‘But we saw the evidence that the main ammunition places was in the city itself, so I . . . the problem is, I think the morality problem is not what happened after this. The problem is the decision to do such a thing like that with all the other influence on the population and what happened to the troop itself and how will be the system of fighting this place. That means the citizens will be killed and the destroyed of city. That is the question. But for the troop themselves, it was necessary - 1 can tell you as a soldier; even I oppose it - it was necessary to destroy the city itself. And, in the moment - you know, you now going to ask question if it’s like you are judge in basketball play. It was OK or it was not OK; there is a law. In a fight, there is no law. Since you decide to fight, so you don’t have any law. The only law that you have is to be alive after that. And in order to be alive, you have to bomb the most that you can, and it really is a story to define who is against you and who is with you, and who is innocent. You cannot play this kind of play. But I think the main problem is the decision of the Government to do such a thing like that, to force . . . I feel very

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angry because I was forced to be a part of this kind of a fight, that all my history, all what I know about my people, that we suffered so much as Jews, we are going to do the same things, and we are going to say that this blood is OK and this is a real victim but people in Tyre and Sidon, they are not victims, they are just participate in the Palestinians’ war.’ The Commission concludes that it was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of the ID F strategy that major centres o f civilian population (urban areas and refugee camps) might have to be occupied; and that, on the evidence, those who planned or decided upon the invasion did not take adequate, let alone all feasible precautions with a view to avoiding civilian casualties and damage. There is evidence that leaflets were dropped on centres of population - but at least on some occasions (Sidon, Ain el Hilweh) this only followed bombardment; moreover, that it was only the local initiative of some ID F field commanders who took upon themselves the responsibility for taking precautions to minimise civilian casualties - in the absence of training or preparation. In the Commission's view, this reflects a wholly inadequate compliance with the legal requirements of precautions in attack imposed on those who plan or decide upon an attack. This failure amounts, in the Commission's view, to a violation of the laws of war. Precautions in Siege: the Question of Hostages The international law of war imposes obligations on the parties to a conflict to endeavour to the maximum extent feasible to remove civilians and civilian objects under their control from the vicinity of military objectives, to avoid locating such objectives within or near densely populated areas, and to take other necessary precautions to protect civilians and civilian objects controlled by them against the dangers resulting from military operations (see, e.g. Article 58 of Protocol I of 1977). This, of course, is additional to the prohibition of using civilians or civilian objects as a shield for military operations or objectives (see, e.g., Protocol I of 1977, Art. 51(7)). The Commission did receive evidence that in a number of cases stores of arms and ammunition were located by the PLO in or near civilian objects or in the vicinity of civilian population. These acts in some cases were clear violations of the international law of war. The Commission takes the view, however, that the obligations imposed by law are not absolute; but that they are qualified by phrases such as ‘to the maximum extent feasible*. This does not mean that actions by the PLO in locating military objectives in civilian areas were not in some cases violations of the laws of war. But it does mean that the location of military forces in a siege is subject to particular considerations. The Commisson has noted the point made by the ID F that the PLO was in fact holding the entire city of Beirut and its hundreds of thousands of people as hostage, preventing them from leaving when the Israeli Air Force dropped pamphlets warning the civilian population to leave the city in case

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fighting was resumed (official Israeli position explained on Israeli Home Service broadcast, 28 June, 1982). The Commission has evidence that there was in fact a large scale exodus from West Beirut. For example, in the early weeks of the war, the military correspondent M r Hirsh Goodman reported that: ‘At least 200,000 of the 400,000 civilians in West Beirut have left the area over the past 48 hours encouraged to do so by the unrelenting Israeli aerial and artillery bombardment all night Thursday and through to 8pm Friday (29-30 June).*54 The same correspondent a few weeks later described the role of the ID F itself with regard to the exodus from West Beirut.55 Describing the ‘trials’ of a Lieutenant Gal, an Israeli officer in charge of a crossing point from West to East Beirut: ‘His orders are clear: not to allow anyone other than diplomats and medical personnel into West Beirut; and to allow any who wants to leave to do so, provided they are not armed. In principle the job is clear, in practice it is almost impossible . . . Movement from west to east was also complicated. All people leaving the west were told they would not be allowed back. There were repeated pleas of exceptions to be made, adding a human dimension not articulated in the crisp orders handed down the night before. There also seemed to be no clear understanding between the Israeli soldiers, the Phalange (Lebanese Forces) and Lebanese army units stationed at the roadblock. The Israelis allow anyone who is not armed to leave, the Lebanese forces claim only Lebanese citizens may leave. In reply to our question what he would do if a known terrorist were to arrive and ask to move to the east, an Israeli soldier said that if he were not armed he would be allowed through. In reply to the same question a Phalange soldier drew his finger across his throat. The Lebanese captain simply shrugged his shoulders and pointed to the all-powerful Segen-Mishne Gal.* In testimony before the Commission in Beirut, Professor Kamal Salibi, an eminent historian at the American University of Beirut, who was present in West Beirut throughout the siege, testified that people were leaving all the time; nobody felt they were being held hostages; if people wanted to leave, they left: ‘I did not hear of a case where someone wanted to leave and could not.’ There were cases when people were stopped from leaving when a heavy bombing raid was going on. For further accounts of refugees leaving West Beirut, see, e.g., the Financial Times of 9 August, 1982 (Nora Boustanyj. The reality of a siege is portrayed by the military historian, retired Colonel Meir Pa’il, in an interview in a Jerusalem newspaper, Kol H a ’ir of 10 August, 1982. The interviewer asked about how the siege of Jerusalem in 1948 compared with that of Beirut in 1982: ‘was there a tendency to empty the shelled and starved city of civilians?* The reply was as follows:

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‘On the contrary. The directions and the tendencies were that everyone should remain in the dty. The evacuation o f the Jewish settlements w as contrary to the Zionist ideology. There were some initiatives to evacuate women and children from Kfar Etzion and from the Old City t o Jerusalem itself. The Jewish leadership wanted to fight the streaming o f the civilians out of town and not to allow them an escape from it. And there was the reality. By the end of the war, a count of the Jew ish population showed that 70,000 were left of the 100,000. Some 30,000 managed to get out in various ways, such as hiding in the convoys th a t returned empty, etc. When I hear an Army officer say, ‘We enable the civilians to get o u t ’ this is first class hypocrisy. In a besieged town the civilians are always hostages of the army, they cannot leave because the army won't let th e m . They didn’t let them out in Jerusalem as well. The idea was that the c ity should continue to function, therefore anyone who goes to fight in u rb a n areas must know that civilians are an organic part of the city just as its buildings are. In a shelled and besieged town the escape has another side: my w ife’s family lived in '48 in Jerusalem on Shmuel Hanavi St 38. There was a Hagana (Jewish Defence Army) post on top of the house and it was hit b y a Jordanian shell. The wife and son went to live in a hotel and the fath e r remained in the house. The house was hit but he remained in it. He knew that there were Jews around and that no one would take over his house i f he left, but he didn't leave. In Beirut there are also people who stick to their house and property and during shellings just go down to the shelter or the lower floors. When the shooting stops they return to their flats. Life is strong and they always return and hope that the first shell will fall elsewhere and they will have time to go down to the shelter. Though th e shelling is heavy, people remain there, knowing that if they leave, th e y may stay alive but their houses will be taken over by refugees or b y others.' The Commission concludes that the evidence indicates that there was n o attempt by the PLO to prevent the civilian inhabitants of West Beirut from leaving. This may have presented the ID F with grave difficulties in achieving their objectives, but the difficulties were of the ID F 's own making.

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Proportionality

T h e Law T h e principle of international law which prohibits acts of violence which m a y be expected to cause casualties or damage disproportionate to the m ilita ry advantage sought is enshrined in Articles 22 of the Hague C o n v e n tio n IV of 1907: ‘The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring t h e enemy is not unlimited’ and 23(e). . . it is especially forbidden - (e) to e m p lo y arms, projectiles, or material calculated to cause unnecessary su ffe rin g ’. It was refined in the context of the protection of civilians in the H a g u e Rules of Aerial Warfare 1923, Article 24(4): ‘In the immediate neighbourhood of the operations of land forces, the bombardment of cities, to w n s, villages, dwellings or buildings is legitimate provided that there ex ists a reasonable presumption that the military concentration is sufficiently important to justify such bombardment, having regard to the danger thus caused to the civilian population.’ In the ICRC Draft Rules of 1956, Article 8(a) and (b) states: ‘The person responsible for ordering or launching an attack shall, first of all: (a ). . . When the military advantage to be gained leaves the choice open between several objectives, he is required to select the one, an attack on which involves the least danger for the civilian population; (b) take into account the loss and destruction which the attack, even if carried out with the precautions prescribed under Article 9, is liable to inflict upon the civilian population. He is required to refrain from the attack if, after due consideration, it is apparent that the loss and destruction would be disproportionate to the military advantage anticipated.’ It was stated expressly in connection with weapons such as mines, boobytraps and other devices in the UN Convention on Excessively Injurious Weapons 1981, Protocol II, Article 3(3)(c): ‘(weapons) which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated’.

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The basic principle was reaffirmed in Protocol I Additional to Geneva Convention 1977, Article 35: ‘(1) In any armed conflict, the right of the Parties to the conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited. (2) It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and materials and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering.’ The principle as applied in the context of civilian protection is spelled out again in Article 51(5)(b): ‘Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate:. . . (b) an attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.* As described above it is also obligatory to consider the principle of proportionality in planning or deciding upon an attack: Article 57(2)(a) and (b): ‘2.

With respect to attacks, the following precautions shall be taken:

(a) Those who plan or decide upon an attack shall:. . . (iii) refrain from deciding to launch any attack which may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated. (b) An attack shall be cancelled or suspended if it becomes apparent that the objective is not a military one or is subject to special protection or that the attack may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof, which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.* The essence of the principle, therefore, requires a balancing of the incidental civilian casualties and damage that may reasonably be anticipated on the one hand, with the value of the military objective being pursued. This necessitates a subjective assessment being made, but a number of points seem clear: (1) If the civilian casualties are not incidental, but rather the attack is

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directed at or recklessly includes civilian objects or population, the rule does not apply. The attack is a violation of the laws of war as described above. (2) The military value of the operation which is weighed on one side of the assessment needs to be concrete and direct. It must be specific and perceptible - a definite advantage must be gained and it must be direct, not a remote advantage to be gained sometime in the unknown future. (3) Certain kinds of military action are more likely to produce collateral civilian casualties and damage than others - and their legality will depend upon the military advantage to be gained being significant. For example, attacks against targets which are near medical units are reasonably likely to cause a high level of collateral civilian damage. An attack against a small and unimportant military target in such circumstances would be illegal Again, methods of attack in centres of population may be illegal under the principle while they might be lawful in open and relatively unpopulated places. (4) Those who need to make the decision to attack will have their responsibility judged in the circumstances in which they act: thus commanders of units in the field are as much subject to the principle as those planning the attack and assigning the mission, though the subjective factors operating due to varying degrees of knowledge may affect the judgement passed upon their actions. It should be clear from this elaboration of the principle in this part of the Report that it does not concern itself with the ‘proportionality’ of the Israeli invasion as a whole to the attack on Ambassador Argov in London or to PLO actions against Israel in the Galilee. The issue of the overall legality of the invasion is dealt with elsewhere. Similarly, the principle of proportionality n not applied to the overall balance throughout the conflict of casualties as between combatants or non-combatants or of damage as between military targets and civilian objects. The principle is applicable lower down the scale of generality. Here the Commission is concerned with the legality of specific attacks by the IDF in the course of its conduct of the war. T he Facts Insofar as the Commission has concluded in previous sections that the IDF attacks were directed against civilian objects or population either intentionally, as was the case in some instances, or recklessly - not caring whether or not they were hit - which was the case all too frequently, the actions of the IDF were clearly violations of the laws of war without any need for reference to the legal principle of proportionality.

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Proportionality in Population Centres The Commission has described elsewhere the damage to and destruction o f civilian objects and the civilian casualties which resulted from ID F attacks on centres of population. The judgment as to whether a particular attack causes excessive civilian damage in relation to the military objective sought is necessarily a subjective one. But there is, in the Commission's view, ample evidence from which it can be concluded that such attacks were in violation of the legal principle of proportionality. The attacks on ‘PLO headquarters' which are described elsewhere were, in the Commission's view, wholly disproportionate in terms of the civilian casualties caused relative to any military advantage gained. The particular instance of the Sanaya Gardens attack is only one well documented case of massive civilian loss, clearly foreseeable, for what could only be the merest hope of some possible military advantage in the widest sense of that term. The disproportionate consequences for civilians of aerial bombardment in urban areas are graphically illustrated in the following extract in which an ID F pilot described his mission:56 *.. . Beirut is very much like Tel Aviv, seashores, hotels, a mixture of old houses, mosques, square quarters and big houses. The port is larger. This time we attacked apartment houses in which the headquarters lay. The first problem was to identify the targets in an urban area, with tens and hundreds of similar looking houses. And even when you identify, it is difficult to hit. They were completely taken by surprise, they didn't even go down to the shelters. I saw pictures of the targets “ before" and “ after” . It's crazy: you can see every detail: through the open windows, you can see secretaries typing and a group of men having a meeting, children playing in the yard and women hanging laundry on the balcony. There was even one couple in bed. . . . The first couple (of 'planes) hit them directly. I was in the second couple and it was our mission to bomb again and make sure the hit was perfect. When we got closer we saw the hits: the large housing blocks collapsed in an enormous cloud of fire, smoke and dust. We released the bombs not seeing the target clearly. From the “ after" picture, it seems we missed a bit, we hit the next block of houses, and it collapsed. It is hard to believe that anyone there got out alive. The injured were probably in the nearby houses that were damaged by the blow and were covered by the “ ruins".’ The disproportionate consequences for civilians of combat in urban areas relative to the military advantage to be gained were certainly apparent to those who planned and ordered the ID F attacks. This is illustrated by the well-known case of Colonel Eli Geva, the commander of an elite armoured brigade in Lebanon who asked to be relieved of his post rather than be forced

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to disobey possible orders to attack Beirut. He was quoted in the Israeli newspaper Yedioi Aharonoth as telling his superiors: ‘I don’t have the courage to look bereaved parents in the face and tell them their son fell in an operation which in my opinion we could have done without’.57 Another high-ranking officer was cashiered for writing an article supporting Col Geva under a pseudonym. Other officers in the organisation called ‘Soldiers Against Silence’ share these views. A much publicised example is a paratroop officer who saw action in Lebanon. Lieutenant Avraham Burg (son of a senior member of the Israeli Cabinet) stated that the civilian casualties were what bothered him.** In evidence before the Commission, paratroop captain Shmuel Rubinstein expressed his feelings as follows: \ . . how we act when we say that we has any morality rights to be a nation because all the history of this country, how we act when we have to fight, how come that a government choose you as a human being in order to get this kind of political aims, your life, to get this kind of new orders in Lebanon, to put there a new government. That’s why you have to fight, for this reason, that’s why we are citizens in this country, that’s why we have to give our life for Bashir Gemayel or something like that. And the way how we look about morality problems. We can say about Ma’ak>t or the bomb in the Kveesh ha-Hof, we say that is a murder, but to bomb a city full of citizens while you know that there is citizens there, and to fight there, you know it was like against every Palestinian fighter we have a tank there. To say that is liberty fight and that is a murder. I feel as somebody that is a murderer.' These consequences were fully apparent to others (see for example, the reports on Sidon in thc Financial Times (Mr Stewart Dalby on 16 June, 1982 and M r David Lennon on 18 June, 1982) and The Times (Mr Christopher Walker on 17 June and Mr Robert Fisk on 19 June 1982). The Chief of the ICRC, Mr Francesco Noseda, was quoted as refusing openly to criticise Israeli conduct during the war, but he did say he believed there was ‘certainly a disproportion’ between the heavy losses among civilians and those believed to have been inflicted on Lebanese and Palestinian combatants.59 The Commission’s view is that the attacks on and the bombardment by the ID F of centres of population were, in many cases, disproportionate in their effects on civilian objects and population relative to any military advantage gained. The Commission wishes, in particular, to emphasise the bombardment of Beirut in the period from early August to the ceasefire of 12 August, when the PLO agreed to withdraw from the city. In an article in The Daily Telegraph of 10 August 1982, Mr John Bulloch in Beirut quotes from an article in the PLO's official ncw*p*pct9PalestineRevolution, which said: ‘We

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have decided to go from Beirut because the destruction of the city over th e heads of half a million Muslims is not a mere probability but has become a reality.* In the same article, he describes the bombardment of the night before: 'The planes hit all the Palestinian areas and also bombarded an area in the commercial heart of West Beirut close to the Post Office which has all the international lines.* There were still to follow three days of intense bombardment before the final cease-fire of 12 August. The Commission concludes that there was no concrete or direct military advantage to be gained from this bombardment. The comment of Asa Rasher, Professor o f Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, at a press conference held by four Israeli intellectuals on 20 June 1982, is apposite:60 ‘What would have happened if the terrorist would have fired a gun from inside a Jewish quarter of Sidon! Would anybody here have dared to suggest that we should bomb a Jewish quarter? I don’t believe that anybody would say so. And I can quote what the poet (Bialik) said: “ Satan did not create a revenge for the blood of a little child’*, and the poet did not speak about Jewish or Christian or Palestinian blood.'60 T he Commission concludes that there were violations of the principle of proportionality, acts of violence contrary to the laws of war. T he responsibility for these violations rests upon those commanders of the ID F and their political superiors who planned and decided upon many attacks which could be expected to and did cause civilian casualties and damage and destruction to civilian objects excessive in relation to the military advantage, if any, anticipated. Proportionality and Particular Targets The Commission believes it important to emphasise the responsibility of individual combatants to restrain their acts of violence in accordance with the principle of proportionality. There were clearly members of the ID F who did so - and we have cited examples of some such above. The principle is, of course, consistent with the military principle of economy in the application of force. The testimony before the Commission of M r Yaron Pik, a tank commander, demonstrated a clear appreciation of the principles of proportionality and economy - subject to the availability of adequate information about the enemy engaged. In contrast, there were clearly a large number of cases where the individual combatants of the ID F appear to have violated the principle of proportionality. The Commission can put forward only a few of the most flagrant examples of which it has evidence. The bombardment of the DOHA has been described above. The destruction of the buildings near the Sanaya Gardens has been referred to. In Sidon the Commission visited the site o f a school which had been bombed. We were told by a resident nearby that there was a Syrian outpost/shelter about ten metres away. The school was hit by a

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bomb apparently intended for the outpost. The bombing took place in the early afternoon. At the rear of the school there is a large basket-ball court and extensive playgrounds clearly visible. There were some 250 children in the basement shelter which collapsed, killing them. In another part of Sidon, the Commission passed a large block of flats, completely wrecked. We were told by a neighbour that a Palestinian jeep with a gun was nearby; that an Israeli plane had dropped flares, then bombed the building, which collapsed. All her neighbours, all Lebanese, were killed. It was a residential neighbourhood. Objects such as these - schools, apartment blocks, hospitals - arc more likely to produce collateral civilian casualties if military objectives near them are attacked. The military objective must possess a substantial degree of importance to justify an attack. The Commission is of the view that in a large number of cases such military significance was lacking in an attack on a particular object - and that the high level of civilian casualties and damage was reasonably to be expected to occur - and did occur. The responsibility for these attacks rests with the individual pilots and commanders who launched these attacks. They, in the Commission’s view, committed violations of the laws of war. Proportionality and Weapons T he legality of the use of certain weapons, such as fragmentation and incendiary weapons, is assessed in more detail in the sections that follow on the international legal principles of discrimination and humanity. Some uses of weapons, however, may be unlawful under international law not only as a result of their inhuman and indiscriminate nature, but also because their use causes damage, destruction, injury and death which are disproportionate to the military advantage anticipated. Thus, certain weapons used in areas of a high civilian concentration violate the legal principle of proportionality even if their use in an unpopulated area or open battlefield is not unlawful under that principle. The legality of general bombardment of urban centres or particular objects has already been analysed. The Commission is concerned also to examine the legality of the use of specific weapons, the effects of which on civilian objects and population may be said to be disproportionate to any military advantage to be gained by their use. Fragmentation weapons T he use of fragmentation weapons and their consequences are described below under the section on Discrimination. These weapons, designed for use against concentrations of infantry or armour have horrific consequences when fired into areas of high civilian concentration. One report quotes a Palestinian neuro-surgeon saying that the ratio of dead to wounded, instead of being the more normal one of 1:5, is now 1:1, and that the small pieces of shrapnel caused extraordinarily severe lacerations61(for further details, see below, the chapter on Humanity).

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The Commission has noted the apparent ability of the combatants to reduce their casualties and the vulnerability of the civilian population to this weapon. This was the subject of testimony before us o f officers of the Palestine Liberation Army, who were engaged in Beirut until evacuated to Amman. O f 300 in the regiment, only 3 were killed and 20 were wounded during the 80 days they were in Beirut.62 Comparing the soldiers and civilians, he said the soldier ‘knows what to do, he puts himself on the ground or goes to a shelter, he knows how to react. But the civilian doesn’t know how to react and so keeps running. And you know, because the civilians would be running and there would be cluster bombs, th en they would be hit by cluster bombs’. Again: ‘I know as a military and as a soldier I know what the cluster bombs are. A large part of these bombs w ould not explode directly, and these cluster bombs explode at any tiny movement. The children and the civilians if they come next to a cluster bomb, they don’t know that if they touch it, that it would explode. A civilian would either push it with his/her leg or carry it and then it will explode. And that is why in reality that you have a lot of civilian casualties.’ The Commission concludes that the use by the ID F of fragmentation weapons in an area of high civilian concentration violated the international legal principle of proportionality. The military advantage gained does not appear proportionate to the high level and horrific nature o f the civilian casualties caused by use of this weapon. Their use was a violation o f th e laws of war by the IDF. Incendiary weapons The Commission is less clear about the precise military advantages gained from the use of phosphorous shells which were fired into Beirut (see below under Discrimination). However, the terrible consequences for civilians of this type of shelling was amply demonstrated in evidence before the Commission. The Commission concludes that in the absence of evidence indicating the use of such shells as necessary to achieve a concrete and direct military objective, their use violated the principle o f proportionality. Fuel-air explosive/concussion/vacuum bomb The Commission received evidence and testimony as to the use by the ID F on at least one occasion of a weapon variously called the ‘fuel-air explosive’, ‘concussion* or ‘vacuum’ bomb.63 The incident which appears to have alerted many people to the use of this weapon was the extraordinary total destruction of the buildings near the Sanaya Gardens by only two b om bs without any of the usual accompanying destruction of objects nearby. Various descriptions of the working and effect of this bomb are to be fo u n d (eg M r Me*ir Cohen in Ha'aretz, 19 September, 1982, M r Robik R osenthal in Al-Hamishmar, 11 August, 1982, John Bulloch, The Daily Telegraphy 9 August, 1982). The ID F Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, has denied that th e r e is such a weapon as the ‘vacuum bomb’, as has the Pentagon (see the re p o rts in

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H a ’coretz and The Daily Telegraph). There is, in the Commission's view, ample evidence that, whatever its title, the destruction by a directed weapon of a building or buildings with the consequent very heavy loss of civilian life was, in that case, a wholly disproportionate price for a very remote and, in the event, non-existent military advantage. The use of such a weapon in these circumstances, in the Commission's view, violated the international legal principle of proportionality.

Chapter Eleven

Discrimination

T h e Law This principle of international law prohibits acts of violence which strike indiscriminately the civilian population or combatants and civilian objects or military objectives. The Hague Rules of Aerial Warfare 1923 go so far as to say that where military objectives are situated in the immediate neighbourhood of cities, towns, villages, dwellings or buildings so ‘that they cannot be bombarded without the indiscriminate bombardment of the civilian population, the aircraft must abstain from bombardment* (Article 24(3)). The ICRC Draft Rules of 1956 require of an attack ‘the greatest degree of precision. It must not cause losses or destruction beyond the immediate surroundings of the objective attacked* (Art. 9). Article 10 provides generally: ‘It is forbidden to attack without distinction, as a single objective, an area including several military objectives at a distance from one another where elements of the civilian population, or dwellings, are situated in between the said military objectives’. Article 14 deals with weapons with uncontrollable effects. The UN Convention on Excessively Injurious Weapons 1981 deals specifically with mines, booby-traps and other devices and prohibits their indiscriminate use, if it involvers ‘a method or means of delivery which cannot be directed at a specific military objective’ (Protocol I I, Art. 3(3)). It also deals expressly with incendiary weapons (Protocol III, A rticle 2(3)): ‘I t is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event minimising, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.’

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T he Institute of International Law, Edinburgh, 1969, expressed the principle as follows (Articles 7 and 8): 7. Existing international law prohibits the use of all weapons which, by their nature, affect indiscriminately both military objectives and non­ military objects, or both armed forces and civilian populations. In particular, it prohibits the use of weapons the destructive effect of which is so great that it cannot be limited to specific military objectives or is otherwise uncontrollable (self-generating weapons), as well as o f ‘blind' weapons. 8. Existing international law prohibits all attacks for whatsoever motive or by whatever means for the annihilation of any group, region or urban centre with no possible distinction between armed forces and civilian population or between military objectives and non-military objects. Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977 articulates the principle as follows (Art. 51): 4.

Indiscriminate attacks are prohibited. Indiscriminate attacks are:

(a) those which are not directed at a specific military objective; (b) those which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; or (c) those which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by this Protocol; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction. 5. Among others, the following types of attacks are to be considered as indiscriminate: (a) an attack by bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town, village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian objects. Violation of the legal principle of discrimination occurs when acts of violence are ‘careless' or lack control as to their objective. Either the attack will be directed against a target ‘area’ only, or it will be incapable of direction against some specific object. In either case, there is a lack of care as to the objective. Clearly, violations of the law can be avoided only if attacks are based on adequate intelligence information which enables the weaponry in question to operate effectively against the target. The achievement of

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military effectiveness depends on acts of violence being controlled and directed in accordance with such information. If not, there is a waste of military resources. And for the purposes of the Commission, if civilian casualties and damage result - the attack is indiscriminate and unlawful. The Facts The Commission has collected much evidence indicating that in many instances the ID F was indiscriminate in its acts of violence - in the sense that it was ‘careless* as to the objectives subjected to attack. Such a deduction is indeed the one the Commission has drawn above in its analysis of damage done to civilian objects and population. But more than just the sheer quantity of massive destruction and death indicated the conclusion that the principle of discrimination was violated, that ‘carelessness* was more than just rare or occasional. Mistakes T he question arises: at what point do the number and catastrophic consequences of ‘mistakes* allow for the conclusion that the ID F was being careless and indiscriminate in its arts of violence. For example, Colonel Amos Nee man, the military spokesman of the Israeli forces stationed outside Beirut, while blaming the heavy civilian casualties on the guerrilla practice of putting their positions inside towns, refugee camps and civilian homes, did admit ‘that some mistakes had been made by the Israeli forces in their bombardments*.64 On another occasion, M r Moshe Yegar, Assistant Director-General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry denied that an Israeli jet had accidentally hit a Christian residential area in East Beirut during a raid on Palestinian positions in the West, causing severe casualties, including a baby obliged to have both arms amputated. (Interestingly, M r Yegar condemned the incident as ‘the direct result of the PLO*s indiscriminate shelling*.) A Swedish journalist however, claimed that she was in East Beirut at the time and had been told that an Israeli military spokesman confirmed that the Air Force had bombed the building by mischance.65 The Israeli magazine, Ha'Olam ha-Zeh published the following item on this incident, 1 September, 1982: ‘In one of the houses near the line dividing East and West Beirut, on the eastern side, a funeral was held. It was a Christian funeral attended by many Phalangists. They arrived in their military vehicles. An Israeli pilot saw a concentration of military vehicles. He did not notice that the house was on the eastern side of the dividing line, and bombed the place. Thus many were killed and injured, including the baby. The house was badly damaged. Its front collapsed. The pilot is not to be blamed for his mistake. Fatal mistakes happen in wars. This story proves beyond doubt, the following facts: the Israeli pilots did not only bomb targets designated in advance, according to

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inteUigence information. They were also told to bomb any target they saw themselves. When a certain pilot saw a concentration of suspicious vehicles, he released a bomb and destroyed a whole building with all its inhabitants . . . And this is only one case that was published, because the bomb hit a Christian house by mistake, on the eastern side of Beirut. It is obvious that other bombs, released in the same manner, hit houses on the western side. They were not reported in the Israeli press.' The same article quotes M r Aharon Ahiaz, the Israeli Skyhawk pilot shot down and captured over Beirut as saying that in Beirut (only targets w ith “terrorists" or civilians together with “terrorists" were hit*. M r Robert Fisk describes the consequences of this policy witnessed by him in Beirut in The Times, 28 July, 1982: ‘We actually saw the bomb . . . When we got to Iskandar Street, half a building had been blown away, an eight-storey apartment block that had crumpled into a 10ft high pile of compacted concrete . . . At the bottom of the street stood a middle-aged man with a moustache . . . “ There was nothing here to hit, only civilians," he said. “There was a building one block away where the Palestinians had a gun, but they didn't hit it." He was right: the nearest tank - an old Syrian machine - also stood untouched in its little park almost a quarter of a mile away. I f the Israelis intended to hit Iskandar Street, it was difficult to find a reason. A lawyer colleague of M r Walid Joum blatt. . . was rumoured to live in the crushed apartment building. A group of Palestinian gunmen have been guarding a block around the corner, where several hundred refugees - most of them Palestinians - are living . . . The people of Iskandar Street, however, were civilians. The most prominent residents were the Ambassadors of Canada, Switzerland, Yugoslavia and Greece, who could scarcely be regarded as military targets.’ Again, in another report in The Times, of 28 June, 1982: ‘The Israeli pilots presumably meant to drop their bombs on the scruffy militia office on Comiche Mazra, but they missed. Instead, their handiwork spread fire and rubble half the length of Abu Chakar S tre e t. . . Abu Chakar Street was in ruins, its collapsed blocks still smoking and some of the dead still in their pancaked homes, sandwiched beneath hundreds of tons of concrete . . . The perspiring ambulance crews had so far counted 32 dead, most of them men and women who were hiding in their homes in a nine-storey block o f flats, when an Israeli bomb exploded on its roof and tore down half the building.’ In another report, an artillery officer was interviewed on a hilltop overlookng Beirut. He said:66

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4“ Our guns fire with pinpoint accuracy, and we only hit military targets.** When pressed on the subject, he added: “ OK , so the ground might be soft, and a gun shifts. At these distances, five centimetres could throw off fire by 50 metres. So we make mistakes. What is our alternative?’*’ T he number and consequences of such ‘mistakes' are one part of the evidence which leads the Commission to conclude that the ID F violated the principle of discrimination required by the laws of war. Directed Fire There are reports of ID F bombardment being directed at targets regardless of the consequences for civilians. For example, aJerusalem Post reporter, M r Joshua Brilliant, described standing on a hilltop overlooking West Beirut and observing artillery fire. He reported: ‘the gunners were clearly aiming at specific targets, but several shells were fired until the targets were hit. In one attempt to score a hit on Bourj el Brajneh, several shells fell several hundred metres from each other. An entire block was covered with white smoke. Several other areas were hit by repeated shelling as black and white smoke engulfed entire quarters'.67 In another report, the Beirut weekly Monday Morning,66 gives an account of a conversation between a Lebanese dentist, M. Michael Bishtawi, who lives in West Beirut and three Israeli soldiers: ‘T he Israelis at first refused to believe Bishtawi and others from West Beirut who told of Israeli artillery shells landing in civilian neighbourhoods in the western half o f the capital in the first week of fighting. But when the Lebanese said he had seen the shells and they had fallen in the residential Raouche district, one Israeli asked: “ Do you know all of your neighbours? Do you know there are no terrorists there?* “ Do you know that there are?'* Bishtawi asked. “ If we had to shell, then there were,** an Israeli said. “ I know my neighbours. I know there weren’t terrorists or Palestinians there,” the dentist said. “ We know there were,’* argued one of the Israelis. Then he made a concession. “ Besides,** he said, “ If you fight as we have for this operation, three or four (shells hitting civilians) is not a bad record.” “ But you weren’t even close to the usual targets,” protested another Lebanese. “ Maybe something was wrong with the gun,” said an Israeli. Something went wrong with the gun again last week. West Beirut’s residential neighbourhoods came under Israeli fire starting Sunday night.* Robert Fisk reported on the pattern of bombardment one day as follows:69

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‘Twenty-four hours after Israel’s bombardment, a clearer picture is emerging of the pattern of shellfire that fell upon civilian areas. M ost of the shells that landed on the Beirut peninsula spanned Hamra street, from the old lighthouse to the city centre, hitting many of the city’s best known institutions. In addition, Israeli shells hit several hundred apartments and flats and damaged streets, gas stations and exploded on road intersections.’ In an exchange with M r Moshe Yegar, Assistant Director-General of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, M r Mel Laytner, U PI’s Jerusalem correspondent asked why the Israeli army had fired four phosphorous shells on 4 August at a newspaper building in West Beirut where his news agency was based. One shell direcdy hit the U PI office. M r Yegar replied that he would pass on the question to the spokesman for the ID F. The correspondent also pointed out that hospitals had been hit during the bombardment. M r Yegar replied: ‘There is a war going on in Lebanon, you know.’70 An Israeli officer, M r Yaron Pik, testified to the Commission in Jerusalem that he had seen 175mm artillery cannon ‘direct aim knocking down houses of eight storeys. I have seen it with my eyes. I looked through binoculars and after a few bombs I saw the house collapse.’ He insisted that the bombardment was very accurate. This evidence of directed fire, a great deal of which hit civilians and civilian objects, is further evidence leading the Commission to conclude that the ID F violated the principle of discrimination required by the laws of war. Indiscriminate Weapons The Commission received a great deal of testimony alleging that the use by the ID F of certain weapons violated the international laws of war by reason of their indiscriminate effects upon the civilian population. The violation of international law was alleged to be a consequence of a combination of factors: first, the use of these weapons in an environment where there was a high concentration of civilians; secondly, the widespread impact and destructive effects of these weapons; and thirdly, in the case of some of these weapons, their delayed-action nature. Fragm entation weapons (cluster bom bs) The nature and effects of these weapons are described in the following extract:71 ‘Fragmentation munitions act by ejecting a large number of fragments at high velocity - usually in a symmetrical pattern around the bursting munition. They can also be constructed so that the fragments are concentrated along a linear trajectory, as in certain anti-personnel mines. The size of the fragments may range from hundreds of grams down to fractions of a gram. It is possible to distinguish between two main types of

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fragment: those obtained by spontaneous fragmentation and those by pre-fragmentation. As regards the design of anti-personnel fragmenta­ tion munitions, there is a trend towards smaller and smaller fragments. It has been found that, at fragment velocities attainable with the newer types of explosive, even a fragment weighing a fraction of a gram may put a person out of action. Fragments from spontaneously fragmenting munitions tend to have sharp edges and irregular shapes. In the case of pre-fragmentation munitions the fragments are usually of a spherical shape for reasons dictated by aerodynamics, penetration and manufacture. The number of these pellets can be very large. (For example, each bomblet in the cluster-bomb may contain about 300 pellets, so that the whole munition can dispense about 200,000 pellets.) Generally speaking, controlled fragmentation of pre-fragmentation munitions is militarily more effective than spontaneously fragmenting munitions. Fragmentation warheads are highly effective against soft targets, such as combatants in the open or unprotected civilian populations, and vulnerable targets such as radar stations, non-armoured vehicles, light vessels, aircraft and helicopters . . . There is also a strong possibility that the effects of these weapons (especially cluster-bombs) will be indiscriminate when they are used in large numbers in the same attack, due to the great area covered. On account of the size of the affected area, there is a great danger of hitting non-military targets even if single warheads are directed against military targets such as an anti-aircraft unit in the vicinity of a population centre.’ T h e anti-personnel nature of the cluster bomb in particular is emphasised in the following description:72 ’In a cluster bomb unit, hundreds of bomblets, each slightly larger than a baseball, are lodged within a hollow dispenser. Dropped from a fighter or bomber aircraft, the dispenser splits apart releasing its contents. The small bomblets, know as bomb live units (BLUs), are grooved in such a way as to fragment before, during or after impact, depending on the fuse employed; in addition, the casing itself is designed to fragment into small particles. Upon detonation, each dispenser can blanket an oval, linear or figure-eight patterned area on the ground. The shower of fragmentation can be effective against light military targets, but for the most part the CBU is effective only against human beings. Because of the high velocity of the fragments and the uniformity of their dispersion, it is a virtual certainty that any person located within the pattern area will be killed or wounded.’ T here can be no doubt that fragmentation weapons, in particular cluster bombs, were used by the ID F in Lebanon. In a televised interview with the

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American columnist M r Jack Anderson, broadcast on Friday, 13 August, the Israeli Defence Minister, M r Ariel Sharon, stated that: ‘it was my decision to use cluster bombs* during the fighting in Lebanon.73 This interview was given against the background of some concern by the US Government that Israel had been using weapons in a way which may have amounted to ‘substantial violation by Israel* of an agreement with the US on the proper use of American-supplied weapons (letter to US Congress, signed by Deputy Secretary of State Walter Stoessel, quoted in the Jerusalem Post, 18 June, 1982, pp. 1 and 2). The same report referred to an order for 4,000 rounds of cluster munitions for 155mm howitzers being held up in the US before shipment to Israel. (Agreements of 1976 and 1979 between the two countries restricted the use of cluster bombs to a defensive war and prohibited their use against civilian targets. A State Department legal adviser, M r James H. Michael, was quoted as having said that the definition of ‘self-defence* was a factor to be taken into account.74) It remains to be established where and when these fragmentation weapons were used. Retired Major-General Aharon Yariv stated in a press conference in Tel Aviv on 2 July, 1982 that the ID F had used cluster bombs but ‘We restricted the use of the cluster bomb and used them only against Syrian commandos and infantry and armoured concentrations. We were careful not to use them in areas where our forces had to pass and most o f all we did not use them in areas of civilian population*.75 This policy did not seem to have been followed. An article describing ‘heavy shelling on terrorist targets in the southern entrances* of Beirut, by an ID F battery eight kilometres outside, acknowledges the horrors of fragmentation weapons: ‘The scope of killing of the bomb is very large. No less its wounding scope. Watching it in operation is like watching a rain of terror. Small fatal grenades, that create a horrific death mushroom*.76The author nonetheless states: ‘We can show the Americans that the cluster bomb was used only against military targets, although it is not easy, since the terrorists were often located behind the backs of civilians. Therefore civilians may get hit. Disregarding the moral aspect, from the military point of view only, the cluster bombs “ contributed** to the cease-fire. The terrorists were broken under the rain of grenades that fell on them.* In the interview mentioned above Defence Minister Sharon said:77 ‘First, we were sorry and we are sorry that we have had to use them. But we were fighting two military organisations - the Syrian army equipped with the most sophisticated weapons and the same with the PLO terrorist organisations, again fighting tens of thousands o f terrorists with the most modern sophisticated weapons, that some of them have never yet been seen in the western world.

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They were deploying these weapons among civilians. We had a feeling - and we were right - that the number of civilians there was altogether limited but we never intended to attack civilian population by cluster bombs. We never had such an intention. The problem was that we had to attack these artillery batteries, these rocket launchers, heavy mortars, these tanks being deployed in populated areas. But altogether, we will try to avoid it as much as possible.' T he Commission has overwhelming evidence that the ID F did use fragmentation weapons extensively in areas with a high concentration of civilians. Many witnesses before the Commission testified to having seen cluster bombs78 and many samples were produced to the Commission in Beirut.79 These weapons were also used against many targets outside Beirut; for example in the bombardment of the DOHA Centre for the Handicapped.80 The article in Ha-Olam ha-Zeh cited above stated: ‘One can find many remains of the cluster bombs in West Beirut.'81 Another article described two unexploded cluster bombs at the outskirts of a destroyed refugee camp (‘Cluster among the lemons', by Oded Liphshitz, inHotamf 27 August, 1982). M r David McDowell, an Oxfam representative stated that he saw cluster bomb cases between Tyre and Sidon, and exploded cluster bombs in the south of Lebanon, as well as many in Beirut while he was there between 18 July and 6 August. The Commission is of the view that this extensive use of fragmentation weapons, particularly in areas with a large concentration of civilians, contributed enormously to the very high level of civilian casualties described above. For example, M r Derek Cooper and Mrs Pamela Cooper representing a relief organisation undertook numerous and carefully recorded visits to hospitals and clinics in West Beirut throughout the bombardment. Their evidence records that a large number of civilians, including women and children, suffered hideous wounds as a consequence o f these fragmentation weapons. Just one extract from one handwritten account submitted to the Commission, dated 11 July, 1982 comments: ‘Visit Hotel Triumph Hospital, 200 beds, full, casualties brought in while we were there. Case 1 Phosphorus bums, 2 Lebanese civilians, 1 commando - back, legs, arms. Case 2 Civilian from Bourj al Brajneh refugee camp badly damaged by bombing and shelling from artillery most days. He had missile which entered his back and out through stomach. Case 3 Fighter from near Syrian Embassy, Syrian soldier, leg blown off. Case 4 From Bourj al Brajneh refugee camp, an old lady with both legs amputated, high up the thigh - original Israeli bombing of the camp. Case 5 2 Syrian soldiers very badly wounded.

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Case 6 Civilian, small wounds all over legs, some form of anti-personnel or cluster bomb. Case 7 Another leg case, civilian from some kind of cluster bomb. Case 8 Both legs off from bombing of Bour j al Brajneh camp - civilian. Case 9 Injuries all over from shelling of “ Acre” Hospital. Case 10 Appalling back wounds lying on stomach. Palestinian. These cases were taken at random from about two dozen wards we visited which were full of badly wounded men and women - civilian, Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians and others.’ The indiscriminate nature of fragmentation weapons is particularly well illustrated by the numerous accounts of people, civilians and combatants, suffering horrific injuries when individual bomblets were handled. This delayed action effect led even the ID F Chief of Staff, Rafael Eitan, to warn his troops not to pick up anything, after eight soldiers had been wounded when they picked up the remains of cluster bombs as souvenirs.82 The Commission had similar evidence to this effect from an ID F paratroop captain, M r Shmuel Rubinstein. Naturally, not only soldiers were affected. One incident is described in the following article ‘Cluster in urban areas’, Hotam:83 ‘The Sergeant Major was not the only one who was injured. Two children and a woman, their mother, from the nearby village were also injured. Cluster hand grenades that did not explode when thrown during the war, have turned the area into a wild minefield, an area of danger of death to anyone passing there. Cluster bombs are a legitimate weapon: not like chemical or bacteriological weapons. Like any other conventional weapon the important thing is when and how they are used. A stick is also such a weapon, but if you use it to beat your wife, the use is illegitimate. There is nothing wrong in using cluster bombs against army forces on open field. To throw cluster bombs on urban areas is a mixture of brutality and stupidity: in battle the enemy fighters hide in houses and in prepared battle positions and don’t get hit. Those who do get hit are the civilians who walk around the area after the battle, when the occupying army has settled in. There was no discrimination in the treatment they received: the Sergeant Major was hospitalised for two weeks and has a handsome scar on his shoulder. The child and the woman were taken by helicopter to hospitals in Israel, the child to one hospital, the mother to another. Afterwards, when they managed to locate them, they all celebrated family unification with a sentimental article in the Israeli paper. O f course, they wrote nothing about the damned small hand grenade.’ Again, a Washington Post correspondent early in the war is reported to have

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seen three persons who were severely injured when they picked up unexploded bombs in the Bcka’a valley area.*4 At 1.45 pm on the 2 September, 1982, the Commission heard testimony in th e Akka hospital in Beirut from Mme. Hedla Ayyubi, acting head of the PRCS, accompanied by D r Nabila Nashashibi. While the evidence was being taken, sirens were heard, and when the ambulance arrived at the hospital, the sound of screaming and wailing. The Commission members w ent to the windows to look out. It transpired that a badly wounded child was being brought in and who had been injured by a bomb. He was with his relatives. The Commission asked if one of them would be prepared to testify to us as to what had happened. At 2.15 pm a man was brought in to see us. He had blood all over his shirt. He was very quiet, but tense; he seemed to be in shock. He gave his name as Ali Admad Ismail, an accountant, a Lebanese living in Bourj al Brajneh, aged 23. He said the children had been playing in Bourj al Brajneh, on the way to the airport, when one of them touched a cluster bomb, not knowing what it was. It exploded. It was his nephew, 12 years old, named Yacub Ismail. The child was hit in the heart and had died. T h e other children, aged 10 and 9, were injured. The incident happened at 1.45 pm. He said the cluster bomb looked like a small ball. He thought it looked like a toy. He then left us. Continuing with her evidence to the Commission, Mme Ayyubi said these incidents occurred almost daily. T here were numerous findings of cluster bombs in the camps. She had seen many cases of people from the camps suffering from cluster bomb injuries. The Commission concludes on the evidence before it that there was extensive use of fragmentation weapons in areas where there was and is a high concentration of civilians; that in light of the widespread impact and destructive effects of these weapons, and in some cases, their delayed-action nature, indiscriminate death and injury to combatants and civilians occurred. The Commission concludes that this use of fragmentation weapons by the ID F was contrary to the principle of discrimination and was thus a violation of the laws of war. Incendiary weapons Incendiary weapons may be defined as:85 ‘weapons which depend for their effects on the action of incendiary agents. These are defined in turn as substances which affect their targets primarily through the action of flame and/or heat derived from exothermic chemical reactions; these actions, for all practical purposes, are combustion reactions. The production of poisonous substances and certain other side-effects may also cause significant harm to the target. In addition to the damage inflicted on an enemy, his possessions o r his environment primarily through the action of heat and flame, incendiary weapons may also have other damaging effects: some are poisons, whilst others produce toxic or asphyxiating effects when they burn . . .

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. . . Pyrophoric incendiaries are materials which ignite spontaneously when exposed to air. This property obviates the need for special igniters. Pyrophoric incendiaries are used on their own or in conjunction with other incendiaries (such as white phosphorus and certain organometallic compounds).* The Commission has received considerable evidence that phosphorus shells were fired by ID F artillery into Beirut. Israeli authorities are quoted as saying that these shells were used only as ‘markers* to guide artillery because their smoke helped gunners zero in on their targets. The Israelis say phosphorus shells have been used in this fashion since World War II. They blamed civilian injuries on Palestinian guerrillas who are located in civilian occupied areas of the city (see report by Loren Jenkins in the International Herald Tribune, 21-22 August, 1982). This reporter mentions that ‘dozens of 155mm artillery shells dug from the rubble of the main Palestinian neighbourhoods in Beirut’s southern fringes have hollowed interiors coated with yellowish-orange oxide and the pungent odour of phosphorus is unmistakable*. M r Robert Fisk in The Times of 2 August, 1982, reported that there was growing evidence in Beirut that civilians were falling victims to phosphorus shells; that several hundred such shells had been fired into Beirut by the ID F over the past two weeks. The attack on Beirut by the ID F using phosphorus shells appears to be a clear violation of that aspect of the principle of discrimination expressed in the UN Convention on Excessively Injurious Weapons 1981, Protocol III, Article 2(3). The Commission received considerable evidence that phosphorus shells did damage or destroy civilian objects and injured and killed civilians, including women and children. M r Jad T e’ebit, an architect and urban planner, was in a shelter with other civilians on 4 August. He testified to the Commission that the shelter became full of smoke due to the effect of phosphorus shells and the civilians were forced to leave the shelter in the middle of the bombing because of the fumes. They tried to use water to put out the source of the smoke - some cars burning outside the shelter - but were unable to extinguish the source of fire. M r Youssuf Haj jar, an academic sociologist and regional secretary of the Middle East for the World Student Christian Federation, testified that he had seen phosphorus shells, evidenced by yellow powder, and their effects. Dr Samih Alami, a pathologist at the American University Hospital in Beirut testified that a house of a friend of his had been hit by a ‘burning bomb*. The house had been so burnt that even the steel had disappeared. He had seen terribly burned patients in the hospital. He could not swear these were phosphorus bum s as he was not a burns specialist. But he did mention that when gauze was put on these burns, the gauze itself was burned. M r David MacDowell, an Oxfam representative present in Beirut between 18 July and 8 August, testified that he saw fragments of phosphorus

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shells, and then when he left Beirut to drive south to Sidon, he saw intense w hite puffs of shells landing in West Beirut. Ms Nina Busch, a Scandinavian nurse who worked in a clinic in West Beirut, testified that she could show the Commission four flats where phosphorus shells had landed. Ms Mary Jean Grove-Hills, a nurse from New Zealand, testified that she had treated third degree bums which she understood were caused by phosphorus shells, and th a t in the Lahout hospital where she worked she had seen doctors* notes in English which specified phosphorus burns in at least ten such cases. Apart from this personal testimony, there is much evidence of phosphorus shells hitting civilian targets in the international press. Robert Fisk reports th a t a phosphorus shell hit the roof of a local Red Cross office.86 Loren Jenkins stated that phosphorus shells hit the city*s centre in the vicinity of th e Hamra Street business district.87 The Canadian Ambassador, M. Theodore Arcand is reported as saying: ‘The Israelis were apparently using phosphorus bombs. Look at the way this aluminium frame has been fused.*88 I n another report, M r Mel Laytner, U PI’s Jerusalem correspondent, asserts th a t four phosphorus shells were fired on 4 August at a newspaper building in West Beirut where his news agency was housed and that one shell directly h it the UPI office.89 Finally, the detailed reports by M r Derek Cooper and M rs Pamela Cooper of their visits to hospitals in West Beirut contain many references to civilians burned by phosphorus shells (see for an example, above). T he Commission concludes on the evidence before it that the ID F did shell Beirut extensively using phosphorus shells in areas where there was a high concentration of civilians; that the incendiary effects of these shells on civilian objects and particularly on the civilian population was considerable. T h e Commission therefore finds that the use of these incendiary weapons by th e ID F was contrary to the principle of discrimination and is a violation of th e laws of war.

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Chapter Twelve

Humanity

T h e Law This principle of international law prohibits acts of violence which cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering, and behaviour which contravenes minimal standards of humanity. The Preamble to the Hague Convention IV of 1907 contains the de Martens clause, which provides: ‘the inhabitants and the belligerents remain under the protection and the rule of the principles of the law of nations, as they result from the usages established among civilised peoples, from the laws of humanity, and the dictates of the public conscience.’ The substance of the de Martens clause was reaffirmed by the International Conference on Human rights in Teheran, 1968 (Resolution XXIII). The 1907 Convention declares that the means of warfare are not unlimited, and that those which cause unnecessary suffering are prohibited (Arts. 22 and 23(e)). These rules are substantially reaffirmed in Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions 1977, Article 35 (see below). The UN Convention on Excessively Injurious Weapons 1981 reiterates and applies these principles to specific weapons (eg Protocol II, Art 6(2), which prohibits booby-traps designed to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering). Another as p ea of the international legal principle of humanity in warfare is expressed in the prohibition against terrorising the population. The rule, stated in the Hague Rules of Aerial Warfare 1923 (Art. 22) and the ICRC Draft Rules 1956 (Art. 6), is expressed by the Institute of International Law, Edinburgh, 1969, as follows (Art. 6): ‘Existing international law prohibits, irrespective of the type of weapon used, any action whatsoever designed to terrorise the civilian population.’ The prohibition has been recently reiterated in Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions 1977, Article 51(2) (see below). The third aspect of the principle of humanity is designed to protect the civilian population by securing provision of supplies and objects necessary to its survival. For example, Geneva Convention IV (Civilians) 1949, Article 23:

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‘Each High Contracting Party shall allow the free passage of all consignments of medical and hospital stores and objects necessary for religious worship intended only for civilians of another High Contracting Party, even if the latter is its adversary. It shall likewise permit the free passage of all consignments of essential foodstuffs, clothing and tonics intended for children under fifteen, expectant mothers and maternity cases.’ This is subject to certain conditions designed to secure that the goods in question reach their destination. These three aspects of the customary international law principle of humanity are expressed in the provisions of Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977, Articles 35, 51(2) and 54(1): ‘35. 1. In any armed conflict, the right of the Parties to the conflict to choose methods or means of warfare is not unlimited. 2. It is prohibited to employ weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare of a nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering. 51. 2. The civilian population as such, as well as individual civilians shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited. 54.

1. Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited.’

The principles relating to weapons, blockade and terror bombardment will be examined separately as they relate to the conduct by the IDF ofthe war in Lebanon. T h e Facts Weapons T h e Commission received a great deal of evidence as to the nature of the wounds inflicted and suffering caused by weapons used by the IDF. In particular, the Commission was impressed by the relatively high ratio of wounded to dead casualties resulting from fragmentation weapons. The ratio in many instances reported to us and in the press was as high as 2:1 or even 1:1. The horrific nature of the wounds was also registered. One of many particularly graphic descriptions is given in the Philadelphia Inquirer of 30 June, 1982: ‘Mohammed (age 14) spied a shiny bit of metal. Amin (age 12) saw it too. H e was close when Mohammed picked it up. Amin, 12, arrived at Gaza

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Hospital with a big hole in his stomach. A piece of the bomb has smas hed through the bottom ribs on his left side. A lung collapsed. His stomach, colon and small intestines were hanging out of the wound. Mohammed, 14, also was ripped open from the blast of the bomb, but the pieces that tore into him were smaller. He lost his spleen. His colon and stomach had to be sewn up. His left hand was amputated. His face all around his left cheek was burned and he can’t see much through his left eye . . . what blew up in their hands was a cluster bomb.’ A number of witnesses testified as to the impact on civilians of high velocity/high energy weapons.*0 Dr Troy Rusli, a surgeon from Norway, worked in the Lahout field hospital from 15 July to the end of August. He testified to the Commission that he had had 288 patients during this period. The amputation rate was 15-20%. The Commission was informed of a common operation needed following the massive bone damage caused by high velocity splinters: the ‘Begin’ amputation. In a press report, Ms Rosemary Willey, a 27-year-old nurse from England, was quoted as saying about the bombardment in early August: ‘For every 100 people who were brought in, 50 limbs required amputation. It was overwhelming.’91 Details of the many amputations performed are registered in the reports of Derek and Pamela Cooper on their visits to hospitals during the shelling. The effects on human beings of incendiary weapons were, if anything, more horrific. Ms Mary Jean Grove-Hills, a New Zealander nurse who worked in Lahout Hospital, testified to the Commission that the majority of bums in her section were flash bums and superficial. But there were those with third degree bums, which go below the top layer of skin and bum down into muscle. She testified that most of the third degree bums were relatively small and scattered about the body: legs, arms, chest. The doctors’ notes on some of these indicated phosphorus bums. The Commission visited a number of hospitals and saw patients with severe bum wounds. We have taken evidence from surgeons who treated bums which they stated unequivocally were caused by phosphorus: Dr Amal Shamaa of the Barbir Hospital and Dr Troy Rusli of the Lahout Hospital. These and other doctors are quoted as to the effect of phosphorus burns in a report in the International Herald Tribune of 21-22 August, 1982. The reporter, Loren Jenkins, describes the pitiful condition of the Aytawi family when a shell hit the underground garage where they were hiding. She describes the wounds as ‘distinctive and much harder to treat than ordinary bums, the doctors say, in part because phosphorus sticks to the skin and can burn for hours. It cannot be extinguished by water, which causes a chemical reaction that makes the wound bum more.’ Dr Rusli testified to the Commission of having to cut out the source of the phosphorus in order to stop the burning. A doctor with the Palestine Liberation Army, Dr Hattan Mustapha, trained in Damascus, testified to the Commission in Amman as to his treating of third degree phosphorus bums while his unit was in West Beirut: ‘It would

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h it a large part of the body and would go inside the deepest human body and th e w hole body would be transferred to black. Not red. The colour of the skin w ould be black, dark.* T h e Commission is of the view that, on the evidence, the horrific extent an d n atu re of these wounds and death inflicted by these weapons was unnecessary; and that there are limits which humanity places on the use of w eapons causing human suffering of the types described. The Commission concludes that the use by the ID F of fragmentation weapons and phosphorus shells in the urban centres of civilian population of Lebanon v iolated the international legal principle of humanity in the conduct of war. Terrorising the civilian population T h e customary international law of war prohibits the terrorising of the civilian population. Both acts of violence and threats of violence are prohibited when their primary purpose is to spread terror among civilians (see eg Protocol I of 1977, Art. 51(2)). The law accepts that terror is the inevitable accompaniment to violence when civilians are affected. Provided the prim ary objective of an attack is a military one, however, incidental te rro r caused is not a violation. Two cases were brought to the Commission's attention by the evidence. F irst, it is the case that threats of violence which are intended to terrorise the civilian population are prohibited. Evidence was put before the Commission of ID F warnings to the civilian population of imminent or future attacks. A report in The Times reported that: ‘As part of the increased psychological warfare, the Israeli state radio has begun broadcasting messages in Arabic to the Palestinians and the estimated 2,300 Syrians still cornered in West Beirut, urging them to surrender and threatening an attack.’92 This was accompanied by leaflets which, as one report put it: ‘warned, in bad but threatening Arabic, that the people should leave towards the east or north, as Israel had yet to use its full force against the Palestinian fighters. Men and women read the leaflets, then looked at one another and hurried home to pack.’93 T h e leaflets read:94 ‘the ID F is continuing its war against the terrorists and has not used its full force yet. The ID F is concerned not to hurt innocent civilians and anyone who doesn’t fight against it. Residents of Beirut, make use of the ceasefire and save your lives. You have the following exits: (a) through the ID F forces to the East on the Beirut-Damascus axis, (b) northward towards Tripoli. Save your life and those of your beloved ones - The commander of the ID F .’ Another response to this leaflet is reported by John Bulloch in The Daily Telegraph of 28 June, 1982 ‘as the leaflets fluttered down. One of them

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quickly scanned one and said: “ This is nonsense. We cannot go to Damascus, and we would be frightened to go to the Christian areas, even if we were allowed to do so. This is too cynical.” *Bulloch reports the content of another leaflet the following day as repeating in stronger terms the previous day's message:95 'Thousands of your brothers have taken the opportunity given them and have left Beirut and are now living in peace and safety. You who are still present in Beirut today: remember that time is running out. The later you leave it, the more you expose your life and the lives of your loved ones to danger.' The Commission has evidence that the effect o f such leaflets was often to cause confusion and terror.96 Professor Kamal Salibi testified that the effect of these leaflets in Beirut was to frighten people out of their wits, particularly those not able to leave. The Commission is also aware that under international law the attacking party is obliged to give effective warning.97 On balance, the Commission is unable to conclude, on the evidence of the leaflets, that the primary intent of the ID F was to terrorise the population into leaving, but, taken together with the following evidence of mock attacks, the evidence strongly suggests an intent to terrorise the civilian population. There is evidence before the Commission that the ID F did undertake mock attacks on at least three occasions, which did have the effect of terrorising the civilian population. First, ‘late Wednesday night (30 June), low flying Israeli jets roared over Beirut, dropping flares and smoke canisters in a thunderous mock air raid that sent thousands of panicky inhabitants rushing to basements and bombshelters.'98 The next night, 1 July, Israeli 'planes again flew over Beirut dropping flares and smoke canisters ‘which sent thousands scurrying for cover.'99 According to one reporter, an Israeli colonel agreed that the purpose of this raid had been ‘psychological pressure on the people of Beirut.'100The third reported series of mock attacks occurred on 14 July. This was described by Robert Fisk in The Times of 15 July, 1982: ‘Then, during the morning, Israeli fighterbombers began another series of mock air-raids over West Beirut, climbing high over the city and then power-diving out of the sun . . . The civilian population naturally feared that the air strikes had resumed. But no bomb was actually dropped.' An Israeli military spokesman was reported as saying that the 'planes were not on bombing runs but were either making reconaissance flights or seeking “to create whatever disturbance they can ''.’ The Commission heard testimony from Dr Abourahman Laban, the Minister of Labour and Social Welfare in the Lebanese Government. D r Laban had worked as a psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital in London between 1949 and 1952. He treated people while in London who were still affected by the Blitz. He testified that the noise of the ID F 'planes was

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terrify in g ; that the ’planes continued to torment people even during the cease-fire, especially at night. There was continuous tension and stress. T h e Commission concludes that these mock raids by the ID F were threats o f violence with the intent of terrorising the civilian population of Beirut. T h e y are, therefore, violations of the laws of war. Blockade and siege T h e Commission received evidence that the ID F has prevented supplies of fo o d , fuel and other commodities necessary to the sustenance of the civilian population from reaching West Beirut, and that the ID F was responsible for c u ttin g off the supply of water and electricity to the besieged population. O n e account, in the early days of the siege, by John Bulloch in The Daily Telegraph, of 6 July, 1982 states: ‘Throughout the city women queued for bread and clamoured around the few vegetable carts on the streets . . . The Israelis turned back all lorries carrying food trying to cross from East to West and only a few intrepid drivers made it through the port, where Phalangist snipers made the passage precarious. Electricity, which has been available for four and a half hours a day for most of Beirut for the past few weeks was cut off entirely as the Israelis pulled the plugs in East Beirut. So only shops and businesses which had invested in generators were still in business. Petrol was available at a couple of garages where arguments soon broke out and had to be quelled by militiamen firing their rifles in the air. Hospitals reported varying stocks. The American University Hospital, the biggest in West Beirut, said it had fuel for 20 days, but only two days’ supply of oxygen. Water was also cut off to most of the city, though many buildings have private wells. With the lowering of the water level what was available was salty and certainly germ-laden.* A full month later, the Jerusalem Post of 6 August, 1982 carried the following description: ‘After six weeks of Israeli siege, West Beirut is on the point of collapse. Food supplies are fast running out and hospitals are in danger of closing down. Essential services for the estimated 500,000 civilians still in West Beirut are heading for total breakdown as a 10-day-old cut-off of water and electricity takes its toll. Fuel, used to power emergency generators, is almost unobtainable and petrol currently costs 300 Lebanese pounds for 20 litres - 10 times the price before the Israeli invasion. With no fuel, refuse trucks have been off the streets for the past week

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and ever-growing piles of rubbish burn day and night in the once-elegant streets. Half-treated patients fill the American Hospital from other hospitals which can no longer treat them. Most of them have nowhere to go but the floor. Doctors say it is impossible to keep going much longer without power and water, though the management is ad man ant that it will keep its doors open whatever happens. Dr Nasser Barbir, owner of the Barbir Hospital which is just behind the front line separating the PLO and Israeli forces, said yesterday that his hospital would have to close in five days if no fuel was found. The hospital was shelled all day yesterday and the 50 remaining patients are all in the basement. The hospital’s kitchens have been destroyed. Angry crowds gathered outside bakeries yesterday for dwindling supplies of bread. One man said he had queued for six hours for his ration of 10 loaves. Red Cross officials say they have Israeli clearance to bring a convoy of flour into West [Beirut], But there is still an urgent need for fuel for the authorities to distribute the flour and for the bakers to heat their ovens. Fresh food was smuggled through the front lines in large quantities until last weekend, when the Israelis blocked the route. Almost no fresh fruit or vegetables have been on sale since. With tinned and packaged goods about the only food still available, panic buying has engulfed some supermarkets. The lack of a mains water supply has crippled the fire service and the blazes that follow every Israeli bombardment are left to bum themselves out. But the ambulances keep going. Many are operated by the militias and Palestinian organisations that control West Beirut and have their own food and fuel supplies.’ The consequences of the blockade and siege were the subject of much testimony to the Commission. Mr X (whose identity was requested to be kept secret), a chief of a refugee/first aid centre in West Beirut, had 600 people including 300-350 children in his care. He said it was very difficult to get food and water. Professor Kamal Salibi of the American University of Beirut said eggs and milk were very rare. There was no electricity for refrigerators. Sometimes Israeli fruit would suddenly appear. He had the sense of suffering all around. Dr Abourahman Laban, emphasised that bread and vegetables were very scarce. Fuel was out of the question. There was no telephone service, which increased isolation. The Commander of the Amman-based Palestine Liberation Army, Lt-Col Subehi, testified that civilians were not allowed electricity and water nor milk for children or medical equipment. The effects of the blockade on hospitals was described to us by a number of eye-witnesses. Dr Laban testified that electricity, water and fuel were cut

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off at the Islamic Psychiatric Hospital, of which he is the Chief Medical Officer. H e wrote a letter on 12 July to the ICRC demanding certain provisions for various institutions. The ICRC was rarely able to get these items through. T he Commission has two first hand descriptions of conditions at the Dar al Ajazy Hospital for the Mentally Handicapped, which had some 800 patients and 300 staff. Mr Richard Grove-Hills, the representative of the Save the Children Fund, arrived in Beirut on 22 July. He visited the hospital three tim es. When he first arrived, it had 300-400 patients and only 15 staff. He testified to the Commission that there were about 80 children; they were kept in th e basement; they were very severely handicapped cases. He had previously worked in Somalia for two years and had seen muscle wastage. He testified that he saw very severe malnutrition at the hospital in perhaps ten children. He was sure that some of these died. The children were in a completely empty tiled room. The floor was covered with urine and excreta. The state of malnutrition indicated to him that it had lasted some 2-3 weeks. In the view of the doctors at the hospital, at the rate things were going, two to three were dying every day. There appeared to have been twenty dying over a two week period. The reasons Mr Grove-Hills gave for the terrible state of the hospital were: (1) shelling - 3 large wards were totally unusable; the walls were blown away; the upper floors could not be used; (2) the staff had left; (3) the loss of water. This horrific description is corroborated by a detailed handwritten report by Mr Derek Cooper, a representative of a relief organisation, dated 3 August, 1982 and by Ms M. J. Grove-Hills, a nurse. M s Grove-Hills worked at the Lahout Hospital at this time. She testified that at this hospital there were plenty of drugs and medical supplies. But there were problems with electricity and water. Electricity was only available at 8-9 am and running water only sporadically (there was a private water supply). She testified that there was plenty of food about, but that staff were absent, which meant feeding was not done. The effect of electricity stoppages was particularly acute because of the need to maintain blood supplies at required temperatures, and for maintaining power for the lifts in hospitals.102 Tht Jerusalem Post on 10 August, 1982, carried the following item on its front page: ‘Prime Minister Menachem Begin yesterday directed Defence Minister Ariel Sharon to expedite fuel supplies to West Beirut Hospitals. According to unofficial reports Begin told Sharon that it was vital for “ humanitarian and for diplomatic reasons” that the hospitals get the fuel they urgently require to generate electricity. Sharon tried to explain unsuccessfully to Begin that such a move would counter the aims of Israel’s blockade and he also contended that the fuel would be stolen by the terrorists.* The Commission considers the deliberate denial by the IDF to the civilian

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population of Beirut of the goods indispensable to their survival - water, food, fuel - with the effects described above, to be a violation of the international legal principle of humanity. In particular, the denial o f such supplies to medical establishments is a violation of the laws of war. In relation to this aspect of the principle of humanity - the causing of hardship and death, the Commission received evidence as to the consequences of the ID F ’s policy of ordering the inhabitants of Sidon to the seashore prior to the ID F assault upon the city. The Commission received direct evidence that the population - estimates range from 10,000 upwards, men, women and children - were forced to remain on the beach for two nights and three days. Dr R (who has requested anonymity), a surgeon from Sidon, testified that 15 people died, and gave us the names, details and cause of death (mainly sunstroke and thirst) of several. The ID F did eventually provide some water, but little and often too late. There was a similar concentration of civilians on the ‘Casino* beach at Tyre, but for a shorter period, and the Commission received no direct evidence as to the consequences. The Commission considers the failure of the ID F to provide adequate supplies of water, food and shelter to the civilian population forced to remain by the seashore in Sidon for a considerable time to be a violation of the international legal principle of humanity in the conduct o f war.

R e fe r e n c e s

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

An-Nahar, 13 July 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Jerome Pasquier,First Secretary to th French Embassy, Beirut, 3 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Saeb Salam, former Prime M inister of Lebanon, Beirut, 3 September 1982. T he Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 4-10 July 1982, p. 1. T he Jerusalem Post, 15 August 1982, p. 1. H. de Saussure & R. Glasser, Law and Responsibility in Warfare: The Vietnam Experience (ed P. D. TroobofT), University of N orth Carolina Press, 1975 p. 139. Geneva Convention IV 1949, Art. 19; Protocol I Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977 (Art. 13). Geneva Convention IV 1949, Art. 19; Protocol 1 Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977 (Art. 13(2)). Ha’aretz, 18 July 1982, Ze’ev Shiff, Military Correspondent. Protocol 1 Additional to Geneva Conventions 1977, Art. 52(3). Testimony to the Commission of D r Steinar Berge, London, 28 August 1982. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 18-24 July 1982, p. 4. Quoted in the Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 15-21 August 1982, p. 12. T he Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 20-26 June 1982, p. 11.

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14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40. 41. 42. 43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

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An-Nahar, 13 July 1982. The Times, 28 June 1982. The Times, 28 July 1982. The Daily Telegraph, 21 July 1982. The Daily Telegraph, 10 August 1982. Quoted in The Jerusalem Post, 12 August 1982. The Jerusalem Post, 4 August1982,p. 2. The Times, 13 August 1982,RobertFisk. Testimony to the Commission of Yaron Pik,Jerusalem, 9 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Shmuel Rubinstein, Jerusalem, 9 September 1982. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 15-21 August 1982, p. 12. Al Ha’Mishmar, 5 September 1982, Uri Leviathan. Testimony to the Commission of Yaron Pik, Jerusalem, 9 September 1982. International Herald Tribune, 28 July 1982. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition), 4-10 July 1982, p. 1. The Jerusalem Post, 11 August 1982, p. 2 & 13 August 1982, p. 2. The Daily Telegraph, 7 August 1982, John Bulloch; & The Times, 7 August 1982, Robert Fisk. The Jerusalem Post, 8 August 1982, p. I. Figures quoted in R. W. Gehring, Protection of Civilian Infrastructures — 42 Law and Contemporary Problems (1978) 86, at p. 91, note 24. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 11-17 July 1982, p. 6. The Jerusalem Post, 9 September 1982, p. 1. Quoted from The Jerusalem Post by Christopher Walker (The Times, 13 July 1982). The Times, 13 July 1982, Christopher Walker. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 20-26 June1982, p. 12. Ibid, p. 8. International Herald Tribune, 17 June 1982, David B. Ottoway (Washington Post). The Times, 14 July 1982 (article by Ariel Sharon, Israel's MinisterofDefence). The Daily Telegraph, 10 August 1982. The Sunday Times, 8 August 1982. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 22-28 August1982, p. 10. Kol Ha’ir, 10 August 1982. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 20-26 June 1982, p. 11. The Times, 1 July 1982, Christopher Walker; & testimony to the Commission of Yaron Pik, a tank commander in the assault on Tyre, Jerusalem, 9 September 1982. The Times, 27 July 1982. The Guardian, 11 July 1982 (statement by Frank de Yonge, UNRWA Field Services Officer for Lebanon). See also the description in The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 11-17 July 1982, p. 7. Testimonies to the Commission of Hassib Abdul Jawad and Dr R., Sidon. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 27 June - 3 July 1982, p. 15. Testimony to the Commission of Shmuel Rubinstein, Jerusalem, 9 September 1982. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 27 June - 3 July 1982, p. 1.

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55. 56. 57. 58. 59. 60. 61. 62. 63. 64. 65. 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71. 72.

73. 74. 75.

76. 77. 78. 79. 80. 81. 82. 83. 84. 85. 86. 87. 88. 89. 90. 91. 92.

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The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 11-17 July 1982, p . 4. Hotam, 27 August 1982, article by Oded Liphsitz. Quoted in Monday Morning, 2-8 August 1982, p. 22. The Jerusalem Post (weekly international edition) 15-21 August 1982, p. 10. The Guardian, 18 June 1982, David Ottoway. Kol Ha’ir, 22 June 1982. The Guardian, 8 July 1982, David Hirst. Testimony to the Commission of Lt-Col Subehi, PLA Brigade C om m ander, Amman, 12 September 1982. SIPRI, ‘Anti-Personnel' Weapons 1978, chapter 6. International Herald Tribune, 17 June 1982, David B.Ottoway (W ashington Post). The Daily Telegraph, 10 August 1982, Hugh Davies. Monday Morning, 26 July - 1 August 1982, p. 21. The Jerusalem Post, 4 August 1982, p. 1. Monday Morning, 28 June - 4 July 1982, p. 42. The Times, 6 August 1982. The Daily Telegraph, 10 August 1982, Hugh Davies. SIPRI, Law o f War and Dubious Weaponsy Stockholm 1976, pp. 70-71. Michael Krepon, ‘Weapons Potentially Inhumane: The Case of Cluster Bombs*, in 52 Foreign Affairs (April 1974) 595, pp. 596-7; reprinted in R. A. Falk, The Vietnam War and International Lawy vol 4 (1976), p. 266, pp. 267-8 & S IP R I Anti-Personnel Weapons, Stockholm, 1978 has details. The Jerusalem Post, 15 August 1982, pp. 1 & 4. Monday Morning, 5 June-11 July 1982, pp. 53 & 55. Ha’Olam HaZeh, 21 July 1982; New York Times, 28 June 1982 (G eneral Yariv and others); Christian Science Monitor, 20 July 1982, p. 1, D aniel Sutherland. A1 Hamishmar, 19 July 1982, Uri Paz. The Jerusalem Post, 15 August 1982, p. 4. Testimony to the Commission o f Georges Howi, Beirut, 1 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Nabih Berri, head of Amal movement, Beirut, 3 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Mohammed Barakat, Beirut, 2 Septem ber 1982. Ha’Olam Hazeh, 21 July 1982. The Jerusalem Post, 20 June 1982, p. 1. Hotam, 27 August 1982. International Herald Tribune, 19 June 1982, William Chapman and Don Oberdorfer. SIPRI, The Law of War and Dubious Weapons, Stockholm, 1976, pp. 63-64. The Times, 2 August 1982, article by Oded Lipshitz. International Herald Tribune, 21-22 August 1982, Loren Jenkins. Financial Times, 29 July 1982, Charles Richards. The Daily Telegraph, 10 August 1982, Hugh Davies. Testimony to the Commission of D r Ameen Ramzy, Gaza Hospital, Beirut, 2 September 1982. The Daily Express, 18 September 1982, Ross Benson. The Times, 3 July 1982, Christopher Walker.

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Financial Times, 29 July 1982, James Buchan and Nora Boustany. The Times, 28 June 1982, Robert Fisk. The Daily Telegraph, 29 June 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Dr Steinar Bcrgc, London, 28 August 1982; and testimony of Dr Giannou to US House of Representatives SubCommittee on Europe and the Middle East, 13 July 1982. 97. See, eg: Protocol I, Geneva Conventions, Art 57(2). 98. Monday Morning, 5-11 July 1982, p. 49. 99. The Daily Express, 2 July 1982 & Monday Morning, 5-11 July 1982, p. 54. 100. The Daily Telegraph, 2 July 1982, John Bulloch. 101. Monday Morning, 19-25 July 1982, p. 48. 102. Financial Times, 9 July 1982, James Buchan.

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Section III The Israeli Occupation

Chapter Thirteen

Israel’s Occupation Policy

T he purpose of this part of the Report is to consider whether and to what extent those aspects of Israel’s occupation of the Lebanon, which the Commission believes it is in a position adequately to assess, conform to the rules of international law. The Commission recalls that such rules are mainly customary law. They have progressively been developed, during more than a century of military history. Successive conventions and the resolutions of international bodies, which have specified their terms and enlarged their field, mark the various stages of their development. The Commission’s opinion is that the main function of these instruments is not to create norms (which in fact already exist) but to express these existing norms and to give them an appropriate form in the light of historical developments. Consequently, the Commission believes that the occupation by Israel should be assessed according both to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 - to which Israel is a party - and to the additional Protocol I of 1977 which Israel did not sign, but most of the provisions of which are merely codifications of principles laid down in the Geneva Conventions. The section begins with a description of what, in the Commission’s view, constitute the particular features of the Israeli ‘presence’. The Commission focuses on the treatment accorded to individuals and property during the occupation and both these aspects will be analysed. Finally, special attention will be paid to the situation of the people in the camps, for this is both connected with aspects of the occupation to be analysed first, and also illustrates what seems to have been one of the underlying objectives of the Israeli authorities: to eliminate the Palestinians from the occupied zones. G eneral Characteristics o f the Occupation 11 is generally considered that the military presence of a State on the territory of another State, with the result that all or part of the territory comes under its control, constitutes - in law - occupation. Among the legal consequences are the applicability of the Geneva Conventions of 1949; and the duties and responsibilities of the occupying power as laid down in the 1907 Hague Regulations.

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However, even in the face of the facts which will be briefly listed, the Israeli authorities refuse to recognise unambiguously that their ‘presence' in the Lebanon can legally be termed an occupation. This attitude requires analysis. In order to understand the probable reasons for the Israeli Government position, it is also necessary to isolate certain particular features of the occupation policy pursued in the Lebanon. The Israeli 'thesis' This ‘thesis’ was advanced, orally, on 22 July 1982 to a delegation of the Centre of Information on Palestinian and Lebanese Prisoners based in Paris when one of the members of this Commission was present. D r Dani Rubinstein, legal adviser to the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, argued that in the view of his Government there was no occupation of the Lebanon as laid down in the 1949 Geneva Conventions. This argument is unequivocally developed in a Briefing document distributed by the Information Service of the same Ministry, dated 18 July 1982 and handed to the French delegation by D r Rubinstein. It was revealingly entitled ‘The Current Israeli Presence in the Lebanon’, and it sets out the basic arguments which formed the core of his presentation: - the military operations were not directed against the Lebanon; - on the contrary, they helped save the Lebanese people and their Government from usurpation of their power by the Palestine Liberation Organisation; - the Israeli army had no intention of setting up an administration in the zones where it was temporarily present; - no military governor had been appointed, nor any regulations decreed for the administration; - Israel restricted itself to the setting up of ‘special units for civilian assistance’ which would intervene where local government authority was lacking, as in most areas the local authorities had begun to exercise their powers again for the first time in many years. One further argument put forward by D r Rubinstein’s aides was that some Lebanese groups had accepted, if not actually called for, the presence of Israeli forces. The Commission very much regrets that the Israeli Government refused to accede to the Chairman’s request for co-operation.1 It was therefore impossible for its members to discuss this analysis with the authorities in Jerusalem. The facts which the Commission found for itself or which were reported to it, challenge the Israeli denial that there was an occupation in the sense o f that term in international law.

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T h e Occupation T h e Commission is aware of two contentions on the issue of ‘occupation*. First, that there was an occupation could be questioned, and the thesis thus acquire some credence, if the Lebanese State had requested or accepted the Israeli army’s intervention. Similarly, if the ‘presence’ of the Israeli armed forces implied neither an encroachment on Lebanese powers nor interference in the life of the people - in brief, if there had been no seizure of territory or subjugation of its inhabitants and its local authorities. But this approach is unsustainable. T he fact of the occupation is first of all attested by the attitude of the properly constituted Lebanese authorities, who protested officially against th e invasion of their territory by the Israeli forces, illustrated by the clear statem ent of the President of Lebanon2 and through the protests of the Lebanese Permanent Representative to the Security Council of the United nations and its vote at the General Assembly.’ The Commission’s interview w ith the Prime Minister, M r Shafik al-Wazzan, on 2 September4 established Lebanon’s opposition to the invasion also. It should be noted that the actual o r alleged position of those groups, parties or militias which were really or allegedly in favour of Israeli intervention have little relevance in international law in comparison to the unequivocal attitude of the official representatives of Lebanese national sovereignty. Such support for Israel’s intervention would in any case be contrary to Lebanese law (as explained to th e Commission by the Prime Minister of Lebanon).5 The fact of the occupation is secondly attested to by a massive and obvious presence of the Israeli armed forces, on much' of Lebanese territory and especially in southern Lebanon, around M ount Lebanon and the city of Beirut which was completely occupied from 16 to 18 September 1982. The Commission was able to see for itself that there was heavy Israeli Defence Force traffic on the roads; the countryside and the built-up areas were dotted with fortified positions and camps flying the Israeli flag; and numerous patrols were evident over land, sea and air. In addition, there are four important sets of facts which feature in the Israeli occupation (some of which directly contradict several allegations made in the Briefing document of 18th July mentioned above). (a) The Israeli army imposed security measures which it deemed necessary for its safety. (Recent events proved the necessity for measure of this kind: apart from the ‘incident’ which caused the death of 75 ID F soldiers and 15 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians in Tyre on 11 November, Le Monde listed at least 10 attempts against Israeli forces since 3 October.6) It set up road blocks where its soldiers could check on the identity of people and on vehicles, usually backed up with tanks and assisted by Lebanese auxiliaries; on several occasions the Commission experienced the effects of these road blocks at first hand. It carried out searches, looking for arms, ammunition, documents and ‘suspects’. It conducted raids which involved arrests of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians (see below, II). In the south, it

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cut down orchards along the road for fear of snipers. Lastly, it imposed curfews in many places. The security measures following the ‘incident* which destroyed the Israeli headquarters in Tyre consisted of the mass arrests of about 800 people, curfews and a blockade of Lebanese officials and security forces, not only in Tyre, but also in Sidon.7 (b) The Israeli army undertook various more or less urgent tasks which would normally have been carried out by the police or the Government authorities, such as clearing mines; looking for, removing and burying bodies; and clearing debris. In the early days of its ‘presence* it even requisitioned men who were selected arbitrarily from the population to execute some of .these operations. There is no doubt that it provided aid to the civilian population in the form of provisions and medical care as attested by the evidence of D r Melvyn H. Brooks and another witness in Jerusalem. It proceeded to widen some of the main roads. Routes in the zone under its control were signposted in Hebrew; and places were often given a Hebrew name instead of their local Arab one. (c) Many private and public buildings were occupied by Israeli forces who evicted their occupants, including in some cases Lebanese civilian administrators, and the barracks, the garrisons of which were disarmed (notably at Sidon).8The town halls of Tyre and Sidon and the administrative offices (‘serails*), especially in Sidon and Rachaya, were among those occupied in this way.9 The same happened to the hospitals of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, to numerous schools10and the international airport at Beirut which was closed to both civilian and military Lebanese traffic up to 1 October. (d) Strict controls were exercised over the population. During June the population was subjected to numerous identity checks at which the army stamped their documents; and in the same period they'were compelled to carry temporary passes.11 Members of the Commission were able to verify the existence of these stamps and passes. At least one member of the Lebanese Parliament, M r Abdel Latif Zein, was detained and prevented from travelling from the capital; while some political figures, eg M r Walid Joumblatt, were prevented from travelling to their constituencies. At sea, the Israeli navy cruised the waters off the port of Jounieh which up until the reopening of Beirut airport was the main point of access into the Lebanon and especially to Beirut. It systematically compelled every ship entering into Lebanese territorial waters to hand over a list of passengers; it forced these ships to stop, sometimes for many hours, and on two occasions (30 August and 6 September) the Commission was the object of its vigilance. The Commission concludes that such facts constitute, by their nature, acts of occupation under international law. The denials and reservations of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs can do nothing to alter the facts. In particular, calling the Israeli forces stationed on Lebanese territory ‘units responsible for aiding civilians* does nothing to change their real nature, that of occupying troops. It is admitted that these units form an

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integral part of the army: official signs were the proof (for example, the Commission saw the signpost erected at Sidon near the Lebanese police barracks, on the road leading to the Ain el Hilweh camp). The Israeli reluctance to admit openly to occupation may be explained by some of the particular features of the occupation. Particular Features o f the Israeli O ccupation In the Commission’s view the occupation*had three special features: firstly, it was the extension of a ‘presence* which had existed long before the invasion of June 1982 in southern Lebanon; secondly, it is reflected by Israel's role in the interplay of various Lebanese forces and factions; and thirdly, it was characterised by widespread arrests among the civilian population. The Arrests To ensure the immediate safety of its forces, the ID F did not limit itself to a supervisory role. It made and is still making large numbers of arrests and is at the present time holding large numbers of prisoners. The exceptional extent of the arrests, the ways in which they were made and the treatment of detainees, are not simply a peculiarity which distinguishes this case from classical forms of occupation. They are also, as will be shown later, largely incompatible with the provisions of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. This last feature may explain the refusal of the Israeli Government to admit to the fact of occupation, which would then involve the application of these Conventions. This is one of the many aspects of the interventionist policies pursued for more than ten years, of which the June 1982 invasion was the culmination. This continuity is also characteristic of the occupation. The Continuity of the Israeli ‘Presence* Ever since the reinforcement o f the Palestinian positions in the Lebanon at the end of the sixties, Israel has unilaterally assumed the right to police the situation, mainly, but not exclusively, in the south of the country. This policing took the form of numerous incursions into Lebanese territory. Some o f these incursions were highly spectacular, such as the attack on Beirut airport in 1968, the ‘limited' invasion of 1978 and the 1981 bombardments. Apart from these widely noted events, the Israeli presence was fairly constant in the south throughout the seventies. F urther, Biblical tradition regards southern Lebanon as part of the Land of Israel. This may also explain Israeli reluctance to admit that the presence and activities of Israeli forces constitute an occupation under international law. Professor Israel Shahak, President of the Israeli League for Human Rights, has stated in his evidence to the Commission that since 1975 the Israeli presence has been maintained by a ‘Special Unit for the Regions of

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South Lebanon’ (or ADEL), formed from former soldiers and attached not to army headquarters but directly to the Ministry of Defence.12 One aspect of the Israeli ‘presence’ was the arrest, on Lebanese territory, of people of all nationalities but especially Lebanese citizens, som e o f whom I were taken to Israel to appear before military courts to answer charges of breaking those Israeli laws which covered extra-territorial m a tte rs.13 The Israeli presence also relied heavily on the ‘Army of Free L ebanon’ led by Saad Haddad, which is equipped, looked after and in fact directed by ' Israel according to many witnesses before the Commission. T his, however, also relates to the next specific feature of the present occupation. The Resort to Local Auxiliary* Forces There is one widely known fact to which almost all the Lebanese witnesses before the Commission gave special emphasis, including m em bers o f the Government.14 This is the fact that the Israeli army is closely linked to two different Lebanese militias which were in existence when the invasion of June 1982 was launched. Firstly, there is the ‘Lebanese Forces*, composed almost entirely of Christian Maronites and drawn mainly from the ‘Phalange* of th e Kataeb Party. They were usually to be found in the Christian areas of the n o rth and in East Beirut. Secondly, in the frontier region of the south there is the ‘Army o f Free Lebanon’, 60% of whose strength is made up of Shi’ite Muslims b u t whose officers are almost all Christian. This body is commanded by a former Lebanese officer convicted in his absence of high treason and discharged from the Lebanese army, Major Saad Haddad. Evidence before the Commission establishes that when the invasion began, each of these militias had set up in its own territory a mini-State carved from the Lebanese state. Each was armed by Israel, but their degree of dependence and as a result their role differed. This was attested by many witnesses.15 It was established to the Commission’s satisfaction that whereas the Lebanese forces enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy, the ‘Army o f Free Lebanon’ was strictly controlled by Israel. The latter force has increased in numbers since the invasion because, according to the evidence received, every village has had to supply a contingent of ‘volunteers*.16 It has considerably extended its area of operations in the wake of the Israeli troops, and has beert deployed as far as the River Awali, north o f Sidon. On the heels of the invading army these Lebanese forces also penetrated areas which up till then had been closed to them, to the south of Beirut, where they reoccupied villages which had formerly been Christian, and in the Chouf. According to evidence submitted to the Commission, the Israelis have, since the invasion gone further by directly creating a militia also called the Phalange (though this was by definition distinct from the Lebanese Forces) which was entirely under their control.17 This militia was intended to

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intervene north of the Awali river and was to have as its principal unit a ‘ Damour Brigade’ composed partly of Christians forced to leave Damour by th e 1976 massacres and partly of habitual criminals. According to this source, it was the Damour Brigade which was to the forefront in the massacres at Sabra and Chatila between 16 and 18 September.18 This process of creating militias is still continuing. Recent newspaper reports revealed that the Israelis are forming Druze militias in the south-east o f the country and Shi'ite militias in the south. The various auxiliary forces have two kinds of tasks. It was obvious to the Commission that they assist in keeping a check on people and in maintaining order. In particular, they check identities at the numerous roadblocks set up jointly with the Israeli army. Again, they carry out, apparently independently, harassing operations against the civilian population and in particular against the inhabitants of the refugee camps. Harassment consists of seizure of property, physical maltreatment, kidnappings, assassinations and actual massacres. For example, the international press has focused attention recently on the armed confrontations in the Chouf between the ‘Lebanese forces’ and the Druze population and the militia belonging to the Progressive Socialist Party o f Mr Joum blatt, which have caused much bloodshed in recent weeks.19 The Commission has evidence that although the Israelis knew about the numerous abuses committed by these different militias, they often refused to intervene to stop them and have always denied responsibility.20 The Israelis content that these are Lebanese matters and that Israel had no wish to involve herself in Lebanese internal affairs. For example, this was the attitude adopted officially and forcefully on the occasion of the Sabra and Chatila massacres. According to witnesses, it was also the attitude towards other less spectacular criminal acts.21 These facts contradict the Israeli Government’s denial of the fact of occupation and its emphatic insistence th at the Lebanese authorities had reasserted their authority in the zones where the Israeli army was stationed. In the Commission’s view there is a link between the legal propositions and the ‘political’ explanations of the Israeli Government and military authorities. According to the former, the Israeli army was not occupying the country and did not therefore have any responsibility in law for public order. According to the latter, the Israeli army had nothing to do with the Lebanese settling their accounts with other Lebanese or with foreigners: all this was exclusively the concern of the local authorities. In the view of the Commission, this Israeli argument is legally unacceptable. By making use of the militias which it controlled, and by leaving them free to do what they liked, or by permitting the activities of smaller groups which were not under its control, the Israelis as the occupying power bear responsibility for the acts they have committed. The Commission has established that the Israeli policy was to make the Lebanese auxiliaries carry out tasks which Israel did not wish its own army to execute -

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a policy of which the Commission found numerous examples. Such a policy cannot relieve the occupying power of its legal obligations which apply in the case of operations conducted by the militias as much by its own units. Treatm ent o f Persons In the Commission's view, the treatment of persons as a result of the occupation conflicts in several ways with the norms of international law. For instance, on several occasions the ID F were accused of hindering the activities of relief organisations and UN Agencies, causing protests from these bodies and, furthermore, from the Security Council of the U N .22 But the unlawfijl treatment of persons mainly consists in both the practice of raids and the detention of a very large number of prisoners. The harassment, kidnappings and massacres of which the refugee camps were the principal victims will be considered in that section on the camps (below, Chapter 15). Raids The evidence received by the Commission largely confirms information published in the press and emanating from other observers. It demonstrates to the Commission’s satisfaction that the arrests of both Lebanese and Palestinians constitute a violation of international law and in particular of the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949. The arrests seemed, on the evidence, to be intended, in part at least, as a measure of collective intimidation. One of their effects was to destroy the Palestinian health services. They were often accompanied by maltreatment of those arrested and they culminated in intolerable interference by the auxiliary militias. Intimidation of Civilians An impressive volume of information presented to the Commission, including much moving testimony from observers, shows that few people were arrested on the basis of information about them personally, as was shown in the case of the raids on homes carried out during the occupation of West Beirut at the end of September. Far from this being the case, the evidence shows that the great majority of people were taken into custody during organised raids aimed indiscriminately at all men between 14 and 60 no matter what their nationality or situation. Sometimes, advantage was taken of an occasion when all the people of a particular place were together, as when the people of Tyre and Sidon were compelled to assemble at the beaches. This happened in all refugee camps. In Sidon, for example, people were compelled to assemble on several occasions after the Israeli forces had entered the town, according to the testimony of M r Hassib Abdul Jawad. M r Waed Kheir witnessed one of these gatherings at Mieh Mieh. Others took place at Sidon on 5 October. The methods were the same every time. It is important to stress the agreement on this point between evidence collected in the

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Lebanon and evidence given by Israeli witnesses in Jerusalem, particularly the Israeli soldiers, Yaron Pik and Shmuel Rubinstein: - hundreds, even thousands of persons were compelled to assemble at points designated by the troops by means of loudhailers or leaflets; - they were kept there for many hours before being paraded one by one before masked men; - some were then kept in detention and others freed, depending on the information given by the masked informers. Such operations might be repeated several times in the same area and thus affect the same section of the people.25 According to the Israelis, their intention was to apprehend ‘terrorists' and their ‘accomplices'. This was understood to mean combatants who had abandoned their uniforms and hidden their arms before melting into the general population.24 But this category also included civilian cadres, militants and sympathisers of all kinds with the PLO and its affiliated or allied organisations. T he significance of this point will be examined later, at the same time as the legal basis for the arrests. T he Commission concludes that, on the evidence, these activities had the character o f ‘measures of intimidation or of terrorism' which are prohibited by Article 33 of the Geneva Convention on the Protection of Civilians, 1949. T his conclusion is supported by evidence of the way in which the whole male population of a place was rounded up together, by the repetition of the operation affecting the same people and finally by the following facts which have been widely attested to: - Witnesses stated that threats were uttered against those arrested and scenes were enacted to terrorise them, such as shots being fired over their heads or tank engines being started up supposedly as a prelude to running over ‘suspects'.25 - A large proportion of those detained on the word of the masked informers had in fact no links with the PLO or related organisations carrying out ‘subversive’ acts nor had they committed such acts themselves. On the other hand, some of those released (and questioned by the Commission) were known to have been engaged in ‘subversion’. Such cases were far from being exceptional. Indeed they were sufficiently numerous and remarkable to have created the widespread impression that some of the masked informers were simply put up to select people at random and so produce panic among the general public and keep them in a state of insecurity.26 The feeling of uncertainty grew in the population thanks to another equally widespread impression, according to witnesses,

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that many informers settled personal and private quarrels with some of the so-called suspects.27 - Often the interrogation to which those arrested were subjected, either during the raid or at other times, was purely formal; the officer in charge was clearly not seeking any information, but only wanted to intimidate the person.28 - These practices are complementary to evidence of the intimidatory measures experienced by the Lebanese or Palestinian inhabitants of the places which were raided. Thus, for example, on a number of occasions the inhabitants of the northern suburb of Sidon were awakened at night by the noise of tanks driving into the district and pointing searchlights and guns at individual houses.29 Attacks on the Health Services The staff of the Palestine Red Crescent Society and in particular the hospital staff were arrested at the outset of the occupation. Doctors and nurses, whether they were Lebanese, Palestinian, or of other nationalities, were not exempt from these raids, especially in Tyre and Sidon. They were detained without any deference to their status or to their responsibilities as medical personnel.30 According to doctors who were in Sidon when the town was taken, all the medical staff of the PRCS were captured.31 D r al-Islam reported that his arrest, along with that of D r Giannou, a Canadian, took place while they were still performing an operation. They had to leave immediately, regardless of the patient who was left behind unattended. Such arrests are incompatible with the provisions of the Geneva Convention on Civilians, which under Article 20 protects staff ‘engaged in the operations and administration of civilian hospitals*. They are also incompatible with Articles 15 and 16 of Protocol I of 1977. The arrests are not justified by labelling the activities of the staff as possibly subversive. The conditions under which these arrests were made show at best that they were intended to produce collective intimidation among the medical staff, without regard for their special status; at worst, they show that membership of the Palestine Red Crescent Society was the reason behind them, according to the principle which represented all kinds of PLO activities as varying forms of ‘terrorism*. All the different hospitals belonging to the Palestine Red Crescent Society in the towns of Sidon, Tyre and Nabatiyeh and the clinics and dispensaries in the refugee camps, already disrupted because of the arrests of the medical teams, were, without exception, closed down. After the invasion, some of them, notably in Sidon, were occupied by the Israeli army, which undertook in them no medical activity.32 Geneva Convention IV, on the treatment of civilians, lays down that civilian hospitals must be ‘at all times respected and protected by the Parties to the conflict*.33 Over and above this, the occupying power has a duty of

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‘ensuring and maintaining with the co-operation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory . . .*M The Commission concludes that Israel cannot justify closing the PRCS hospitals because injured combatants were being cared for in them” neither can it do so by contesting their status as civilian hospitals, for in that case it would be in breach of the provisions of Convention I.56 Treaiment of those arrested T he Commission received testimony that the raids carried out among the civilian population were sometimes executed without undue brutality.'7 In the Commission’s view, much of the evidence supports the contention as to their intimidatory purpose. A great deal of evidence given to the Commission and corroborated by testimony collected by its members showed that the raids were on many occasions carried out with an unnecessary degree of violence. This was reported by nearly all the witnesses, especially those at Sidon. * Illustrations of the nature of this violence include the following: - being forced to stand, sometimes for several days at a stretch with, in the case of those marked out as suspect, hands tied and eyes blind-folded; - prolonged exposure to the sun and deprivation of food and water, sometimes for several days, giving rise to serious illness and occasionally death;39 - insults, threats, acts of intimidation (shots fired, engines started, vehicles moving, etc, see above, (a) and blows from soldiers on guard. In some cases such beatings went so far as to lead to death40 - being forced to perform their natural functions under degrading conditions: where they stood, even on themselves, in public, etc. U nder the principles of international humanitarian law, it matters not whether such treatment derived from a systematic plan laid down by the occupying authorities, or whether it was the result of lower-ranking officers and soldiers making their own decisions, or whether it happened because the Israeli army was simply unable to cope with such a large number of detainees. It is sufficient to point out that ‘outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment are, and shall remain, prohibited at any time and in any place', by Article 3, which is common to all four Geneva Conventions of 1949. This is the expression of a universally recognised norm, applicable even in a case where the conflict is not an international one. This principle prohibits ‘mutilation, cruel treatment and torture' and Article 32 of Convention IV reiterates this prohibition in even more general terms. The Commission concludes that these provisions have been contravened by the practices described above.

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The Commission received evidence that the Israeli forces subjected some of those arrested in the raids to interrogations which were often brutal, in order to obtain information about the PLO and the Lebanese National Movement. The Commission was told that some of the masked informers used were members of the PLO and the LN M who had been persuaded to collaborate. Witnesses stated that some of the informers had their hands tied behind their backs.41 The Commission concludes that such behaviour contravenes Article 31 of Convention IV: ‘No physical or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to obtain information from them or from third parties*. The role of the militias Consistent with the policy described above, the Commission received evidence that much of the suffering inflicted on the Lebanese and Palestinian civilian population was caused by the local militias who acted as auxiliaries of the Israeli army. According to this evidence, these auxiliary militias harassed the inhabitants of the refugee camps (see below). They were also responsible for kidnappings.42 The kidnappings led in some cases to internment - according to the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moustafa Dumaiqah, ‘tribunals* and ‘prisons* were set up by the Lebanese Forces (Phalange) - and to summary execution.4’ According to these testimonies, twenty Druze were kidnapped and possibly assassinated by the Phalangists on 2 September at Kjaffer Mattar; the same happened to thirty-eight young people taken away at Bhamdoun on 12 or 13 August. The Commission was also informed of numerous instances of brutality committed by the militias when carrying out checks and searches. For example according to two American witnesses who gave evidence on 5 October at Sidon, a Palestinian woman and her Lebanese taxi driver were stopped at a road block in Sidon on 16 August and then robbed and tortured. On 1 August a doctor was attacked in his clinic by armed militiamen who wanted to force him to examine a child.44 On 15 August and the days following, some of Saad Haddad’s men tried to take over a school in Sidon where sixteen families had taken refuge and which was serving as a nursery for more than sixty children. They only gave up the attempt on the orders of the Israeli military authorities which were finally given, according to witnesses, because foreign observers had been alerted.45 On 25 August two shops belonging to Palestinians were set on fire in the old town. On 29 September an old man was struck down in the Ain el Hilweh camp in front of the premises of the ICRC, whose staff were prevented by force from going to his aid and who had to watch his death agony for an hour and a half.46 The Commission concludes that, given the clear links between the Israeli army and these auxiliary militias and the fact that the army was occupying and controlling the whole area where these events took place, Israel must be held directly responsible for the actions of the militias.

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2. C ondition o f Detainees T h e Facts T h e Commission has evidence that the number of detainees was, and is, considerable, but the precise number cannot be determined. Lebanese and Palestinian sources gave a figure of 14 to 15,000 prisoners.47 T h e Israelis have let it be understood that they were detaining about 9,000 people. This figure does not correspond to that published by the ICRC. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross reports, there were some 7,000 prisoners at Al-Ansar in south Lebanon alone, when it was visited at the end of August.48 When the Commission visited the Greek Catholic Archbishop of Tyre, we were told that nearly 11,000 prisoners had been listed through the efforts of the Archbishop, Monsignor Georges Haddad. These variations and the lack of reliable figures are to be explained in part by the fairly low number of releases. (According to a communique issued from Israeli headquarters in Tel Aviv on 7 November, 3,000 prisoners were said to have been released from Al-Ansar. There would only remain there about 6,000 persons, among them 3,823 Palestinians; furthermore, 640 ‘non-Arab prisoners' were about to be freed as soon as a country could be found which would receive each of them.49) The discrepancies in figures are due mainly to the existence of different detention centres which have been kept secret by the Israeli Government, even though some of them are quite large. Apart from the camp at Al-Ansar, these detention centres are in Israel. Those centres which were opened in the Lebanon at the beginning of the occupation, such as the school run by the sisters of St Joseph and the Safa warehouse at Sidon, were used almost entirely as transit centres and now seem to have been abandoned. On the other hand, there is evidence that other centres are still in existence in Israel itself. There is irrefutable evidence that Megiddo prison, near the town of Afula, housed large numbers of prisoners of every nationality who had been brought from the Lebanon. Israeli authorities state that they are no longer there, but at Shmuel Harrofeh Hospital the Red Cross was allowed to visit several dozen wounded Palestinian prisoners. The Centre of Information on Prisoners in Paris and the Centre of Military Information in Tel Aviv both have information about a former British camp at Atlit. Moreover, the former group has published a list of nine detention centres, among them ‘Naharya, Hadera (under tents), Djebel el Joura (under tents), near Tiberias (under tents), Djalami (prison near Haifa - place for interrogation and torture)'.50 The Commission heard evidence in Jerusalem about the military prison at Saraani and the women’s prison at Neve Tirza, near Ramleh.51 According to the evidence of a well informed source these detention centres have been kept secret and the venue has been changed periodically. The Commission is in no doubt that they have existed. Most of the detainees who were released stated that they had been taken to Israel for

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varying periods of time.52 Work is reported as going on to enlarge the AlAnsar camp so that detainees coming from Israel can be transferred there. The evidence collected by the Commission (particularly the statements of Dr Shafiq al-Islam and Pascal Mathey obtained in Oslo by the Commission; the statements issued by released prisoners interviewed in Beirut; the evidence collected in Damascus and in South Lebanon, in October, by members of the Paris Centre of Information on Prisoners) enables it to reconstruct the process by which many prisoners arrived in these camps. Persons were first detained during raids described above, after they had been pointed out by masked informers. They were then taken to a transit centre and from there to Israel to be interrogated in depth. They stayed in Israel for varying lengths of time (it was from 11 June to 17 July in the case of Dr al-Islam), until they were brought back to the Al-Ansar camp in the Lebanon.53 During the journeys to Israel the conditions in which detainees were held were described by witnesses as unacceptable, if not dreadful, with a few rare exceptions (see particularly the Lebanese testimony heard on 6 October, which described the conditions as ‘exceptionally* good). From the outset and throughout their journey, the prisoners were bound and blind-folded. They were sometimes bundled together in nets and transported by helicopter. Usually, they were crammed in lorries or in buses and the fact that they were tied up left them unprotected against the jolts and buffetings which caused pain and suffering.54 During these journeys they were deliberately exposed by their guards to insults and beatings by civilians, who were allowed to climb into the buses where the detainees were hand-cuffed and blind-folded (see in particular testimonies of D r Berge, Pascal Mathey and Dr al-Islam); they were often robbed by the Israeli soldiers.55 However, it must be pointed out that these robberies have nothing to do with the provisional confiscations correctly carried out (against delivery of receipts) once they arrived at the detention camp). Finally they had to perform their natural functions in degrading conditions and they were sometimes deprived of food and water for long periods.56 Ill-treatment continued at the places of detention, particularly in Israel, in three different forms. First, prisoners were subjected to deliberate brutality by their guards under the pretext of disciplinary action. Second, the interrogations were very often, if not systematically, accompanied by beatings and, on some occasions, by torture. Dr al-Islam’s testimony is particularly precise on this matter. But in Cyprus the Commission had already heard the evidence of an American doctor who had tended two victims of brutality in the Gaza Hospital in Beirut.57 Indeed it has already been shown that some interrogations were only intended as an excuse for maltreatment.

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Third, witnesses are adamant about the inefficiency and, sometimes, the total lack of medical care given to wounded and sick prisoners in the places of detention. Thus, Dr al-Islam states that in Israel a military surgeon refused to allow 17 wounded prisoners to be treated otherwise than with a piece of soap (‘They replied to me that we are going to give you a piece of soap to clean the wounds once again . . . that they are terrorists and don’t need any trea tm e n t. . . They come to kill us and let them die in this way . . . and this doctor was a surgeon of the Israeli armed forces*). This statement tallies with the testimony made by Dr Enrico Melson, who stated that two wounded boys he examined in Gaza Hospital, after they had just been released, had received no treatment at all while they were in the hands of the IDF. It lends credence to the information given on 12 July, in a press conference held in Tel Aviv by the Israeli League for Human Rights, about ill-treatment suffered by wounded prisoners in Shmuel Harofeh Hospital in Israel.’8 This might also explain why the research group on war crimes which was formed in Beirut estimated that the proportion of detainees who suffered permanent incapacity was 10% (30 people out of 300 released).59 The International Red Cross has had free access to Al-Ansar camp since 18 July. It has ensured that detainees are able to communicate satisfactorily with their families. It would appear from the witnesses heard that the conditions in this camp were very far from adequate and it is not likely that they have improved with the passage of time.60 One witness only gave a contrary view.61 At the outset, the Commission experienced some difficulty in verifying the true position of prisoners. The Israeli authorities have forbidden any organisation except the ICRC, which is bound to secrecy, from visiting the camp. Only ‘authorised* persons, properly chaperoned by officers, have been permitted entry. The Commission takes the view that this indicates that there are matters which the Israeli authorities wish to keep hidden. Most of the detainees who had been released from Al-Ansar were not anxious to give evidence. This could be explained by threats which were said to have been made against those who talked too freely.62 The Red Cross itself only communicates its conclusions to the governments involved and is careful not to confirm or deny allegations about conditions in the camp, but there is evidence that in August 1982, the ICRC was extremely unhappy concerning physical and medical conditions at Al-Ansar which it condemned in what is; for the ICRC, very strong language. However, during its second visit to Lebanon and its hearings in Oslo, the Commission received many reliable statements made by detainees who had recently been released from Al-Ansar. They are consistent with information published in Ha'aretz on 6 November under the signature of Amnon Dankner who had been actually a member of the Israeli guard at the camp. They have been confirmed by recent enquiries conducted by other bodies as well as by documents previously collected. These, therefore, provide some

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insight into the publicly-disclosed statements of ICRC representatives that they have had discussions with the Israeli authorities about the conditions in Al-Ansar. The Commission takes the view that it can give credence to the evidence and other information it has received. From these, the following position emerges. In Al-Ansar camp, prisoners have been assembled in ‘sections' of about 500 people (20 tents of 25 detainees each, in section No 20, where D r alIslam stayed for more than two months). Some of them are put in charge of particular jobs. Thus, each ‘section' has a chief (a mukhtar), a deputy-chief and several ‘assistants’ responsible for the cooking, distribution of food, cleaning, etc. The mukhtar is especially in charge of maintaining public order and is obliged to beat his fellow prisoners on the instructions of the Israeli guards. There is no indication that he gets any particular reward for this job, save some cigarettes. The Commission was informed that prisoners who are given these functions are not elected by their comrades, but are directly appointed by the Israelis. There is serious overcrowding and the situation has actually deteriorated since tents of a new type were erected in the first week of October. Each contains 40 people instead of 25; these new tents have side walls, while the old ones had only roofs. But the situation of the detainees remains very uncomfortable because they have to sit all day long, side by side, in the tents and may not move without special permission. They are allowed to walk outside for 10 minutes in the morning at about 5.30 am and for 10 minutes in the evening, at about 5.00 pm. They are idle all day long and the most fortunate play cards or chess, distributed by the ICRC. Hygiene is deplorable. Toilets are primitive and adjacent to the tents when not located inside these tents; often they overflow and then filthy water and faeces flood the tents, the smell being intolerable, even to the sentries standing outside the fences. Detainees can hardly wash (10 taps for about 500 persons, according to Dr al-Islam). Scabies is rampant. The ‘clinics' which have supposedly been organised in each section do not function: sick and wounded people are deprived of proper medical attention and D r alIslam submitted to the Commission a list of gravely ill patients who were not treated at all. Food is very poor. On occasion prisoners receive no food at all for several days without any explanation, according to Dr al-Islam whose own section was left without any food for three consecutive days. Finally, living conditions seem to vary from section to section without ascertainable reason.65 As for those released, most of these are Lebanese and very few are Palestinian. The Commission’s attention was drawn to the fact that those released are not always given back the identity documents taken from them when they were detained. Instead they receive a prisoner’s card and, when they are released, a document drawn up by the Israeli authorities.64 This

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puts them in a very difficult situation vis-d-vis the Lebanese authorities. It is known that since the beginning of September the Lebanese army has been arresting everyone in Beirut whose papers are *not in order’.*5 T h e legal status o f detainees By virtue of the Geneva Conventions to which both Israel and the Lebanon are parties and which are applicable to the PLO by virtue of a declaration dating from 7 June 1982,** persons detained should in principle be put into one o f the two following categories: - those who belong to the armed forces of the PLO, as well as to militias and volunteer forces of the Lebanese National Movement, have the right to benefit from the provisions of Convention III, relating to the treatment of prisoners-of-war; - the rest, clearly more numerous, come under Convention IV, relating to the protection of civilians in time of war. T he Israeli Government claims that the Geneva Conventions are not applicable to the Lebanese situation. Official sources have declared that Convention III imposes no legal obligations on Israel except as regards Syrian soldiers (see especially the Briefing document of 18 July quoted above). There is more restraint about the applicability of Convention IV, although it was formerly denied that it applied, in an interview of 22 July between D r Rubinstein and a delegation from the Paris Centre of Information on Prisoners (see above). In its report dated 9 August, the IC R C has stated that it had been obliged ‘twice since 4 June to remind all parties of their obligations under the Geneva Conventions and in particular to spare the lives of the civilian population, the wounded and those taking care of them’. Though the Israeli Government has not accepted that it has these legal obligations, it has nonetheless stated that it is willing de facto to apply the humanitarian provisions contained in the Conventions. Most importantly, it has stated that its forces have been asked to abide by Convention IV. It seems also to have given an undertaking to the ICRC. T he Commission accepts the view of the ICRC and considers that the Conventions are applicable to the present situation in Lebanon. It also considers that it is not enough merely to confront the Israeli Government with the provisions of Protocol I of 1977, which extend to liberation movements the application of the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Protocol I of 1977 merely codifies the development of international law since 1949 and provides a firm basis for combatants of liberation movements combating colonialism, providing they fulfil the criteria laid down in Article 44 concerning command structure and combat. Even without the support of Protocol I, the applicability of Convention IV results from the occupation of

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part of Lebanese territory, a situation which is laid down in Article 2, section 2 and which is common to all four Conventions. The facts of such occupation have been established to the Commission's satisfaction. There is however some disagreement over the definition of those persons who should be protected under Article 4 of the Prisoners of War Convention, 1949. The Israeli authorities claim that Palestinian combatants do not come into any of the categories defined in Article 4 since in their opinion the PLO is not a Party to the conflict (see Art. 4A(1). In their view a ‘terrorist organisation* neither possesses ‘regular armed forces* (Art. 4A(3)) nor is it an ‘organised resistance movement* which conducts its operations ‘in accordance with the laws and customs of war* (Art. 4A(2)(d)). The Commission concludes that the PLO is a ‘party to the conflict* within the meaning of the Convention. The so-called ‘Peace for Galilee* operation was directed against it. The PLO has been recognised by many States, including the Lebanon on whose territory the conflict is being waged. In the Commission’s judgment the PLO does have regular armed forces (the PL A) as well as organised militias. On 7 June the PLO declared in accordance with Article 2, section 3, that it accepted the provisions of the Geneva Conventions. There is no valid reason why this acceptance should not be effective. In these circumstances, the Commission is of the opinion that Convention III legally obliges Israel to give prisoner-of-war status to PLO combatants. This is the position with regard to members of the Lebanese National Movement militia as well, whose case has received little attention so far. In accordance with this conclusion, the Commission has considered whether the Israeli Government has complied with the requirements laid down in these instruments. Taking the foregoing into account, the Commission has evidence indicating a list of violations of international law committed by the Israeli authorities. This is as follows: - Refusal to treat as prisoners-of-war those combatants interned by the Israeli forces, contrary to the provisions of Article 4 of Convention III and Article 44 of Protocol I; - internment of medical personnel, contrary to the provisions of Articles 4, 6 and 33 of Convention III;67 - maltreatment, torture, humiliation, confiscation of personal possessions and identity documents, contrary to Article 3 of the four Conventions, and to Articles 13,14 and 18 of Convention III; Articles 27 and 32 of Convention IV;68 - demands for information, contrary to the provisions of Articles 17 o f Convention III and 31 of Convention IV; - transfer of detainees to the territory of the occupying power, in contravention of Article 49 of Convention IV;

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- conditions of detention which do not conform to the demands of the two Conventions; O n this last point, many facts do not satisfy the requirements of the Conventions. - Living quarters, which should be ‘as favourable as those for the forces of the detaining power*, as well as the food given to the prisoners, obviously do not conform to Articles 25 and 26 of Convention III; - many detainees have no opportunity for exercise, as required under Articles 38 of Convention III and 94 (and following Article) of Convention IV; - sanitary measures are obviously insufficient according to the provisions of Articles 29 to 32 of Convention III; - the lack of medical attention constitutes a serious contravention of Article 30 of Convention III and Articles 10 and 11 of Protocol I. N either the ICRC nor any humanitarian organisation has been given access to the Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners detained in Israel, which is contrary to the provisions of Articles 125 of Convention III and 142 of Convention IV. Finally, there are no procedures for reviewing detentions as laid down in Article 78, paragraph 2 of Convention IV. Under internal Israeli law civilians are detained under laws - principally a regulation of 1979 and a court decision of 1981 - which provide for the setting up of appeal tribunals which would fulfil the demands of Convention IV. However, lawyers whom the Commission met in Jerusalem (M r Walid Fahum and M r Muhammed Miari) testified that although members of the tribunals had officially been appointed, they have not functioned, at least as regards the prisoners taken in the Lebanon since June. They mentioned one specific case, that of M r Otman Raftat Said Hamdan, who was detained at Al-Ansar and given the num ber 25774. The Israeli authorities knew of this case from 15 July (as they adm itted in a letter of 30 July received by his counsel), but by 8 September they had still not authorised any contact between the detainee and his lawyer.69 This was in spite of the fact that such contact is required by law if the lawyer is to bring a case before the appeal tribunal set up by virtue of the 1981 decision. In conclusion, it should be noted that not a single Israeli soldier of any rank among those questioned by the Commission in Jerusalem could remember the content of the provisions of the Conventions, contrary to the obligation accepted by Israel.70

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Treatm ent o f Property The Commission has concluded that the Israeli forces as the occupying power caused very serious damage to private and public property, contrary to international law. The question whether some of this damage was carried out as part of a deliberate plan of destabilisation with the ultimate aim of making the Lebanese economy into a satellite of the economy of Israel is also examined by the Commission. A ttacks on Property The Commission has received evidence that after the fighting had stopped, the Israeli forces took measures which caused harm to the civilian population because they limited or even paralysed activities. For example at Sidon, according to M r Hassib Abdul Jawad, the fishermen were not allowed to leave port up to 20 August. By the beginning o f September only 35 out of 250 had been given authorisation to fish at sea and then on condition that they painted their boats yellow and returned to shore between 5 pm and 5 am.71The Israeli forces and their Lebanese auxiliaries proceeded to destroy or confiscate property of various kinds. Some of these measures may have been justified by military necessity, eg the destruction of some buildings, but most have no such excuse and are a violation of Article 53 of Convention IV. Moreover, measures taken as reprisals are forbidden by Article 33, paragraph 3. Finally, there was considerable looting, contrary to the provisions of Article 32, paragraph 2. Civilian objects and structures In the area of Tyre, the occupying authority invoked the risk of ambushes against its armed forces as the reason for pulling down walls, trees and less solid structures over a strip 50 metres wide on either side of the roads. As a result orchards, especially orange trees, were considerably damaged.72 T his happened mostly to the south of the town, but the Commission saw for itself on 5 October the extensive damage over several hundreds of metres on the north side. Evidence was given to the Commission that the Israelis had stopped the destruction very quickly after Archbishop Georges Haddad had intervened. These events took place on a relatively limited scale, although they caused very heavy losses to the owners concerned. They happened near the end of the fighting, when the security of the Israeli forces did not seem complete and the Commission therefore considers that they do not constitute a violation of Article 53 of Convention IV. The Commission reaches different conclusions regarding other acts o f destruction, the effects of which the Commission was able to assess. T hese were stated in evidence to have occurred after the fighting had ceased. Underground shelters which had been used by civilians in the main, as well as combatants or officers of the PLO, were blown up without regard for neighbouring structures in, for example, the refugee camps of Al Bas and Rashidiyeh near Tyre.

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Again, the Israeli army bulldozed a very great number of dwellings in the refugee camps which had survived the bombardments.71These acts are not to be confused with the work of clearance carried out either by the municipal authorities or by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine at the end of October. The evidence of Israeli soldiers explained the destruction as being necessary to allow their patrols to move around.74 In the Commission’s view this does not explain the extent of the area affected. The Commission saw the effects itself, particularly at Ain el Hilweh camp at Sidon. Wide avenues had been cut across the camp through buildings which could still have been used, or repaired, and the debris thrown into the dwellings along these avenues, damaging and destroying these in the process. Reliable information received by the Commission indicated that the clearances were sometimes carried out recklessly by Israeli soldiers at the risk of the lives of the inhabitants. The Commission was told of cases where inhabitants had been killed in the destruction of their homes. In West Beirut along the coast, the small dwellings immediately adjacent to the public highway were razed to the ground by machines belonging to the occupying army when the latter was advancing at the end of September. The Commission was able to ascertain the effect of this directly in October. The destruction was continued and completed by the Lebanese army afterwards. The Commission considers that such acts cannot be excused as militarily necessary since hostilities had ceased when they took place. They were not necessary for the safety of the troops. If they were, then the whole of South Lebanon, town and country, should have been affected along all the roads. They were not rendered legitimate in Beirut by the fact that many of the houses destroyed or damaged had been irregularly built contrary to Lebanese regulations which Israel had no right to enforce. The Commission considers that these acts contravene the provisions of Article 53. The Commission has evidence that at least in part the destruction was carried out either as a reprisal against the civilian population or as a measure o f intimidation. These are serious violations of the Geneva rules. Finally, according to reliable witnesses the auxiliary militia confiscated and destroyed many dwellings.75 One incident stands out in particular: on 7 August, following disputes between Lebanese women from the village of Mieh Mieh and Palestinian women from the refugee camp next to it, the militia set fire to many of the dwellings in the camp after they had abused their occupants and chased them away. At the end of September, the same militia razed with bulldozers the part of the camp that had been burnt. The Commission, which itself saw the consequences of the fire in September, was able to establish the fact of the bulldozing in October. The Commission concludes that such actions are indisputably the responsibility of the occupying power.

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Civilian Property On its first visit to Beirut witnesses, including members of the Lebanese Government, such as the Prime Minister and the Minister of Information, the Minister of Agriculture, testified to the Commission that factories had been looted of their stock and equipment before being destroyed by the Israeli forces.76 Other witnesses testified that such factories included those at Naame, Aley and the Ghandur biscuit factory at Beirut. The Ministers of Information and Agriculture added that research centres had also been pillaged and then destroyed, as well as schools, universities and cultural centres. They testified that in the south, Israeli soldiers took away lorries, private cars, tractors and even the power-driven cultivators acquired by the poor peasants with the aid of government loans. The Israeli army ordered the banks to reveal their clients' accounts and hand over statements of their accounts in contravention of Lebanon's banking secrecy laws on which its reputation rests. The banks resisted these demands. Beirut international Airport was stripped of equipment, as was the maintenance department of the Middle East Airlines. The Commission ascertained for itself the extent of the damage in two factories manufacturing paint and preserved food at Naame on 5 September. It is not however in a position to state whether the damage was caused after the end of the fighting. In Beirut the Commission was able to examine the French Cultural Centre, which had been occupied for some twenty days during the siege. Trees had been damaged; archives, books and documents had been scattered or tom up and films and tapes unwound; walls had been soiled and ravaged; electronic equipment had been broken. Acts committed elsewhere when the Israelis entered West Beirut at the end of September have been widely described in the international press. They were confirmed by the witnesses heard during the Commission’s second visit. The University premises were pillaged and devastated, as confirmed by the account of the Rector and of the Director of the Science Faculty.77 The PLO offices were emptied of their contents. In addition the Palestinian research centre was pillaged and the whole of its archives, books and files systematically removed.78 This is a clear violation of the provisions relating to the protection of cultural heritage under the Hague Convention of 1954. Finally there is evidence that when Israeli soldiers were carrying out searches, they looted, fouled and ruined many private houses, took away personal possessions and property, and even removed cars belonging to the inhabitants. The Commission heard evidence to this effect from Professor Khalidi who had himself been a victim of such vandalism, as well as his sister, when he was interviewed by the Commission on 4 October. Israel has denied such practices according to the radio broadcast of the armed forces on 30 September at 15.40. The Commission concludes that Israeli troops did on a substantial number of occasions commit acts of looting. There were two types:

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- looting by soldiers for their own personal gain; - confiscation of property organised by the army. An example of the latter, to which witnesses referred is to be found in the A1 Baba warehouse in the southern suburb of Sidon.79 This warehouse has often been described to the Commission as a glaring example. It contained a large amount of scrap iron, belonging to a Lebanese citizen. The ID F confiscated this scrap, on the pretext that it was intended for the PLO. On 5 October members of the Commission witnessed the removal of two loads of scrap from the A1 Baba warehouse which was under ID F control. They actually saw soldiers loading two lorries which seemed to be military vehicles and which were driven off southwards with their booty. Finally, innumerable robberies have been carried out by militiamen belonging to the various groups.80 All this leads to the conclusion that the ID F has deliberately violated or consented to the violation of rules designed to protect public and private property, as well as cultural objects. E conom ic Policy o f the Occupying Forces It is an obvious fact, widely described and commented on in the international press, that the Lebanese economy has been seriously affected by the Israeli invasion. But most of the Lebanese personalities and some of the Palestinians interviewed by the Commission expressed the conviction that the economy did not merely suffer the damage to be expected from military operations and a ‘normal’ occupation. In fact, in their opinion, Israel took the opportunity provided by the fighting and by the siege of Beirut to damage or even destroy the Lebanese infrastructure in accordance with a plan whose aim was both to disrupt the economy and to turn it into a satellite of the Israeli economy. Looting and destruction which took place during the occupation would be part of this plan.81 Israel, while fearing Lebanese competition, particularly in the matter of banking, agriculture and tourism, allegedly coveted Lebanon’s markets and natural resources, mainly its waters. It might even have plans for annexing part of the land, especially in the south and up to Sidon, which, according to some traditions, could be considered as ‘part of the land of Israel’. The Commission was told that different Israeli State authorities have in recent times drawn up plans for such an operation. It was informed that the present Government may have drawn up such plans. The Commission is not in a position to express a conclusion on this issue. The Commission is satisfied, however, that evidence from different sources reveals the existence of an Israeli policy of establishing relations with occupied Lebanon under conditions which involve economic subordination.

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The Dismantling One of the greatest Lebanese worries is the possibility that their water resources may be tapped in future and also that a de facto annexation of territory may take place which would, as has happened elsewhere, be the prelude to a policy of colonisation. The Commission is aware that the nature of some of the destruction caused by military operations and carried out during the occupation especially the looting and damage to factories, research centres and the University of Lebanon82 - is consistent with a policy of deliberate dismantling of the economic and technical infrastructure of Lebanon. The same is true for the confiscation of agricultural machinery in southern Lebanon.83 The attempt to force the banks to reveal their secrets (to neutralise the financial organisation of the Palestinian national movement) could be seen as provoking a flight of capital, vital to the prosperity of the Lebanon. On the other hand, Israelis provided assistance to repair some of the damage caused by the war. For example, Israeli authorities helped to restore a central pumping station which was vital to the irrigation of part of southern Lebanon. According to press reports, they assisted in the rebuilding of the electrical supply system and put the Zahrani petrol refinery back into service, after it had been bombed in the early part of the war. The Commission believes that this evidence does not establish a policy of economic assistance to Lebanon to undo the ravages of a war initiated by Israel. Economic Domination The Commission is aware that at least as far back as 1978, Israel established close economic relations with the strip of Lebanese territory controlled by Saad Haddad. Since the invasion attempts have been made to extend these relations to cover the whole of the occupied region. Press reports demonstrate the establishment of tourist links stimulated by the Israeli Ministry of Tourism and protected by the army. The figure for trade with southern Lebanon has reached a level twice as high as that with Egypt (in July 1982, £ 2 3 million). This expansion has given rise to the appointment of a ‘Director of T rade with the Lebanon* at the Israeli Ministry of Industry and Commerce. T rade is almost all one way.84 The Commission has received evidence indicating efforts by Israel to infiltrate and dominate the Lebanese economy, eg Israeli products have been introduced on the Lebanese market at prices which are impossible to match locally. In the case of fruit and vegetables, which started to come into West Beirut during the siege, their introduction has been catastrophic for Lebanese agriculture. This was already in ruins after th e military operations. It was deprived of manpower because so many men were detained and it was cut off from its usual markets by the war and th e occupation. The infiltration of Israeli products has brought the Israeli

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economy foreign currency and new outlets. It could also, by ruining Lebanese agriculture, make the Lebanese consumer dependent on Israeli agriculture which would thus acquire an important market. At the end of June steps were taken to obtain the agreement of the National Bank of Lebanon to the opening of branches of Israeli banks in southern towns. A prominent official of the trade union federation of southern Lebanon, Mr Hassib Abdul Jawad, described to the Commission a visit by a Histadrut (the Israeli trade union federation) delegation to Sidon which was intended to bring about some kind of collaboration between local trade unions and the occupying power. Similarly, the Israeli Chamber of Commerce is reported to have invited Lebanese businessmen to visit them. Again, Lebanese traders are reported to have been encouraged to cross the frontier to fill their lorries with Israeli merchandise. The Commission is aware that these different measures could be explained by the plain wish to make a fast but temporary profit out of the unusually favourable opportunities offered by the invasion. The evidence indicates a desire to establish economic relations, taking advantage of the unusually unequal conditions produced by the military situation. This does not necessarily imply the existence of long-terms plans for domination. T he Commission is aware of the efforts made by Israeli transport firms to attract Lebanese customers: bus services from the towns of South Lebanon to Israel were established very quickly after the invasion. An Israeli aviation company was allowed to land its planes at Beirut at a time when the airport was closed to all national and international traffic. The El Al company opened offices at Tyre, Sidon and Nabatiyeh. However, it is not clear if these endeavours are intended to be permanent. It is likely that when normal transport conditions return most of these ‘pirate* services will disappear. Specifically, the reopening of Beirut International Airport evidently resulted in the closure of the El Al office in Sidon. T h e Commission has concluded that Israel has caused very serious damage to public and private property as well as to the Lebanese economy. But it cannot pronounce upon the question of whether or not such damage stems from a plan to weaken and then dominate the Lebanese economy permanently. The Situation in the Refugee Camps These camps were set up on land put at the disposition of UNRWA by the Lebanese State which undertook to compensate the owners. They were first intended for the reception of those Palestinians rendered homeless in 1948. They also provided shelter for the victims of the events of 1967 and 1970, as well as, especially in Beirut, a large proportion (sometimes more than 25% of the population of the camps) of Lebanese who were themselves refugees or landless. The numbers involved are poorly documented and in the

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Commission’s view are far in excess of the official figure of 133,000 people given by UNRWA in an information note of July 1982. The camps were a target for the Israeli forces during the fighting in the south and then in Beirut for the two months of the siege. After the fighting, some of their inhabitants, who had fled to escape from the intensive bombardments, had no choice but to return. The rigours of occupation were felt particularly in southern Lebanon, but the situation of the camps at Sabra and Chatila in Beirut requires special analysis. The situation of the camps in the south of Beirut reveals in the Commission’s view the main objective o f the Israeli occupation policy: the Commission concludes on evidence before it that this was to push the Palestinian people out of the occupied zones and even out of the Lebanon. The principal instrument of this policy of driving out the refugees was the destruction of the camps. The inhabitants of the camps had always enjoyed a large degree of autonomy. Inside them social life was largely organised by the PLO. Terror was the instrument to destroy this social existence. The principal events at these camps were the decimation of the male population, the almost total destruction of the dwellings and equipment that belonged to the camps and, finally, the harassment of the inhabitants by the militia. The decimation of the male population The Commission, through its visits to some camps, was able to see for itself the evident disappearance of the men, both adult and adolescent. At the camps of Al Bas near Tyre and Ain el Hilweh the Commission saw hardly any males between 14 and 60 years of age. The evidence indicates that most of them had been taken prisoner by the Israelis, but many had just disappeared. The Commission could not establish how many had been killed, how many had fled in order to avoid arrest and how many had gone to join the fighting forces which had retreated to the north or the east, or even abroad. No precise figures exist for these groups. The Commission recognises that tens of thousands of women, children and old men (92,457 according to the UNRWA report of 15 October) are at the moment deprived of support and sustenance because of the imprisonment or disappearance of the men on whose work they depend. The destruction The evidence provided to the Commission is clear that the camps have been devastated by the combined effect of the intensive bombardments during the period of fighting; the clearances by bulldozer which followed and destroyed anything still standing; and finally of the ‘incidents* which befell Mieh Mieh.85 This camp escaped damage during the fighting, but part of it was later set on fire and partly razed to the ground. In consequence only a very small proportion of homes are still

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inhabitable. They are mostly in an appalling condition. The great majority of the people have no roof over their heads and are forced to find what shelter they can in the ruins. Most of the schools have been demolished or badly damaged. The inhabitants are without the medical services of the Palestine Red Crescent Society, the hospitals and dispensaries of which have been either destroyed or closed. It must be emphasised that, to begin with, the Israeli Government had forbidden all reconstruction of the buildings destroyed in the camps and maintained this position until, at least, the beginning of October.86 The Israeli Government places the responsibility for this prohibition on the Lebanese Government. Since then, it has been reported that people who could afford either to rebuild their homes or to buy prefabricated ones, would not meet with opposition from the Israelis. Very few of the inhabitants are in a position to face such costs. UNRWA was invited to put up tents, which only began to appear around the beginning of October. Incidents have occurred, especially in Ain el Hilweh camp on 28 October: children set light to several tents, showing them to be inflammable and dangerous.87 People complain, in any case, that these tents are made of too light a material to provide adequate shelter against cold weather. Authoritative statements have been made in Israel that the camps must be evacuated after the winter. H arassm ent o f the people T he Commission has evidence that the presence of the militias has produced a constant threat of physical extermination of all the camps and their inhabitants.88 The inhabitants - who are nearly all women, children and old men without resources or shelter - are continuously exposed to raids, insults, physical abuse and violence from the militiamen. They have suffered kidnapping and assassination. They are at the mercy of these militias. The Israeli soldiers to whom the victims of this harassment occasionally appeal for help rarely intervene. The knowledge that the Israeli army controls the militias and the evidence that it wants to empty the camps indicate a degree of collusion. This is substantiated by the massacres at Sabra and Chadla.

R e fe re n c e s

1. 2. 3.

4.

Preface. Statement by President Sarkis of Lebanon, Voice of Lebanon, 24 July 1982. U N Security Council Resolutions 508, 5 June 1982; 509, 6 June 1982; 511, 18 June 1982; 515, 29 July 1982; 516, 1 August 1982; 519,17 August 1982; 520, 17 Septem ber 1982. Testim ony to the Commission o f Shafik Al-Wazzan, Beirut, 2 September 1982.

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

22. 23.

24. 25.

26.

27.

28. 29. 30.

IS R A E L IN L E B A N O N

Ibid. Le Monde, 13 November 1982. Le Monde, 14 November 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Moustafa Saad, Sidon, 5 October 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Shafik Al-Wazzan, Beirut, 2 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Hassib Abdul Jawad, Sidon, 5 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Moustafa Saad and Hassib Abdul Jawad, Sidon, 5 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Israel Shahak, Paris, 24 September 1982; and Wa’el Kheir, Beirut, 4 October 1982. Report of the mission effected in Israel from 18-25 July 1982 at the request of the Centre d'lnformation sur les Prisonniers, Deportes et Disparus Palestiniens et Libanais, Paris. Testimonies to the Commission of Shafik Al-Wazzan, Prime M inister, Beirut, 2 September; Marwan Hamade, M inister of Tourism and Information, Beirut, 12 September; Moustafa Dournaiqah, Minister of Agriculture, Beirut, 3 September; Walid Joumblatt, Beirut, 3 September; Moustafa Saad, Sidon, 5 September; and Israel Shahak, Jerusalem, 9 September 1982. Ibid. Testimony to the Commission of Israel Shahak, Paris, 26 September 1982. Ibid. Ibid. The Jerusalem Post, 9 August 1982; 10 November 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Mona Saad, Sidon, 5 September 1982; and two Palestinians from Sidon, Beirut, 5 October, 1982. With regard to the responsibility for the checkpoints, see The Guardian, 7 July 1982, David Hirst; and for the fate of the homeless, see The Guardian, 30 July 1982. UN Security Council Resolutions 512, 513 and 515. Davar, 3 September 1982; the evidence collected by Jim Fine and submitted to the Commission on 4 September 1982; testimony to the Commission of two US relief workers, Sidon, 5 October 1982; International Herald Tribune, 25 August 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Yaron Pik, Jerusalem, 9 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of D r Steinar Berge, London, 28 August 1982; D r Francis Capet, Oslo, 30 October 1982; Hassib Abdul Jawad, Sidon, 5 September 1982; and two Palestinians from Sidon, Beirut, 5 October 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Hassib Abdul Jawad, Sidon, 5 September 1982; Moustafa Saad, Sidon, 5 September 1982; and a Lebanese civil servant, a former prisoner, Beirut, 6 October 1982. Testimony to the Commission of two Palestinians from Sidon, Beirut, 5 October 1982; and a Lebanese civil servant, a former prisoner, Beirut, 6 October 1982. Testimony to the Commission of two Palestinians from Sidon, Beirut, 5 October 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Hassib Abdul Jawad, Sidon, 5 September 1982. Evidence on this point has been published (eg. from D r Steinar Berge and

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31.

32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38. 39. 40.

41. 42.

43. 44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54.

55. 56.

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D r C. Giannou) by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Washington DC, USA; ADC Background Paper No 6. Also testimonies to the Commission of Dr Mouwafaq, Damascus, 2 October 1982; and Dr Shafiq Al-Islam, Oslo, 31 October 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Dr Steinar Berge, London, 28 August 1982; Dr Francis Capet, Oslo, 30 October 1982; and Dr Mouwafaq, Damascus, 2 October 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Abu Fadel, Director of the PRCS in Southern Lebanon, Damascus, 3 October 1982. Protocol I, Art. 18(1) and Art. 12. Art. 56, Geneva Convention IV and Art. 14 of Protocol I. See Art. 19(2). Arts. 21, 22, 23 and following Geneva Convention IV. Testimony to the Commission of Wa’el Kheir, Beirut, 4 October 1982. Appendix. Testimony to the Commission of Dr R (who requested anonymity), Sidon, 5 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of D r Steinar Berge, London, 28 August 1982; Dr Francis Capet, Oslo, 30 October 1982; Dr Mouwafaq, Damascus, 2 October 1982; and Dr Shafiq Al-Islam, Oslo, 31 Octobcr 1982. Also evidence by Jim Fine, op cit. Testimony to the Commission of Hassib Abdul Jawad, Sidon, 5 September 1982; Ralph Miller, Beirut, 9 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Moustafa Saad and Mona Saad, Sidon, 5 September 1982; Walid Joumblatt, Beirut, 3 September 1982; and Marwan Hamade, Beirut, 3 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission, Beirut, 3 September 1982. Testimony of D r N., submitted to the Commission by Jim Fine, 4 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Mona Saad, Sidon, 5 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of two US relief workers, Sidon, 5 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Shafik al-Hout, Beirut, 31 August 1982; and Abu Jihad, Damascus, 2 October 1982. ICRC Reports (eg. ‘Lebanon Emergency Appeal No 2’, ICRC August 1982). Reuter, AP, Le Monde, 19 November 1982. ‘Report on the Situation in the Lebanon’, the Centre D ’lnformation sur les Prisonniers Deport£s et Disparus Palestiniens et Libanais, Paris, October 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of Walid Fahum and Muhammed Miari, Jerusalem, 8 September 1982. Testimonies to the Commission of a Lebanese civil servant and former prisoners, Beirut, 6 October 1982; Liberation, 8 October 1982. Testimony to the Commission o f D r Shafiq al-Islam, Oslo, 31 October 1982. Testimony of a Palestinian male, employed by a civilian section of the PLO, submitted to the Commission by Beirut Working Group on Israeli War Crimes, Beirut, 4 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of two Palestinians at Sidon, Beirut, 5 October 1982. Ibid.

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57. Testimony to the Commission of Enrico Melson, Larnaca, 7 September 1982. 58. ‘Stop the human suffering in Beirut’, press conference held in Tel Aviv by The Israeli League for Human Rights, 12 July 1982. 59. Testimony to the Commission of the Beirut Working Group, on Israeli War Crimes, Beirut, 4 September 1982. 60. Testimonies to the Commission of Mr Yamani, Damascus, 2 October 1982; D r Shafiq al-Islam, Oslo, 31 October 1982; and two Palestianians from Sidon, Beirut, 5 October 1982. 61. Testimony to the Commission of a Lebanese civil servant and former prisoner, Beirut, 6 October 1982. 62. Testimony to the Commission of two Palestinians at Sidon, Beirut, 5 October 1982. 63. Testimony to the Commission o f Shafiq al-Islam, 31 October 1982. 64. Ibid. 65. Testimony to the Commission of Ralph Schoenman and Mya Schone, Oslo, 31 October 1982. 66. See Arts. 2 & 3 of the four Conventions. 67. See also Art. 28 of Convention I and Arts. 15 and 16 of Protocol I. 68. See also Art. 75 of Protocol I. 69. Testimonies to the Commission of Walid Fahum and Muhammed Miari, Jerusalem, 8 Sepember 1982. 70. Art. 127 of Convention III and Art. 144 of Convention IV. 71. Testimony to the Commission of Hassib Abdul Jawad, Sidon, 5 September 1982. 72. Testimonies to the Commission of Georges Howi, Beirut, 1 September 1982; and Moustafa Durnaiqah, Minister of Agriculture, Beirut, 3 September 1982. 73. Testimony of F., aged 55 mother o f 12, 13 August 1982, submitted to the Commission by Jim Fine, 4 September 1982. 74. Testimony to the Commission of Yaron Pik, Jerusalem, 9 September 1982. 75. Testimonies to the Commission of Georges Howi, Beirut, 1 September 1982; Hassib Abdul Jawad, Sidon, 5 September 1982; Wa’el Kheir, Beirut, 4 October 1982; and two Americans, Sidon, 5 October 1982. 76. Testimonies to the Commission of Walid Joumblatt, 3 September 1982; Shafik Al-Wazzan, Beirut, 2 September 1982; Saeb Salam, Beirut, 3 September 1982. 71. Testimony to the Commission of Director of Science Faculty, Beirut, 7 October 1982. 78. Testimony to the Commission of D r Sabri Jiryis, Director General of the Palestinian Research Centre, Beirut, 8 October 1982. 79. Testimonies to the Commission of two Palestinians from Sidon, Beirut, 5 October 1982; two American relief workers, 5 October 1982. 80. Ha’aretz, 19 August 1982, Dr Haim Gordon. 81. Testimonies to the Commission of Radwan Mawlawi, Beirut, 31 August 1982; Kamal Salebi, Beirut, 31 August 1982; Georges Howi, Beirut, 1September 1982; Saeb Salam, Beirut, 3 September 1982; Walid Joumblatt, Beirut, 3 September 1982; Marwan Hamade and Moustafa Durnaiqah, Beirut, 3 September 1982; Hassib Abdul Jawad, Sidon, 5 September 1982; Moustafa Saad, Sidon, 5 September 1982; Najib al-Ahmad, Amman, 11 September 1982; Rouhi alKhatib, Amman, 11 September 1982.

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82. Testimonies to the Commission o f Marwan Hamade and Moustafa Duraaiqah, Beirut, 3 September 1982. 83. Testimony to the Commission of Moustafa Durnaiqah, Beirut, 3 September 1982 (BS). 84. The Times, 9 September 1982, Christopher Walker. 85. Statement by David McDowell, subm itted to the Commission, 4 September 1982. 86. Press conference held by M r Meridor, a member of the Israeli Cabinet, at Ain el Hilweh on 5 October 1982. See SWB, M E /7150/A /8, 7 October 1982. 87. Monday Morning, 1-7 November 1982. 88. The Guardian, 1 November 1982.

Chapter Fourteen

The Siege of Beirut

T he siege of Beirut was the logical outcome of Israel's invasion of the Lebanon, the ultimate aim of which, made public only after the invasion got under way, was the destruction of the PLO. Only a siege could ‘completely eradicate the nerve centre of terrorism . . . the centre of international terrorism located in Beirut', according to the Israeli Chief of Staff, General Eitan;1 only a siege could ‘wipe out the P LO '.2 On 9 July on Israeli television, Deputy Prime Minister David Levy admitted that Beirut was necessarily one of the Israeli army’s goals from the outset.3 The Commission recognises that the siege of Beirut played a special part in the overall Israeli strategy for the invasion. As a result, there were special features associated with the siege which were not present in the earlier part of the invasion or in other regions of Lebanon. The siege was also an exceptional method of conducting warfare in modern times, aimed as it was against a civilian population with no real defence against the sophisticated fire-power of the forces of one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. T h e Commission has therefore considered it necessary to devote a special section of its Report to different aspects of the siege, although the subjectm atter of this section may duplicate some earlier treatment of the conduct of the war. However, the issues raised by the siege are of such vital importance that a specific reference to it has been made, so that mankind may draw lessons from the effects of a campaign which came very near to total war. T h e Beginning o f the Siege Since the Civil War of 1975-76, Beirut had been divided into two sectors by a kind of internal frontier known as the ‘green line’. In June 1982 this

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frontier ran from the western dock across the Place des Canons, along the Rue de Dam as, as far as the Museum, from where it extended along the Rue de Mus6e, the Place Beygum and the Galerie Samaan, towards Chouaifat and Khalde, beyond the Airport. The Kataeb-Phalange Forces were in control of the eastern side and the PLO and the Lebanese National Movement the western side. West Beirut at that time contained a population of more than 500,000 people comprising not only Lebanese and Palestinians in the camps of Sabra, Chatila and Bourj el Brajneh, but also the increasing numbers of refugees fleeing from the invaded areas of the South. In June 1982 there were fewer than 20,000 fighting men defending Beirut. The main positions occupied by these men were round the edge of the city, along the coast where landings were expected and along the ‘green line*. It would seem that there were no sizeable positions within the sector, although it is certain that armed men were moving about either individually or in groups, arms and munition dumps were set up in cellars4 and anti-aircraft batteries mounted on mobile platforms were moving about there all the time.5 The Commission considers that the siege proper began on 13 June, when the Israeli army occupied Baabda, the residence of the President of the Lebanese Republic. The Israelis then joined forces with the Phalangists and West Beirut was completely surrounded by enemy forces. This noose was progressively tightened as Israeli troops took up positions along the ‘green line’. By 3 July the encirclement was complete. To lay siege to Beirut the Israeli army used the same methods it had employed to take the southern towns of Tyre and Sidon. These involved encirclement, heavy bombardment by aircraft and tanks and by the navy, instructions to the inhabitants in the form of leaflets telling them to flee, leaving the ‘terrorists* to their fate, massive raids against alleged centres of particular military power of the PLO and their allies, and moves to destroy in particular their infrastructure in the Palestinian refugee camps, in the hope of final conquest. However, due to unexpectedly strong resistance that met the Israeli attacks and due to political developments in Israel and outside, the progress of the siege of Beirut and its outcome were somewhat different from the course of events in Tyre and Sidon. It seems likely that the Israeli General Staff were counting on assistance from the Phalangist Lebanese Forces.6 As this help did not materialise, the Israeli army had to proceed on its own. It fought around the perimeter of West Beirut, subjected the city to intensive bombardment and imposed a rigorous blockade, always conscious of the need to keep down the number of its own casualties. Despite numerous Israeli official statements to the contrary, the Commission is convinced that the General Staff had decided to take the city by assault as soon as it realised it would not surrender. This decision became clear not only from warnings given to the besieged population, inviting it to

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flee,7 but also from the very violent beginning of the fighting on 1 August in the airport district, which could not otherwise be explained. The Commission also received information concerning a very large number of acts of terrorism directed against the dvilian population including bomb attacks and booby trapped cars. Some seem to have been set to explode in the vicinity of buildings already demolished by bombing so as to hurt survivors, rescue workers and by-standers.8 However the Commission feels it has not gathered sufficient positive evidence to form an opinion on this question. It will therefore limit its remarks to those things for which Israel is undoubtedly responsible: the bombardment and the blockade which accompanied it and which by its harshness added to the suffering of the people. Such a method was chosen so as to cause maximum suffering throughout the siege. Such a motive is contrary to the laws of war. Bom bardm ent West Beirut underwent different kinds of bombardment which were mostly suffered in combination: 1. Air raids (some dating from before the siege on 4,7,10,11 June). The bombings were combined with heavy or light artillery fire. 2. Heavy artillery fire from 155 mm guns and 120mm howitzers in positions in the hills. These were also combined with tank fire from the hills and along the ‘green line'. 3.

Naval bombardment from ships cruising at sea.

4.

Light armaments: mortars, rocket launchers, snipers.

These attacks by air, land and sea came roughly in three successive waves separated by a few days of respite. First cycle: 13 June - opened by artillery fire and lasting till 25 June. Not a single day passed without heavy arms fire or air raids. The succeeding respite was interrupted on 2 July when the southern suburbs came under fire. Second cycle: 5 July - opened by an air raid and lasting till 12 July; 10 days of cease-fire broken by artillery fire on 18 July. Third cycle: 22 July - the most lethal, which lasted through till 12 August. Each one of these cycles corresponded to a change in the military and political situation, especially regarding Israel's relations with the USA and the Habib plan. The objective of the first two cycles seems to have been to get the garrison to capitulate and hence to obtain an unconditional surrender on the part of the PLO. As the resistance remained steadfast, the next best approach was for the Israelis to create circumstances most favourable to them vis-a-vis the Habib plan. As far as international law is concerned, the Commission’s judgment will be based on the targets o f the bombing and on the kinds of weapons used.

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Urban Targets Virtually all districts of the city and a large number of the buildings were damaged, but the damage was spread very unevenly. The districts most often attacked were the heavily populated ones in the southern suburbs, with the camps of Bourj el Brajneh, Sabra and Chatila, together with their immediate environs, the Bir Hasan, Haret Hreik, Ghobeire, Fakhani, Unesco and Corniche Mazra areas, which form a rectangle of especially severe devastation. However, the coast, from Ouzai as far as the docks, was also devastated: Jnah, Ramlet al Baida, Raouche and the hotel district. The same is true of the areas adjoining the ‘green line* and especially all combat zones, including the area around the Museum and the race-course. The centre, to the north of the Corniche M azra and the areas in the Hamra district was relatively less heavily damaged. It is clear that military targets were relatively numerous around the perimeter, along the coast and the ‘green line*. Private buildings, public buildings and private dwellings paid very dearly for this war, not only in heavily militarised zones, but also at a good distance from these zones. Moreover, many buildings which, in law, benefit from special protection, particularly hospitals and embassies, were destroyed. The Commission considers that in bombarding Beirut, not only did the Israeli army show insufficient respect for the civilian population and property, but also, in certain cases, it deliberately sought to harm the people. This is the strong impression one gains from looking at the city within which the Commission travelled extensively between 30 August and 6 September. This impression is confirmed by the high proportion of civilian dead reported by medical personnel.9 The analysis of a certain number of special situations in the city and in the three Palestinian camps provides conclusive proof. Two guiding legal principles govern the conduct of military operations and should have been observed in Beirut, as elsewhere. They are: - that military and civilian targets should be distinguished and that the latter should be spared as far as possible; - that where such a distinction becomes impossible, a balance should be observed between the harm caused to people and the possible military advantage of such an attack. The Commission concludes that these principles were not adhered to in three different ways. Firstly, the bombardment of residential areas of Beirut was largely indiscriminate. The members of the Commission visited bombarded areas. The extent of the destruction they discovered showed that the Israeli army blanket-bombed these areas on a large scale rather than attacking precisely defined targets.

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The Commission considers that Israel’s assertion that there were military targets among the houses in these areas does not justify such bombardments. Two considerations confirm this judgement: (i) It would be unusual for military positions to be set up, contrary to common sense, in buildings or blocks of buildings occupied by civilians.10 In fact, the defending forces mostly took suitable measures to limit the dangers to which the civilian population was exposed.11 Moreover, it is appropriate to recall that the majority of the combatants, who were themselves resident in Beirut, had good reason not to imperil their families and their property. But above all, it is clear that whereas it may be permissible in such cases to attack the precise spot where a military target is situated among the civilian buildings, it is not permissible to bombard the surrounding area indiscriminately as was done only too often. There is abundant evidence of the precision of which the Israeli airforce is capable. The most striking example is that of a multi-storey building in Sanaya, which was destroyed on 6 August by a single plane, perhaps even by a single bomb, because the Israeli General Staff believed the leadership of the PLO was holding a meeting there or that Yasser Arafat was in the building. It might be added that artillery may not have the same degree of precision, especially when it comes to the parabolic fire of mortars. From the legal point of view, however, the only conclusion to be drawn from this observation is that it is not legal to use such weapons in densely populated areas if their degree of precision is not adequate to allow non-military targets to be avoided. (ii) When dealing with military targets positioned in such a way that they were inaccessible without loss to the civilian population and civilian property, as when an arms or munitions dump, an armed detachment or an anti-aircraft battery was situated in a civilian building or in the immediate vicinity of a civilian building, Israel was subject to the principle of proportionality and this principle was too often flouted. In this connection the Commission makes three observations: Firstly, the Commission considers that the presence of an anti-aircraft battery, a purely defensive weapon, which was accepted as completely ineffective against the Israeli air force, did not justify the killing of several dozen civilians. The same would be true, a fortiori, in the case of lightly armed detachments or of individual snipers. Secondly, the possible presence of a PLO leader does not justify the sacrifice of 250 people, as in the building destroyed at Sanaya on 6 August. Thirdly, there can be no justification for the terrible bombardments of 12 August. These could not have contributed to the outcome of a set of negotiations which had already been concluded, the PLO having accepted the major terms of an agreement, to which Israel eventually agreed on 19

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August. On the contrary, the only effect of this massive attack was to put th e agreement in peril. It was when the Lebanese Prime Minister threatened to break off all relations that the US was able to get the bombardment stopped. The Commission considers that the Israeli army may have deliberately picked out certain civilian targets, without any valid military reason. Such was the case concerning shelters installed in underground car parks or in cellars. These were often attacked by the air force, which thus demonstrated the great precision of its aim. On several occasions, the Commission saw such shelters ripped open by rockets which struck at the base of the building. According to eye-witness reports, these attacks caused many civilian casualties. For example, the Commission heard such evidence from the inhabitants of Roueis on 2 September, at the site of a demolished shelter. The same shelter was the subject of a public declaration on the part of a doctor who had treated 31 injured people taken from the ruins after the bombardment of 12 August.12 Mention should be made of the numerous Lebanese public buildings that were frequently hit. On 4 August alone, for example, the Ministries of Information and Tourism, the Prime Minister's office and the Central Bank were all hit. On the same day, the Associated Press and the United Press International offices, together with the building which houses the offices of the newspapers 4An-Nahar' and ‘L'Orient-le-Jour' were also bombed, although they too were in the central zone where no military target was situated.13 Finally, certain blocks of civilian buildings, also situated well away from any military target, were subjected to violent bombardment. For example, on 27 July, at Raouche, a residential quarter in the centre of Beirut, an 8 storey building collapsed on its occupants, causing dozens of civilian deaths.14 Refugee Camps The three big camps in the southern suburbs, Sabra, Chatila and Bourj el Brajneh, were virtually completely destroyed during the bombardment. For this reason alone, it would be worthwhile making a separate analysis of what happened there, as they contained the densest concentration of Palestinians in Beirut. First, it should be noted that their population was mainly made up of working class civilians. This population was 20% Lebanese. Only some of the inhabitants had left the camps to seek refuge in neighbouring districts when the attacks began. The members of the Commission saw for themselves the state of the three camps. Nothing could justify their being totally destroyed. Indeed, none of the reasons which might be given for the destruction of the camps seems legitimate. It is known that the Palestinian population of the three camps was

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organized and administered by the PLO. It is from here that the PLO drew its popular support and many of its fighting men. However, this political dimension in no way alters the essentially civilian n atu re of the population. The people’s support for the PLO , their nationalism and their hostility towards Israel do not turn them into a military target. The Commission recalls a basic assumption of the laws of war: by definition, guarantees of human rights must be given to enemy civilians. It is precisely because they are the enemy that they need such protection, which w ould be superfluous in the case of a friendly population. It is well known that these camps were guarded and that there were military positions around their perimeter. The guards, equipped with hand weapons and anti-aircraft guns, were essentially defensive. In any event, one could in no way maintain that their presence transformed the camps into military fortresses, or that it was permissible, for that reason, to attack them. T o put it another way, there were military targets around the edge of the camps. It may also be, though the Commission has no proof, that there were some positions inside the camps. It was legitimate to attack these precise targets. But, apart from these exceptions, the camps were basically given over to the civilian activities of their inhabitants. They were not military targets and should have been spared, like the residential districts of Beirut. T he Commission wishes to underline the fact that the possibility of there being combatants in these camps, who lived there and went home after their tu rn of duty on the front does not justify the destruction of dwellings and the ensuing human losses. Even viewing the situation in the most favourable light from Israel’s point of view, this violates the principle of proportionality. Lastly, it has been claimed that concrete bunkers had been built beneath th e camps to house arms, munitions and various equipment. The Commission concedes that if the fact were proven, such bunkers would constitute military targets. However, the mere possibility of there being such targets within the camps could not justify the total destruction which th e Commission saw in the camps. The Commission concludes that the massive bombardments to which the Beirut camps were subjected were completely unjustified and contrary to th e laws of war. Buildings under Special Protection Churches at Jnah and Roueis, for example (places visited by the Commission on 2 September and on 6 October); mosques at Bir Hassan or Ouzai, to quote two examples among many; schools and cultural centres, particularly the various buildings of the Lebanese University and the U N ESCO were all bombarded. The state of their destruction shows that the besieging army did not make the slightest effort to spare them. These

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buildings suffered the same fate as all buildings in Beirut subjected to indiscriminate bombardment. The case of the French schools, especially the Lyc6e Verdun, Villa des Dunes and St Joseph’s Carmelite Monastery, is especially illuminating. These schools were opened by the authorities to refugee families (250 people at the Villa des Dunes, 267 at the Lyc£e Verdun, 750 at St Joseph’s, according to the Director of the Lyc£e, who served as a guide to the Commission on 3 September). Although they were flying the French flag and their existence had been officially drawn to the attention of the Israeli authorities by a note from the French Embassy which indicated their positions, together with the use to which they were being put, they were not spared. Even embassies were not protected by their diplomatic status if they were situated in sectors under bombardment. Almost all of them, with the notable exception of the Embassy of the United States, were damaged. Some of them were nearly totally destroyed, as described in Section IV. The Commission took special care to visit the buildings of the French Diplomatic Mission. It noted that the Embassy in the Rue Clemenceau had been hit by two mortars of large calibre, possibly 155mm, according to the diplomats who were there. Two other mortars had hit buildings set back from the road, while a fifth had fallen in the garden. The Residence des Pins, the residence of the French Ambassador, was subjected to heavy artillery bombardment on 11 and 20 July and 1,4 and 11 August. This gave rise to public protests on the part of the Ambassador.15 According to a French engineering officer, who gave evidence to the Commission, it is thought that at least 300 mortar shells (155mm and 120mm) landed within the compound, destroying the trees and hitting the buildings. It is true, however, that the Residence is situated close to the race­ course, in the zone of the fiercest fighting of early August. That is why munitions were found in its grounds, in particular rifle and Kalashnikov bullets, RPG rockets and hand grenades - that is to say, weapons of very low range - fired, it was clear, by all parties to the conflict. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the first bombardments of the Residence (on 11 July), like the last (on 11 August) were not linked to this fighting. Above all, the number and nature of the mortars which left their mark (only the Israeli artillery would have 155mm munitions ‘Made in USA*) leave the Commission with the impression that this diplomatic building had been deliberately chosen as a target. According to the sapper who gave evidence on 3 September, 155mm guns have an extremely accurate aim. The Commission paid special attention to the Lebanese and Palestinian hospitals of West Beirut. The Commission saw for itself that the Barbir Hospital was almost completely destroyed, that Akka and Gaza hospitals, the old folks’ home and mental asylum next to Gaza, the Makassad Hospital and the DOHA orphanage had been seriously damaged.

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Nevertheless, the Commission was careful to check that all of these buildings had indeed been flying the internationally known emblems of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent, that these emblems were clearly visible and identifiable, especially from the air, and that the list of hospitals and their precise positions had been communicated to the Israeli authorities by the International Committee of the Red Cross. It is satisfied itself that these establishments were not armed and did not contain any arms or munitions dum p. T he Commission did not rely merely on the assurances given by all witnesses interviewed without exception, but also on the checks which it knew the International Committee of the Red Cross had carried out on several occasions, especially on the hospitals of the Palestine Red Crescent Society. T he Commission further noted that the presence of an armed guard does not in law under the relevant Geneva Convention transform a hospital into an unprotected target, any more than the fact that wounded combatants may be under treatment there. The Commission recalled that even in the case of patent abuse of the emblems of the Red Cross, a hospital may not be attacked without prior warning. This was never given in Beirut. It is certain that the hospitals mentioned above were deliberately attacked. T h e Commission must distinguish between two levels at which the elementary rules of human rights were broken. Firstly, certain establishments covered by the emblem of the Red Cross w ere attacked during indiscriminate bombardments, just like any other building. In these cases, the Israeli army is responsible for having deliberately ignored the obligations attaching to the internationally recognised emblems of the Red Cross. That is no doubt what happened in th e cases of the DOHA, situated in the southern suburbs and devastated on 10 and 11 July;16 of the Makassad Hospital, hit on four occasions on 11,28 an d 29 July;17 and of the Muslim old folks home and mental asylum, located close to the sports complex, which was subject to bombardment on 25 June, 12 and 29 July.18 The Commission is convinced that at least three hospitals were deliberately chosen as targets: the Lebanese Barbir Hospital and the Akka an d Gaza Hospitals, run by the Palestine Red Crescent Society. The Barbir Hospital, located in the middle of the combat zone, was practically destroyed an d had been subjected to gunfire and bombardment on 11,28 and 29 July, 4 an d 12 August. The Commission visited this hospital and talked to the doctors who were witnesses to these events. The Commission noted marks left by mortars and also innumerable holes left by bullets fired from Israeli lines, on the inside walls of the fourth floor of the hospital, where the outer walls had already been destroyed. Yet the hospital sheltered no armed detachment, no artillery position, no munitions. According to the evidence gathered from diverse sources and the general appearance of the environs, there was no military position within 200 metres. However, it is clear that this hospital, protected by the emblem of the Red Cross, was treated by the Israeli army as a military target.

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The Palestine Red Crescent hospitals which flank the Sabra and Chatila camps to the north and south were also selected as targets by the Israeli artillery, which killed and wounded several of the people in the hospitals. The hospitals were rendered useless from the beginning of the siege with the exception of casualty depan ments, which continued to function in the cellars in extremely dangerous and difficult conditions. The Gaza Hospital was, for three hours on end, the centre of a fierce artillery bombardment on 29 June. According to the Norwegian doctor, Bemt Heger, who gave evidence to the Commission in Oslo, the Israelis admitted they had considered the Gaza Hospital ‘as a military target’. The hospital was also subjected to gunfire on 30 July. But Akka Hospital was more severely damaged, principally on 21 and 24 June and 11 July. The Commission was able to see that all storeys of this establishment severely damaged. T he deliberate nature of the attacks directed against this hospital is clearly demonstrated by the following incident: the staff at one stage flew the French flag because of the presence of a French medical team; they thought that this would make the hospital safer. After the gunfire which followed, the Israeli authorities informed the International Committee of the Red Cross that the flying of this national flag meant that the hospital had lost the protection due to the emblems of the Red Cross. Weapons The Commission noted that in the course of the bombardment of Beirut, the Israeli army illegally used arms designed to cause unnecessary suffering in contravention of the Hague Convention of 1907 (Art. 23(e); and Art. 35 of Protocol I, 1971). The nature of the missiles used explains the gravity of the consequences for the people. Two particularly cruel kinds of weapons were identified: incendiary devices, on the one hand and cluster bombs on the other. The identification of incendiary projectiles comes over clearly from a great deal of the evidence gathered. There were mortars fired by the navy, from tanks and by artillery. These mortars spread a chemical substance whose precise composition is as yet unknown, but which includes phosphorus. Their capacity for generating heat is both extremely great and of long duration. The Commission was able to take evidence on this subject from a French officer of the 17th RGP on 3 September. He reported that phosphorus mortars had been used against the Residence des Pins. Other evidence was taken from inhabitants of Beirut, in particular from doctors at the Gaza Hospital on 2 September. The Commission was also able to see a report made by the laboratories of the Norwegian Army Health Corps at the request of doctors present in Beirut during the siege.20 It cannot be doubted that widespread use was made of cluster bombs. This fact has been admitted to by the Israeli General Staff and the Commission itself saw examples of this horrendous bomb. These bombs, generally dropped from aircraft, but also fired from

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artillery, are of American manufacture. They are principally of four types, identified by witnesses from specimens picked up in 16 different places in Beirut, none of which contained a military target. The models are: GBU58, M K 180, M42, M434E1. All of them scatter a large number of bombs due to the explosion of a container or mortar. These little bomblets then explode, projecting grape-shot at high speed over a large area. A relatively high proportion of these little bombs may not explode on impact, but only if they are subsequently handled. Spread in some numbers over the ground and among the ruins, these devices were a great danger to civilians. It is worthy of note that the Israeli military command considered it necessary to distribute warnings to the occupying forces alerting them to this danger. The use of these bombs not only explains the large number of civilian victims, noted elsewhere, but also had three kinds of serious result, for which the State of Israel bears a grave responsibility. The most serious effect was the exceptional gravity of the wounds inflicted on the victims of the bombardments. Doctors working in the various Beirut hospitals during the siege noted a high percentage of wounds due to cluster bombs in the first weeks of the siege, while the percentage of victims of burns rose towards the end. Doctors* descriptions of the state of burn victims, backed up with photographic documentation, horrified the Commission. The Commission was struck by the number of amputations undertaken by the doctors, as well as by fatal complications - in the lungs and the heart - which are difficult to explain, but which may be linked to the substances used in incendiary devices. Another result was a high percentage of deaths among the wounded. Because of the circumstances surrounding the siege, it is not possible to give precise figures, but in their evidence doctors agree about the exceptionally high proportion of wounded who did not survive. According to Dr Abu Walid, Senior Surgeon at the Gaza Hospital,21 the mortality rate was in the order of 30%-50% instead of 15%-20%, as during the invasion of the Lebanon in 1978. According to M r Donald Allen of U N IC EF there were 2 dead for every 3 wounded, whereas the normal ratio would be 1 dead for every 4 wounded.22 It must be added that the blockade also contributed to the high rate of mortality. Lastly, the Commission observed that the hospitals only received those victims of cluster bombs who had been wounded in the limbs which mostly had to be amputated. Those people who were hit in the body or the head were dead before they could be taken to hospital, such being the lethal nature of these devices, according to the doctors. The final consequence of the use of these kinds of weapons was the high num ber of victims - dead or wounded - after the siege had ended. This was due to the delayed action of the bombs which had fallen on the ground without exploding. Many of these victims were children who were attracted

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by the strange appearance of these devices. They picked them up when playing and were mutilated by the explosion. On 2 September, in the Akka Hospital, the members of the Commission were themselves witnesses to the fatal consequences of one such accident which bad befallen a young boy. This is reported in detail above. The Commission considers that the use of all these devices in Beirut is a violation of the law of war as expressed in particular in Article 23 of the Hague Convention of 1907, Article 35 of Protocol I of 1977 and Article 14 of the Draft Rules adopted in 1956 by the International Committee of the Red Cross. The Blockade During the whole of the siege, the Israeli forces seriously hindered the free movement of people and goods between West Beirut and the outside world. Like the bombardment, this measure can only be explained, as far as the early part of the war is concerned, by a desire to induce the defenders to surrender and bring about the capture of the PLO leadership, and later on, by the desire to influence the outcome of negotiations. Like the bombardments, the blockade affected the civilian population above all. For this reason, it is contrary to the laws of war expressed in Article 23 of Geneva Convention IV, to which Israel is a party, and under Articles 54(1) and 70(2) of the additional Protocol of 1977. Under Article 54(1) of Protocol I: ‘Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited’ and this appears as a categorical denunciation of the use of food and medicine as an instrument of war against civilians more concretely forbidden by Article 23 of Geneva Convention IV (civilians) 1949. The extent of this blockade and the seriousness of its consequences gave rise to numerous protests from humanitarian organisations and above all, to three separate interventions on the part of the Security Council of the United Nations. The Security Council adopted three resolutions: on 19 June (Resolution 512), 4 July (Resolution 513) and 29 July (Resolution 515). The first two were passed unanimously; on the last Resolution, the United States abstained. The resolutions demanded that civil populations be brought ‘the help provided by agencies of the United Nations and non-governmental organisations, notably the International Committee of the Red Cross’ (Resolution 512); \ . . that normal essential services be allowed to function properly, such as water, electricity and food products, as well as medical services, particularly in Beirut’ (Resolution 513); and finally, Resolution 515 demanded that the ‘Israeli Government immediately raise the blockade in the town of Beirut in a way that would allow provisions to get through, in order to answer the urgent needs of the civilian population and to allow the distribution of help brought by organisations of the United Nations and by non-governmental organisations, in particular the International Committee of the Red Cross . .

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The references to the International Committee of the Red Cross, unusual in language of the United Nations resolutions, was obviously associated with the interruption o f medical supplies to Beirut. The Blockade measures T h e blockade of West Beirut resulted from three types of measure: the hindering of the movement of the people; restrictions on the transport of goods; and the interruption in the supply of water and electricity. At first, the Israeli authorities attempted to put the blame for these measures on the Phalangists.25 However, it is certain that these decisions were taken and carried out by the Israeli army. Particularly, from 3 July, from which date the whole of the ‘green line’ was occupied by Israeli forces, th e barriers held ostensibly by the Phalangist militia were still being controlled by the Israeli soldiers and officers present in these places.24 In the event, Israeli spokesmen later admitted in general terms the responsibility of their army, whilst trying to justify these actions. The blockade measures were intermittent and would be relaxed for a day, then imposed again a little later. This approach may have lessened the overall effect. However, the renewal of services was not undertaken for humanitarian reasons, but was prom pted basically by a psychological motive: the first result of this action being a widespread and desperate feeling of uncertainty and insecurity amongst the population which was meant to undermine their morale. T he obstacles imposed on the free movement of people between the ‘two Beiruts* were carried out at the caprice of the forces of occupation at the compulsory entry points at the port, the Museum and the Gallery Samaan. A t times crossing points were completely closed (as for example on 6 July):25 these passages were sometimes allowed to function in an erratic fashion, sometimes in both directions, sometimes only towards the East, conforming to the desire to see as many of the inhabitants of West Beirut leave the city as possible. The Israeli soldiers gave no reason for the changes in attitude neither did they explain their arbitrary character. However, one constant feature must be pointed out: people who were allowed to enter the area West o f the ‘green line' were forced to leave their vehicles in the East. T he Commission focuses on a particularly inadmissible element in the blockade: access to the town - under daily bombardment by a combination o f aerial and artillery fire, from tanks and ships - was deliberately forbidden to medical teams coming to the aid of the people. One group of doctors and nurses of the Franco-Palestinian Medical Association stated that they were allowed to enter without any difficulty w ith an ambulance full of medicines, on 17 July. However, about 150 people - doctors, surgeons, nurses - were prevented from going to hospitals in West Beirut, despite efforts by the International Red Cross. This fact was established by corroborating statements to the Commission from Norwegian and Greek doctors. Dr Constantinos Alexiou, a Greek surgeon, arrived in the Lebanon on 7 June with five other doctors and six nurses and

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he informed the Commission that half of his team was not able to enter W est Beirut. He himself had to enter ‘by deception* with three of his colleagues. The experience of Dr Bernt Heger, a Norwegian who arrived in the Lebanon on 22 June, is identical: having tried three times unsuccessfully to get through the barriers by arguing that he was a doctor, he had, in the end, to enter the town in the same way as Dr Alexiou. The Commission specifically draws attention to the fact that even qualified doctors were not allowed to pass through the barriers of the blockade. West Beirut was totally dependent on the outside for the replenishment o f food supplies, fuels and medicines and equipment. The disruption o f transport ensured that the delay in the replenishment of supplies brought about a serious situation for the population of West Beirut. This disruptions progressively worsened as the Israeli forces took position on the ‘green line*. The grip was tightened and transport was completely forbidden in principle from 3 July. However, at the beginning, some lorrydrivers succeeded in worming their way in by bribing the soldiers on duty, with a varying rate for Israeli soldiers compared to the Phalangist auxiliaries;26 after that a stricter discipline was established and the blockade became impenetrable. Thereafter, according to press reports, on 5 and 6 July all lorries carrying food and fuel tankers were stopped; a convoy of flour and fuel was blocked at the port on 16 and 17 July; supplies of fruit and vegetables were stopped in South Beirut on 20 and 24 July; on 29 July three lorries of vegetables were set on fire and a convoy of 8 vehicles of the ICRC carrying flour and fuel was stopped. The witnesses present at the entry points reported scenes particularly difficult to bear - soldiers confiscating food which people returning to Beirut were carrying, from bread to bonles of mineral water and milk. Several times, however, the barriers were raised to allow some supplies through. For example, according to newspaper reports on 10 July, 48 tonnes of food and medicines were for the first time allowed into the town; on 18 July, three lorries of fresh supplies could get in; on 19 July, 145 tonnes and, on 26 July, 100 tonnes of flour. But these replacements were still not sufficient. The normal consumption of West Beirut is estimated to be 185 tonnes of flour per day. On 30 July, 450 tonnes in all, for the whole of West Beirut, passed through the barriers. The most extraordinary element of the blockade is, once again, the restriction on medicines. Effectively, contrary to all the norms of law, the International Committee of the Red Cross was prevented from bringing in freely the fuel indispensable to the functioning of hospitals whose generators had to compensate for the lack of electrical current; the same was true for medicines, blood and medical equipment indispensable to the treatment of

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the wounded. The ICRC complained at the end of June that the Israeli navy had blocked ships loaded with hundreds of tons of equipment destined for the hospitals from Cyprus.27 In a similar fashion, the main pan of the blood and medicines interrupted in Damascus did not reached the besieged city of West Beirut. Drs Alexiou and Floras, in their evidence to the Commission in Oslo, 30 October, stated that of 2,000 flasks of blood destined for the besieged population and sent from Greece to Damascus, only 400 flasks had reached the ICRC. The water and electricity supply of West Beirut is dependent on a pumping station and a distribution centre situated respectively at Ashrafieh and the Quarantina - that is to say in the eastern sector of the City. This supply, which had been partially interrupted on 30 June, was completely stopped on 4 July for electricity and in the afternoon of 5 July for water. The Israeli authorities immediately denied any responsibility for the cut­ offs. Instead, they incriminated the Phalangists. However, from 6 July, the Israeli army spokesman in Beirut had to admit that this denial was unfounded. He declared, at a press conference, that ‘whatever is being done is being done to further a certain a i m . . . this is to get the PLO out of B e iru t. . .*28 In fact, according to Mahmoud Ammar, Minister for Hydraulic Energy, Israeli soldiers had on 4 July occupied the electrical distribution centre at the Quarantina and cut off the electricity. Journalists have been able to verify the reality of that occupation. In the same way, other soldiers on 5 July flooded the disconnected pumping station at Ashrafieh and removed the control wheel of the sluice gates supplying the western areas.29 As a result, from 4 and 5 July, the town, whose population was still at least 300,000 people, was deprived almost totally of water and electricity until the end of the siege. The supply, in effect, was not re-connected except for very brief periods, which lasted for only a few hours. The Consequences of the Blockade In its three aspects, the blockade inflicted great suffering on the civilian inhabitants of Beirut, graphically described by all the witnesses heard by the Commission in Beirut. The blockade not only affected the general state of the population, but above all it also denied help to the wounded who could not be adequately treated in the hospitals. As far as the general needs of the population were concerned, certain basic foodstuffs almost totally disappeared during the siege: eggs and dairy products, especially; other items were so rare that their price made them inaccessible to most people. However, a complete famine was avoided, by reason of the few convoys of goods allowed to pass the barriers and because the PLO distributed free the foodstuffs - especially flour - taken from their stocks. It stll remains true that this special distribution did not prevent numerous children from

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showing signs of malnutrition, which is testified by doctors’ reports, confirmed in particular by the reports of the Norwegian medical team heard by the Commission in Oslo. One of the most harmful results, with respect to the condition of the inhabitants, was the deterioration in hygiene resulting from the lack o f fuel and the interruption of the water supply. In effect, the lack of fuel paralysed the collection of rubbish. Only the courage and discipline of the population avoided a catastrophe; the rubbish was collected and deposited in the streets. In order to destroy it, the piles of rubbish were burnt, not always successfuly. The atmosphere in the town was contaminated by the odour and the heavy fumes made by the fires. The water cuts were only partially remedied by distributions organised for instance by U N IC EF and, above all, due to the wells sometimes dug in the pavement (for example, opposite the Lahout Hospital). However, many of the underground pipes were polluted following the bombardment and the population was forced to drink contaminated water. The water was, anyway, rationed for essential use. As a result, there were numerous cases of dysentery, especially in the highly populated areas and in the hospitals, amongst the wounded. According to the medical evidence, it was a miracle that an even more serious epidemic was avoided. As far as the care of the wounded and the sick is concerned, the Commission reiterates here that the capacity of the hospitals had been considerably diminished by the destruction of the large hospitals of Barbir, Akka, Gaza and Makassad. In the remaining hospitals, this capacity was even more reduced by the effects of the lack of fuel, materials and medicines, resulting from the blockade. Although the PLO continued to distribute fuel from its reserves, even a hospital not bombed or seriously disrupted were affected; as the American Hospital for example, had to reduce its capacity from 400 beds to 250.30 The effect of the blockade on the level of care dispensed to the wounded of which 80% were civilians - was dramatic, in spite of the competence and the devotion of the Lebanese and Palestinian medical teams, reinforced by numerous foreign doctors of all nationalities, whose testimony has been crucial. The Norwegian doctors reported that numerous surgical operations had to be foregone, because of the impossibility of sterilising the instruments; many of the operations had to be carried out with makeshift lighting, such as by the aid of pocket torches, because of the lack of electrical current in the basement, as bombardments had prevented the improvisation of operating theatres anywhere else. The interruption to deliveries of instruments resulted in the re-use of material such as syringes and gloves, which normally would be thrown away after use. It also restricted doctors to setting fractures with improvised instruments. The lack of water, which prevented the washing of sheets, dressings and clothing and the cleaning of hospital premises, added to the deplorable state of the general hygiene, causing large-scale infections. Also, the surgeons had to spend precious time

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lancing infected wounds; they came across very numerous complications, often fatal - particularly septicaemia and gangrene. Certainly the exceptionally high rate of death amongst the wounded was due in large part to the blockade. Conclusion It has been generally accepted that the civilian population in Beirut was cruelly tested by the siege, because of the two principal aspects: the blockade and the bombardment. The suffering was due, in large part, to two types of behaviour contrary to the law and attributable to Israel. On the other one, the measures directed against Palestinian and Lebanese fighters, which were insufficiently precise, equally, or to a greater extent, affected the civilians. This was the case with ‘indiscriminate' bombardment. On the other hand, the Commission is convinced that the civilian population of West Beirut had been the principal target of a number of acts of war. In relation to the blockade, this conviction is drawn from the fact that the measures taken by Israel could hardly inconvenience the 20,000 fighters, as they were well organised to withstand the interruption of fresh supplies and the cutting off of water and electricity. These measures, on the other hand, bore very heavily on the 300,000 civilians. Under these blockade conditions, there could only have been one aim: to ensure that the Palestinian and Lebanese commands used up very rapidly their own stocks in supplying the needs of the population and thereby to hasten their capitulation. This calculation can in no way be justified, except by challenging the progress accomplished over centuries in the development of the humanitarian conduct of war and by a desire to return to the ethics and values of mediaeval times. In relation to the bombardments, the facts speak for themselves: the destruction of the refugee camps; attacks specifically against shelters and hospitals; the use of projectiles destined to explode after the bombardments; these are the most evident and important. T he Commission considers that the Israeli plan was to terrorise the population, so as to make the situation for the PLO untenable, by bringing to bear on them the wrath of the population for the horrors of the siege. The use of psychological warfare paralleled with actual war measures confirms the reality of the plan. Aerial attacks simulated by the use of explosive charges and smoke grenades - notably on 1, 2 and 20 July and 5 August; threats announced on the radio - for example on 25 July; pamphlets warning the inhabitants to leave the town to save their lives - on 26, 27 and 28 July, especially are marked demonstrations of this offensive which effectively determined the flight of 200,000 people, of the 500,000 in West Beirut. The plan did not succeed in breaking the solidarity between the besieged civilians, both Palestinian and Lebanese, and the fighters. On the contrary, it had the opposite effect of steeling the resolve of the besieged.

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To use the civilian population in this way is unjustifiable under law and is a return to the military ethics and tactics of the ancient conquerors or barbaric hordes. In conclusion, three final points have to be considered concerning the Israeli ‘defence’ of the siege. Firstly, Israel contended that, by withdrawing into Beirut, the P L O command had literally taken the inhabitants as hostages. This contention, however, is untrue. All the witnesses heard in Beirut have observed that the garrison never prohibited people from leaving the town. It is also well known that the military positions held by the defenders were essentially situated on the periphery of the town and not systematically established in the middle o f residential areas. But, above all, the idea of a ‘hostage’ population is p u t forward to justify the damage caused to the inhabitants. Such an argument is quite specious. It implies that there is a right to crush a whole town, simply because it is defended militarily. This is an insupportable proposition. Secondly, the warning given by Israel to the population to leave Beirut does not remove the responsibility from the Israel Defence Forces. It has already been observed that the warnings were part of the stratagem used in other wars by Israel - to put pressure on the population. The primary motive was not humanitarian. Several thousands of people did not follow these warnings because the majority of them had no way of finding a refuge in the East, or could not reconcile themselves to leaving their only possessions. But, above all, it must be remembered that the fact that there existed a civilian population, which could and should be protected, imposed a heavy responsibility on Israel from the legal point of view. Finally, it has been noted that the most intensive bombardments that West Beirut suffered - those of 12 August - took place when a negotiated solution had practically been arrived at. This violence had no military usefulness. Its only use was that of terror against a virtually undefended city. The Commission concludes that, in its principal manifestations, the siege of Beirut was conducted without regard for the demands of the laws of war. The siege is a particular illustration, perhaps the most important, of the methods generally used by Israel throughout the whole of the campaign associated with the invasion of the Lebanon.

R e fe r e n c e s

1. Review of Palestinian Studies, No 85, p. 107. 2. Yitzhal Shamir, Israeli Foreign Minister, to the Diplomatic Press, Paris, 15 June 1982; also Review o f Palestinian Studies, No 5, p. 160. 3. Review of Palestinian Studies, No 5, p. 160. 4. The Times, 8 July 1982, Robert Fisk. 5. Visit by the Commission to the Villa des Dunes, 3 September 1982.

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6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30.

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Le Monde, 9 November 1982, Arabic Radio Broadcast, 25 July 1982; and Review of Palestinian Studies, No 5, p. 130. Testimony to the Commission of Abourahman Laban, Lebanese Minister of Labour & Social Affairs, Beirut, 4 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Dr Mads Gilbert, Beirut, 2 September 1982 and Mrs Ayyubi, a member of PRCS, Beirut, 2 September 1982. T h e Times, 8 July 1982, Robert Fisk; and the visit of the Commission to the Villa des Dunes, 3 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Professor Kamal Salibi, Beirut, 31 August 1982; and The Times, 8 July 1982, Robert Fisk. D r Ronsin, Beyrouth Quest, 40 Jours de Siege, (Paris) 1982, published by the Association Medicale Franco-Palestinienne. Monday Morning, 9-15 August 1982, p. 49. The Guardian, 28 July 1982. Monday Morning, 19-25 July 1982, p. 31. Testimony to the Commission of Mohammed Barakat, Director of Social Welfare Institutions, Beirut, 2 September 1982. Report to the Commission of Rabih Abyad, Director o f Makassad Hospital, 3 September 1982; and Monday Morning, 2-8 August 1982, pp. 59-60. Testimony to the Commission of Abourahman Laban, Lebanese Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, Beirut, 4 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission of Najib al-Ahmed, Palestine Liberation Organisation, Amman, 12 September 1982. Testimony to the Commission o f D r Bernt Heger, Oslo, 30 October 1982. The Guardian, 18 July 1982. The Guardian, 23 July 1982. The Guardian, 7 July 1982, David Hirst. The Times, 6 July, Robert Fisk; International Herald Tribune, 6 July, Thomas L. Friedman. The Guardian, 7 July 1982. The Guardian, 13 August 1982. International Herald Tribune, 28 June 1982, William E. Farrel. Monday Morning, 12-18 July 1982, p. 20. The Times, 7 July 1982; and The Guardian, 7 July 1982. The Observer, 8 August 1982.

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Chapter Fifteen

The Massacres at Sabra and Chatila

The massacres at Sabra and Chatila shocked the international conscience as few events in recent international history have done. We recognise their importance by treating the events, in the setting of our enquiry into Israeli responsibility, in a separate chapter. At the same time, in our judgement these massacres were only the culmination of a pattern of warfare carried on against the Palestinian and Lebanese people in Lebanon, especially those resident in the camps. The massacres in the Beirut camps in mid-September 1982 need to be fully understood, accordingly, in the context of this wider Israeli design, one which was evident from the outset in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The Sabra and Chatila camps are situated close together in the south-west section of Beirut. They are two of the twelve camps established in Lebanon by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, created in 1948, to give shelter to Palestinians expelled from their homes as a result of the creation of the State of Israel. These two camps occupy an area of three square kilometers. Prior to the invasion of June 1982 they were inhabited by an estimated 90,000 people. The poor of Beirut freely intermingled with the Palestinians; they also worked together and intermarried. 25% of the camp population was Lebanese. The original tents and makeshift shelters which characterised the camps when they were first formed have long since been replaced by permanent structures, some multi-storey housing, but mainly by single floor concrete block houses with corrugated iron roofs. The camp buildings and houses are tightly packed together and are separated by numerous narrow alleyways running off the main streets; these form the maze in which the massacres were perpetrated. The camps embody many contradictions. On the one hand, they constitute an area of poverty and unemployment, such as commonly develops on the edges of prosperous cities; on the other hand, in the camps, there existed a highly developed Palestinian welfare and educational infrastructure. The two hospitals in the camps are Gaza (in Sabra) and Akka (in Chatila). The ten-storey Gaza Hospital is the larger of the two; it has an Orthopaedic Centre and generally handles the more serious patients. Before the war, Gaza had 120 beds and 50 nurses and possessed two operating theatres. Akka was equipped to meet specialist needs, such as cardiac by-pass, micro-surgery and neurosurgery. Certain aspects of life in

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Sabra and Chatila were highly organised. Popular committees acted like municipal councils in the day-to-day servicing of the camps. Trade unionism was well established among the employed. D uring th e war, thousands of the camp dwellers fled to other pans of the city. T hese camps were devastated by repeated bombing and shelling during the period between early June and the middle of August 1982.' After the cease-fire, which held from 12 August, thousands had returned to Sabra and Chatila an d had begun to reconstruct their lives. The Commission visited these cam ps during the early days of September and was shocked by the widespread destruction encountered. Commission members discerned no signs o f military activity in the camps. Time correspondent, Robert Sutvo, among others, visited the camps shortly after the Israeli siege was lifted ‘and found n o signs of military activity*, concluding that ‘(t)here thus appeared to be no n eed for the Israelis to have sent a strong armed force into the camps to search th em thoroughly, much less a Christian force that might want to wreak vengeance on Palestinian civilians.*2 Many independent reports indicate that the Palestinians living in the camps accepted the Israeli occupation of the country as a reality and regarded the PLO resistance as having ended with the departure from Beirut of some 9,000 Palestinian fighters. For example, a correspondent for the New York Times wrote that ‘On Septem ber 11, both the Chatila and Sabra camps were quiet and, according to residents, there was no apprehension over the prospect of the Lebanese Army moving in.*3 Indeed, a few days earlier than the 11th, the Lebanese Army had taken up positions without incident in and around the large nearby camp at Bourj al Brajneh. In every sense, then, the residents of the camps were ‘protected persons’ within the meaning of Geneva Convention IV and Israel as an Occupying Power was under a special obligation to prevent the commission of ‘outrages’ against them. Article 73 of Protocol I expressly extends protected persons status to refugees and stateless persons, a status clearly applicable to Palestinians, including males. Articles 75-77 of the Protocol elaborate on the quality of the protection that is legally imposed on an Occupying Power, singling out in Articles 76 and 77 women and children for particular concern. Article 51(1) (of the Protocol) asserts the basic rule that ‘The civilian population and individual civilians shall enjoy general protection against dangers arising from military operations.’ Given the peace and quiet that pertained in the camps in early September, there appears every reason to regard their inhabitants as ‘civilians’, even if among their number were some individuals with ties to the PLO. It is against this general background, then, that we must consider allegations charging Israel with the violation of its duties as Occupying Power in relation to the shocking events of 16-18 September in the camps. It goes without saying that Israeli responsibility for these events is shared with the Lebanese militia commanders and combat personnel who actually carried out the slaughter. There are many details about the massacres that

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have not yet been definitely established, such as the specific identity o f the participating Lebanese forces, the precise number of casualties, the extent of Israeli foreknowledge and who knew what and when. It seems likely that Israel’s Commission of Enquiry will cast considerable light on Israel’s participation in these events when it issues its report. A parallel official Lebanese investigation is far less likely to contribute much additional information, as it seems exceedingly constrained by Phalange influence. The Commission feels confident about its capacity to answer question eight as posed by its Terms of Reference, as to whether Israel’s role in the massacres amounted to a violation of international law. Even though some details will undoubtedly be altered by subsequent disclosures, the general picture is clear enough to permit a reliable appraisal of the main features of alleged Israeli complicity. A brief chronology of what happened, accompanied by some observations on the part of Israeli leaders and others, gives some sense to the unfolding events, the Lebanese context and the Israeli line of defence and explanation: On 4 August 1982, the agreement negotiated with the PLO by Philip Habib included extensive discussions of the security problems likely to be facing the 450,000 to 500,000 Palestinians resident in Lebanon once the PLO fighters had left. The United States conveyed to the Lebanese firm security guarantees, including its opposition to any entry by Israeli Defence Forces into West Beirut. On 25 August 1982, about 800 United States Marines, together with a comparable number of French and Italian soldiers, arrived in Beirut as part of the multinational force introduced to supervise the withdrawal o f PLO and Syrian forces trapped in West Beirut and to offer assurances to the inhabitants of West Beirut that neither Israeli nor Phalange forces would enter. By 1 September, the last PLO and PLA fighters had been evacuated from Beirut, in accordance with the agreement negotiated by Philip Habib. Israel had accepted the numbers that should leave: 7,100 PLO guerrillas and 2,500 from the PLA units. In fact, according to US counts of actual departures, 8,300 PLO guerrillas and 3,600 Syrian and PLA troops were evacuated. On 3 September, the first violation o f the Habib agreement occurred. Israel moved into Bir Hasan, a southern suburb of Muslim West Beirut, established observation posts and dismantled PLO defences which had been set up to hamper an Israeli advance. It was from Bir Hasan that Israeli armour was later to move so swiftly into the rest of West Beirut. On 10-13 September, the multinational forces departed. This departure was ahead of schedule and was fiercely opposed by Muslim leaders and the Lebanese community in general. Under the Habib plan, the multinational force was due to stay for one month and had not been expected to leave before 26 September. Shafik Al-Wazzan, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, was strongly opposed to the premature departure. (Reflecting on developments at a later time, Shafik al-Wazzan observed: ‘The savage

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massacre shows how right I was in insisting on the need for these (multinational) forces to continue performing their duties . . . their quick withdrawal (made it) seem as if the purpose of their arrival was just to evacuate the Palestinian fighters. There was another purpose - the protection of both the civilians and the Palestinians. The proof is that Ambassador Habib’s plan set a period of 15 days at the most for the evacuation of the Palestinian fighters from Beirut, while the international forces’ mission was for one month of extension.’4 On 14 September, a large bomb exploded in the East Beirut headquarters of the Phalange Party, killing the President-Elect of Lebanon, Bashir Gemayel, during a meeting. The Israeli Minister of Defence, General Sharon, contacted Prime Minister Menachem Begin minutes after hearing of this and they determined that the Israeli army should immediately occupy West Beirut.5The proclaimed reason for this Israeli advance, in violation of the Habib agreement, was to maintain ‘law and order’. On 15 September 1982, the Israeli Chief of Staff, General Rafael Eitan and the Israeli Defence Force commander, General Amir Drori, met at 3.30 am with the general staff of the Phalangist militia in East Beirut and agreed that the latter would enter the camps to mop up the remaining ‘terrorists’. In Begin’s words before the Israeli judicial panel: ‘They entered the camps to fight the terrorists and the terrorists only’. Israeli forces thrust into West Beirut on three fronts, supported by naval shelling, and occupied key intersections in West Beirut, despite some fierce resistance by Muslim militia.6 Artillery and tank shelling of the camps began in the afternoon of the 15th and grew gradually heavier. The leftist Muslim militiamen were unable to check the advance of the Israeli armour. In the afternoon, Israeli sniper fire and shelling of the camps was reported. Israeli planes also made low level flights over the camps. D r Per Maehlumschagen, a Norwegian orthopaedic surgeon working at Gaza Hospital, which is located inside Sabra camp, has been quoted as saying: ‘Around noon on Wednesday, the first wounded started to be brought in. T hat was the first time we began to hear - 1 don’t remember how - that the Israelis were surrounding the camp and setting up checkpoints*. By the end o f the day of the 15th, the Lebanese State Radio announced that Israeli forces were in control of the Sabra and Chatila camps, prior to their advance into Corniche Mazra on 16 September. T he Kuwaiti Embassy and the Sports Stadium, strategically placed in relation to Sabra and Chatila, were also within Israeli control by the end of the 15th. On 16 September 1982, at noon, a crucial Christian-Israeli planning session in the presence of General Drori and other top Israeli commanders took place. Elias Hobeika, the intelligence chief of the Phalange and the person who had been charged with Bashir Gemayel’s security, was put in charge of the militiamen assigned to enter the camps. At that meeting, H obeika and Fady Frem, Chief of Staff of the Lebanese Forces, both said

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pointedly that there would be a *kasach* (in Arabic, a chopping or slicing operation) in the camps. After this meeting, General Drori telephoned General Sharon in Tel Aviv: 'O ur friends are moving into the camps. I coordinated their entrance with their top men.* Sharon replied ‘Congratulations . . . the friends' operation is authorised.' At about 5 pm, Thursday, Hobeika's force assembled at the Beirut International Airport, just to the south of the camps and moved into Chatila shortly thereafter. Israeli mortar fire assisted the move and the Israelis helped with flares. Hobeika requested and received from the Israelis more flares, tank fire and first aid assistance to help remove militia casualties. At 11 pm the Israeli commander in Beirut was informed by radio contact with a militia officer in the camps that * ... until now 300 civilians and terrorists have been killed*. Also on Thursday, 16 September, Israeli forces occupied the commercial districts of Hamra and Comiche Mazra, brushing aside resistance by the Mourabitoun. By Thursday evening, West Beirut was fully under Israeli control, except for the Muslim districts of Barbir and T ank al-Jadida. The districts where fighting continued were sealed off by the Israelis on Thursday night. Israel completed its encirclement of West Beirut on Thursday, 16th and took control of all Beirut's main roads, junctions and strategic heights. Israeli infantry and armour units were eliminating the last pockets of resistance in the Hamra commercial quarter that evening.7 An indefinite curfew was imposed in all areas under Israeli control, including Sabra and Chatila. An Israeli army spokesman said: ‘The Israeli Defence Force is in control of all key points in Beirut. Refugee camps harbouring “terrorist'' concentrations remain encircled and closed. The ID F calls on citizens to return to normal activity and on “terrorists” and other armed persons to lay down their arms.' The Israeli advance into West Beirut was a wholly unjustified act. Israel's claim that it advanced ‘to maintain law and order' cannot be substantiated. The city had been quiet for nearly a month prior to the assassination of Gemayel. There is no evidence that any group in West Beirut was responsible for the murder. The Lebanese Army had been steadily taking up positions in West Beirut since the PLO evacuation on 1 September 1982 and apart from some fighting on 12 September, this move had been proceeding successfully and in accordance with the plan drawn up by Shafik AlWazzan. The Israeli advance was a violation of the 12 August cease-fire and of the Habib agreement. The US Administration demanded the immediate pullback of the Israeli forces and condemned the Israeli advance as a ‘clear violation of the cease-fire understanding' arranged by Habib. The US State Department declared on 17 September that the Habib agreement of 10 August had been reached ‘in the context of numerous oral assurances we had from Israel that it would not enter West Beirut'. By invading West Beirut, Israel broke the obligations arising from its status as a signatory of the cease­ fire and the Habib agreement. Israel acted in extreme bad faith, both

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because of the seriousness of the breach and because o f the absence of any sufficient provocation or any other legitimate justification for the move. By taking this action, Israel stood in contempt of the international legal norms w ithin which the agreements had been negotiated and entered into. On 17 September 1982, the Israeli Army broadcast at 00.01, at 1.01 and at 2.01 am, but not subsequently, that the Israeli Army was leaving the ‘cleansing of the camps* to the Phalange. Israel gave Hobeika permission at dawn on the 17th to bring two additional battalions of militiamen into the cam ps, but only one new battalion entered. Many eye-witnesses reported a massacre underway. Israeli journalists heard of the massacre in the morning o f the 17th and informed senior Israeli officials. The Israeli Cabinet issued a statement on 17 September: ‘Following the assassination of President-Elect Bashir Gemayel, the Israeli Defence Forces took positions in West Beirut in order to prevent the danger of violence, bloodshed and anarchy, while about 2,000 “ terrorists’, equipped with modem and heavy weapons, remained in West Beirut, thus blatantly violating the departure agreement.* O n Friday afternoon, at least 400 civilians seeking refuge from the killings approached Israeli soldiers by carrying a white flag. They declared that a massacre was underway and yet they were turned back to the camps at gunpoint. Sharon testified that General Drori ordered an end to the operation on Friday afternoon, but that after meeting with General Eitan and the Phalangist leaders, the Israelis agreed that the Phalangists could remain in the camps until Saturday morning. Reportedly, the Phalangists told Israeli military leaders that they needed more time to ‘clean up* the area. A Reuters correspondent, Paul Eddie, interviewed an Israeli colonel on 17 September outside the camps, who said that two principles had guided Israel’s role: ‘that the Israeli Army should not become involved and that the area needed to be purified*.8 On 18 September 1982, an Israeli Army spokesman said: ‘We do not know anything of these alleged massacres. There is no Israeli presence in the camps themselves. We do not know what is happening in the camps and we are trying to establish the facts*.’ It was reported that Israeli bulldozers were made available to the Phalangist forces in the camps and that these were used to obscure the events taking place there. Buildings were bulldozed to cover over bodies, mass graves were quickly dug and bodies were heaped together in gruesome piles. Nevertheless, what remained when journalists arrived on the scene was ample proof that an atrocity on a massive scale had taken place. The militiamen left the camps on 18 September and the survivors were ordered by Israeli officials with loudspeakers to come to the Sports Stadium for identification. G eneral Sharon claimed that only on Saturday morning ‘did information

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begin to arrive about what had happened. We did not imagine in our worst dreams that the Phalangists going into battle would behave this way.’ General Eitan reiterated: ‘The ID F had no knowledge until Saturday morning of what was going on.’ ‘We don’t give the Phalangists orders and we’re not responsible for them. The Phalangists are Lebanese and Lebanon is theirs and they act as they see fit. The Phalangists were fighting within Chatila, according to their guidelines, if you can call them that, of warfare. We didn’t really know what was going on. It was at night. It was assumed it was ordinary fighting. Then in the morning light, when we saw what was happening and what could happen further, we intervened quickly.*10 Zeev Schiff, the military correspondent of Ha’aretz has opined that ‘The Phalangists had not wanted to storm West Beirut after the murder of Bashir Gemayel, they had asked us to do the job for them. After the ID F had surrounded the refugee camps, the Phalangists entered with our knowledge’. The Israeli Prime Minister, Menachem Begin, is reported to have informed the Israeli Commission of Enquiry that: ‘It did not even occur to me, Honoured Judge, to think that the Phalangists, if they were to enter the camps, to fight the terrorists, would commit such atrocities or massacres . . . And it did not even occur to me that there was any kind of possibility that they would deal in massacring the civilian population. Therefore the question did not even arise . . . It did not occur to anyone, except at that same cabinet meeting that we have already mentioned . . . to Minister David Levy . . . I can only determine the fact that none of the ministers, the way it was said here, in none of the meetings, no red light was lit on the basis of these things.’11 Mordechai Zipori, Israeli Communications Minister, in response to a question at the Israeli Commission by General Efrat as to whether there was a special sense of foreboding at the 16 September cabinet meeting, said: ‘There were no red lights, neither in my mind, nor those of most of my colleagues, not even in the mind of the Attorney General, who was sitting with us.’12 General Sharon, at the Israeli Commission hearings, told the enquiry that: ‘I want, in the name and on behalf of the entire defence establishment, to say that no-one foresaw - nor could have foreseen - the atrocities committed in the neighbourhood of Sabra and Chatila.’13 On 29 September 1982, at the request of the new President of Lebanon, Amin Gemayel, the multilateral force returned, consisting of 1,200 American, 1,100 French and 1,100 Italian soldiers, and they were assigned the task of providing security in the area of West Beirut where the massacres occurred. The French zone embraced Bourj al Brajneh; the American zone embraced the Beirut International Airport; while the Italian zone encompassed the scenes of the massacres. General Amir Drori said: ‘Before these events (the massacres) took place, I met with the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Lebanese Army, who is the personal representative of the Prime Minister, Shafik Al-Wazzan. I told him that we are under s tr ia instructions

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not to go into the camps and that if we don’t go in and if the Lebanese Army doesn’t go in - and he knows the way things are here in Lebanon - that he could well imagine what might happen. I begged him in every language possible to take responsibility for the security situation in the camps*.14 After the quelling of such Muslim resistance as there was on 15 September, Israel became an occupying power in West Beirut. Israel must be designated the occupying power from 15 September until its eventual withdrawal from that section of the city. The Geneva Convention IV, 1949, and the Protocol I, 1977, together clearly set forth the duties and responsibilities of an occupying power and formulate the protection to which those under occupation are entitled. Israel is a party to Geneva Convention IV. T he situation in West Beirut - including Sabra and Chatila - was that civilians had become ‘protected persons* under Geneva Convention IV (particularly Part II, Section I) and the amplifying Protocol I .15 W ere the inhabitants o f Sabra and C hatila ^protected persons’ on 16 Septem ber? Article 4 of Geneva Convention IV extends the protection of the Convention to all ‘who at a given m om ent. . . find themselves, in the case of a conflict or occupation, in the hands of a Party to the conflict or Occupying Power of which they are not nationals*. Article 27 (Convention IV) states, ‘protected persons . . . shall be protected especially against acts of violence . . .* and lays down a particular protection for women from rape. Article 29 establishes that an Occupying Power is responsible for the actions of its agents towards protected persons. Article 32 comprehensively prohibits any measure which is of a character such as ‘. . . to cause the physical suffering or extermination of protected persons . . .* Article 147 indicates that breaches of the above cited Articles would be regarded as ‘grave breaches* of the Convention. (Note also here the Articles from Protocol I (supra) which amplify the definition of Protected Persons and are more explicit as to who falls within the category; particularly Articles 48, 50, 51, 73, 75(2), 76 (women) and 77 (children).) T he reports of witnesses to the events of 14-18 September confirm the Commission in its opinion that Sabra and Chatila were neither centres of military resistance nor hiding places for large numbers of fighters. The fact that there may have been small arms in the camps and that inevitably many people present in the camps had ‘links with the PLO* does not deprive the camps of their general civilian character. We will examine, in order: (1) the reaction in the camps to the Israeli advance, (2) the progress of the Lebanese Army and (3) the Israeli allegation that ‘2,000 terrorists* were still in the camps and will attempt by this examination to shed light upon the legal status of the camps on 16 September. (1) W hen the news of the Israeli thrust into West Beirut broke in the

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camps, the arguments which immediately arose within the Popular Committees in the camps can be summarised as involving the choice either to abandon the camps and seek refuge in safer areas of West Beirut (as many had done during the bombardments and the siege) or to remain in the camps and offer no resistance (as none was possible) in the hope that the defencelessness of the inhabitants would be respected. The latter argument prevailed for the vast majority of the inhabitants of the camps. It was understood that no place in the city would be safer since the PLO had been evacuated.16 Clearly, an effort at an armed defence of the sort attempted at Ain el Hilweh17 was not made in Sabra and Chatila. (2) The Lebanese Army, under Prime Minister Al-Wazzan’s plan for its deployment in West Beirut, had been taking up positions since 1 September and had already taken control of Bourj al Brajneh camp. The Commission is convinced that the camps were not resistance centres and that the Lebanese Army would have had the capacity to exercise normal policing responsibilities inside them. (3) From 14 September General Sharon made allegations that 2,000 ‘terrorists’ had remained in West Beirut. It was widely thought that Sharon’s carefully introduced references to 2,000 PLO guerrillas remaining was a ‘disingenuous excuse to justify the invasion which he had already planned*.18 Supplies were certainly left behind by the PLO, but there is no evidence to suggest that any substantial number of PLO fighters themselves remained in any part of West Beirut. It seems evident and is confirmed by Dr Ang’s testimony, that such resistance as there was to the Israeli advance on 15 September in the Sabra-Chatila area came from the Mourabitoun militia and that even that resistance took place outside the camps. But the most conclusive evidence of the falsity of the allegation about ‘2000 fighters’ must be that there was absolutely no resistance to the massacres which later took place. The militiamen suffered virtually no casualties in their execution of the massacres. When, in the aftermath, the massacres were investigated by countless journalists, relief workers and officials of international organisations, there were no signs of even the slightest resistance having been put forth. David MacDowell (an Oxfam field worker) cites a sporting pellet gun lying beside the corpse of a young boy as epitomising the total defencelessness of the camp population. The Commission rejects unconditionally the Israeli allegation that 2,000 ‘terrorists’ in the camps made it reasonable to mount a military action against the inhabitants and regards the camps as civilian, non-military places of refuge at the time of the massacres. The Commission does not believe that Israeli intelligence - which had manifestly accepted the numbers of departing PLO fighters as accurate - could have subsequently estimated in good faith that such a large number of fighters remained. While the Commission therefore totally rejects Sharon’s figures, it must be emphasised that even if this Israeli allegation had been true, or even if Israel had in good faith believed it to be substantially true, the actions taken after

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the camps had been encircled would nevertheless have constituted the gravest breach of Israel's responsibilities as an Occupying Power. What occurred w ould still have constituted a gross failure to distinguish between civilians and combatants. The Commission finds that without doubt the civilian population of Sabra and Chatila were protected persons within the meaning of Geneva Convention IV and Protocol I. Having clarified the international legal framework within which Israel was required to operate, it is necessary to review the details of the events that took place in Sabra and Chatila from 16-18 September. Our sources are: the testimonies o f the survivors, journalists’ reports which appeared in the newspapers (particularly the Israeli press), evidence which has so far been made public by the Israeli Commission of Enquiry, headed by Chief Justice Kahan, an d most significantly, the evidence and testimonies taken by the International Commission during its second visit to the Lebanon and during the private sessions at the Oslo hearings. On W ednesday 15 September, at 3.30 am (according to General Sharon, 3.30 pm ), the Israeli Chief of Staff, General Rafael Eitan and the ID F N orthern Commander, General Amir Drori, met with Phalangist officers in East B eirut and agreed that Phalangist militiamen would enter Sabra and Chatila to ‘mop up (the) remaining “terrorists” '.20 At 5-5.30 am Israeli planes made low level flights over the camps.21 At 8 am artillery or tank shelling of the camps commenced and grew gradually heavier.22 Large concentrations of Israeli troops and tanks were seen at the remains of the Kuwaiti Embassy, which is a few hundred yards from the edge of Chatila.23 At 3.30-4 pm the shelling was very heavy and shells were falling within half a kilometer of Gaza Hospital.24On entering into West Beirut, the Israeli Defence Forces took up controlling positions west of the camps.25 By 16 September, Israeli troops and armour had completely surrounded Sabra and Chatila and were 50 yards at the nearest point and 300 yards at the furthest point from the camps. A ridge of high ground at the south west com er of Chatila was also occupied by the Israelis.26 From 5-5.30 am low level flights of Israeli planes over Sabra and Chatila took place, after which shelling promptly commenced.27 Residents close to the airport reported that they saw militiamen mustering under Israeli control.28 Local inhabitants reported that freshly placed road signs appeared, showing a red circle, with the letter MP for ‘meeting place’ inside, over an arrow pointing to Sabra and Chatila. Arrows led from the golf course, which lies between the airport and the camps, to the camps.29 Lebanese Army soldiers said that the militia force was composed largely of men from Damour, Saadyat and Naameh - Christian villages that had been sacked by the Palestinian forces during the Civil War.30 Other Lebanese soldiers reported that they recognised the uniforms of Haddad’s

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militia near the Kuwaiti Embassy.31 The Israelis established observation posts on top of multi-storey buildings in the north-west quadrant of the Kuwaiti Embassy. From these posts, the naked eye has a dear view of several sections of the camps, including those parts of Chatila where piles of bodies were found;32 in addition, Israeli observers were reported to have had highpower binoculars available to them. At 12.00 noon casualties suffering high velocity gun shot wounds began arriving at Gaza Hospital. About 30 patients were so seriously wounded that they died before receiving medical attention.33 Survivors told of several killings which took place during the daytime on Thursday.34 Civilians trying to leave the camps were turned back by the Israelis at gunpoint.35 T he Popular Committees in the camps decided to send six elderly men with white flags to the Israeli line near the Kuwaiti Embassy to negotiate an end to the shooting and to offer to surrender any personal weapons that may have been in the camps. Five of the old men were killed a few yards from the Israeli line. Abu Kamal, the sixth, was allowed to escape back to the camp to report what happened. This was stated in evidence by a Palestinian Trade Union Leader at the Oslo hearings of the Commission. Separately, a delegation of Lebanese women and children who had sought refuge in Akka Hospital went to the Israelis positioned on the main road to the airport to ask for a cease-fire.36 At noon General Drori met the Phalangist officers in East Beirut. Elias Hobeika, the head of the Phalange intelligence, was identified as the commanding officer of the Phalange militia entering the camps. Drori then telephoned Sharon in Tel Aviv to inform him of the arrangements that had been made for the Phalange entry into the camps. It was agreed that an Israeli officer would be present in the Phalange headquarters and that a Phalangist officer would have a liaison capacity in a forward Israeli command post overlooking the camps.37 A Lebanese Army officer reported seeing a convoy of Phalangist vehicles at Beirut International Airport in the afternoon. About 5 pm Hobeika’s Phalange units assembled at the airport and moved into the camps shortly after that. Israeli paratroop units were ordered to facilitate the entry of the Phalange troops into the camps.38 Throughout the afternoon the casualties had been telling the hospital staff at Gaza Hospital of attacks on them by Lebanese gunmen with southern accents. At 6 pm an Israeli Defence Force officer named Reuven ‘raised the possibility that (massacres) might occur*. By nightfall, more than 2,000 camp dwellers had fled to Gaza Hospital seeking refuge.39 Israeli Deputy Prime Minister, David Levy, pointed out the ‘danger of a bloody incident* at an Israeli Cabinet meeting held on that day.40 General Drori subsequently admitted to the Israeli Commission that ‘every Israeli somewhere in his mind feared the Phalange might slaughter Palestinians in the camps of West

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B e ir u t. . . throughout the war the ID F made supreme efforts to spare civilians41 - but that was not clear with the Phalange/42 By 6 pm, nightfall, the Phalange entered the camps.4' ID F tanks and soldiers were stationed west and south of the camps at a distance of some 100-200 metres. They heard shots and ‘battle cries’ and the officers assumed that the Phalangists were fighting ‘terrorists’.44 T hat evening three civilian casualties arrived at Akka Hospital with gun­ sh o t wounds.45 Survivors recounted that some of the killing started with knives. Throughout the night flares lit up the sky.46 They were fired at the rate of tw o a minute, as reported by an Israeli soldier from a mortar unit.47 81mm m ortars were requested from the Israelis by the Phalangists.48 The Israeli media exposed the following: the militias passed through the Israeli lines on the west side of the camps; IDF-Phalange radio contact continued throughout the operation; the ID F supplied the Phalangists with m aps of the camps; the ID F assisted with flares and, within hours of the en try of the Phalange, Israeli HQ was informed that the operation was proceeding in a way inconsistent with the ID F ’s declared guidelines and alleged purposes. At 11 pm Hobeika reported to the ID F commander in Beirut that: ‘Until now 300 civilians and terrorists have been killed’. This message was transm itted to Tel Aviv and was seen by about twenty senior ID F officers.49 Colonel Marcel Prince (the Lebanese Army Surgeon-General) asserts th at the bodies found in the south of Chatila on Thursday had been slain indiscriminately. Elsewhere people had been executed against walls and other patterns of the slaughter included families being butchered en masse in their homes and victims who had been tied up with rope and subjected to other forms of torture before being executed.50 On Friday 17 September, at dawn, Phalange officers maintained their ‘battle* story to the ID F units and claimed to have killed many terrorists and to have suffered losses themselves.51 A nurse on the 8th floor of Gaza Hospital was shot by a sniper. In the early morning ID F units saw executed corpses in the camps. Rumours of massacres began to spread in the ID F units.52 Zeev SchifT says, ‘I myself heard about the massacres in the camps on Friday morning and I immediately informed a senior official*. (He informed th e Communications Minister, M r Zipori.) ‘This means that the slaughter started Thursday night and that whatever I learned on Friday morning was certainly already known to other people by the time it reached my ears'.53Le Monde, in Paris, first received reports of a massacre on Friday morning. A survivor, Yahia Hassan Salome, tells that there were snipers in the streets of Chatila camp by Friday morning and anyone who crossed the street was killed. At 8-9 am assistant tank company commander, Segen Avi Grubovsky, saw (500 metres from his post) militiamen killing five women and children in

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Chatila. He reported this, but was told by a higher Israeli officer ‘not to worry'. At 11.30 am Drori ordered a halt to the Phalange operation.54 T his order was not implemented. The following events are recounted as experienced by Anne Sunde.55 At 11.30 am soldiers identifying themselves as Phalangists, but without identification markings,56 arrived at Akka Hospital. Part of the medical team at Akka were ordered to go to a roundup point on the main street of Chatila. A Palestinian doctor was detained from this group and taken away. A Norwegian official from the Norwegian Embassy obtained permission to extract the three Norwegians from this group and take them out o f the camp. On being taken out they could no longer see the group of hospital staff at the roundup point. Anne Sunde subsequently learned (from survivors) that a Palestinian youth, Mufid Assad, on being identified as Palestinian, was shot four times. That same morning a Palestinian doctor, Mohammed Ali Osman, was shot dead while carrying a white flag outside Akka.57 At noon the 2,000 who had fled to Gaza Hospital the previous day were evacuated on the instructions of the Lebanese Hospital Administration, who realised that the hospital was no longer a safe sanctuary for them .58 At 2 pm a Palestinian nurse, Intisar Ismail, aged 19, was found in one of the Akka shelters. She had been repeatedly raped and murdered. At Akka Hospital three Palestinian doctors and one Egyptian doctor emerged from the building carrying a white flag in an effort to stop the shooting. A hand grenade was thrown at them, killing three. Several wounded patients and two Palestinian doctors (one called Dr Sami Kahb) were abducted from Akka Hospital and never seen again. Two nurses were also taken. One was raped 10 times and then killed.59 That afternoon two Christian militia battalions arrived at Beirut Airport. Part of this force entered the camps later on Friday and a second wave of massacres began. Brigadier-General Amos Yaron (the commander of the Israeli forces in Beirut) testified to the Israeli Commission that the militiamen were re-supplied and were allowed to send in fresh men, despite the fact that reports of atrocities had already been made to Israeli officers. That same afternoon gunmen start entering the houses, killing men, women and children and dynamiting the buildings. Many witnesses confirm this account. At 2 pm and at 3.45 pm two different groups of militiamen entered Akka Hospital, but they only asked questions and left. At 5 pm an ICRC convoy reached Akka and evacuated the survivors. At 9 pm General Eitan telephoned Sharon and said ‘Hem higzimu' (This in Hebrew means ‘they overdid it’ or in slang ‘they went wild’). At nightfall shooting continued to be heard from Gaza Hospital. On Saturday, 18 September, at dawn, the ID F intervened to stop the massacre, but only by 8 or 9 am was it actually stopped.60 Atrocities reportedly continued to occur throughout the early morning.

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At 6.30 am Phalangist soldiers came to Gaza Hospital and ordered all foreign health workers to assemble outside the hospital.61 At 7.15 am the team of 19 foreign/non-Arab health workers and one Syrian and one Palestinian volunteer were marched in the direction of Chatila camp. They were told that they were being taken for ‘routine checking*; a request for sufficient staff to remain at the hospital to tend the 28 patients still there was refused. Only one nurse and a medical student were permitted to remain to look after the intensive care patients. Passing through Chatila, great destruction could be seen: the ground was littered with spent cartridges. At 7 am along the Rue Sabra, which runs through Sabra and pan of Chatila camps, there were as many as 800 civilians, mainly women and children, in groups surrounded by armed soldiers,62 dressed in green uniforms and wearing green baseball-type hats.65 At this point a mother emerged from one of the groups and tried to give her baby to Dr Ang. Dr Ang testifies to the fear of death in the woman’s eyes. She has never seen this woman or the baby again. The soldiers thrust the woman and baby back into the surrounded group. The soldiers then noticed the Palestinian volunteer, who was with the medical team and demanded to see his ID card. After that they tore off his white jacket, beat him on his face and shot him in a side street.64 At the end of the Chatila main street, the medical team was handed over to a more aggressive group of militiamen, who verbally abused them and accused them of being members of the Baader Meinhof gang. Some of those militiamen wore uniforms with black strips with Arabic text on the chest; some had a cedar tree or a shell on the sleeves of their uniforms, some of them were wearing black berets.65 At the end of the Rue Sabra, there were two bulldozers with Hebrew markings. T he medical team witnessed that in front of the Kuwaiti Embassy there were many Israeli soldiers. On the street on top of the hill west of Chatila, Israeli tanks could be seen, facing the camps. From that street there is a perfect line of sight into the camp, which begins in a valley about 150 yards from the top of the ridge. Some militiamen tried to take a female physiotherapist away with them. An Israeli officer ordered them to stop and the order was obeyed immediately.67 Two Israeli soldiers talked in English to th e militiamen guarding the medical team. They left and then the militiamen ordered the health team to remove their white coats and any other marks which identified them as health workers. They were interrogated, and then at about 9.30 am they were transferred to the Israeli HQ. which was about 150 metres away. It was arranged with the Israelis that two doctors and one nurse would return to Gaza Hospital to attend to the patients still there.68 At the Sports Stadium an Israeli colonel issued the three health workers with a pass written in Hebrew, to ‘ensure safe conduct in th e camps’. One doctor pressed for it to be written in Arabic also.69 The nurse who had been permitted to stay in Gaza Hospital testifies that she heard 20 minutes of continuous machine gun fire and the screaming of women and children between 7.30 and 8 am.

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On Saturday morning militiamen took people from the camp to the City Sports Stadium, which was physically under Israeli control. (Similar events were reported on Friday.) There interrogations were conducted and severe maltreatment of those interrogated occurred. The bodies of victims were found and identified in the Stadium - two were burnt, including a small girl who had been abducted from Gaza Hospital.70 At 9.30 am a BBC correspondent entered the camp and reported that Rue Sabra was lined with bodies clustered in groups of about 10, mostly of women and children. At 10 am a Canadian film crew entered Sabra and filmed Rue Sabra showing numerous dead bodies piled on top of each other on either side of the road. From that film the medical team identified some of the bodies as people whom they had passed at 7 am that morning. An Israeli loudspeaker was also broadcasting in Arabic in Chatila: ‘Stay off the streets. We are looking for terrorists. Stay off the streets. We will shoot*.71 Bulldozers were busy tearing down buildings and burying bodies in the rubble. An Israeli major told Robert Fisk of The Times that the Haddad militia were involved in the massacre. Akka Hospital was burning. An Israeli loudspeaker was broadcasting in Arabic: ‘Lay down your arms or you will be killed*.72 Foreign correspondents in Beirut reported that more than 100 bodies of Palestinian men, women and children had been found dead; most had been shot in the back or in the head.73 At 5 pm Begin testified that he received his first knowledge of the massacres from the BBC World Service.74 On Sunday 19 September members of the Gaza medical team, including D r Maehlumschagen and D r Ang were able to return to Sabra and Chatila in the morning. Dead bodies were seen everywhere, whole families had obviously been shot together. The total number of dead, counted by the International Committee of the Red Cross at that time, was 1,500. (By 22 September this count had risen to 2,400 and on 23 September a further 350 bodies were uncovered.) The precise number of deaths is impossible to ascertain. Many bodies were removed from the scene; others were placed in huge mass graves. A chronological account of these massacres cannot convey either their scale or their barbarity. The Commission was shown extensive photographic and film evidence of what happened in Sabra and Chatila. The western media have released only a small sample of reliable first-hand visual material. Particularly horrific are the slides taken by Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone (two free-lance American journalists) who spent four days in the camps, from 18 September. Having reviewed the events of 16-18 September, we must focus attention on Question 8 in the Commission’s Terms of Reference: ‘To what extent, if any, were the Israeli authorities or forces involved, directly or indirectly, in the massacres or other killings that were reported to have been carried out by Lebanese militiamen in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila?’ The evidence that has emerged conclusively identifies the Phalange and Major Haddad’s militia as the main, and probably the exclusive,

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perpetrators of the massacres. As regards the Phalange, not only is the evidence extensive and weighty, but also they have made no serious attempts to deny their involvement in the action (eg by admissions they made to Dan Semona, correspondent for Israeli television). Major Haddad, however, has testified to the Israeli Commission of Enquiry that none of his units were involved (on 17 November Haddad told the Israeli Commission: ‘I am sure 100 percent that no soldier of mine crossed the Awali river going north*).75 The Commission considers that the numerous and independent reports from survivors identifying their attackers as wearing Haddad militia insignia and speaking in southern accents constitute conclusive evidence that Haddad militiamen did play a significant part in the massacres. The proportions which the Phalange and Haddad militias contributed respectively to the attacking force cannot be assessed from the available information. It would seem, however, that the Phalangists contributed a higher percentage of men to the attacking force (consisting of several hundred men), and provided coordination and leadership for the entire operation. T he evidence as to whether Israeli or other armed forces were directly involved is not authoritiative in either direction. Testimonies submitted by members of the medical teams raise some questions. The Commission was given some evidence that a group of 12 German-speaking men went into Gaza Hospital at 6-7 pm on Friday 17 (a German nurse was able to speak fluently with them).76 Some testified that on other occasions men with strongly ‘Negroid* features were seen (eg around the Kuwaiti Embassy). These observations raise the possibility that mercenaries may have been utilised in the massacres. General Sharon and other Israeli officials have testified to the Israeli Commission that the Phalange units did not enter the camps until 6 pm on the evening of 16 September. But the doctors at Gaza Hospital report that they were treating civilian casualties who had high velocity gunshot wounds and who said that they had been attacked by militiamen in their homes from mid-day of 16 September, that is six hours before the Phalange are supposed to have entered the camps. We attach weight to the doctors* question, which asks ‘who was responsible for the attacks on these people before the Israelireported entry of the Phalange?’ Israeli civilian and military officials have consistently asserted that no ID F soldiers were involved in the massacres. On the basis of the substantiated evidence this must be provisionally accepted as the case. But the Commission wishes to record that there exists considerable evidence to the contrary which makes it impossible to accept Israeli assurances unconditionally. Doubts arise from the following points: 1. The identity tag of ID F Sergeant Benny Chaim was found among the rubble of a home in Chatila and given to a Danish journalist on 29 September. This sergeant is now in Israel recovering from wounds and

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the ID F has been unwilling to allow his appearance (allegedly on medical grounds) before the Israeli Commission of Enquiry. The circumstances surrounding Sergeant Chaim's actions during the massacre could be significant. 2. The fact that an Israeli officer gave in Hebrew a written safe conduct pass for going through the camps to the doctors returning to Gaza Hospital on 18 September.77 3. Two bulldozers with Hebrew markings on their side were identified as being in the camps.78 4. Perhaps the most significant of all, Israeli soldiers seemed to be operating under orders not to allow any inhabitants of the camps to escape, despite Israeli awareness that civilians were being killed in large numbers and that a massacre of some sort was underway. Whether such a form of involvement should be considered ‘direct* or ‘indirect* is mainly a matter of semantics. These actions contributed to the atmosphere of terror associated with the massacre and kept people in it and this has in no sense been repudiated by either Israeli military or political leaders. The Commission draws attention to these points, but does not draw conclusions from them. It hopes that the uncertainties remaining in these cases will eventually be resolved. At this point, all that can be said is that suspicions of direct Israeli involvement have not been refuted as groundless. To what extent was Israel, in its role as an Occupying Power, sufficiently involved in the massacres to engage its legal responsibilities? The extent of these responsibilities can be conveyed by three interrelated enquiries: (1)

Intention and/or recklessness;

(2)

Assistance;

(3)

Control.

(1) Intention an d/or recklessness By 16 September Israel was in military control and occupation of West Beirut. It has been established that Israel was making deliberate use of Lebanese militias to carry out a military operation and that it planned and was involved in coordinating that operation. According to Israeli statements, the purpose of sending the militiamen into the camps was to destroy the ‘terrorists’ and hence the massacre of civilians that actually took place represented a tragic divergence from Israeli expectations. By the nature of things there may not be sufficient and specific evidence in the public domain to support the conclusion that Israeli leaders planned or intended a massacre, although the wider political and historical findings of the Commission suggest that the events at Chatila and Sabra were not

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inconsistent with wider Israeli intentions to destroy Palestinian political will an d cultural identity.79 At a minimum, Israel’s role in planning and coordinating the militia operation amounts to a reckless disregard of probable consequences. It may subsequently be demonstrated conclusively that Israeli leaders disregarded relevant information, from which, in the circumstances, they could reasonably have been expected to foresee the actual (as distinct from the intended) consequences of their operation. At present, such disregard can merely be inferred from their historical experience with the Lebanese militias, from the inflamed atmosphere existing in Lebanon following Bashir Gemayel’s assassination, and from the specific conditions surrounding Israel’s role in arranging entry and departure from the camps. Concrete information implicating Israel in a deliberate disregard of severe danger to civilians under their protective custody includes the following elements: (i) The safety of the Palestinian civilians was a much discussed question during the negotiations for the evacuation of PLO fighters. Indeed, the PLO refused to agree to evacuate until assurances were given for the protection of the remaining civilians. Yasser Arafat has been quoted: ‘I have in my possession a document where the US mediator, Habib, gave us his government’s formal guarantee to protect the Palestinians, especially those in the refugee camps, after the fighters had withdrawn’.80 This concern was widely shared at the time and was clearly acknowledged as a central aspect of the withdrawal negotiations, including the agreement on stationing the multilateral force in West Beirut. (ii) The murder of Bashir Gemayel, the Maronite President-elect, clearly aroused anti-Palestinian feelings in East Beirut, despite the absence of any evidence of a Palestinian connection with the assassination. General Eitan told an Israeli Cabinet meeting on the evening of 15 September: ‘I see in their eyes what they (the Phalange) are waiting for. It is enough that Amin Gemayel used the word revenge and the whole lot of them were already sharpening their knives’. Several other Israeli officers had premonitions of or made predictions that massacres may occur.81 (iii) The nature and background of the militias is well known. Though Sharon has professed surprise at the massacres and claimed that the thought of such a possibility never entered his head, he admits that the militias are not like the ID F .82 The Phalange have a history of brutality and revenge killing and even during the Israeli invasion and occupation of the south of Lebanon, in the period from June to August, they committed atrocities and evoked terror among the Palestinians.83 Haddad’s militia has a similar, or perhaps an even worse, reputation. In addition to the general record of the militias being reasonable grounds for caution, the specific makeup of the militia forces should have given rise to serious

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worry. Included in the force was the Damour Brigade - a group of Christians who had sworn to take revenge on the Palestinians for sacking Damour during the Civil War. The commander of the Phalange militia was Elias Hobeika, the man in charge of Bashir Gemayel’s security at the time of his death and the Phalange leader who had personally supervised the massacre of Palestinians and Lebanese at Tal al Zaatar in 1976. Israeli leaders must necessarily have had knowledge of these factors. Israel, therefore, acted in an utterly reckless fashion in authorising theentry of the militia units into the camps. (iv) One extremely incriminating indication of actual Israeli intentions is their failure,' despite their undisputed control over the Lebanese participants in the massacre, to apprehend, accuse, or even formally complain about the events of 16-18 September 1982. As matters now stand, neither the Israeli civilian leaders, nor their military commanders, are on record as having called for even an investigative repudiation of these events by Lebanese leaders, much less a full-scale indictment and prosecution. Such a failure is a separate dereliction of Israel's duty as Occupying Power and it constitutes confirmation of the reckless disregard of the well-being of protected persons under its custody. The offence is aggravated by the fact that these protected persons were already the victims of illegal military attacks by Israel and were in a position o f manifest and acute jeopardy. (2) A ssistance84 Throughout the operation Israel provided essential assistance to the killers. The militias were sent into a sealed area; the surrounding Israeli units are reported to have prevented civilians from escaping from the camps on several occasions. Logistical aid was given to the Lebanese militia forces within the camps by way of flares and supplies. Most significant is the failure of the ID F to intervene as soon as information became available as to the actual character of the operation. The ID F were slow in removing the militiamen despite evidence that people were still being killed as late as 8 am on Saturday 18.85 This behaviour technically amounts to assistance by omission. Article 86 of Protocol I, 1977 states: ‘the parties to the conflict shall repress grave breaches . . . of the Conventions and of this Protocol which result from a failure to act when under a duty to do so.' (3) Control86 The extent to which the ID F exercised actual control and authority over the militiamen beoomes evident at several points in the testimonial evidence. Testimonies from the hospital health workers record that the militiamen promptly obeyed Israeli officers (eg Gaza health team, Saturday 18 September).

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In examining Israeli involvement, particular note should be made of Article 51(2) of Protocol 1, 1977: ‘The civilian population as such, as well ai individual citizens, shall not be the object of attack. Arts or threats of violence, the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population, are prohibited’. Mention in this regard should be made of the declared Israeli aim to effect shifts and dispersals of the Palestinian refugee population.87 The Commission believes that integral to Israel’s reckless indifference to the possibility of a massacre was its indifference to the resulting terror. The Commission is of the opinion that the predominant terminology employed by the Israeli State, and particularly the ID F , was an additional factor in creating conditions in which the massacres could occur, as well as the conditions in which they could be tolerated, for a period of time extending over more than 36 hours. As the Israeli writer, A. B. Yehoshua put it in Ha'olam haZe.M ‘When one speaks about extermination and purification, when Palestinians are called two-legged animals [by Begin] there is no wonder that an [Israeli] soldier permits that such horrors will be committed near him.’ Dehumanisation by way of political language has an anaesthetising effect and it paralyses normal human empathy and disrupts moral inhibitions. Sharon’s insistence on mopping up ‘2,000 terrorists’, relied upon as the major justification for the Phalange entry into the camps, is virtually a mandate for the indiscriminate slaughter o f ‘2,000 Palestinians’, at least of male Palestinians, whether armed or not, whether identified as PLO fighters or not. This kind of logic, applied in the circumstances existing in the Palestinian camps of Beirut in mid-September, are in their essence a call for massacre and should be regarded as such from the viewpoint of international law. The relevance of provisions of Geneva Convention IV and Protocol I to Israel as an Occupying Power have been previously indicated. Having drawn together the available evidence of Israeli involvement in the massacres, we must set those conclusions in the international legal framework applicable to Israel The position in international law is clear. As established earlier, an Occupying Power has strict responsibilities for all protected persons within its jurisdiction. The fact that Israeli troops may not have been involved (with the qualifications to that noted in the discussion above) in the actual performance of atrocities does not eliminate Israel’s responsibility in international law. The massacres, as ‘gravest breaches* of the Convention and Protocol, are legally attributable to Israel, given its underlying

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responsibility for order, its capability to accord protection and its complicity in the planning and execution of the operation. Articles 75(2) and 87(1) of Protocol I and Article 29 of Geneva Convention IV read: Article 75(2) - The following acts (including violence to life, particularly murder, torture and mutilation) are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever, whether committed by civilian or military agents. Article 8 7 ( 1 )... Parties to the conflict shall require military commanders, with respect to members of the armed forces under their control and other persons under their control, to prevent, and where necessary, to suppress and to report to competent authorities breaches of the Conventions and of this Protocol. This clearly states the responsibility of an Occupying Power for the actions of those under its control. Conclusion The terrible events that took place at Sabra and Chatila, involving the loss of the lives of hundreds of men, women and children, raise very important issues concerning the legal responsibility of the political and military leaders of the State of Israel. The Commission has made no attempt to relate the massacres to the occurrence of genocide (in the specific respects discussed in the Majority Note) in relation to the Palestinian people. Nevertheless, these severe charges definitely possess heightened plausibility in the light of Commission responses to allegations arising from Question 8, relating to the massacres. The Commission can also not overlook the extent to which Israeli participation in prior massacres directed against the Palestinian people creates a most disturbing pattern of a political struggle carried on by means of mass terror directed at the civilians, including women, children and the aged. Specifically, we refer to the massacre carried out by approximately 132 members of the Irgun and Stern organisations, commenced upon the night of 9 April 1948 in the Palestinian village of Deir Yassin. By noon of the following day 254 defenceless inhabitants, including more than 100 women and children, had been slaughtered, their bodies thrown into a well. Israel’s current Prime Minister, Menachem Begin was the leader of the Irgun at the time, while Yitzhak Shamir, Israel’s Foreign Minister, was head of the Stern organisation. Begin’s autobiography, The Revolt, while denying some of the charges of massacre, claims for the events at Deir Yassin great positive significance, because they did so much to spread panic amongst the 800,000 Palestinians living in what presently became the State of Israel, leading all but 165,000 to flee for safety. Another terrorist milestone was the attack, led by Israeli’s present

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Defence Minister Sharon on 14 October 1953, against the West Bank village of Qibua, which resulted in the killing of 66 men, women and children. This incident, officially denied at the time by the Israeli Government, was later established to be the work of Unit 101, a special forces battalion of the regular Israeli army, designed to carry out cross-border reprisal raids and placed under the command of Ariel Sharon. Many other well-documented occurrences of Israeli terror over the years have taken place. Some are embodied in official policy, as a matter of course; for instance the destruction of family homes in which any member is accused of PLO affiliations. The present leadership of the State of Israel had been directly associated, in other words, with terroristic policies vis-4-vis the Palestinian civilian population. The massacres at Sabra and Chatila, the Commission concludes, is only the culminating instance of this pattern of association, reinforcing with historical depth our assessment that Israel, as a State, and its civilian and military leaders, as responsible officials, bear legal responsibility for these events and the terrible tragedy they wrought. T he Commission has no hesitation about answering Question 8 in its Term s of Reference in the affirmative. Given the wide evidence of Israel’s planning, assisting and controlling the events which led to the massacres and its indifference to the weighty indicators that pointed to the likelihood of such atrocities, Israel committed ‘gravest breaches’ of Geneva Convention IV. Israel, as a State, is clearly responsible for these grave violations of international law, and the political and military leaders involved in the undertaking are individually liable for their roles in aiding and abetting the perpetration of the massacres, as well as for their failure to apprehend, or even to accuse or lay complaint against, those principally responsible for directing the massacre and those who committed these atrocities.

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

See section on The Conduct of War. T im e magazine, 4 October 1982, p. 17. N ew York Times, 26 September 1982, p. 19. B eirut Home Service, 19 September 1982. F o r an Israeli account of the sequence of events following the m urder of Bashir Gem ayel, see Enqueie sur Massacre, by the Israeli journalist Amnon Kapeliouk; Seuil, Paris, 1982. 6. M onday Morning, (Beirut weekly magazine), 27 September - 3 October 1982. 7. T h e Guardian, 17 September 1982. 8. Zeev Schiff, Ha’aretz, 20 September 1982. 9. N ew York Times, 26 September 1982. 10. Ib id .. 11. T estim ony to Israeli Commission of Menachem Begin, 8 November 1982.

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12. 13. 14. 15.

16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32.

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Testimony to the Israeli Commission o f Mordechai Zipori, 18 November 1982. Testimony to the Israeli Commission of Ariel Sharon, 25 October 1982. New York Times, Sunday, 26 September 1982. (Footnote to Protocol I - these are the relevant Articles and the descriptions of their contents: Art. 1(3), relationship of Protocol to the Convention, application to situations covered in Art. 2 of the Convention; Art. 12, protection of civilian medical units may be withdrawn; Art. 15 protection of civilian medical personnel; Art. 16(1) and (2) defence of medical ethics and protection of the right to carry out medical work; Art. 18 identification of medical personnel; Art. 34 remains of deceased (cf Art. 130 IV Convention), regulations on mass graves; Art. 48 basic rule for protection of civilians - distinction between civilians and combatants; Art. 50 definition of civilians and civilian population, benefit o f doubt, (3) presence of non-civilian individuals will not deprive a population o f its civilian character; Art. 51 protection of civilian population, (2) prohibition o f violence where the primary purpose is to spread terror amongst the civilian population; Art 57 precautions in attack (2) list of precautions to be taken in an attack; Art 58 (c) precaution to protect civilian population from the dangers resulting from military operations; Art. 73 refugees are explicitly designated as protected persons; Art. 75(2), prohibition of certain listed atrocities at any tim e and at any place whether committed by civilian or military agents (of the Occupying Power); Art. 85(3) designation of certain acts as ‘grave breaches’ o f the Protocol; Art. 86 failure to act - grave breaches will be committed by a failure to act when under a duty to do so, (2) commission of grave breaches by su b ­ ordinates in certain circumstances will not absolve their superiors from responsibility; Art. 87 duty of military commanders to prevent grave breaches by members o f their own armed forces or other persons under their control; Art. 90(2)(e), linking of Protocol and Conventions as regards enquiry into alleged breaches). Testimony of a Palestinian Trade Union Leader (anon), Oslo, 31 October 1982. See chapter on Occupation Policy. Washington Post, 18 September 1982 - quoting (inter alia) a Lebanese Cabinet Minister. See generally the conduct of the war. Ha’aretz, 24 September 1982. Testimony tro the Commission of Dr Ang, Beirut, 4 October 1982. Testimonies to the Commission o f D r Ang, Beirut, 4 October 1982 and Vera Talseth, at Public Hearing - evidence on video - Oslo, 31 October 1982. Financial Times, 20 September 1982, Patrick Cockbum. Testimony to the Commission o f D r Ang, Beirut, 4 October 1982. ID F Radio, 20 September 1982. Economist, 25 September 1982. New York Times, 16 September 1982, quoting D r Witsoe, Gaza Hospital. The Guardian, 20 September 1982. The Guardian, 20 September 1982; and New York Times Sunday 26 September 1982. International Herald Tribune, 28 September 1982. New York Times, Sunday 26 September 1982. Newsweek, 4 October 1982, Ray Wilkinson; The Guardian, 20 September 1982; and New York Times, Sunday 26 September 1982.

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33. Testimony to the Commission of Dr Ang, Beirut, 4 October, 1982; and Dr Per Maehlumschlagen, Oslo, 31 October 1982. 34. New York Times, Sunday, 26 September 1982. 35. Testimony of Vera Talseth, Oslo, 31 October 1982. 36. Written testimony submined to the Commission by Anne Sunde,Beirut, 18 September 1982. 37. Testimony to the Israeli Commission of General Drori, Jerusalem 31 October 1982. 38. The Jerusalem Post, 22 September 1982. 39. Testimonies to the Commission of Dr Ang and other doctors, Beirut, 4 October 1982. 40. Israeli Commission o f Enquiry, 8 November 1982. 41. See the Conduct of the War. 42. Testimony to the Israeli Commission, Jerusalem, 31October 1982. 43. ID F Radio, 20 September 1982 and confirmed inSharon’s addressto the Knesset, 21 September 1982. 44. ID F Radio, 20 September 1982. 45. W ritten testimony submitted to the Commission by Anne Sunde, Beirut, 18 September 1982. 46. Testimony to the Commission of D r Ang, Beirut, 4 October 1982. 47. The Jerusalem Post, 21 September 1982. 48. Israeli Home Radio, 22 September 1982; and Ariel Sharon’s address to the Knesset, 21 September 1982. 49. Hirsch Goodman, The Jerusalem Post, 24 September 1982. 50. Mya Shone, slide collection of debris in Sabra and Chatila, Oslo, 31 October 1982. 51. ID F Radio, 29 September 1982. 52. ID F Radio, 20 September 1982. 53. H a’aretz, 20 September 1982. 54. Testimony to the Israeli Commission, Jerusalem, 31 october 1982. 55. W ritten testimony to the Commission of Anne Sunde, Beirut, 18 September 1982. 56. Testimony of Vera Talseth, Oslo, 31 October 1982. 57. New York Times, Sunday 26 September 1982. 58. Testimony to the Commission of D r Ang, Beirut, 4 October 1982. 59. Jack Redden, Sunday Times, London, 19 September 1982. 60. ID F Radio, 20 September 1982. 61. Newsnight, BBC2, 20 September 1982: D r David Gray, Gaza Hospital. 62. W ritten testimony of Dr Pajula, Gaza, Beirut, 18 September 1982. 63. Testimony to the Commission of D r Ang, Beirut, 4 October 1982. 64. W ritten testimony of D r Pajula, Gaza, Beirut, 18 September 1982. 65. W ritten testimony of D r Pajula, Gaza, Beirut, 15 September 1982. 66. Testimony to the Israeli Commission of Nurse Ellen Siegel, Jerusalem, 1 November 1982. 67. Testimony to the Commission of D r Phil McKenna, Beirut, 4 October 1982. 68. Written testimony of Dr Pajula, Gaza, Beirut, 18 September 1982. 69. This was D r Morris (Christian Aid), according to Dr Ang, Beirut, 4 October 1982.

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70. Testimonies to the Commission of Janet Stevens, Rosemary Sayigh and D r Ang, Beirut, 4 October 1982. 71. The Times, London, 20 September 1982. 72. Testimony to the Commission of Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone, Oslo, 31 October 1982. 73. Israeli Home Service, 18 September 1982. 74. Testimony to the Israeli Commission of Menachem Begin, Jerusalem, 8 November 1982. 75. Testimony to the Israeli Commission of Major Haddad, 17 November 1982. 76. Testimony to the Commission o f D r Ang, Beirut, 4 October 1982. 77. See Chronology of the Massacre above. 78. Ellen Siegel testimony to Israeli Commission, Jerusalem, 1 November 1982. 79. See Appendix I on Genocide and Ethnocide. 80. Le Monde, 12 September 1982. 81. See Chronology of the Massacre (above), especially Deputy Prime M inister, David Levy and General Drori. 82. Testimony to the Israeli Commission of Ariel Sharon, Jerusalem, 25 October 1982. 83. See Occupation Policy. 84. See Chronology of the Massacre, above. 85. See Chronology of the Massacre, above. 86. See Chronology of the Massacre, above. 87. See Occupation Policy. 88. Haolam Haze (Israeli Hebrew newspaper), 22 September 1982.

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CONCLUSIONS The principal and essential judgments of the Commission are concerned and connected with the eight questions which constituted the Terms of Reference of the Commission. In addition, evidence presented to the Commission has led it to formulate additional conclusions. The general conclusions are first related to the eight questions, with the additional conclusions following: 1. Has the Government of Israel committed acts of aggression contrary to international law? The Commission considers that Israel has been guilty of aggression against the sovereignty of Lebanon and the rights of the Palestinian people. Such aggression has taken place contrary to the provisions of the Charter of the UN and other fundamental principles of international law. Such a violation of international law has been described by the principal legal body of the UN, the International Law Commission, as a crime under international law, since the wrongful act results from a breach of an international obligation ‘essential for the protection of the fundamental interests of the international community as a whole.’ The Commission considers that Israel is also in breach of the international obligation to safeguard the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people and of the rules of law prohibiting the establishment or maintenance by force of colonial domination. The Commission is convinced that until Israel recognises the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, including the right of self-determination, there can be no lasting peace in the Middle East or an end to the Arab-Israeli conflict. These crimes of State give rise to criminal liability as far as the State of Israel is concerned. The Commission wishes to draw attention to the legal and political responsibility of other states, international bodies and public and private organisations which assist in the commission of various crimes, but especially the crime of aggression. Israel has persistently violated the principles of the Charter of the United Nations and has systematically refused to ‘agree to accept and carry out the decisions of the Security Council’ in accordance with Article 25 of the Charter. Decisions of the Security Council are not limited to the provisions of Chapter VII of the Charter where the Security Council determines that

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there is a ‘threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression*. Such a determination by the Security Council has not been made because of the use or threat of the use of the veto by the United States. However, Israel is obliged to carry out the decisions of the Security Council which fall within the competence of the appropriate organ of the United Nations. The refusal by Israel to withdraw from Lebanon, to lift the blockade of Beirut and to allow free movement to UN Observers as requested by the United Nations, especially as these illegal activities were taking place in the territory of another sovereign state, Lebanon, are serious attacks on the integrity of the United Nations. Israel, in addition, has systematically refused to settle its disputes peacefully, contrary to the international obligations undertaken under Article 2(3) of the Charter of the United Nations. The Commission draws the attention of States to the important legal duty not to recognise in any way the consequences of Israel's illegal action in the Lebanon, especially as they may relate to the continued illegal occupation of Lebanese territory. As the commission of an intentionally wrongful act entails a State's international responsibility, Israel is under an obligation to make reparation for the consequences of its wrongful actions. The International Law Commission has described this proposition of law as ‘one of the principles most deeply rooted in the doctrine of international law'. Reparation or compensation is an indispensable complement of a failure to respect rules of law. Israel therefore owes a duty of reparation to the State of Lebanon for the physical destruction, loss of lives and general damage caused. In addition it is obliged to compensate the Palestinian people for the direct and indirect consequences of the war of aggression. 2. Have the Israeli armed forces made use of weapons or methods of warfare fobidden by international law, including the laws of war? The Commission concludes that the use made of fragmentation and incendiary weapons by the Israeli armed forces violated the international legal principles of proportionality and discrimination. Acts of violence were directed against refugee camps, hospitals, schools, cultural, religious and charitable institutions, commercial and industrial premises, Lebanese Goverment and PLO offices, diplomatic premises and urban areas generally, which were not justified by the principle of military necessity. The damage and destruction to civilian objects and the casualties among the civilian population were, in the Commission's view, the consequence of violations by the Israeli forces of the legal principles governing the conduct and methods of war. 3. Have Palestinian and Lebanese, or other, prisoners been subjected to treatment forbidden by international law, including inhuman or

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degrading treatment? Has there been a violation of international law arising out of the classification or denial of status to Palestinian prisoners or detainees? T he Commission concludes that Israel violated international rules dealing with prisoners, both civilians and fighters, particularly by denying Palestinian and Lebanese fighters prisoner-or-war status, as provided under Geneva Convention III of 1949 and the Additional Protocol I of 1977, and by subjecting these prisoners to unlawful treatment which included degrading treatment and brutality, on occasion leading to death, during arrest and transportation. Forbidden interrogation of detainees, both of prisoners-of-war and civilians, was often conducted with violence and sometimes torture, contrary to the Geneva Conventions. Detainees were intentionally deprived of medical care in camps both in Israel and at AlAnsar in Lebanon and have been kept in degrading conditions, all of which are contrary to the Conventions and the Protocol. 4. Has there been deliberate or indiscriminate or reckless bombard­ ment of civilian targets, for example: hospitals, schools or other non­ military objectives? The Commission concludes that the bombardment by the Israeli forces displayed at best a disregard for civilian objects such as hospitals, schools and dwellings; that on many occasions, the Israeli forces were careless in their bombardment of any distinction between military and civilian targets; and that at least some of the damage and destruction wrought was a consequence of deliberate and intentional bombardment of objects which could only have been perceived as civilian in nature. There were, therefore, clear violations of the laws of war. 5. Has there been systematic bombardment or other destruction of towns, cities, villages or refugee camps? T he Commission’s view is that the attacks and the bombardment by the Israeli forces of centres of population were, in many cases, disproportionate in their effects on civilian objects and population relative to any military advantage gained. The Commission concludes that there were violations of the principle of proportionality and acts of violence contrary to the laws of war. The responsibility for these violations lies upon those commanders of the Israeli forces and their political superiors who planned and decided upon attacks which could be expected to and did cause civilian casualties and damage and destruction to civilian objects excessive in relation to the military advantage, if any, anticipated. 6. Have the acts of the Israeli armed forces caused the dispersal, deportation, or ill-treatment of populations, in violation of international law?

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The Commission concludes that one of the principal aims of the invasion of Lebanon was to ensure the dispersal of the Palestinian population which was pursued through the destruction of the refugee camps and the massacres at Sabra and Chatila. The terror bombing of civilian areas, especially in Beirut, was partly motivated by a desire to ensure the dispersal of the population. As for the ill-treatment of the population, the practice of the forcible assembly of the population on the beaches at Tyre and Sidon resulted in the deprivation of food, water and medical attention for days and exposure in the sun. Thousands of persons, especially males between 14 and 60 were systematically detained, many of whom were deported to Israel to be imprisoned. These practices are in serious breach of the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I. 7. Has the Government of Israel valid reasons under international law for its invasion of Lebanon, for the manner in which it conducted hostilities, or for its actions as an occupying force? The Commission considers that the invasion of Lebanon by Israel is one of the most serious breaches of the international legal order in recent years. It has been attended by violence, death and destruction of enormous proportions and the gruesome massacres of September that followed the invasion are the direct consequence of the invasion. The invasion has no validity in international law as Israel did not have any grounds to rely on the provision of the Charter of the United Nations concerning self-defence, while the means used to effect the invasion totally lacked proportionality. The cease-fire of July 1981 had been observed scrupulously. TTie objective of the war, therefore, was to achieve certain political and strategic aims at a high cost, which included breaches of some of the most fundamental rules of international law. As for the Israeli justification for the conduct of hostilities, the principle of military necessity cannot excuse the massive destruction of buildings and the number of civilian casualties which resulted from Israeli operations. As for its actions as an occupying power, Israel’s need for security does not justify its violation of the territorial sovereignty of Lebanon or its illtreatment of the civilian population and protected persons such as prisonersof-war. 8. To what extent, if any, were the Israeli authorities or forces involved, directly or indirectly, in the massacres or other killings that were reported to have been carried out by the Lebanese militiamen in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in the Beirut area between the dates of 16 and 18 September? The Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities bear a heavy legal responsibility, as the occupying power, for the massacres at Sabra and

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Chatila. From the evidence disclosed, Israel was involved in the planning and the preparation of the massacres and played a facilitative role in the actual killings. The Commission draws attention to the fact that unlike crimes of State, such as the crime of aggression, where only the State is liable, crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity, as identified in paragraphs 1-8 above, invite individual responsibility, with an obligation on States to punish individuals or organisations in accordance with the rules of their internal law. The Nuremberg Principles, which are now part of customary international law, identified ‘leaders, organisations, instigators and accomplices, participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit* these crimes, as responsible for all acts performed by any persons in execution of such a plan. Under the Geneva Conventions of 1949, as supplemented by Protocol I of 1977, States party to the Conventions are obliged to prosecute individuals, regardless of nationality, for serious breaches of specific provisions of the Conventions. T he Commission, having considered the evidence and the relevant rules of law, concludes, in relation to the questions posed in its terms of reference, that: 1. The Government of Israel has com mined acts of aggression contrary to international law. 2. The Israeli armed forces have made use of weapons or methods of warfare forbidden by international law, including the laws of war. 3. Palestinian, Lebanese and prisoners of other nationalities have been subjected to treatment forbidden by international law, including inhuman and degrading treatment. In addition, there has been a violation of international law arising out of a denial of prisoner-of-war status to Palestinian prisoners or detainees. 4. There has been deliberate or indiscriminate or reckless bombard­ m ent of a civilian character, of hospitals, schools and other non-military targets. 5. There has been systematic bombardment and other destruction of towns, cities, villages and refugee camps. 6. The acts of the Israeli armed forces have caused the dispersal, deportation and ill-treatment of populations, in violation of international law. 7. The Government of Israel has no valid reasons under international law for its invasion of the Lebanon, for the manner in which it conducted hostilities or for its actions as an occupying force.

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8. Israeli authorities or forces were involved, directly or indirectly in the massacres and other killings that have been reported to have been carried out by Lebanese militiamen in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in the Beirut area between 16 and 18 September.

RECOMMENDATIONS 1. The Commission recommends the immediate withdrawal of all foreign armed forces present in Lebanon without the consent of the Government of Lebanon and recommends the replacement of the United States/France/ Italy multilateral force by an adequate security arrangement under United Nations auspices. 2. The Commission recommends that all refugee camps in Lebanon be protected in the future by adequate United Nations forces. The Commission considers that the international community through the United Nations should urgently examine what further measures are necessary to ensure the better protection of refugees, especially those who are victims of armed conflicts, by such means as the clarification and elaboration of principles of refugee law. The recognition of the special status of refugee camps will provide greater protection, as would the wider acceptance of the basic principles for the protection of civilian populations in armed conflicts as laid down by General Assembly resolution 2675 of 9 December 1970. 3. The Commission recommends, in the spirit of the Geneva Conventions and Protocols, that adequate steps be taken to implement the solemn obligation of States to uphold the law of war in all its as peas. In pursuit of this end, given the grave breaches of the laws of war committed by Israel during the Lebanon War, it is recommended that the Secretary-General of the United Nations appoint a special expert body to advise on the best steps to improve compliance with the existing law of war by all States. 4. The Commission recommends that all Parties to the Geneva Conventions carry out their legal obligation to prosecute individuals guilty of grave breaches of the laws of war. Such obligations seem particularly relevant to the apprehension of Israeli and Lebanese political and military leaders and participants involved in the massacres at Chatila and Sabra. The Geneva Conventions require the Parties to use their national courts to carry out this responsibility and the Commission recommends that this requirement be honoured in the present instance. 5. The Commission recommends that the Government of Israel make reparation for all damage done in Lebanon by violation of international law.

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This obligation includes a duty to compensate victims and the survivors. 6. The Commission recommends the payment by Israel of a full indemnity to the Government of Lebanon in respect of the damage inflicted on Lebanese property arising from and incidental to the invasion and occupation of Lebanese territory by Israeli forces. In default of agreement as to the amount payable to the Government of Lebanon, the matter should be submitted to international arbitration. 7. The Commission recommends that Israel should pay to the International Committee of the Red Cross and other voluntary bodies compensation adequate to reimburse such voluntary organisations for the cost of supplies and services provided by them arising from the Israeli invasion and occupation of the Lebanon. In default of an agreement, the amount in each case should be determined by an assessor appointed by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. 8. The Commission recommends that the United Nations set up a special international tribunal to investigate and prosecute individuals charged with crimes of state, especially in connection with the Chatila and Sabra massacres. Such prosecutions should be carried by due legal process and with fairness to the accused. 9. The Commission recommends that a competent international body be designated or established to clarify the conception of genocide in relation to Israeli policies and practices toward the Palestinian people. 10. T he Commission proposes the suspension of all financial support and of all supplies, direct or indirect, to Israel of any arms or other military equipment (including aircraft, tanks, ammunition, bulldozers etc.) by any member state of the United Nations until the Government of Israel accepts and complies with such of the Commission’s recommendations as are applicable to Israel. A. K. Asmal B. Bercusson R. A. Falk S. MacBride G. de la Pradelle S. Wild

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Appendix I M ajority Note on G enocide and Ethnocide One of the most serious allegations which can be made against a government is that it is either guilty of the crime of genocide or that its policies are genocidal in intent. The emotiveness of such an accusation, in the context of the invasion of Lebanon, is increased when it is recognised that the development of international rules and a moral sensitivity arose largely because of the experience of the Holocaust and the mass extermination policies of the Nazis towards racial or national groups. The Commission is aware that Israeli policies towards Palestinians have been described as ‘genocidal’, either in relation to the overall policies of the Israeli State towards Palestinians in general or because those adopted in the occupied West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem since 1967 and the attempts to remove the Palestinian presence in Lebanon from 1967 onwards. The particular form of genocide as applied to the Palestinians does not appear to be aimed at killing the Palestinians in a systematic fashion. It could be argued that if this was the intention, many more could have been killed. The specific form of genocide which can be said to apply is the adoption of all kinds of measures, short of killing, to destroy the national culture, political autonomy and national will in the context of the Palestinian struggle for national liberation and self-determination. The definition of genocide is not limited to the formula adopted by the United Nations in of 1948. The legal concept of genocide is quite consistent with identifying policies designed to destroy the identity and will of a national group, as well as the Nazi paradigm of the Holocaust. Governments rarely, if ever, declare and document genocidal plans in the manner of the Nazis. It is from the effect of governmental policies and, on occasion, articulated reasons for particular behaviour, that intent and objective can be identified. But the notion of genocide was never meant to cover simply the physical extermination of a people. Long before the adoption of the United Nations Convention on Genocide in 1948 Raphael Lemkin, who coined the word, explained that genocide was intended to signify a co-ordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of the essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves.1 The Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal in 1946 saw the first international illustration of the use of the word, in the indictment constituting crimes

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against humanity. T he General Assembly o f the U nited Nations, in a resolution adopted unanimously (Res. 96-1, 1946), laid down that the crime o f genocide could also occur independently o f war crim es or a war of aggression.2 T h e formal legal basis o f the crim e of genocide is that provided for by the U n ited Nations Genocide Convention,’ adopted by the General Assembly in 1948 and ratified by Israel, among a large num ber o f states. Genocide is confirmed as a crim e under international law whether committed in tim e of peace or in tim e o f war (Article I). Article II defines genocide, for the purpose o f this Convention (emphasis supplied), as the enumerated acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole o r in p a n , a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such. T h e acts enum erated are: (a)

Killing members o f the group;

(b)

Causing serious bodily o r mental harm to members o f the group;

(c)

Deliberately inflicting o n the group conditions o f life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in pan;

(d)

Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e)

Forcibly transferring children o f the group to another group.

A nicle IV imposes liability on individuals ‘whether they are consti­ tutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals’. Genocide, conspiracy to direct and public incitement to, attem pt to commit an d complicity in genocide punishable offences. T h e Convention reflects customary international law and the W orld C o urt, in the Barcelona Traction Case, in 1970 gave genocide as one o f the examples of jus cogens, fundamental o r basic norms o f international law, which cannot be varied by treaty or the development o f a customary rule of international law.4 T h e definition o f genocide in the Convention was the result o f a compromise. T he definition provided by the A d Hoc Working G roup o f the General Assembly, prior to the adoption of the Convention, referred to ‘any deliberate act committed w ith the intent to destroy the language, religion or culture o f a national, racial o r religious group on grounds o f the national, racial or religious belief o f its members, such as 1.

Prohibiting the use o f the language o f a group;

2.

Destroying or preventing the use o f libraries, museums, schools, national monuments, places o f worship o r other cultural institutions and objects o f the group’.

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In contemporary writing and attitudes, cultural genocide or ‘sociocide’ is increasingly playing a prominent pan. This development takes into account, in addition to those features described by the Ad Hoc Working Group, acts depriving a group of the right to create art, maintain basic social institutions, preserve memories and traditions, work in co-operation towards social goals5, which may also be referred to as ‘ethnocide'. The massacres that took place at Sabra and Chatila in September 1982 can be described as genocidal massacres, and the term ‘complicity in genocide* is wide enough to establish the responsibility of Israel for these acts. But the denial of nationality to Palestinians has resulted in all Palestinian social institutions being considered to be part of the apparatus of the ‘terrorists of the PLO'. The borderline between Mr Begin's claim to ‘eliminate the PLO* and the total destruction of the social organisation of the Palestinian people in Lebanon is a very narrow one and the constant reference to the need to ‘purify' the territory of the Lebanon of PLO elements has been conducive to attacks on the autonomy of the Palestinian people. The Commission has been provided with evidence of the large-scale social, economic and political organisation of the Palestinians in Lebanon. Since 1975, a considerable infrastructure has been established to provide not only an economy, jobs, education, training, sophisticated medical services and transport for Palestinians, but also basic social institutions to ‘preserve memories and traditions’ had been established.6 The evidence covering the destruction of schools, training centres, museums and in some cases hospitals, has been clearly presented to the Commission.7 The effect of this destruction, especially in the South, has been devastating. Associated with the refusal by Israel to accept the status of the Palestine Red Crescent Society as a humanitarian body, has been the systematic destruction of or transfer to Israel of the records, documents, artefacts, books etc. associated with the Palestinian people. The total destruction of the work of the Centre for Palestine Studies and the removal of their archives, as with Palestinian offices in Beirut, has been clearly documented.8 The Commission considers that there is evidence to show a relationship between Israeli policies in the West Bank and the treatment of Palestinians in those dispersal areas occupied by Israel in Lebanon. There has been a conscious attempt to disrupt the social organisation of the Palestinian people to ensure that, through their disposal, their sense of identity and group loyalty would be weakened, if not destroyed. In any event, Israel is in breach of the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict of 1954, and its associated Protocol.9 This UNESCO-inspired treaty has been described as the first systematic international agreement for the protection of intellectual property, which is defined very broadly. Apart from the expected reference to property of great importance to the ‘cultural heritage of every people', such as monuments of architecture, works of art, etc, Article I refers to ‘manuscripts, books and other objects of artistic, historical

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or archaeological interest; as well as scientific collections and important collections of books or archives or of reproductions of the property defined above’. This definition of cultural property, which also covers buildings whose ‘main and effective purpose is to preserve or exhibit the moveable cultural property such as museums, large libraries and depositories of archives’, is stated to cover items 'irrespective of origm or ownership' (the Commission’s emphasis).10 The Parties to the Convention ‘undertake to prohibit, prevent and, if necessary, put a stop to any form of theft, pillage or misappropriation of, and any acts of vandalism directed against cultural property. They shall refrain from requisitioning moveable cultural property situated in the territory of another High Contracting Party’.11 Article IV lays down other duties, such as to avoid reprisals against cultural property and to protea such property. T he Protocol of 1954 obliges High Contracting States to prevent the export from a territory occupied by it during an armed conflict, of cultural property. Where this has in fact occurred, then States are further obliged to take into their custody property imported into their territory directly or indirectly from any occupied territory. High Contracting Parties have to return, at the end of hostilities ‘to the competent authorities of the territory previously occupied’, cultural property illegally exported. Such property cannot be retained as war reparations. Israel ratified the Convention in 1957 and the Protocol in 1958, while Lebanon ratified both these instruments in 1960. These provisions oblige Israel to return ‘cultural property’ as defined in these texts which was appropriated and removed from Lebanon during and after the invasion and which forms part of the patrimony of the Palestinian people. The majority of the Commission adopts the view that the pattern of activity dealt with in the Report substantiates the allegation of the deliberate destruction of the national and cultural rights and the identity of the Palestinian people and that this constitutes a form of genocide. It should be emphasised that this conclusion does not suggest an Israeli intention to exterminate in a physical sense the people of Palestine as a whole or in part. W hat the majority of the Commission has in mind is a different form of genocide which is of sufficient gravity to warrant the most serious concern and censure. Two members of the Commission are of the view that while Israeli policy and practices in Lebanon are a violation of international humanitarian law, they do not amount to the crime of genocide. Similar policies and practices, apparent in the actions of other States, are not condemned as genocidal. In the view of these two members, the legal conclusion of genocide, a crime so special and particular, which requires so horrible an intent, cannot be applied to Israeli actions, however gravely they violate humanitarian standards and although many Palestinians perceive these actions as genocidal.

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Refe ren ces

1. 2.

Cited in Leo Kruper, Genocide, Penguin, 1982. Resolution 96-1 of 1946 (General Assembly). See Documents on the Laws of War, edited by Adam Roberts & Richard Guelff (Oxford) 1982, pp. 153-6. 3. Full text of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide can be found in Documents on the Laws of War, ibid, pp. 157-168. 4. International Court of Justice Reports 1970. 5. Beardsley 1976, cited in LeoKruper, op.cit. 6. E. Said, The Question of Palestine,RKP 1978. 7. Testimonies to the Commission of Marwan Hamade, Beirut, 3 September 1982; M. Barakat, Beirut, 2 September 1982; meeting with 2 doctors and the hospital Director General at Barbir Hospital, 1 September 1982; and Petra Croll, Oslo, 19 October 1982. 8. Testimonies to the Commission of Walid Joumblatt, Beirut, 3 September 1982; Marwan Hamade, Beirut, 3 September 1982; David McDowell, Beirut, 2 September 1982, My a Shone and Ralph Schoenman, Oslo, 30 October 1982 9. Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event o f Armed Conflict, 1954, Protocol; as quoted in Documents on the Laws o f W ar, op cit p. 339. 10. Ibid, Art. 1, para. 1. 11. Ibid, Art. 4, para. 3.

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Appendix II List o f W itnesses and Organisations who gave evidence to the Com m ission LEBANON (1st Visit) Dr Adel Afifi, American Hospital, Beirut Dr Samih Alami, American Hospital, Beirut Marwan Anis, Director, Barbir Hospital Anon, Consultant to the UN Hedla Ayyubi, Akka Hospital Mohammed Barakat, Muslim Orphanage, Director of Social Welfare Institutions Dr Nasib Barbir, owner of Barbir Hospital Nabih Berri, Amal Movement Nina Busch, Norwegian nurse Fuad Boutros, Foreign Minister Moustafa Dumaiqah, Minister of Agriculture M ounir Abu-Fadel, Vice-President, The National Parliament G erard La Fitte, Director, Lyc6e Verdun, Beirut Jean-Jacques Frezard, International Committee of Red Cross Marwan Hamade, Minister of Tourism and Information Georges Howi, Lebanese MP and Vice-President, Lebanese National Movement Mary Jean Grove-Hills, nurse Richard Grove-Hills, Representative, Save the Children Fund Shafik al-Hout, PLO representative in Lebanon Mr X , volunteer Lebanese Red Cross ambulance driver Ali Ismael, accountant Hassib Abdul Jawad, South Lebanon Trade Union Federation Jerome Pasquier, French Embassy Walid Joumblatt, Lebanese National Movement; President, Lebanese Progressive Socialist Party Mona Kanafani, Sidon Professor Rashid Khalidi, American University of Beirut Dr Abourahman Laban, Minister of Labour and Social Affairs David McDowell, Oxfam Radwan Mawlawi, Director General, Ministry of Information Dr Usama Mugharbel, Barbir Hospital Dr Nabila Nashashibi, Administrator, Akka Hospital

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Inam Raad, Leader of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party Dr Ameen Ramzy, surgeon/traumatologist, Gaza Hospital Dr Ziyad Renno, anaesthetist Moustafa Saad, Member of the Lebanese National Movement, Sidon Dr Saeb Salam, former Prime Minister Ahmed Abdul Salah Kasim Saleh, Representative in South Lebanon, Syrian Social N ationalist Party Professor Kamal Salibi, American University of Beirut Dr Amal Shamaa, paediatrician, Barbir Hospital Janet Stevens, journalist, United States Dr Samir Tabet, Acting President, American University of Beirut M r Shafik Al-Wazzan, Prime Minister Two representatives of the Lebanese National Movement and of the Communist Party of Lebanon A former prisoner in Al-Ansar Five members of the Beirut Working Group on Israeli War Crimes A doctor at the American Hospital A doctor in South Lebanon JERUSALEM AND WEST BANK Dr Melvyn H. Brooks, Israeli doctor Walid Fahum, Advocate, Deputy Mayor of Nazareth Tamar Gojanski Yoramo Gojanski Amnon Kapeliouk, journalist Dr Yehuda Melzer, ‘There is a Limit* movement Muhammed Miari, Chairman of Prisoners* Committee Yaron Pik, Israeli soldier Shimshon Roth, Israeli soldier Captain S, Israeli soldier Professor Israel Shahak, Israel League of Human Rights (also interviewed in Paris) Gideon Spiro, Israeli soldier Ziad Abu Ziad, Al Fajr newspaper An officer of the Israeli Civil Assistance Unit in Lebanon AMMAN Najib al-Ahmed, Director, PLO office, Member of Jordanian Parliament Yasir Amr Company Commander Gabbary, Palestine Liberation Army Suleiman al-Hadidi, President, Jordanian Bar Association Crown Prince Hassan Rouhi al-Khatib, Mayor of Jerusalem

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APPENDIX 2 WITNESSES AND ORGANIZATIONS

Mohamed Milhcm, Mayor of Halhoul Dr Hattan Mustapha, PLO medical officer Dr Hanna Nasir, President, Bir Zeit University Adnan Abu Odeh, Minister of Information, Acting Prime Minister Sgt Ali Othman, Palestine Liberation Army Lt-Col Mohamed Qudsia, Chief of Staff, Palestine Liberation Army Ghazi al Saad, Editor of Dar al Jalil Sheik Abdul Hamid Al-Sayegh, Islamic Court of Appeal Lt-Col Subehi, Brigade Commander, PL A A United Nations representative LONDON Dr Fathi Arafat, Director, Palestine Red Crescent Society F. Barraji, lawyer, Lebanon Dr Steinar Berge, doctor, Norway Major Derek Cooper and Mrs Cooper E. Makhlouf, Palestine Red Crescent Society OSLO Dr Constantinos Alexiou, doctor, Greece Liv Berit Bredby, nurse, Norway Dr Francis Capet, Belgium Mahmoud Darwish, PLO Cultural Department and Palestinian poet Dr Loucas Floros, doctor, Greece Dr Mads Gilbert, doctor, Norway Dr Bemt Heger, Norway Ryuichi Hirowaka, photographer and journalist, Japan Dr Shafiq al-Islam, doctor, Bangladesh Dr Franklin Lamb, researcher, USA Dr Terje Lung, general practitioner, Norway Dr Per Maehlumschlagen Pascal Mathey, nurse, France Ralph Schoenman, journalist, USA Mya Shone, journalist, USA Dr Auden Tommessen, anaesthetist, Norway DAM ASCUS Abu Asim, Emergency Department, Palestine Red Crescent Society Mrs Ellen Blic, nurse, Norway Dr Said Dajani, Palestine Red Crescent Society Abu el-Fadel, Palestine Red Crescent Society Abu Jihad, Palestine Liberation Organisation Dr Michael Lichtwarck-Aschoff, doctor, West Germany Dr Mouwafaq, Palestine Red Crescent Society Khalia Salam

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Yamani, journalist, Iraq Staff from Jaffa Hospital LEBANON (2nd Visit) Georges Assaf, attorney D r David Grey, doctor Gaza Hospital, United Kingdom Beirut Working Group on Israeli War Crimes Sabri Jiryis, Director-General, Palestine Research Centre D r Usama Khalidi D r Waed Kheir, attorney Dr Swee Chai Ang Khoo D r Phil McKenna, doctor, Ireland Ralph Miller, Mennonite Central Committee D r Troy Rusli, doctor, Norway Dr Samir Sabbagh, Vice-President, Mourabitoun Dr Georges Toume, President, The Lebanese University A former prisoner from Al-Ansar Camp Former prisoner in Al-Ansar and Israel Two American soldiers Two representatives of American relief organisations A Lebanese civil servant CYPRUS D r Enrico Melson, doctor, United States

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Appendix III Chronology o f Events

4.6.82

5.6.82 6.6.82

7.6.82

8.6.82

9.6.82

Israeli Airforce bombs West Beirut and the South in retaliation for attempted assassination of Israeli ambassador in London. P LO -ID F artillery battles in border UN Security Council area. Continued bombardments. Resolution 508. ‘Operation Peace for Galilee* begins. UN SC Resolution 509 Claimed objective: to push Palestinian Lebanese Govt, seeks forces to a 40km distance from Israeli Arab Summit Lebanese border. ID F pushes on Conference to confront three axes into South Lebanon Israeli invasion. through U N IFIL-controlled territory. ID F enters and captures Tyre, US special envoy Philip Nabatiyeh, Hasbaiya. 40km line in Habib starts mission. many places passed. Streetfighting in Begin ‘gives* Chateau Sidon. Air-raids on Damour, Naam6, Beaufort to Saad West Beirut. Haddad. Israeli spokesman in Washington says war-aim is complete destruction of PLO influence in Lebanon. Sidon captured. ID F occupies Chouf US vetoes SC Resolution province (Druze stronghold). demanding immediate and unconditional retreat of ID F from Lebanon. EEC condemns Israeli Syrian SAM-6 missile sites in Beka*a destroyed by ID F airforce. ID F tanks invasion of Lebanon. 10km south of Beirut.

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10.6.82

11.6.82 12.6.82

13.6.82

14.6.82 15.6.82

Air-raids on Southern Beirut (UNESCO, Bir Hassan, Corniche Mazra); failure to land airborne units in Beirut Airport. Syrian-IDF fighting in Beka’a. ID F strike (air, sea, land) South Beirut and airport. Bridgehead at Khald*. IDF-Palestinian + Lebanese allies fighting in the Southern outskirts of Beirut. ID F joins Christian militia in Baabda (location of Lebanese Presidential Palace). First blockade of West Beirut begins. 4Mopping-up* operations in southern Lebanon. ID F line up with Christian Militia in East Beirut. ID F reaches BeirutDamascus highway. Palestinian camp Ain el-Hilweh overrun.

Habib meets President Assad in Damascus.

Israel proposes ceasefire to Syria, which accepts. Ceasefire (first cease­ fire between ID F and Palestinian forces mediated by UN).

Setting up of Lebanese National Salvation Committee. Israel demands that Syrian forces leave Beirut and surrounding areas. Sharon says that final agreement on withdrawal will have to include all foreign forces — Syrian, Palestinian and Israeli. Syria rejects call of Sarkis to withdraw forces from Beirut.

16.6.82

Israeli forces advance near Beirut airport — occupy science faculty.

17.6.82

Air, land, naval bombardment of air­ port and southern suburbs of West Beirut. In the Chouf the town of Aley bombarded. Israel declares unilateral ceasefire. ID F moves into Beirut ‘Green-Line’ area dividing East and West Beirut. Continued bombing of southern suburbs and Aley. UN SC Resolution 512 Israeli forces break ceasefire. to aid civilians. Shelling of residential areas and southern suburbs of West Beirut. Meeting of National Night shelling of residential areas Salvation Committee and southern suburbs of West Beirut. with Joumblatt, Berri and Gemayel.

18.6.82

19.6.82 20.6.82

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APPENDIX 3 CHRONOLOGY OF EVENTS 2 1 .6 .8 2

Continued heavy shelling and bombing of West Beirut. Palestinian guerrilla activity in southern Lebanon.

22.6.82

Continued heavy shelling of West Beirut.

23.6.82

Israeli forces advance in the mountains and shell dozens of villages. Intense ID F shelling of West Beirut. Capture of Bhamdoun, controlling Beirut-Damascus highway.

24.6.82

25.6.82

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Reagan supports Israel's demand that Syrian forces be withdrawn and a buffer zone be set up in South Lebanon to protect Israel from PLO attacks. Israel declares 3rd ceasefire. PLO offers to give up areas in West Beirut in return for Israeli withdrawal from southern suburbs of Beirut. PLO offer rejected by Israel. US Foreign Minister Haig resigns. Israel agrees to 4th ceasefire. Joumblatt recognises that PLO must leave Beirut. Joumblatt resigns from National Salvation Committee. US vetoes Security Council Resolution calling for withdrawal of Israeli and Palestinian armed forces from battle zone in West Beirut. Israel demands that PLO lay down arms and leave Beirut under Red Cross supervision. Creation of LebanesePalestinian Committee to discuss Palestinian armed presence in Lebanon.

26.6.82

ID F drops leaflets on West Beirut urging civilians to flee; ceasefire generally in force. Israeli troops enter Aley. Ceasefire holding.

27.6.82

ID F continue to leaflet West Beirut.

28.6.82

Continued leafletting of West Beirut. Ceasefire holding.

30.6.82

Partial cutting of water and electricity in West Beirut. Bashir Gemayel travels Mock air-raids over West Beirut. to Saudi Arabia. Saeb Salam declares that the

1.7.82

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Palestinian leaders have decided to leave Beirut — details of time and destination to be decided. 2.7.82 3.7.82

4.7.82

5.7.82 6.7.82

7.7.82

8.7.82 9.7.82

10.7.82

Artillery bombardment of southern suburbs and mock air-raids over Beirut. Total blockade of West Beirut. PLO presents Lebanese Govt, with written proposals to submit to Habib. Arafat submits six point plan to Saeb Salam indicating a readiness to evacuate PLO leaders and fighters. Total cut of electricity, partial cut Israel rejects PLO of water as Israel further tightens proposals. UN SC its blockade. Resolution 513 repudiates all violence against civilians in Lebanon. Calls for respect towards civil rights without discrimination. Collapse of ceasefire. Heavy bombardment of West Beirut. Total economic and military siege in force. Heavy bombardment of West Beirut US offer to send marines for supervising continues. PLO evacuation rejected by PLO. Arab countries and Continuing bombardment of West USSR object to the Beirut. Israel creates new militia sending of US troops. ‘the National Guard* charged with patrolling UN I FI L zone. Shelling of southern suburbs. Water and electricity restored. Supplies still interrupted. David Levy, Israeli Worst shelling of West Beirut since deputy PM, states for invasion. Shelling of Israeli positions in East Beirut. first time publicly that Beirut is the object of the Israeli invasion. Continued intensive PLO /Israeli exchanges. O rig in a l fro m

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11.7.82

Intensified shelling of West Beirut. Shelling of presidential palace. Ceasefire arranged through US mediation.

12.7.82

Ceasefire holds.

13.7.82 13.7.82

Ceasefire holds. Ceasefire holds.

14.7.82

15.7.82

12th day of siege.

16.7.82

6th ceasefire holding now for five days.

17.7.82

18.7.82 19.7.82

Ceasefire holds. Mock air raids over West Beirut.

PLO plan for evacuation sent to French and Saudi Governments. General Shmuel Zakay announces that Israel has captured nine thousand Palestinian and Syrian prisoners. Arafat and Lebanese PM Wazzan tacitly agree on multi-national peace-keeping force to supervise PLO evacuation and later protect refugee camps and leftist Muslim groups. Arab summit on Lebanon postponed. Saeb Salam states that Arafat has agreed to Lebanese Govt, demand for departure of all armed forces from Lebanon. Syria declares that it refuses to accept any Palestinian forces from Beirut. Saad Haddad declares that his militia controls an area extending 55km north of the Israeli border. Meeting between Walid Joumblatt and Bashir Gemayel. Joumblatt leaves for Syria and Jordan. Joumblatt returns to Beirut after meeting King Hussein and President Assad. Assad declares Syrian forces

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in Beirut will not be withdrawn. Reagan temporarily withholds shipments of cluster bombs and spare parts to Israel. 20.7.82 21.7.82

22.7.82 23.7.82

24.7.82

25.7.82

26.7.82 27.7.82

28.7.82 29.7.82

Mock air-raids over West Beirut. Intense air-raids on West Beirut. Air-raids on Syrian positions in the Beka’a. Air-raids and artillery shelling of West Beirut. IDF-Syrian fighting in Beka’a Valley. Air-raids and shelling of West Beirut. M r Shamir declares that the ‘Peace for Galilee’ operation was arranged with the total approval of Washington. Air-raids and artillery shelling of Bashir Gemayel West Beirut. Israel attacks Syrian nominated as candidate for president of missile batteries in the Beka’a. Republic. Air-raids in Beirut and the Beka’a. Heavy shelling including crossing points. Naval bombardment followed by rocket and artillery attacks. Air, land and naval bombardment of West Beirut. Continuation of intensified raids and Lebanon protests to U N shelling of West Beirut. Joint forces SC over escalation of West Beirut shelling. shell Israeli positions in East Beirut. US bans cluster bomb shipment to Israel. 7th ceasefire arranged by Habib. SC Resolution 515, Ceasefire violated. Night shelling calling for the lifting of West Beirut. Siege continues — no water or electricity for 5th day. of the blockade. US abstains. Jeddah-Arab League proposals for International Force and evacuation of PLO. PLO wants plan linked with comprehensive solution to Palestinian problem. PLO fighters

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to be evacuated to Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Jordan. 30.7.82 31.7.82 1.8.82

2.8.82

3.8.82 4.8.82

7th ceasefire broken. Air, land and naval bombardment. 8th ceasefire announced. Air, land and naval bombardment of West Beirut. Massive bombardment of all areas of West Beirut by air, land, sea, 185,000 shells fall on West Beirut. ID F takes airport. Official ceasefire. Israeli sporadic shelling of West Beirut. PLO retaliation. ID F tanks move into central Beirut area close to ‘Green Line*. Israeli shelling of southern suburbs of West Beirut. Intense shelling and aerial bombard­ ment of West Beirut including hotel area. Advance into West Beirut on three axes. Israeli advance checked.

5.8.82

Unofficial ceasefire. Artillery shelling well into the night directed at southern suburbs and Museum crossing point.

6.8.82

Unofficial ceasefire (10th) violated. Air-raids on residential areas. Heavy fighting around museum crossing point. Shelling of camps in West Beirut. ID F takes position in Jounieh and deploys its forces in the whole Kataeb-controlled area.

8.8.82

UN SC Resolution 516 to deploy UN observers in West Beirut. Calls for cessation of hostilities. ID F prevent UN observers from reaching Beirut.

Reagan calls on PLO to evacuate Beirut immediately. Security Council Resolution 517 calls on Israel to return to lines held on 1st August. US abstains. Arafat drops condition of ID F withdrawal from Beirut area before PLO pull out. Demands safe passage for PLO. Israel refuses UN observers and rejects proposal to withdraw behind pre-lst August lines. US vetoes UN SC resolution demanding embargo on Israel. Arafat declares to ‘Le Monde', ‘we have agreement with Lebanese Government

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9.8.82

Air-raids and shelling of West Beirut till well into the night.

10.8.82

Air, land and naval shelling of West Beirut. Attacks on Syrian missile position in Dahr el Beidar.

11.8.82

Air, land and naval shelling. Continuing deployment of Israelis in Phalangist controlled areas.

12.8.82

11 hours of air, land and naval shelling. Heaviest shelling since invasion. 11th ceasefire declared by by Israel.

13.8.82

Ceasefire holds.

14.8.82

Sporadic shelling of southern suburbs of West Beirut.

on evacuation to Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq*. U S/PLO /Lebanon agree on Habib plan. Jordanian PM declares Jordan ready to receive Pal. fighters. Letter from Begin to Shultz that Israel agrees to arrival of M N F but only after departure of most of PLO forces. Lebanon opposed to holding summit. New Habib plan: Simul­ taneous departure of PLO and arrival of MNF. Syria declares readiness to accept all Palestinian forces evacuated from Beirut. Israel accepts in principle Habib’s evacuation plan, but demands certain modifications. Israel blocks final agreement to Habib plan by objecting to UN observers and timetable of multi-national force. Lebanese Government interrupts Habib negotiations. UN SC demands immediate end to fighting, lifting of Beirut blockade and allowing in UN observers. Lebanese representative at Arab League resists attempts to hold Arab summit meeting. Syria declares readiness to withdraw troops from West Beirut.

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15.8.82

Ceasefire holds.

17.8.82

Sporadic fighting in Beka'a. ID F pull out of Lebanese parliament to allow for the presidential elections.

19.8.82

21.8.82

22.8.82 23.8.82 24.8.82 25.8.82 26.8.82 27.8.82 28.8.82 29.8.82

PLO gives Habib list of names of fighters leaving Beirut. Arafat on French TV gives his word to Lebanese people that PLO is leaving Beirut. UN extends U N IF IL mission for two months. Postponement of Lebanese presidential elections. Israel agrees to Habib plan and loosens economic siege of Beirut. UN General Assembly condemns Israel and endorses Palestinian right to national independence (with US and Israel voting against). Leb. Govt, requests despatch of military forces from US, Italy and France to supervise evacuation.

18.8.82

20.8.82

211

Israeli forces withdraw from Beirut port. Lebanese soldiers take over. ID F pull back from ‘Green Line’. Departure of PLO fighters. First day: 262 to Jordan, 135 to Iraq. 982 to Tunisia. 700 to Aden. 750 to North Yemen. 560 to Syria by sea. 400 to Sudan. 7th group departs: 786 to Syria. 524 by sea to Syria, 1,500 Pal. Lib. Army, overland to Syria. 660 by sea to Syria. 570 by sea to Syria. 1,280 PL A overland to Syria.

French troops arrive.

Bashir Gemayel elected President. American officers arrive. American marines arrive.

IDF General Eitan: Lebanese leftist militias must also leave West Beirut.

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30.8.82 31.8.82

1.9.82 10.9.82 11.9.82 13.9.82 14.9.82

15.9.82

16.9.82

18.9.82

20.9.82

21.9.82 23.9.82 26.9.82

1,500 Syrian troops overland to Syria. Yasser Arafat and 62 others leave by sea to Athens. 900 by sea to North Yemen; 1,000 Israel accuses PLO Syrian soldiers overland to Syria. of handing over its heavy weapons to leftist militia. 13th and last group of 650 by sea to Syria. American forces leave. Italian forces leave. Israeli airforce bombs Beka'a. French troops leave. Massive bomb blast kills president­ elect Bashir Gemayel with 50-60 colleagues in Phalangist headquarters in East Beirut. ID F enters West Beirut. Israel claims entering West Beirut necessary to prevent serious incidents following Bashir Gemayel’s assassination. Israeli-Kataeb planning Near total ID F occupation of West to send Christian Beirut against sporadic resistance of militia. Encirclement of West Beirut militia into refugee camps. Joint forces Pal. camps. Christian militia enter Sabra and Chatila camps. Massacre of leftist militia continuing to fight continues until 18.9.82. ID F. Nomination of Amin Gemayel as candidate for presidency. Haddad militia accused of playing a role in massacres by Lebanese press. Gradual thinning out of ID F from US, France, Italy agree to send troops West Beirut. Lebanese Army takes to Beirut. 40 UN over some positions. observers arrive. Amin Gemayel elected President. First units of multi-national force arrive in West Beirut. ID F pulls out of West Beirut.

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A p p e n d ix IV M aps

© Le Monde Source: Le Monde, Special Issue, October 1982, page 3 A pproxim ate distribution o f predominantly Christian and Muslim areas before the beginning o f the 1975 Civil War.

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© The Guardian Source: Guardian, 8 June 1982 First days o f Israeli invasion.

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© Le Monde T h e dotted line (....) indicates the ‘G reen Line’ separating East Beirut (Christian) and W est Beirut (mainly Muslim and Palestinian). T he house­ like symbols show the Palestinian camps existing in June 1982.

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Source: Sunday Times, 26 September 1982 Maps shows where Israeli troops were deployed when Christian militia moved into camps and where mass graves were later discovered.

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Appendix V Selected Testimony and Reports

In the course of its investigation, the Commission considered evidence o f many kinds which was presented to it in Lebanon, in Israel, elsewhere in the Middle East, and in Europe. The evidence included testimony, both spoken and written, from ministers and officials, medical personnel, welfare workers, soldiers, refugees, journalists and others. Through the work of its research team the Commission also had access to a very wide selection of other evidence provided by the international press and broadcasting services. This appendix contains a selection from this mass of material which has Particular relevance to one section or another of the Commission's report.

Evidence relating to Israeli War Aim s Extract from an article published in The Guardian on 28 June 1982, by Michael Adams

In a half-page advertisement in The Guardian and other newspapers the Zionist Federation of Great Britain has claimed that the invasion was aimed at ‘liberating Israel's civilian population from continuous acts of terror and aggression'. But every authority agrees, including The Guardian, The Times and the British Foreign Secretary, that it was Israel itself and not the Palestinians who broke the cease-fire along Israeli’s northern border and that the PLO had in fact shown considerable restraint in the face of Israeli bombing raids on south Lebanon and Beirut. • • When General Sharon persuaded Begin to allow him to embark on the invasion of Lebanon, was his aim merely to eliminate the PLO as a fighting organisation - and if so, could its cost in blood and destruction possibly be justified? Or was there a different, a much wider objective? It is a question ®any people have asked and the most authoritative answer to it has come from a Jew and a Zionist, a man who has been closely associated for longer than anyone else now living with the Zionist movement and the emergence °f the Jewish state, the former president of the World Jewish Congress, Dr Nahum Goldman. In the course of an interview published in The Guardian on 18 June, Dr Goldman told the paper’s Paris correspondent that he thought the Israeli

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action in Lebanon ‘out of all proportion to the threat faced on the northern border* (of Israel). And he went on to say, in what was surely a carefully considered judgment: ‘The apparent aim is to liquidate the Palestinian people - something you cannot do to four million people.* □

The following are extracts from an article by the Jerusalem correspondent of The Times which was published on 29 July under the headline Iaracl*a b attle againat tim e

. . . Professor Yuval Ne*eman, Israel’s newest cabinet minister yesterday described occupied Lebanon up to the port city of Sidon as pan of Eretz Israel - the biblical land of Israel - and he advocated that Israel’s army should now remain there for an extended period of ‘years rather than months’. He said that Israel should put special emphasis on control of events in the southern part of the country to the Zahrani river, ‘because that area touches on us from every point of view*. Among projects which his party would be pressing for inside the Cabinet was joint use of the resources of the Litani river a few miles north of Israel’s present border. ‘What I am saying does not precisely involve a change in the border. It can be done without changing any borders’ he said. ‘We think that by invading, the Government has in fact started the last act of the war for this country, for the whole of Eretz Israel. It has also finally pricked the balloon of the PLO ’, he said. ‘It is now a matter of working every day and every month to accelerate the Jewish colonization of Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and Gaza. It is a battle of time now, because we know that the political pressures on the state of Israel to give it up will be tremendous. But if we create a Jewish presence there as we have around Jerusalem the idea will no longer be realistic.* The minister would not confirm reports of the price paid by the Government to secure Techiya’s entry into the coalition, but Israeli sources claimed it included an extra 6,000 housing units and seven new settlements in the West Bank and Gaza before the end of the year. □

Interview with Georges Howi, Vice-President of the Lebanese National Movement, in Beirut, 1 September 1982

. . . We have all reasons to think that the most important objective of the Israeli aggression against the Lebanon was not the Palestinian revolution, but the Lebanon itself as an independent country, an entity of existing confessions, of religions: its ecumenical development, progress, cultural

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activities, traditions and, if you want, even the morale of the population. I mean the psychological aspect. F or instance, in the port of Naame the Israelis bombed the population as well as the factories. They also carried out widespread sabotage, for example dynamiting some factories after they had occupied Naame. These actions could not have any military purpose. T hey are also cutting down the orange groves in the south on the pretext th a t the Palestinians are hiding in these orchards to carry out guerrilla raids. These orchards exist on both sides of a road which runs 50 kilometres from Sidon to T yre. On both sides there are oranges and all types o f fruit and vegetables. But this is not a jungle that the Palestinians can hide in, this is trees of oranges and bananas and other crops. T he reason (for cutting them down] is the economic competition betw een the Lebanese products and the Israeli products . . . I believe there is a plan to destroy all touristic installations, for instance th e Hotel Summerland, M aryland, Coral Beach, which are first class, m odern, American-style hotels on the coast - all completely destroyed. Also th e airport: even after the occupation they stole everything from the airport. F ro m the palace o f U N ESCO they have stolen considerable paintings and cultural heritage; paintings too from the Lebanese University - and from the faculty o f science they have stolen all the e q u ip m en t. . T h e tobacco factory have been destroyed, also the G handur factory - it’s o n e o f the largest in the Middle East; all kinds o f alimentation and chocolate are made there. This factory, which was 300 metres o f building, was damaged before the occupation b u t not all was destroyed. After the occupation the Israeli troops took everything and then destroyed it, destroyed with dynamite and they burned some parts o f the factory. There was a variety o f approaches to these factories. Sometimes the Israelis would steal, sometimes they b u m so that people can see they have been burned, sometimes they would use dynamite. U nder all conditions they stole all the equipment and machinery, specially electronic equipment. T hey have stolen even two aeroplanes, one helicopter and another private plane. T he Israeli press have spoken about this [but] they have not returned th e planes. T he Israeli troopers have even stolen television sets from homes in areas where they have occupied, and videos. [There are] a lot o f scandals a bout Israeli soldiers taking these videos on the tanks o n the way to Israel to sell them . Israel has announced [it] in the Israeli press. □

Extracts froman interview givento the Commission by Lebanese Prime Minister Shank al-Wazzan in Beirut on 2 September 1982. . . . O ne has to say one thing: th at mistakes lead to blunders and h arm entails evil. T h e Palestinian cause was not solved in 1948. They are waiting for their

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return to their homeland. They tried all possible means through the UN, the Arab governments, and by other means, but to no avail. . . As the Palestinians became desperate and hopeless because they could not return to their homeland by the intermediary of the UN, the Palestinian guerrilla movement took shape . . . The big mistake of the UN was to recognise the right of a people to have a country and to throw out the original inhabitants of that country . . . Every time something took place in Palestine, the Israelis threatened Lebanon. Lebanon carries a heavy burden because of the Palestinian presence . . . We know that the Israelis have a long expansionist plan to settle the Palestinians elsewhere. They say you, the Lebanese, should take some Palestinians and settle them in the south of Lebanon and in the Bekaa region, and the Arab countries should take charge of settling the rest of them. With this expansionist idea, Israel takes the pretext to invade or attack, using the argument that the purpose of its invasion is to arrive at a distance whereby the inhabitants of Galilee are no more subjected to any attack. And now they have reached a distance very far from their northern borders. There is already a phrase . . . that the Land of Israel is from the Nile to the Euphrates. Israel has succeeded with the help of its greatest ally to take the Arab world little by little: the Golan Heights, the West Bank, Gaza, and now the Lebanon. I don’t know whether they will leave . . . °

Interview with Marwan Hamade, Lebanese Minister of Tourism, in Beirut, 3 September 1982. Also present were Mustafa Durneika, Minister of Agriculture, and Munir Abu-Fadel, Deputy Speaker of the Lebanese Chamber of Deputies.

Hamade: Despite the accuracy of the Israeli [war] machine, we can ask why did they systematically hit hospitals, schools, dispensaries, religious monuments, mosques, factories (or loot what was not destroyed), hotels and touristic complexes, namely Carlton Hotel, the Coral Beach, the Summerland? Why did they loot Beirut airport, looting totally [the] mechanical department of the ME A [Middle East Airlines] which services almost all planes? They stole from the Trans-Mediterranean Airways and the Aero Club of Lebanon, even flying out projectors and transmitters from the airport terminal. (This was much after they have occupied it and battles have ceased to take place.) This is why we think they are trying to deprive Lebanon economically and socially and of its glamour, even in the eastern sector of Beirut. They looted mountain schools: the Jesuit School of Jamhour, Ecole N6tre Dame, Mont La Salle School, College des Freres Maris [?], College de l’Ordre Antoniah, College Louis Wagman in Bshemoun and College Athena in Bshemoun. Commission: Did the looting follow the same pattern or was it random? Hamade: It looked random, but with a green light. The Lebanese military

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commander, General Souweid, said that he spent his time running after the Israelis. They tried to interfere with the banking system, imposing on the banks to give them a complete list of their clients and their accounts, thus violating the bank secrecy which [Pcovers] the flow of all capital out of Lebanon. But the banks refused to comply with their attempts. In my own department they have destroyed touristic complexes and first estimates of the financial loss are 120-150 million dollars in this sector. They have tried to impose a touristic flow to Israel, in order to handicap national couriers and force Lebanese to take El Al, the Israeli national airline. This picture can be completed by what M r Dumeika can tell you as Minister of Agriculture. Dumeika: For two months we could find nothing but Israeli vegetables and fruits. The light industry sector was destroyed, along with the tourist sector and the [trade in] vegetables and fruits to the Arab countries. [Their] first idea is to bring the Lebanese population to accept the idea of cooperating w ith Israel at very cheap prices (because the Israeli products are subsidised), so [that] the Lebanese people will like to buy their cheap vegetable products. O ur products are usually exported to the Arab world, but now everything is closed [and] our farmers are in a very bad situation. They do not have enough income to cover their expenses. They have cut [down] all orange trees on the road to the south, in order to have a better view and a better way to get the ‘terrorists’ away from the camps. This was done after the PLO departure. They destroyed our research centres, our Ministry centres in the south and in the Bekaa, because they say the PLO had used these centres. They stole all our equipment, vehicles, trucks, shovels. All what we need to work w ith in the fields, they stole it, even small tractors given by the Ministry of Agriculture in a loan for the farmers. Q: Who were ‘they*: Israeli soldiers or officers? Is it a plan? Dumeika: It is an organised operation. □

Testimony given to the Commission in Jerusalem on 8 September by Gideon Spiro, employee of the Israeli Ministry of Education and former journalist and reservist.

I made it quite clear to the army that I was not ready to participate either in the war in Lebanon nor to serve in the occupied territories. I think that Israeli society went through - and is still going through - a process of dehumanisation and ‘fascisisation’ in its values. We are now in a very interesting moment where Israeli society still enjoys democracy, mainly for Jews. I mean, a Jew like me can say what he wants, but we are in a very delicate moment today since we don’t know when this democracy will finish. Because I believe that, with the present values, Israel is ready for a military junta - if, of course, it is directed against Arabs and against leftists and against doves. I think Israeli society is in a process of South Africanisation: we have a clear policy of apartheid vis-a-vis the Arabs. The Hebrew

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language is full of racist expressions which are already in daily use and people use them without feeling that they are using expressions which, if they are used against Jews abroad, we would be very sad and angry and protest against it. Like you would say in English ‘bloody Jew’: it’s an expression which shouldn’t be used in civilised circles, but today in Israel, in conversations between Israelis, if you want to say this work here is very badly done, you said it is ‘avodah aravit\ ‘Arab work’. For instance, our prime minister Begin introduced in one of his speeches in the Knesset a new expression when he wanted to describe the Palestinians: he called them ‘two-legged animals’. This is very similar to some expressions the Nazis used against the Jews, when they compared them to rats, for instance. What Israel did in the last 15 years since ’67, they made a dehumanisation of the Palestinians. If they are equal to animals on two legs, this is actually saying we should exterminate them. You see, what happened in Israel is that all the wars are ‘luxury wars’ . . . We don’t pay the price of anything that we are doing, not in the occupied territories, because Israel is in this a unique miracle. There is no country in the world which has over 100% inflation, which is occupying the West Bank, occupying another people, and building all these settlements with billions of dollars, and spending 30% of the G N P on defence - and still we can live here. I mean, somebody is paying for everything, so if everybody can live well and go abroad and buy cars, why not be for the occupation? So they are all luxury wars and people are very proud of the way we are fighting, the quick victories, the self-image of the brave Israeli - very flattering! Now the war of 1982 - Begin said it on television - he said this war finished the trauma of the 1973 war, the Yom Kippur war, because now again we had a quick victory. He said it after two weeks of the war, and of course the Chief of Staff said that the war in Lebanon is one battle in our war for the L and of Israel. They did not make a secret that the war in Lebanon is part o f a big strategy to break the political leadership of the Palestinians, to break the PLO, in order to be able to do in the West Bank whatever they want. This is not an interpretation: it is clearly stated by them . . . And of course this is the goal of the big plan of [Minister of Defence] Sharon, which again is not a secret: to break the Palestinian national will by destroying the PLO , throwing them out of Lebanon and establish a regime friendly to Isra el. . . then overthrowing King Hussein and establishing [in Jordan] a Palestinian state and sending there at least half the population of the West Bank . . . leaving behind only those [Palestinians] who are needed for labour, because the West Bank is, for Israeli purposes, only like Soweto. It’s cheap labour. Go in the afternoon at 4 o’clock to the West Bank and look how the buses bring back the Arab workers from Beersheva, from Jerusalem, from all the Jewish cities around - and this is like Soweto. These are the sleeping [ie dormitory] cities. But there are too many of them [Palestinians] today, close to one million; the ratio is not good and the plan is,

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in the sterile Hebrew words they use today, to ‘clean the West Bank of Arabs* by sending them to Jordan . . . I think what is the strongest today in the Israeli leadership is the thing called in Hebrew a dybbuk. You know what is a dybbuk? It’s not a devil; it’s an obsession. They have an anti-Palestinian obsession which, I believe, is not controlled. How can a Palestinian state endanger Israel? It is impossible to speak logically about it. But as long - and here I come to the point - as long as Israelis don’t have to pay the price, as long as we don’t have to stand in queues and decide, either sugar or settlements, either petrol for the car or control of Lebanon - as long as you don’t have to [choose], then you can support everything . .. TTiere is no country in the world which has such support as Israel. Israel gets more than 50% of the foreign aid of the United States. Look, Israel gets - not per capita, but in absolute figures - more US aid than India with its 600 million people. Israel got from the United States since 1948 such sums that we could actually not work at all, just live from what they are giving us . . . The Common Market has a balance of trade with Israel of 2 billion dollars and as long as they don’t make a blockade on trade with Israel, they’re helping Israel. And as long as the United States is ready to finance Israel w ith over 3 billion dollars a year, then Begin can do whatever he wants. T h at’s all; it’s very simple. But once Reagan will say to Israel: ‘You want to do what you want to do: do it at your own cost not at mine’, then Israel would for the first time have a real choice. He [the Israeli] wants the settlements, he wants the territories, he wants to control another people? OK, no food, no sugar, ration everything, no petrol. Then at least I would know they are ready to sacrifice: but now I have the goods of all the worlds together, you see? And this is something that we in Israel cannot do anything about, as long as the US and the Common Market are ready to support Israel in such unbelievable amounts. You see, then this country can do whatever it wants.

□

Evidence relating to Israeli conduct o f the war in Lebanon Troy Rusli, Norwegian, is a surgeon who worked in Lahout Field Hospital from 15 July to the end of August. He was interviewed by the Commission on 4 October 1982 at the Gaza Hospital in Beirut.

Commission: Have you as a doctor come across any wounds, caused by weapons which are banned by International Law? D r Rusli: We can divide the weapons used into five types. The first weapon is the concussion bomb which can destroy a whole eight storey building until it’s flat. I understand from a military expert that this bomb will explode in three stages. It penetrates the top floors, then explode two or three floors down and then explode again lower. The second weapon is what they call

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phosphorus shell bombs. Actually it is better to say a rocket, because it is not a bomb. Phosphorus shell rockets are usually used as a marker or target, it is not allowed to be used on civilian places. But, in this situation, in the city it is difficult to divide a civilian mark [target] from a military mark. So there are some civilian casualties from these phosphorus rockets. The third weapon, we call it a cluster bomb. A big canister, which consists of about 200 or 300 bomblets, small bombs. It's exploded about 50 meters above the earth so that then the small bomb will come out and then explode again. Again, this cluster bomb should be used only to hit, like, a Panzer wagon, a tank, but again in the city it's difficult to define whether it's a military or civilian target. And some of the - a lot, not some, a lot of the people has been hit by these cluster bombs, we have proof of this. And some of the small bomblets doesn't explode at all. And they lay around; children can pick it up and then explode it, and then a lot of them have to be amputated, legs or arms. Or we find shrapnel inside the stomach, we have to open it and remove it. The fourth type of weapons that has been used is high explosive bombs. I don’t know if that is allowed under the Geneva Convention or not, but it cause a lot of casualties. In one day we had eighty persons living in a cellar, and this type of bomb exploded in the cellar, I believe thirty persons were directly killed from these bombs, and fifty were injured, bum injuries, and 22 of these come to our hospital. From these 22, five die. They have about second and third degree burn injuries. And the fifth that is recognised by Geneva Convention is what we call high velocity weapon. Like for example, Kalashnikov AK-47, or M-16, this bullet have a different effect to a normal pistol, because this bullet if it hit the body makes a vacuum mechanism and they explode inside the bodies, and you see total destruction of the soft tissues and the bones; what is left is more or less like porridge. Concerning the patient, for me, whether it is from phosphorus shells or from high explosive bombs, or this high velocity weapon, the patient have to be amputated anyway, so I believe all five weapons are very dangerous to be used on civilians. Q: You have given us this list of banned weapons. Can you tell us, with the patients you've treated personally, which kind of wounds did you come across? Rusli: We have treated two patients who I am clinically sure have phosphorus bomb injuries. We have got fifty patients with high explosive burn injuries, and many of the rest have this kind of high velocity weapon injury. These very often end with amputation; the rate of amputation in our hospital is between fifteen and twenty per cent. Q: You have seen people burnt allegedly with phosphorus? Rusli: Yes we have, clinically speaking. Phosphorus is very difficult to d e te c t. . . I try to take some sample to the American University Hospital, but they cannot say that it is phosphorus or not. So when I say clinically, I mean we found shrapnel inside the body still burning and smoking. We have

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two patients like this; one, which is an old man, have smoke coming through □ the breath, through his lungs.

Auden Tommesen, presently a resident surgeon in a hospital in Norway, who worked as a surgeon at the Lahout Field Hospital between 25 July and 5 August 1982, interviewed by the Commission in Oslo some 3 or 4 weeks after Dr Rusli (30 October), also mentioned these two particular patients:

Auden Tommesen: I would like to give two case descriptions of patients with chemical bums; the suspected causative agent is a thermal chemical artillery grenade. On Monday 2 August in the morning we received a 20-year-old patient, male, in an unconscious state, with normal cardial and neurological findings. According to ambulance personnel he was a casualty of the day before and he had been treated in an emergency centre down town before admission to Lahout. His only obvious lesions were multiple, about 15 to 20 round craters in the skin, ranging from a few millimetres to about 7 to 8 centimetres in diameter. They were distributed on the right side of the body, leg, right trunk, right arm, right side of the neck and the head. The lesions consisted in chemical bums, with coagulation necrosis of the tissues in and immediately around the lesions. In the craters were found small greyish particles, in an amount of about, let's say, half a teaspoon in a crater of about 6 centimetres in diameter. The particles were later submitted to chemical analysis. Commission: Where? Tommesen: In Norway, in a laboratory. Later the same day we received a recently injured 60-year-old man, civilian, Palestinian, living in one of the refugee camps. Before admission to Lahout he had been padded and bandaged in an emergency centre down town. Only a belt around the mid­ trunk was unbandaged and apparently undamaged by bums, I don't remember details about his circulatory state. His face was all bandaged except for an opening for the mouth. He was immediately intubated, endyltracheal intubation and artificially ventilated for anaesthesia due to a suspected abdominal injury. There was only a minor abdominal wall injury and surgery was completed in a few minutes. The bandages were then removed and we made the following findings. The left ankle joint was half chopped off by metallic fragments with a form unlike ordinary shrapnel, the protruding part did have rounded edges; in the immediately surrounding soft tissue there was coagulation necrosis and this part was cobwebbed by greyish particles, just like the patient of some hours earlier. In this case the tissues were extremely hot to touch, that is to say that we could not touch them , touching them with a gloved hand, we had to withdraw it immediately because of the heat and when patting the tissues with instruments there was smoke coming from the burned part where the greyish particles were located. The rest of the lower extremities, both of them, and the right hip

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region were suffering from third degree flame burns, with all the characteristics of flame burns, with no particles, no powder and these parts were not hot to touch. The upper extremities, both arms, also had third degree flame burns. The face was covered with grey particle powder, also smoking when patted with instruments. The skin and corneal eye membranes presenting coagulation necrosis and giving away smoke when patted with instruments. Smoke was arising from the endyltracheal tube when forcibly expired, that is to say when pressing the thorax. When attempting extubation there was also smoke from the upper airways. On extubation there was no spontaneous respiration, the tube was then reinserted and the Palestinian Red Crescent officials then ordered the patient transferred to the American Hospital for further treatment. □

Testimony given by Franklin Lamb who has law degrees from Boston University and London School of Economics. Formerly a Lecturer in International Law and Assistant Counsel to the House Judiciary Comminee of US Congress 1980/1981. Presently engaged in research and as Consultant to some members of Congress. He was a member of a group of 'private American citizens’ who visited the Lebanon during the invasion to investigate the use of US weapons by Israel, in particular the cluster bomb.

Commission: What is your expertise? Franklin Lamb: Well, expertise I ’m not so sure, but I know a fair bit about the Israeli use of US weapons and the applicable US and International Law. I have done a bit of research on the law and the experience of the Israeli use of US weapons dating back as early as 14 March 1978 and consequently I saw the issue of US weapons as an important one for Congressmen and th e American Government. It was mainly my interest to see what had been done this time. I looked into weapons in general but I am prepared to state categorically my findings in a conclusive way, with respect to the four types of cluster bombs I found in Lebanon between 22 June and late August. T h e Israelis used American made luster bombs in at least 16 locations in W est Beirut alone. Q: You say you found 16 locations . . . Lamb: In West Beirut, just West Beirut. And I have marked on a map, the exact street names and descriptions of the locations where they were found. Q: What did you find? Lamb: I found that one of four types of American manufactured cluster bombs that had been provided to Israel had been dropped by a plane, or shot from an artillery shell and landed in 16 locations where I actually saw the evidence and was shown the evidence, from a number of witnesses. Q: Could you identify them (the cluster bombs) for the record? Lamb: Yes, the four types are the CBU58 cluster bomb unit, which in one form when put into a dispensary of an SUU30 series will hold 650 bomblets; the bomblets are designated as BLU63B units, that is the grenade or the

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individual bomblet. The second type is the M K 118 anti-tank, anti-armour bomblet, it becomes the MK20 or Rock-eye cluster bomb unit when it is placed in an SUU series type canister. The third type is the M42 cluster grenade, which retains that designation whether it is fired in an artillery shell of the 155mm size or is in the SUU30 series cluster bomb canister. The same is true of the fourth type which was found in West Beirut, which is the M43E1 cluster grenade or bomb, which again, like the M42, can be fired either from a large canister of the SUU30size or the 155mm artillery shell. Those are the four types of cluster bombs found by me. Q: How did you find the witnesses? Lamb: We just spent long days and long hours tracking, there’s no easy way to do it. I lined up 10 witnesses, including the Postmaster-General of Lebanon, M r Ahmad Malek, whom I commend to the Commission as a credible witness. He is also the head of the Jarrah Scout Association, and Assistant Director of the Lebanese Civil Defence Organisation. On 4 August a CBU 58 type cluster bomb struck the Central Post Office in Hamra and he as an employee was present. He also took home a canister, which was one of the SUU30 series, as a souvenir, which wasn’t uncommon; others have also collected these as souvenirs. He also took home unexploded parts the one that he gave me was one half of what’s called a BLU 63B bomb or grenade, which is one of 650 which go in the larger canister and he gave me a sample and I took it back with 24 other samples to the US, as well as the canister. Then there is Mustafa Yafi, head of the Lebanese Civil Defence. These people are important, good people, because they were with the Civil Defence. The real heroes in my opinion are the young men and women who rush into a building to get the wounded right after the bomb hits, these are the people who know where these cluster bombs are, they know more than others. But we also talked to churches, voluntary agencies, journalists, fighters and just people. At one professor’s house where we went we found his whole balcony covered with the M42. Anyhow these were the kind o f witnesses that were available to us. We also gathered from 19 hospitals and clinics which were operating in West Beirut, some temporary but all active, sworn affidavits . . . Some were stamped by the American University, from doctors who had treated cluster bomb patients and who were willing to swear that they had done so under oath and provided the name of the person treated and the location where the person was injured, the date on which he was injured and some prognosis and description of the injuries. We have 75 affidavits, but they are not all on cluster bombs - some are cluster, some fragmentation. But a third of them specify cluster bombs. In support of my conclusions with respect to the type of cluster bombs used, I have found in the Lebanon four posters made by civilians which are designed to inform the public of the danger of these cluster bombs. These four cluster bombs that I have documented, were the subject of these

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posters, put together and distributed by civilians, a women's organisation, to warn the public of exactly these four kinds. So that really is the summary of our evidence, but also another point is an admission that was made on 9 October in Washington DC by Major General Menachem Meron, who is the head military attach^ for the Israelis in Washington. He admitted, under questioning by the Washington Post, that they had been used in West Beirut; which is the first time, to my knowledge, that the Israelis made that admission. Q: You mention you found this evidence of the bombs in 16 locations. Were any o f these locations military? Lam b: No, there are fighters underground - they're not affected by these things. They cither have knowledge of them or they tend not to be above ground when they’re coming down. There were troops in West Beirut, hiding out or patrolling, or getting ready for an invasion, but a military concentration where there were tanks - there just a very few old T55 tanks around, mainly around Mazra in the south, I didn't see them down tow n . . . I never saw anything like a military concentration. I can't say there w eren't arms caches in some buildings. I guess they have found some. Q: Could you, for us lay people, could you describe the difference between cluster bombs and fragmentation weapons? Lam b: Briefly, the principle of the cluster bombs is that there is a very high explosive contained in each of the four, called Minol, which instantaneously converts to hot gas and expands instantaneously too, rupturing the bomblet of th e grenade along pre-scored calibrations. The CBU58, for example, has 200 of these little things which shoot out at very high velocity - 4,000 feet per second, so they're very lethal and they go in all directions. In the fragmentation [bomb], the chunks, and I have many, they're big, jagged irregular shapes. On cluster bombs the calibrations are quite precise; it is the velocity that makes the damage in these. So I would say that the fragmentations are cruder, they’re not so effective; they worked in World W ar 2, but not so well, and the reason the cluster bomb was developed, I think, was because it is more effective. For example, the clusters deteriorate into lethal filaments or slivers, they are more refined in a way, whereas in a fragmentation bomb you’ve got these larger chunks that might hit a car, or a building, and bounce off, there aren’t so many so they might miss. But with clusters it is hard to escape. Q: Were cluster bombs used in Vietnam? Lamb: Oh, yes, very widely, 1.5 million stock-piled in Vietnam. They are still finding them in Vietnam in the rice paddies and they will for some time. It is still a problem in Vietnam, as it will be a problem for a long time in the Lebanon. They have, in a way, become the napalm of the Middle East. These things, it’s hard to believe what they can do; they can be dropped in the shape of a diamond, or an oval, they can cover a football field, they can put a fragment at a velocity initially 4,000 feet per second into every square

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inch of that football field. They were designed for light armour, the M K 118 is still designed to penetrate six inch metal. But, the militaries around the world are not so excited about using them now for radar screens and light armour, because they’ve discovered they are so effective against personnel. What type of injury are we talking about? The wounds were neat looking, like a cigarette burn or like a slither, they don’t look so bad, but because of the velocity what they do is fracture and splinter the bone, they chew up the tissue and the nerves and the veins, so that the doctor has no choice, he has to cut the limbs injured off, there’s no way to make a repair, that’s why they are so lethal and ferocious and that’s why they’re the kind of weapon contemplated by St Petersburg and Hague and the Geneva Conventions. This is the real issue between Israel and the US Government: it was their use of our weapons designed for one purpose and used against personnel. Because of the nature of the wounds, the devastation and the number of amputations that were required, clusters have become a very ferocious and indiscriminate weapon. The indiscriminate use Israel has made in West Beirut, and there’s evidence to the South, but I didn’t do an investigation there, makes a big problem for the US Government under US laws. For example, the 1976 US Arms Export Control A c t. . . puts certain conditions on the use of American weapons by foreign governments. Even more explicit and important in my opinion is the so-called ‘Secret Agreement* of 10 and 11 April 1978, which I have read, which sets out three conditions for Israel’s use of these cluster bombs. Q: What were the three conditions? Lamb: That they are to be used only if there is a land invasion of Israel by two or more Arab governments, which were two of those with which Israel was at war in 1967. The second was that they were not to be used in an aggressive fashion. And the third was that they were not to be used, in any event, against civilian concentrations. □

Franklin Lamb submitted the following paper on the design and effects of cluster bombs:

CLU STER BOMBS: HOW THEY WORK 1. The CBU-58 BLU-63/B, BLU63A/B, BLU-86/B, and BLU-86-A/B The bombs are submunitions dispensed from the 7 foot long SUU-30 series air launched free fall dispenser. Together they are designated by the US Pentagon as the CBU-58/B. The bomb fuses arm by centrifugal force produced by air pressure against the flutes as the bombs fall away from the dispenser. The fuses require approximately 3,000 rpm to arm. The BLU BLU-63/B and BLU-86/B detonate upon impact producing high velocity

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steel fragments. The BLU-86A/B and BLU 63A contain random delay fuses which may detonate from 0 to 30 minutes after impact or 0 to 120 minutes after impact depending upon the fuse used. These bombs have been in existence for a considerable time, were used in the Vietnam War since the mid-1960’s and are a US Service item. They are always dispensed from some type of dispensing munition. The Pentagon has stated that CBU-58*s are no longer produced. The CBU-58 systems is designed to carry 650 of the BLU-63 bomblets or grenades, which are approximately 2.17 inches in diameter. The filled canister weighs 450 lbs. The area covered by cluster bomb grenades varies depending upon several factors including dispenser load, altitude, wind conditions, etc. The CBU-58 system was designed by the US Pentagon primarily for use against light armoured vehicles, trucks, SAM sites and various types of radar. 2. The M K 20 ‘Rockeye’ M K 118 A N TIV EH ICLE/A N TIPERSO N N EL BOMB T he M K 118 is a Cluster Bomb submunition dispensed from the M K 20 ‘Rockeye* cluster bomb. A MK 7 dispenser contains 247 of the submunitions, which are 8 inch dart type greandes. It weighs approximately 500 lbs. T he M K 118 bomb fuse arms electrically and mechanically after release from the dispenser by rotation of the rotor blades attached to the base fuse element. The fuse contains a discriminating firing mechanism which functions upon impact with a hard target by the initiation of a small detonator in the nose element stressing a piezoelectric crystal to produce an electric current. The electric current detonates the base fuse element, thus detonating the main explosive charge. Detonation produces a shaped charge jet capable of penetrating 6 inch armour. Fragmentation from the body destroys anyone in the vicinity of the armoured vehicles or explosion. Each of the 247 submunitions contains 1.1 lbs of high explosive inside a heavy-density casing. The grenade shrapnel explodes at speeds o f4,000 feet p er second. The M K 118 bombs have been in existence for a considerable time, were used widely in the Vietnam War, and are a US service item always used in the MK-20 CBU. The M K 20 has been provided to Israel through the US Foreign Military Sales program. 3. M-42 H IG H EXPLOSIVE DUAL PURPOSE GRENADE T h e M-42 Cluster Bomb is commonly referred to among the Lebanese and Palestinian population as the ‘battery’ bomb or ‘lighter’ bomb because of its shape. These M-42 grenades are dispensed from various sizes of projectiles which are initiated by mechanical time fuses above the target area to allow dispersion of the grenades.

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The M-42, as can be seen from the diagrams, has a white nylon ribbon which when pulled or touched can detonate. Shortly after ejection from the projectile, artillery shell, or various sizes of container or dispenser, the M-42 grenade arms due to the rotation of the white nylon ribbon. This ribbon also acts as a stabilising tail to orient the cone of the grenade toward the target. Upon impact a charge in the grenade is launched downward to penetrate armour while the metal grenade body bursts into shrapnel-like fragments to wound and kill personnel. A dual effect in which the fragmenting grenade body rips through any humans in the vicinity of the detonation. The Pentagon designed the M-42 both to pierce armour and to destroy troops. The United States has provided large quantities of the M-42 cluster bomb units to Israel as well as other foreign countries through the US Foreign Military Sales Programme. It was the M-42 CBU type which President Reagan suspended shipment of to Israel on 27 July 1982. In that particular shipment Israel was to receive 4,000 155mm howitzer artillery shells each filled with 88 M-42 type cluster bombs. It was also the M-42 cluster bomb which killed US Marine Cpl David L. Reagan on 30 September 1982 while he was clearing cluster bombs from around the Beirut Airport. 4. M 43E1TYPE, H IG H EXPLOSIVE, A NTIPERSONNEL GRENADE This cluster bomb was known by the Lebanese and Palestinian population of Lebanon as the ‘Butterfly' bomb. A quantity of these grenades are dispensed from various sizes of projectiles which are initiated by mechanical time fuses above the target area to allow dispersion of the grenades. The grenade arms shortly after ejection from the projectile and functions upon impact, causing the body to be ejected from the housing by an explosive ejection charge. This ignites a delay detonation to allow the body to travel approximately five feet above the ground before detonation of the main explosive charge. Detonating of the main charge causes the prescored body to break up into uniform high velocity steel fragments which are extremely lethal. The grenade is designed to be used against personnel or light material targets and has been in existence since the latter part of the Vietnam War. This type of weapon has been provided to Israel through the US Foreign Military Sales Programme. 5. T H E SUU-30 SERIES AIR-LAUNCHED FREE-FALL D ISPENSER AND T H E MARK 7 MOD 2 AIR-LAUNCHED FREE-FALL DISPENSER. All four types of cluster bomb grenades use a similar dispenser, either a 155mm howitzer artillery ‘cargo round', a SUU-30 series air-launched freefall Dispenser or Mark 7 Mod 2 air-launched Free-Fall Dispenser.

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E XTRACTION ARM S FUZE F U Z t A R M IN G W IREt

MK 20 EXTRACTOR TO TAIL ARMING UNIT EXTRACTOR TO NOSE ARMING UNIT NAVY AIRCRAFT F-4 ^ INSTRUCTIONS BELOW FOR AIR FORCE AIRCRAFT AIR FORCE AIRCRAFT A-7, F-4

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EXTRACTOR TO NOSE ARMING UNIT EXTRACTOR TO TAIL ARMING UNIT WEAPON / BOMBRACK CONNECTIONS NAVY AIRCRAFT A-4, A-6 . A-7, F-8 MK 20 0 EXTRACTOR TO TAIL ARMING UNIT EXTRACTOR TO NOSE ARMING UNIT / NAVY AIRCRAFT F-4 ^ ’AUCTIONS BELOW FOR AIR FORCE AIRCRAFT f jf ' MR fOMCE AIRCRAFT A-7. F-4

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Examples o f decals with US Navy and Air Force Markings removed by Franklin Lam b from cluster bomb dispensers which hit West Beirut. These particular ones removed in late July 1982. These markings clearly identify the cluster bombs as American.

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With respect to the dispenser they operate generally as described: Following release from the aircraft, a nose fuse is detonated, either as a radar proximity fuse detonated near a radar transmitter, or as a time fuse. Upon detonation of the fuse, air resistance unhinges the two sections of the dispenser and it opens along its seams somewhat like a razor clam shell. T he bomblets spill out covering a large area. In the CBU-58, for example, the ridges on the BLU-63B bomblets cause it to spin rapidly thereby arming the firing mechanism. The M-42E1 bomblets are armed shortly after ejection from the projectile and detonate after hitting the ground and ‘jumping* approximately five feet off the surface. The M-42 grenades are armed by rotation of the nylon ribbon, and the M K 118 grenade arms electrically or mechanically after release from the dispenser by rotation of the rotor blades attached to the base fuse element. Normally the cluster grenades explode upon, or immediately after impact, spraying lethal shrapnel in all directions at speeds up to 4,000 feet per second. Both the Mark 7 Mod 2 and the SUU-30 series are made of 1/8 inch aluminium and are approximately 7.8 feet in length. Most are painted white o r beige. □

Statement of Dr Chris Giannou, Canadian, made on 15 August 1982 in Nicosia, Cyprus

I feel a little like a character from Dante. I have seen hell and returned. Many others were not quite so fortunate. I have been witness to suffering and death on so massive a scale that looking back on it now from these quiet surroundings, there is something surreal about my memories. I have been a witness to the total, utter devastation of residential areas, and the blind, savage, indiscriminate destruction of refugee camps. I have been a witness to the use of cluster bombs, as early as 5 June in the city of Nabatieh, and later in the camp of Ain Al Hilweh. I have seen the pyramidal remains of steel with aluminium pods attached by springs at each comer, and the excavated concavity in the steel body where the explosive is placed. The sound of these bombs exploding in the middle of the refugee camp, is unmistakable; hundreds of little detonations over a period of 10 to 12 seconds resembling a pitched battle of small fire. I have seen the calcinated, carbonized bodies of the victims of phosphorus bombs, frozen in their position at the time of death. I have treated minor skin wounds covering mangled bone and muscle caused by the shrapnel of concussion bombs. I have been a witness to 300 cadavers in the peripheral areas of the Ain AlHilweh camp while I was evacuating the Government Hospital; to the 40 to 50 cadavers in the emergency reception area in the Government hospital, to 20 inside the hospital amongst my patients, including a woman killed by

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shrapnel coming in through the window from a shell that had landed in the hospital gardens and who left a five hours old orphan; to two cadavers in the PRCS hospital when I later returned to it after the evacuation of the Government Hospital. I later saw another 25 corpses in one of the large private hospitals of the city of Sidon (Ghassan Hammoud Hospital). These above mentioned figures do not include the rumors of yet other victims that were rampant in the city. I, therefore, was a witness to about 400 killed in only a few small blocks of the camps and city, which is approximately threequarters of the total deaths admitted to by Israeli authorities for the entire region of South Lebanon. D

The following is an excerpt from an article published in The Sunday Times, London, on 8 August 1982. Under the title Beirut: The liquidation of a city.

The Israelis explain the bombing of the city by saying that their only aim is to drive out the PLO, who are deliberately using civilian buildings t6 p ro te a their gun emplacements and their ammunition dumps. That justification is becoming harder to sustain. On Wednesday afternoon, a Lebanese woman, Maimonah, who was five months pregnant, was carried in on a stretcher to one ofthe many makeshift hospitals, with shrapnel wounds received during an attack that day on an exposed public garden where more than 1,000 refugees were huddled. Both her legs were amputated above the knee. Severe elbow wounds may cost her an arm as well. ‘She certainly didn't pose a threat to the Israelis,’ observed the doctor treating her. John de Salis of the International Red Cross claims the civilian casualties are far out of proportion to the military presence in West Beirut. ‘Between one and four per cent ofthe population could be considered combatants. But at least 80 per cent of the casualties are civilian, both Lebanese and Palestinian,’ he said. After surveying 66 separate areas hit last weekend, the Canadian ambassador, Theodore Arcand, said the destruction ‘would make Berlin of 1944 look like a tea party’. Among the facilities hit by Israel over the past nine weeks are five U N buildings, 134 embassies or diplomatic residences, six hospitals or clinics, one mental institute, the Central Bank, five hotels, the Red Cross, Lebanese and foreign media outlets and innumerable private homes, office blocks. While some of these may conceivably have been used as cover by the P L O , what is much more striking is how many undeniable PLO facilities have remained intact. A Lebanese health official said: ‘I f attacking civilian sites is the Israelis’ intent, then their public statements about going only for military targets are lies. If it is not intentional, then their claims of accuracy are grossly over­ rated. They cannot have it both ways.’

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Most disturbing of all is Israel's use of the phosphorus bomb - an incendiary weapon which on detonation throws up a distinctive white cloud. T he Israelis have increased the use of these bombs, claiming they are useful as markers ‘so that aircraft and artillery can pinpoint targets.’ But the exploding phosphorus bombs and shells have other properties. Amal Shaaban, a 15-year-old Lebanese girl, was in a school shelter with other pupils when one of the bombs hit first the playground, then the shelter. ‘There were children in the playground; they were all killed,* she said. ‘Then I felt a fire on my back. I tore off my dress and ran from the shelter.’ The effects of the phosphorus burning are sickening to behold. Early last week, a man in his late 40’s was carried into Lahout hospital, covered with small phosphorus burns. An Oxfam American volunteer saw him. ‘The burns were right through his skin and subcutaneous tissue down to the charred muscles in his arm and chest. His left leg dangled off the operating table. His foot was burned off and the exposed cartilage was still smouldering. When his nose was pinched, puffs of smoke appeared from his lungs. He was burning inside for six hours. He will not survive. In another well-documented case, twin babies who perished in a phosphorus attack had to be placed in a bucket of water in the hospital and left there overnight. But the phosphorus continued to burn and they were still smouldering as they lay on the mortuary table. According to Dr A. Tommeson, a Norwegian orthopaedic surgeon with one of the European medical teams in West Beirut, over 90 per cent of the casualties he treats are civilians and many of them have either multiple burns or shrapnel injuries. The phosphorus victims who do survive do so only after amputations. Medical personnel now say there are further dangers of cholera and typhoid epidemics and even plague from the fast-multiplying rat population. A British surgeon who asked not to be identified said the combined effect of so many people in a small area with dangerously insanitary conditions was a time-bomb just waiting to explode. And before leaving West Beirut on the orders of the Canadian government, Ambassador Arcand said simply: ‘It is truly a scene from Dante’s Inferno.’ □

Evidence relating to the nature o f the Israeli Occupation Statement of Dr Chris Giannou, Canadian, made on 15 August 1982 in Nicosia, Cyprus

My name is D r C. Giannou. For the last two years I have been a surgeon with the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS). I was Medical Director of the Nabatieh Hospital and most recently was working in Sidon, Lebanon, during hostilities there. I am not a spokesman or representative of the Lebanese Government, nor of the Palestine Liberation Organization. I was detained by Israeli authorities from 13 June to 15 June in Sidon,

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Lebanon, and then until 20 June in the Megiddo prison in the north of Israel. The Israeli authorities denied holding me and my two Norwegian colleagues* in detention until 18 June, in spite of representations by the Canadian and Norwegian Foreign Ministries. M y release from Israeli prison on 20 June was ‘unconditional*. I was not released into the custody of the Canadian Embassy, nor was I expelled from the country, and no charges were ever made against me. We were released and are free today to appear before this Committee because we are holders of Canadian and Norwegian passports. My colleagues of various nationalities are still in custody. Surgeons, general practitioners, male nurses, para-medical technicans and ambulance drivers who have done no more or less than we, are still being detained because they are not in possession of passports such as ours. [Describing the scene when he was arrested and detained, along with several hundred mainly Palestinian prisoners, in a schoolyard at Sidon shortly after the Israeli invasion, Dr Giannou said:]

The scene in the schoolyard was one of savage and indiscriminate beatings of the prisoners by the forty Israeli guards. A prisoner would call out for water and be told that there was none. When he continued to call out, he would be insulted and then a guard would wade into the crowd and start to beat him. The physical abuse ranged from simple punching and kicking to beatings with wooden sticks, plastic hose or even a bunch of pieces of rope with nuts and bolts tied to the ends; a sort of modern cat-o-nine-tails. One Palestinian, Dr Nabil, was at one point hung by his hands from a tree and beaten. An Iraqi surgeon, Dr Mohammed Ibrahim was beaten by several guards viciously, and left to lie in the sun with his face buried in the sand. Other surgeons and doctors were also beaten: D r Ahmed Soubra, a Lebanese; Drs Saifeddin, Mohammad Iman and Shafiq al-Islam, Bangladeshi nationals. The two Norwegians and I were not beaten. I, myself, was struck but once. It was obvious that orders had been given that we were not to be molested. The darker-skinned Arabs, Africans and Asians (Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians), present were those who were beaten the most severely. I have been a witness to four prisoners who were beaten to death. I was called upon by an Israeli soldier to examine two of the cadavers. D r Berge examined another two cadavers and saw another five or six piled into an ambulance. It is impossible to say whether the two corpses that I examined were amongst the five or six in the ambulance, and therefore I cannot say with exactitude the number of prisoners beaten to death during those four days. I have been a witness to the Israeli officers and even the military governor of Sidon, a Colonel Arnon Mozer, being witness to these beatings and not

*Dr Steinar Berge, Physician Mr Oyvind Mfiller, Child Psychologist

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doing anything about it. I have also been a witness to several of the Israeli guards who attempted to stop the beatings, and on several occasions, actual arguments breaking out amongst the guards, between those doing the beating and those who attempted to have them cease. □

The Commission interviewed Dr Yehuda Melzer, of the ‘There is a Limit* Group of Israeli Reservists, in Jerusalem, 8-9 September 1982

I represent a group which calls itself ‘Yesh Gvul’, which literally means ‘There is a Limit’. Basically, the connotation which we want it to have is, ‘Enough is enough’; ‘there is a border* [limit] too, in other words don’t cross that border. Anyhow, this group was organised very quickly in the first week o f the war, and I guess the general motivation was a feeling on the part of many of us that there’s no hope that the Peace Now movement, which is the biggest protest group in the country, will come forth strongly enough and quickly enough. . . people who are like myself, active or have been active for many years, either on the left, or generally in the anti-government groups in the country are basically used to a lot of disappointment and a lot of frustration, and generally feeling apathetic about organising with a lot of rage because nothing comes out of it. So we were very surprised to find that instead of getting like 10, 15, 20 people who would be willing to be very outspoken about not wanting to go to serve in the war suddenly the group managed to get several hundred very quickly, and this is with almost no organisational basis. In other words, we feel that if we had more money, more time, and more people available, we would have grown to maybe several thousand. For you people, coming from outside, that may not seem so meaningful, but for us it’s really a dramatic change . . .This is a major breakthrough in terms of the resistance movement, which is basically non­ existent in the country or has not been in existence until the war started . . .Our main objection to the war was that here we were not faced with a situation where there is some probability that some civilians will be killed, via the bombing of military targets, we felt that in this case we were talking about zero probability of not killing civilians, and almost insane proportions between killing the civilians and the targets which theoretically are to be achieved. And I think that basically there is a conceptual misunderstanding in this country that is very dangerous. People think that, unless you can bring them full-colour pictures of Israeli paratroopers slaughtering babies, there are no war crimes. And one of the reasons that our group is making more and more fuss, you know talking again to journalists, and trying to make more statements, is to simply bring home the truth that you don’t have to take paratroopers, nice kids from kibbutzim will go to Beirut and slaughter women. If you bomb the way the Israelis bombed this time, then you have committed war crimes . . .we felt that in this war the

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deception and lies on the part of the government, to us, not to the enemy, were on a scale which is absolutely unprecedented. This is, by the way, something which is much more loudly voiced by another group, not by us, but the other group which is called ‘Soldiers against Silence’ is an interesting group because they have Likud members in the group, who are very upset for being lied to, for being deceived . . . This is not just one crazy individual saying, I don't like it. These are people who have participated in what the government thinks was the most heroic battle, on the Beaufort, which everybody knows by now was a completely unnecessary battle, even the government knows i t . . . Commission: Doesn’t the position of the group, [say] that the government is in some way violating the basic relationship of trust with its own society? Melzer: No question about it. Q: Beyond that, in its foreign policy, its a criminal enterprise? A: No question about it. We talked about it as a murder. □

Testimony of Israeli reservist Officer S, who was interviewed by the Commission in Jerusalem on 9 September 1982 and who served in the Lebanon as a captain in the paratroops.

S: During the war I was in the army . . . my unit was one of the troops that our mission was on the West line, on the road to Tyre, Sidon, until B eirut. . . We know about what’s going on, we know the plan of this war a couple of months before the war started - but it was too fantastic for us to realise what’s going to happen. I, as commander, I knew that the last aim of our mission is Beirut. Commission: When you say you heard of the plan two months before, how had you heard? S: We are in the reserves and as an officer in the reserves the army called us for a day or so and participated us in the plan that our units are going to do... I personally am 29 years old. I participated as an officer in the *73 war, in the south, against Egypt, and I see myself as one that came from the national consensus. I mean I was educated to volunteer and to give the best I can for the nation, and for a long time that is what I have done. I was five and a half years in the regular army: after the three years that I have to do as a citizen, I volunteered to serve two and a half years more as an officer in the paratroops. So I am not seeing myself as outside the [national] consensus - but what we saw and the way that I find myself fighting this war brings me to think that we have to change some minds in the people that give orders in this country, in order not to find myself again fighting this kind of fight. We are citizens all the year and suddenly we find ourselves in a very difficult problem of conscience, how to function as a soldier and as a human

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being against this war. It started in Tyre. We weren’t the first troop that conquered Tyre . . . the army that came before us, they concentrated all the people near the beach. We prepare ourselves to fight, to conquer this Tyre, and suddenly we see ourselves surrounded with people, with citizens, with women with children, begging for water, and everything was changed. We were going to attack and suddenly we were attacked by citizens (they were very frightened) - the only thing they wanted was water . . . We slept the first night, it was a Sunday - we slept at Tyre itself, near the entrance of Tyre, and of course we didn’t see a city; we saw a destroyed city, especially the two main roads that were completely destroyed before we get there. Then we continue to Sidon and we were the first unit that had to take th e main street of Sidon. Our troop was attacked in the main junction of Sidon, near the hospital. . . by three or four little troops of the Palestinians and we were stuck there for the whole ni gh t . . . Because we didn’t want too many casualties, the system was to fight very slow, to use all the ammunition behind us, it means airplanes and artillery . . . In this situation the morality problem that you have, you don’t think about it too much. You know that you have a mission and you want to get out alive . . . We heard that there is about 7,000 Palestinians there in Sidon and in the morning we call the people to get out from their houses and to concentrate on the beach. In the first hour nobody went out, so the artillery and the airplanes really made a strong job there on the two main roads. After an hour we called them another time and again nobody went out, and after another hour we called them another time to get out and we promised them nobody will be hurt by our troops. And after three hours they suddenly - you know, by the vacuum system - one went out and after him another and suddenly all the streets was full and crowded with people that was very afraid. They actually didn’t believe that we are not going to kill them, and we sent all of them to the beach. I didn’t know what was on the beach, I didn’t know if somebody will take care of those citizens there. All the time we had problems, that somebody says - you know, ‘I left my son there in the house, can I just go and bring him?’ - and I said ‘no, because we have to start to fight, in order to take this town’. And from all sides it was the problem of water, problem of old and sick people that were stuck in the basement there; and after five hours we start to enter the city itself. . . A lot of it was destroyed . . . but we didn’t fight in Sidon, actually we take the city without any big f ight. . . I think the main problem to the soldiers, it started when we had to stay in Sidon to start to look and to search after the ammunition and for the Palestinians, the soldiers, terrorists or whatever you call them - I don’t know. I, as a soldier, I call them fighters, but you can call them whatever you like . . . So the way we did it: first for two days the people were on the beach and we closed all the main streets in order to make it easier for us to search from

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house to house, not to be involved with the citizens. But the citizens from the beach, they start to come, some of them ran away from the beach, some of them have a pretty big problem with water, because there is no water on the beach itself, in the first days. Nobody, I think, was prepared for this kind of system, that you have to put the citizens in one place and to let the army work peacefully in the street itself. Q: Could I ask you a question? You said that part of that training exercise you know, two months earlier - had included a plan of how you conquer just this sort of city. W ouldn't that have involved separating the people . . . S: No . . . it was a local decision, it wasn’t a system that you train on and that you learn or study how to deal with this kind of war. Q: There must have been some experience 24 or 48 hours earlier in Tyre, because in Tyre too they were called out onto the beaches? S:I was a commander, but I wasn’t the head. I don’t know about the system. I never trained or know about how you are going to conquer a big city like Sidon - I mean in terms of the citizens and people that live [there]. I know how to fight in buildings, but what to do with the people I didn’t know . . . A lot of the people received us very well, in some villages around Sidon they even threw rice on us and they took me, when somebody said ‘that is the commander’, they took me to their houses and give me coffee, and they were happy that from this moment there will not be Palestinians any more in the Sidon area. But a lot of them were very afraid, a lot of them you can see in their eyes the hate. The strongest [blow] I got from this war is when we search near a school - all this area stank from a distance of 500 metres. Q: Where was this school? S: It was in a neighbourhood that is called Heil-Gilada [phonetic]. When you are going from the main street in Sidon it is a little bit in the hills. And nobody of my soldiers want to go inside, so I gave them an order to get inside and I personally stayed outside. But when they get out and everybody was white like paint, I get in and I saw - we have argument about how many people we saw under this destroyed house - but it was 15 to 20 women and children lying there under the ruins of this house. We met some relatives to these people, who lived in another house very close to this place, and they tell us that when they heard the airplane everyone ran to this school because they don’t have a basement. And the Palestinian . . . anti-aircraft stayed in the junction and shoot on the airplane. So the airplane shoot back two bombs: one was exactly to the target and destroyed the [anti-aircraft gun]. And the other just missed by ten metres and destroyed this house. Q: Was it a house or a school? S: It was a school building and . . . all of them was lying between the ruins. Q: Did you get the impression that this was all there were, or had others already been removed? S: No, nobody. All the city stank and nobody even touched, even the relatives, nobody search for the dead people from his family, nobody. It was such a stink over all the city, not only in the region, others too.

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Q: So there might be others under the rubble, you don't know. How can one know? S: I don’t know. Now the way we searched in these areas was that first we evacuate all the people from the houses, with a microphone, and then we close all the area and we put them in one place, it was on the beach. And after three days they get permission to go back to their houses to take food. The day after that we again evacuated all the people to the beach and we searched . . . one neighbourhood after another, and. we evacuated all the people into one central place. I cannot say that in this place the women and children was enjoying the time they spent there; because it was very hot and we didn’t have too much water to give them - though I must say that the soldiers, my soldiers and the soldiers I saw, they didn’t get tough with the citizens. I personally never heard about a soldier that hit or beat or was cruel with the people. A lot of soldiers gave them their water themselves. But when you look at, you know, the ‘big frame’, it was to my opinion very inhuman to act the way that we had to act. And I have to say another thing: at this time, because I was in the middle [of it] I cannot realise all the time what I ’m actually doing. I mean, I was pan of the system itself. . . Q: Was it necessary to have such heavy bombardment in order to occupy what were essentially undefended . . . ? S: I think the impression you got is wrong . . . I think the morality problem is not what happened after this. The problem is the decision to do such a thing . . . and how will be the system of fighting in this place. That means citizens will be killed and the city destroyed - that is the question. But for the troops themselves, it was necessary - as a soldier, I can tell you even [though] I opposed it - it was necessary to destroy the city itself. [It’s not like] a game o f basketball where you judge ‘it was OK* or ‘it was not OK’ [because] there is a law. In a fight there is no law, [so if] you decide to fight, you don*t have any law. The only law you have is to be alive after that - and in order to be alive, you have to bomb the most you can . . . You cannot play at this kind [of thing]. But I think the main problem is the decision of the government to do such a thing like t h a t . . . I feel very angry because I was forced to be a p a n of this kind of a fight: that all my history, all what I know about my people, that we suffered so much as Jews - now we are going to do the same things and we are going to say that this blood is OK . . . Q: We have been told, twice, that in Sidon some Israeli troops had taken suspects, arrested people, to proceed inside the town with the civilians around them, in order to use them as shields against possible attack. What do you say to that? S: Yes, I know that if, for example, we went to check a place that was under suspicion, if we get to a house, for example where we know there is a bunker there and the bunker was below and it was dark there, we put a local citizen to go before us. So if somebody will shoot, so nobody of our men will get the bullet. I didn’t hear your story, b u t . . .

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Q: It could happen? S: I know that we act very similarly. Q: And that local man used to search the bunker, do you choose him according to his suspected acquaintance with the PLO or . . . S: Hmmm, not all the time, not all the time. We just choose local people. □

Excerpts from the testimony of Dr Francis Capet, given to the Commission in Oslo, 30 October 1982. Dr Capet was a member of a medical team sent to Lebanon by the Association Med kale Franco-Palestinienne. He worked in Sidon from 21 March 1982 until he was arrested by the Israelis on 13 June 1982.

Commission: Why were you arrested? D r Capet: The day before we had been for identity control and we got a stamp on our passport and we could go back home - no problem. But when we went for identity control, two doctors were performing an operation, D r Giannou and Dr Qasim. Dr Giannou was the only surgeon left in the hospital. So they had to go the next day and we decided all to go with them to see what happened to them and to be sure that he, Giannou, was not arrested, because if he was arrested we had no more surgeon in the hospital and it was almost useless to continue. So we went all together, D r Giannou and Dr Qasim, who had to go for identity control, and Dr Steinar Berge, Mdller and myself, who did not have to go but we went to . . . to see what happened . . . And then we have seen what happened: we were arrested, all five of us. I showed that I have a stamp in the passport already, but it didn’t have any importance - we were arrested anyhow. Q: Who by? Capet: Israeli soldiers . . . We had to line up on the left side of the street, and then one by one cross the street to the other side where there’s a little table where a man is sitting to put a stamp in your passport. And in the street you have three vehicles and in each of them was sitting a soldier or an officer, I don’t know, with a man beside him - a hooded man. I have seen one: he had a hood over his head and a heavy blanket around him so you could not recognise him at all; and this man give a sign from time to time. And yes, for us obviously he gave some sign and then we were seized from behind by the soldiers who were running around then and another soldier comes and he wrote some signs in our backs, crosses or some Hebrew letters. And then we have to sit down to wait a bit, stand up, line up with the hands on the man before us; and then we had to go to the school, to the Ecole St Joseph. There we had the hands tied behind the back, we had to sit down and wait; some were driven to one way, some were driven to another way; some were blindfolded, but not me - and none of us I think. And after some time I have been taken to interrogation—

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Q: Interrogation by whom? Capet: By an Israeli officer, who spoke French. The whole interrogation was in French. It was not interrogation with brutality, just talking. And they ask why I was there, what I was doing there, if I was a terrorist, if I was a Communist, if I knew important men of the PLO, if I had seen the pilots; everybody was asking me about the pilots. I mean the pilots shot down above Sidon, and they asked everybody. He could easily see I had nothing to do w ith the PLO and I was not a terrorist; but he said ‘you have to spend some not so pleasant days here.* So I was brought away again. He loosened the ropes around my hands a little bit, after this interrogation. Q: You were tied? Capet: Yes, as soon as we arrived in the school, but not so tight any more, after the interrogation. Because it was cutting in. And then they brought me into the schoolyard, and they put me to sit beside Dr Steinar Berge and MtfUer. I have not exactly counted but I estimated that there were several thousand, but Dr Steinar Berge said he had counted really and counted five hundred; but my impression was that there were more. Q: Those are Arabs? Europeans? Capet: Mostly Arabs and some Bengali also. Q: Men? Capet: Yes, only men, no women. From fourteen to sixty. Most of them had their hands tied. It was in two groups, about two-thirds on one side and onethird on the other side. The group I was in all had their hands tied. And in the other, bigger group, some did not have their hands tied. And they had to sit without moving. Q: Do you know the name of the school? Capet: Yes, St Joseph . . . in Sidon, near the sea. Q: So what happened next? Capet: Somebody - a soldier - came from behind and brought me to another place in the same schoolyard, but out of the mass of prisoners. He put me into a sandpit and above there was a swing, with the seat removed. And they placed me in the middle of it, right in the middle and I was not allowed to move. Q: Your hands were still tied? Capet: Yes, behind the back, yes, and I could see on my right side there was a m an - I thought he was dead at first - with a rope around his neck, tied around a pole, a thick rope like this, and around his shoulder also. He had no shirt, no shoes; he was full of sand; half of his face was very - very much swollen and bloody with flies on it, he was unconscious, and there was some wound on his feet as well, and he was unconscious. And on my left side there was also a man tied around the pole and he was talking, talking very much in English with an Israeli soldier. I didn’t understand and I didn’t want to understand also. Q: Why didn’t you want to understand?

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Capet: I had very much the impression that by putting me there in this place, in the middle they wanted to - to impress me very strongly. Q: You mean intimidate you? Capet: To do something in my mind. Really, it looked very much like a miseen-scene. Q: And what happened next? Capet: Nothing happened for a few hours, nothing special but I have just seen lots of things happening around me. There was a man about two or three metres from me lying on the ground with the hands tied behind the back also and with a shirt over his head so you could not see his face. And they came to beat him, strongly, with feet and hands, with sticks, on the head, in the genital region; but in some way they took care not to kill him, not to break bones, not to make him unconscious. It was a quite painful scene, quite long: they forced him to open his legs so they stamp with the feet in his genitals, but I have seen how they kicked, and it was in his abdomen. It was a show, really this whole thing was a show, because he was crying very hard . . . Q: A show for what purpose? Capet: I think they were between thirty and fifty soldiers to keep guard of I think about one thousand prisoners. To make all these prisoners afraid, to keep them sitting, to make it easier for them, they choose some people who shout, who cry, they choose them and they kick them very hard so they shout more and they make everybody afraid. It looked very much like a deliberate action, like something that's very well minded. For instance, all the soldiers around there were in full battledress, with lifesaving jacket, with two water canisters, with two knives, with the full ammunition, with grenades, the full heavy equipment. They did not at all need this, to carry these heavy things around. They had all this, to my opinion, to look very terrible, to make the people afraid. They went around also kicking the people who did move a bit; hit them with ropes, with rubber tubes, with one instrument I have seen, it's small wooden sticks tied together, so that when they hit with it strongly it doesn’t break anything and it makes a lot of noise. But from time to time they kick really hard with hands and feet, and they do, like, karate. Q: Did they beat you? Capet: No, they did not beat me. Q: Were these all Arabs who were beaten? Capet: Yes. I have seen also that some people had some wounds in the hand because the ropes were very, very tight. They are humiliating the people, always shouting, always. Always shouting - they know a few words of Arab which they repeat. They sometimes let people go to toilet, to urinate, but sometimes not. You see they use pressure in this way. They sometimes allow people to move, to stand up and to sit down again, but it is rare; it's a favour. Mostly people who stand up do because they get pain. To have to sit down

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for many hours in the sun, even after one or two hours it’s starting to be painful. Q: How long were you there? Capet: I was in there from 1.30 till 6.20. They brought a doctor, a cardio­ vascular surgeon. I don’t know whether he’s Palestinian or Lebanese, but he worked for the Palestine Red Crescent. They brought him before me. This cardio-vascular surgeon told me that the night before they have tried to kill him. In fact, during the night they have moved their armoured vehicles towards prisoners, to make them afraid that they would be crushed by them. T hey would make them all just run from time to time, very hard, to stop the people from sleeping. T hat night he was very afraid that he would die, that they would kill him this night, or the night after. He told me that they had beaten him - I have seen he had very deep wounds on his wrists, from the ropes. Q: What happened to you next? Capet: I have seen then that the man which I thought was dead was a friend o f mine, a Palestinian doctor. H e was taking care of preventative medicine. He could talk a bit to me and he said they will kill him and so on. I heard from other witnesses afterwards that he got the same very bad treatm ent for one full week; that they have cut him with knives and so on; that he was in very bad shape after a week, but even that day he was . . . not in good shape. Q: And did he die? Capet: I heard he is not dead, now, but this is not my own witness. Q: What happened to you next? Capet: At 6.20 pm I was released. Temporarily, they said. They said, go back to the hospital and work and you will see what happen after that. But I have seen more, er, how they distributed food: a truck came with food, and they give about one bread for ten persons. And before they get the bread they have to line up and this lasts about one hour. It is not at all needed to make it last one hour but it is just to make the people line up. W hen they are all lined up they may have to change lines. And all this is happening with beating and humiliation. And they give also some water in tin cans; one prisoner in a row for instance is authorised to take a tin can with water and to go around to give them some water; also, they can’t take it in their hands because they keep th eir hands behind the back. I have seen three to four people lying in the sun without moving at all. I really don’t think they were asleep because sometimes sombeody came to kick them and they didn’t move at all. Nobody took them away, nobody tried to give them water, or anything. An Israeli soldier himself has told me that they took wounded persons as prisoner. And of these wounded persons some have died in the sun as prisoner, because they’ve got no care, they’ve got no water, no food, and probably they have been beaten. B ut what the Israeli soldier told me him self is that some wounded which they had taken prisoner died.

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Q: Anything else, that you want to add? Capet: Well yes, that they have taken prisoner all the medical staff, and that the hospital was not able to function any more because of lack of staff and also because of lack of electricity, while they could have given us electricity. Q: Was there any reason given for the taking the medical personnel prisoners? Capet: Yes, in general, not for each individual. They say we are seized as the health organisation of the PLO; the PLO is a terrorist organisation: everything depending on PLO is terrorist, even if it’s the health workers. That’s - that’s what they say. □

Testimony of Ralph Miller, given to the Commission in Beirut on 9 October 1982.

My name is Ralph Miller, I am the Lebanon representative for the Mennonite Central Committee. My family and I have lived here [Sidon] for five years and on 6 June, when the invasion started we were here at home. We spent 4 days in the shelter, immediately after the bombardment started. The first couple of days we couldn’t see very much, because it was mostly aerial bombardment and we stayed in the shelter. But after the second day we were able to come up to the ground floor in the house that we were in, we could look down over the city and down over the camp, and from what we could see there was indiscriminate bombardment going on of civilian areas. In some cases the bombardment was drawn, or instigated, by just the sight of a Palestinian commando, perhaps running through an area, and immediately tank shells would come crashing down after him. We were in our shelter, we could follow this kind of thing going on. In one sense it was a callous disregard for civilians, for the Palestinians to run through an area like this, but the Israelis were not willing to risk any soldiers by sending men in after the commandos. In other words most of it was done by bombardment from the outside, or as much as they could. I was arrested three times in mass arrests, where they would surround the area and they would call all the men between the ages of 14 and 55 or 60, down to a certain point. The system was that all these men should gather, the area would be sealed off, Israelis would go round with loud-speakers asking all the men to collect. Then the men were told to sit down on the ground or to stand in long rows and one by one the men had to pass in front of four hooded informers. There was one incident, which I did not see myself but which I was told of, where the Israelis separated the Lebanese into two groups. The Lebanese Christians were in the shade, the Lebanese Muslims sat in the sun and then the Palestinians also sat in the sun. In this one case I know some Christians went forward and asked the Israelis to put all the Lebanese together. But anyway in the situation that I was in, once in Mieh Mieh, this happened in early July, all the men were collected and I happened

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to be in Mieh Mieh that morning so I was also ordered to go down to this point. But the men had to go in front of these hooded informers, and the people were terrified of the informers for several reasons. First of all, people were afraid that for reasons of personal revenge an informer would indicate that they had been with a party, or perhaps that this informer was trying to bargain or to win his freedom by being over-zealous in his collaboration with the Israelis and was trying to point at as many people as he could or, maybe he was trying to foil the Israeli operation and foul things up. In fact I know of one case where an Israeli Officer tested their own system. He put on a dashdeshi (a long Arab garment) and passed in front of his own informers and all four of the informers pointed at him, indicating that the system was not a good system because this Israeli officer suddenly looked like an Arab, all four of the informers pointed at him and said he was in a political party. So the Israelis were aware that their system was not a good system for deciding who was and who was not involved in political activity. I found another interesting case in Mieh Mieh. It was in the early part of July; the Palestinian women came out from the camp to observe the procession of the men as they passed in front of the informers and there was a group of maybe several hundred women that gathered on a high point up to one side of the place of procession. These women could see as their menfolk passed in front of the informers who was being taken and who was not, because as soon as a man was indicated by the informers as having been involved, he was blindfolded, his hands tied behind his back and loaded into a truck. As this went on and the trucks started pulling out, loaded up with men, these women started wailing and crying and it was interesting that some of the Israeli soldiers started crying over this incident. It was one of the more tragic things that we watched. One thing that I did not mention about the informers was that some of the informers on each of the three occasions when I was included in the mass arrests, had their hands tied, indicating that they were acting under duress and were not cooperating willingly with the Israelis. I was at the seashore one day. I had decided to go and get a pass so that I could move around the city myself and I went to the seashore to watch the processing and of course as soon as the Israelis saw who I was they asked me to leave. But the situation that I saw was men tightly packed together, maybe some several thousand men very tightly packed together in rows; many of the men had been there since that morning, they were being lined up and when the men wouldn't cooperate, wouldn’t make their rows properly, the Israelis would shoot over their heads. Some men were down on the beach waiting to be processed for as long as 21 hours. I know a doctor that spent 21 hours at the beach waiting to be processed. On the day that I was there, I was there at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon, many of the men had been there since the morning, they had come down willingly or at least voluntarily, because the Israelis had demanded that men come forward to be processed. They had come down to

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the beach on their own early in the morning, hoping to be processed early so that they could go home. They wound up sitting on the beach, it was 2 o'clock in the afternoon and the processing had not started yet. □

Testimonies collected by Jim Fine from Palestinian and Lebanese witnesses from the areas around Tyre and Sidon and submined to the Commission on 4 September 1982. Evidence from AZ, Lebanese, Sidon, 12 August 1982

AZ owns a small farm near Houmine al Fouqa village in the north-eastern part of the Nabatieh district. During the years that the PLO held this area the family experienced some difficulties with the PLO forces. In August 1980 AZ himself was detained by the PLO for a short time and beaten. A year ago PLO threats made it seem unwise for AZ's brother to spend the night at the farm, so the family would live in Sidon and visit the farm from time to time during the day. After the Israeli invasion the family decided to return to the farm. About 25 July AZ returned to the farm at about 4.00 pm to learn that Israeli forces had arrested his brother, aged 30, at about 9.00 o'clock that morning and had taken him to the nearby village of Jarjouh. AZ and his father went to Jarjouh where they found the Israeli encampment and asked to see the officer in charge. At the Jarjouh encampment AZ saw his brother lying on the ground blindfolded with his hands tied behind his back. AZ spoke to the officer in charge who told him that he was being held for questioning. The officer said he believed he knew more than he would tell his interrogators and suggested that perhaps AZ could speak to his brother and persuade him to tell them more. AZ agreed and spoke to his brother alone. He asked if the soldiers had beaten him. He replied, ‘Yes.’ AZ asked him if he told the soldiers all that he knew. He said yes, and asked AZ if he should tell made-up stories to satisfy the Israelis. AZ spoke again to the officer in charge and told him that he was convinced that his brother knew nothing more than he had told his interrogators. The officer replied that he could not believe that. AZ said that they did not accept the PLO in their area and did not cooperate with them, but that they could do nothing to prevent their activities. At about 9.00 pm AZ was himself blindfolded and his hands tied behind, and both he and his brother were put into an Israeli vehicle and driven to the village of Rihane in the southern part of the Jezzine district. In Rihane they were taken to a school building that was being used by the Israelis as a base. AZ and his brother were separated. His brother was taken to a small room in the basement. AZ remained sitting up all night in a chair. A soldier gave him a blanket for the night.

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AZ saw the room where his brother was held. He saw five or six other prisoners also being held in that room. In the morning AZ was told that he could go, but that they were still investigating his brother. From this interview it is not clear whether AZ remained at Rihane all that day waiting for his brother's release, or whether he returned home and came back the next day to wait for his brother’s release. In any case he says he saw his brother last on 27 July 1982 at Rihane. He and his father returned to Rihane about 1 August and asked an officer to see him. The officer told them that he had been taken away and that the officer was unable to tell them anything more. About 7 August, AZ reported this incident to the ICRC in Sidon who said they would try to give him information about his brother in two weeks’ time. AZ remarked that they were never happy with the PLO but now they are facing an entirely different and worrying situation. □

Evidence from F and her daughter A, Sidon, 13 August 1982.

P s husband, Yunis, a blind, crippled man of 75, was killed in Ain el Hilweh camp about 26 June when Israeli soldiers bulldozed the family’s four room house in the camp while he was inside, according to F and her daughter A. The house was located on Jumaize St in the Zib quarter of the camp. The family originally came from Nazil Ainab (name approximate) in the Acre district of Palestine. During the bombing and fighting in the Ain el Hilweh camp F and her children left their home, carrying Yunis, who was unable to walk, to the nearby Government Hospital. In the confusion of the bombardment, the family became separated, but within the next three days found one another and sought refuge in the Doha School in Sidon. F and A then went back to the Government Hospital, where they found Yunis and carried him to join the rest of the family at the Doha School. More than a week went by during which the fighting continued at Ain el Hilweh. When it stopped, F and A went back to the camp and found their house still standing. They returned to Doha School and brought Yunis back home in a pushcart. At lunchtime the same day Israeli soldiers came to the house and told them that they must leave immediately because they were going to bulldoze the house in fifteen minutes. F and A pleaded with the soldiers, and finally one of them told F that they would postpone the demolition until 10.00 the next morning. Another told A that they would not bulldoze the house at all. F left the house to go into Sidon to try to find a pick-up truck to carry away the family furniture. Her daughter, A, also left to return to the Doha School where the other children were still staying. Yunis was left alone in the house. A short time later F returned, having found no trucks available in town.

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She found the house demolished. She screamed to Israeli soldiers standing near the house to tell her where her husband was. They replied that he had been taken out of the house in a car. A also returned to the house and the soldiers also told her that Yunis had been taken out of the house. F began sifting through the ruins of their home, looking for any article of clothing or houseware that she could salvage. Then, she said, she uncovered her husband’s hand in the rubble. She cried out to the soldiers that they had said that they wouldn’t bulldoze the house until tomorrow. She called out to them to help her dig her husband out of the wreckage. They replied that it wasn’t any of their business and refused to help. She and a neighbour dug Yunis out and found that he was dead. They laid him by the side of the wreckage and a short time later carried his body a kilometer or so away to the burial ground residents of Ain el Hilweh had purchased a year previously in the valley beneath Darb es-Seem village. They buried him there. A week later, after Id el-Fitr, F went back to the cemetery to find it bulldozed. Camp residents said that Phalangists or Haddad’s troops, who had set up posts in the area, were responsible. □

Evidence from AH, Ain-el-Hilweh Camp, Sidon, 12 August 1982.

AH is 60 years old, the father of three sons and six daughters, and a long­ time resident of Ain el Hilweh camp in Sidon. He is a refugee from H ittin village in the Tiberias district of the Galilee. During the fighting around Ain el Hilweh camp, AH and his family fled to the Hilaliyya quarter of Sidon (about 8 June) to escape bombing. They returned sometime later and found part of their house intact. On 7 July 1982 AH heard an Israeli army call through loud speakers for all the men of the area to report to the nearby Government Hospital. This was sometime in the morning of 7 July. AH went as directed. He estimates that some 500-700 men gathered at the hospital. During the next four hours or so the men were sent past several Israeli vehicles where AH saw three men sitting with hoods over their heads. The hooded men signed as each man passed in front of them, indicating whether that man was to be released or held. The hooded men indicated that AH should be held. A discussion then ensued among several Israeli officers. One or two said AH should be released because of his age, others said to hold him. Finally, the officer in charge ordered him to be held. AH estimates that about half of the men rounded up that morning were held. He was taken with the others in a bus to the Safa Citrus Corporation plant in Sidon. At the Safa compound he was blindfolded, his hands were tied in front of him, and he was put on a bus. He is uncertain how long the bus ride

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took, but estimates it was two or three hours. When he and the other detainees disembarked they found themselves in a prison camp which they were certain was somewhere in Israel. AH and those with him were given places in tents in the camp. They were given adequate food and water at all times in the camp and had access to toilet facilities. During the stay there, prisoners were taken in groups of five for investigation. AH went with four others to a place at the edge of the camp where there was a wall with small holes in it at eye level. Officers sat at a desk in front of the wall. Each prisoner was brought forward and told to look toward the wall. He was then told to turn sideways. AH was then told to go after being asked only his name and occupation. The other members in his group were also told to go. AH reports spending 12 days to two weeks in the camp in Israel. He was then transferred with other prisoners by bus to Ansar, the large prison camp the Israeli army has recently built in South Lebanon. At Ansar AH was given a place in a tent of 25 persons. By his account all of the men at Ansar are housed in tents of 25 persons and every 20 tents are arranged as a camp (muaskar). AH says there are 24 such ‘camps’ in Ansar. (If correct, this would give the camp a capacity of 12,000. ICRC estimates and Israeli figures both place the population of Ansar at about 7,000 at present. Israeli estimates of the number of prisoners have sometimes been as high as 9,000. AH passed about a week at Ansar without event. A drinking tap was available at each camp, he said, and food was brought to be distributed by the prisoners. After about a week an Israeli officer came to AH’s camp and asked all of the men over 60 to identify themselves. The officer wrote down the names and numbers of these men, including AH’s. Two days later ICRC delegates visited the camp. They distributed cigarettes. Four delegates came to AH’s camp and asked one man from each tent to register the names of those in his tent. AH understood at that time that ICRC was asking for the release of three categories of detainees: the sick, those under 15 and those over 60. Four days after the ICRC visit, an Israeli officer came to the camp and instructed all those whose names he would call to bring their clothes and come forward. AH says 27 men were called from his camp. They and others from other camps were put into a special camp of 115 persons. These 115 persons were then taken by bus to Tyre, where 45 were released and to Sidon where 49 were released, including AH. AH and the others released were told to report to Israeli military HQ two days later to get ID cards. AH was released bn 8 August 1982. Two days later he received a blue identity card from Sidon HQ with his name and photo on it. AH says that he saw no one beaten during his imprisonment, nor did he hear the sounds of anyone being beaten. He saw one man, about 35 years old,

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drop dead at Ansar, he believes of a heart attack, but he saw no sign that the man had been subjected to any mistreatment. AH estimates that about one third of the prisoners at Ansar were Lebanese and two thirds were Palestinian, but he says that of the 115 released with him only 9 or 10 were Lebanese. □

Evidence from SA aged 30, UNRWA teacher, Sidon, 11 August 1982.

About 10 June Israeli forces announced through loudspeakers that all men between 14 and 60 should assemble by the sea near St Joseph’s convent in Sidon. SA went about 11.00 am. He waited until nearly midnight to be processed by the soldiers. Others waited through the night and into the next day. When his turn came, like the others he was directed to walk between two jeeps where three or four hooded men were sitting. As each person passed through, the hooded men indicated that he should be either detained or released. Both the man in front of SA and the one behind were detained but he was told to go after having his identity papers stamped by an officer at a desk near the jeeps. The men awaiting processing were assembled in the street that runs down to the beach from a corner where the St Joseph school is located. The men were tightly packed together and penned in by the buildings on both sides of the block, and by Israeli vehicles from the end of the rows of buildings to the edge of the sea. S A estimates that perhaps 20,000 men were assembled in this area when he was there. The men were sitting and standing. Sometimes Israeli soldiers w ould fire over their heads. Since it was late when S A was finished, he and many other men waited in the area until morning before returning home out of fear of going through the streets at night. SA reports that two of his friends have been rearrested after an initial screening either at the beach or elsewhere. One, another UNRWA teacher, was detained after his initial screening for a week from about 10 to 17 June. Then in another round up at the end of June he was rearrested and is still interned. Another friend, a nurse who worked with the Palestine Red Crescent Society, was detained 10 June and taken to Israel for 22 days. Within a week of his release he was detained again and is still being held, presumably at Ansar. □

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Evidence from S, Palestinian, aged 46, Sidon, 10 July 1982.

The S family left their apartment on 11 June in response to instructions given by the Israelis over a loudspeaker. They went walking to a designated beach area. That night the family slept inside the Doha School, which is near the beach and was included in the restricted area. The next day S’s family was allowed to leave, but S, along with about 1,000 other men, was kept in the restricted area. The men were given access to several food shops in the immediate area and the Israelis made a limited amount of water available. S spent the night on the beach, but he says sleep was impossible. The next day the men were lined up to get ‘passes’ rubber-stamped in their ID ’s. As each man went forward he had to pass in front of four hooded informers sitting in jeeps beside Israeli soldiers. As S went forward he was pointed at by one of the informers. From what S overheard, he was accused of being an officer in the Joint Forces. Israeli soldiers then marked something on the back of his shirt and tied his hands behind his back. He was kept in a guarded area until about 5 pm, when he was blindfolded and put on a bus with other prisoners. Following a bus ride of over an hour the men were unloaded. During the night men were questioned, and S says he was struck with a stick several times on the back and shoulders, though not as severely (as indicated by their cries) as other men. T he next morning the blindfolds were still left on, but the men’s hands were briefly untied and they were given bread and a few small tomatoes to eat. S says that, from what he could overhear, he got the impression that pictures were being taken during this interlude before their hands were retied. The men were then reloaded on buses for another trip of about an hour. Upon arriving at about 10.00 am the blindfolds were removed, hands untied, and the men given blue uniforms. S says they were then allowed to use a toilet for the first time since they were arrested. Up till then the men were obliged to soil their clothes. The men spent the rest of the day and night sitting on the ground. S’s glasses were attached to his shirt while he was blindfolded, and he was not allowed to wear them. On the third day the men were shifted to an enclosure which had tents, where they were allowed to mingle and talk. S says there were 840 men in his group, which included Lebanese, Palestinians, and Syrians. S says the prison camp was located in northern Israel in the region of Safad. Questioning and the use of hooded informers continued in the camp. Some o f the men were beaten to force confessions. S says there was one man, in particular, who was beaten severely, especially on the stomach, until he lost consciousness. S and other prisoners later poured water on the man to revive him. On 28 June at about 7.00 pm S was among about 400 men whose numbers were called. These men were separated from the main group, and the next

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morning were loaded on buses. They were hauled back across the Israeli-Lebanon border at Naqura and on to the Serail in Sidon, where they were released. S received no explanation for his 17 day confinement. He returned home on 29 June wearing his blue uniform and a pair of heavy laceup army boots. S says the psychological pain of uncertainty and extreme concern for his family was the worst pan of his ordeal. He says at times he couldn’t eat and gave his food to others. □

Evidence from Dr N, Sidon, 11 August 1982.

Around 7.30 pm on Sunday, 8 August armed men entered the Hospital and came to a room where Dr N was examining a patient with severe abdominal pains. One of the men was carrying a child, with a leg injury, who was crying loudly. Dr N's nurse asked the man to put the child down. One of the men carrying a machine gun cursed the doctor and threatened to shoot him if he didn't treat the child immediately. An argument ensued. The doctor said that he could not treat the child under such pressure. The armed men continued to threaten. The doctor tried to take away one of the men’s guns. Another man scratched the doctor in the scuffle. The doctor then tried to take out his own gun and threatened the armed intruder. The abdominal patient and the patient's mother fainted. Other hospital staff arrived on the scene and were also threatened by the gunmen. The gunmen called for help and eight uniformed men arrived on the scene. Finally, a doctor treated the child, whose wound was not serious and the armed men left. Dr N a surgeon at the hospital telephoned the Lebanese police to report the incident and ask them to come over to'the hospital, but the police replied that they could not come because of the curfew in force after 7.30 pm. The doctors said that both Haddad and Phalange men were involved in the incident. Later, the commander of the Phalangist forces in the area came to the hospital to apologize for the incident and told the doctors to let him know if he had any further troubles. The doctors comment that they can't call the police, the Israelis don't care and there is nobody to protect them. □ Evidence relating to the Siege o f Beirut Extracts from Prime Minister Shafik’s evidence

Can you imagine a city deprived of water and electricity in such modern times? The Israelis witnessed how the people of West Beirut resisted with the Palestinians, and this was because they refused to be treated in this ^m hum an way . . . Do you know, I spoke twice to King Fahd of Saudi xabia, so that he should speak to President Reagan, in order that the latter

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exert pressure on Begin to open the water taps for West Beirut. 700,000 people continued to live in this part of Beirut. All the hospitals have been destroyed, even the American University Hospital had to stop functioning because it lacked the supplies it required. You should ask M. de Salis, the representative of the International Red Cross in Lebanon, how they treated the wounded. What could we expect from a country which treats people in this way and does not take into consideration the UN resolutions that demanded the removal of the blockade in West Beirut? On Thursday, 12 August, we were bombarded for eleven consecutive hours, continuous bombardment. I had to go to the presidential palace at Baabda. Unfortunately, I couldn't because of the bombardment and I told President Reagan’s mediator Habib that I could no longer assume my responsibilities. At this moment Reagan interfered. You cannot conceive the intensity of the bombardment from the sea, air and ground. It's a war made by one party - and this is no more a war, but a massacre.' □

Interview with Dr Heger, an Anaesthetist in the University Hospital in Osk), who went to Beirut on the 22 June 1982.

Commission: You went to Lebanon by yourself? D r Heger: With a team from the Palestinian Committee, in fact, we were the first team to get inside Beirut during the siege. Q: How many of you were there? Heger: We were three. Q: Where did you go. Heger: To West Beirut. But I think I will describe the events leading up to that. The Israelis prevented more than 150 volunteer doctors and nurses who had been sent by the internationally recognised humanitarian organisations from entering Beirut. Q: How did you know that? Heger: Because I was one of them and we were in Damascus one week trying very hard to get inside and it was impossible. The Red Cross tried three times to get inside with the big convoys and each time they were stopped by the Israeli checkpoints. Q: And turned back? Heger: And returned back, yes. In Damascus there were hundreds of tonnes of medical equipment sent from all over the world and destined for West Beirut. It was partly wasted because it was like blood. We were the only team to get into Beirut and we had to be smuggled in. It was absurd to see the gross lack of everything inside the city and to know the resources waiting outside. Q: You were in the Gaza hospital? Heger: Yes we were in Gaza Hospital during the shelling. It is a high building of 8 floors and it is surrounded by small houses on the outskirts of

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Chatila and Sabra refugee camps, it is painted white in contrast to its surroundings and it is well marked with the Red Crescent and the Red Cross flags. At the time when we arrived the Israeli positions were less than one and a half kilometers away on the hillside, with an excellent view of the camps and the hospital. The camp and the hospital were under more or less constant shelling and the hospital was hit but still operational. It was absolutely necessary to keep it open. 80% of the people in the surrounding camps had left their homes and moved to what they believed were safer places; but 20% were left in the camp, mostly the old and the poor, who had no place to go. Gaza was the only hospital in the area, the only hospital near the damage and the injuries. After operations they tried to evacuate the patients to safer places, as far as possible. The operating theatre was under the ground in concrete, and they opened this shelter to the local people in the surrounding camps and neighbourhood. When there was shelling there could be more than one hundred civilians in the operating and the X-ray rooms in the cellar. We started to work at Gaza because we were needed there. When we came to Beirut, the Head of the Anaesthesia Department from the American University Hospital said ‘if you really want to help these people you m ust go to Gaza Hospital’. At the American University Hospital they worked very hard day and night, but for the time being they had enough people. We worked only one and a half days at the Gaza before it was evacuated but it was a shocking experience, seriously wounded and dying patients, and when many people came at the same time you had to decide who was to live and who was to die. You couldn’t take care of them all. As an anaesthetist I had to take care of the seriously wounded immediately and when the casualties rushed in the first thing to do was to pull off their clothes to see where the injury was. Three times I foundno external injuries but when I intubated the patient I found the lungs full of blood, they were crushed by the pressure from the explosions . . . During one and a half days we operated [on] twelve major and ten small casualties, most of them from so called high velocity fragmentation weapons and three hit by cluster bombs: the mortality was more than 50%. If one of the fragments had hit the patient in the abdomen, chest or head, he had no chance at all, the damage was too great. Usually he died in the receiving ward, that’s why most of our operations were amputations and you had to operate very fast. You did the amputation initially and then left it open and waited for a better chance for secondary closure. Around 3 o’clock on the 25 June, the Israelis flew low over the hospital and dropped leaflets in Hebrew (which nobody could read) and we wondered at the meaning. Everybody became scared and one or two hours later they started heavy shelling, concentrated on the hospital. People rushed to the cellar and I believe there were more than 100 civilians there. We tried to continue the operative treatment, but each new explosion I believe would be the last one and the building would fall down. The people

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were scared to death, so was I, and it was not possible to go upstairs. One time I tried to go up to give analgesics to the injured upstairs, but I was literally knocked to the ground by the explosions outside, and the patients on the first and second floors we had to leave alone. One Palestinian boy, an orderly, 17-years-old was the only one of the staff who took care of the patients on the first floor during the shelling, talking to them to calm them; he is the biggest hero I have ever met. After three hours it became dark and they decided to evacuate and when the dark came the shelling became more scattered and it was possible to escape. In less than half an hour we were all outside the main security gate. The last patient was transported from the operating table while still in anaesthesia. I will never forget the transport with his head between my legs, working hard to keep his airway free, the ambulance without lights and full. Q: How long did it take to evacuate the hospital do you know? Heger: I am very impressed by how fast they did it, I think in half an hour. Q: How many patients were evacuated do you know? Heger: Sixty persons I think. Q: What's the total capacity with regard to the hospital? Heger: I am not quite sure because it was 8 floors, but only two of them were operating. So I’m not sure: its a big hospital, 100 beds I think. To sum up, there is no doubt in my opinion that this was premeditated and specific shelling of a fully operational hospital without military installations. Q: No military installations? Heger: No, none, and it was the second Palestinian hospital they had to evacuate because of the shelling. The first one was Akka, it was evacuated three or four days before we arrived in Beirut and after the Gaza was closed the Palestinians had no hospital of their own remaining in operation in Beirut. Q: What was the ratio of civilian patients to combatants? Heger: Perhaps 20% were commandos, not more; they were dressed to distinguish. Q: That's one in five then. How many shells hit the Gaza hospital? Heger: Oh, it is impossible to say, it was continuous shelling, whole floors were completely destroyed. Q: And was Gaza hospital shelled after the evacuation? Heger: Yes, I think so, but this is not evidence of my own opinion; shelling of the hospital before and after this day was more scattered; sometimes they were hit and sometimes they were not. Q: On the 25 June were buildings around the hospital shelled? Heger: The hospital was the centre of the shelling. Q: And the damage? Heger:' I think the four upper floors were completely destroyed. But there was no medical functions in the upper floors, just in the basement and the first floor. Q: Did they work to have the other floors repaired?

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Hcgcr: Yes, they actually put blocks of concrete in all the windows leaving only a small space on the upper limit of the windows to protect the rooms from further shelling and from shrapnel coming in. After that day we held a press conference in West Beirut. And the press people at the Commodore [Hotel] said that after our press conference the Israeli authorities admitted to them they they had shelled the hospital because it was a military target. Q: After your press conference. Heger: Yes. In my opinion its very special that we are from Western Europe. It is not the first time a hospital was shelled this way because Akka hospital was shelled one week before, b ut when three people from Western Europe, not Palestinian, came and told the journalists we were there when the hospital was shelled, then the Israelis had to admit it. Q: Can you tell us two things about the blockade of Beirut? How many medics had been stopped in all from entering? Heger: 150 doctors and nurses in Damascus I think. Q: And you tried to cross the border with the ICRC or by yourself? Heger: No, everybody told us it was impossible and they had tried many times. But we tried three times to get inside with doctors and medical equipment, with the Red Cross, and we have been stopped every time by the Israeli checkpoints. Q: So three times unsuccessful? Heger: Yes, and when we left Beirut the Israeli officer at the checkpoint asked us what we were doing in Beirut. We told them that we were Norwegian doctors and nurses and working in a humanitarian way in West Beirut, and they said ‘OK, do you know the rules?* I said, V h at rules, what are you talking about?* - and he said ‘you can go but you can never, never come back.* □

Abdul Rahman Laban was Lebanese Minister of Labour and Special Affairs. Profession: Psychiatrist, Chief Medical Officer of the Islamic Psychiatric Hospital, situated near Sports City and boundary of Sabra Camp. Interviewed 4 September 1982

Commission: What has been the experience of the Islamic Hospital since the invasion? Laban: The area around the hospital and the Sports City was bombarded before the 6 June invasion but the hospital was only lightly damaged. However after the invasion and during the siege of Beirut the hospital was hit by 20-25 shells (some were phosphorus bombs). Nine patients were killed and 22 injured, two of which died later on. I informed the President of Lebanon and he being highly distressed communicated his concern to Habib. On the first occasion the bombing of the hospital stopped within half an hour as a result of Habib’s communication of restraint to the Israelis. This however did not stop the Israelis hitting the hospital in the shelling of Beirut which followed. The top floor of the hospital which was the children’s

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quarter was completely destroyed, such that the 60 children were transferred elsewhere and some were looked after by Mother Theresa's helpers. The staircase and dormitories were also hit. Due to the bombing and the general insecurity only 15 of the 270 staff turned up to work; whilst 400 of the 800 patients were taken away by their families. During the bombardments of Beirut movement around the city was very difficult and this alone meant that people suffered from a shortage of provisions. There was also no water, electricity or petrol and most general public services were destroyed. The ability to come and go to and from the hospital was seriously impaired except during the cease-fires which usually occured at 5 to 5.15 in the afternoon. These conditions were not unique to my hospital and were experienced by many other hospitals. Makassad and Barbir hospitals were also badly damaged, especially the latter. I am also the president of the High Relief Committee which was set up in 1977 and caters for homeless and displaced families. Our main task is to provide food, blankets, beds, medical supplies and general provisions to the needy. During the siege it was really very difficult to cope. We were all lucky in one respect in that due to some foresight we managed to physically put ourselves up in West Beirut and also managed to transfer large amounts of rice, sugar and general provisions into the city. In the final analysis these provisions to a certain degree saved the population from virtual starvation since bare necessities were distributed to hospitals, schools, orphanages, old people's homes and families. During the siege itself water, electricity, fuel and most food supplies were cut off. At the beginning of the siege I sent a letter to the International Red Cross demanding the entrance of basic provisions into the city. [Letter dated 12 July]. Two essential needs were flour (for bread) and milk. I also asked for some trucks to be allowed in to clear the rubbish. However the Red Cross were unable to get through the bulk of these provisions. I asked U N IC EF to declare this fact publicly. The Israelis argued that these provisions could be used by the Palestinian guerrillas but the Palestinians were well provided for as they had foreseen the situation and it was the civilian population who were in need. The danger of famine and health hazards were rife during the siege. Luckily we managed to cope with the situation although this does not in any way excuse Israel's criminal act. We were not only besieged physically but also psychologically through leafletting. Many people were deeply disturbed by the mock Israeli air raids (especially at night) which unlike real bombings damaged everyone psychologically. Q: How often did these raids take place? Laban: A few times, but they were severe enough. There was continuous bombardment from land, sea and air, which had a total psychological effect. People felt totally insecure. Every minute day and night was tense. All the population was materially and psychologically coerced as well as feeling isolation since all the communication lines were destroyed. These three factors o f constant bombardm ent, awareness of material deprivation and

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socio-political isolation are very psychologically damaging. 600,000 people lived in these inhuman conditions. Most of the hospitals were closed due to damage and scarcity of medical supplies and thereby most patients were concentrated in the American Hospital. We had to fetch fuel from devastated buildings, pumping out what fuel they had and concentrating it all in this one hospital in order to meet the needs. Even the trucks which were let in by U N IC EF were emptied of their fuel so that nobody could pum p it out for other use. The Red Cross had to vow to the Israeli/Phalangist soldiers that it would not allow anybody to take fuel from the tanks. Q: What did people do who had no monetary resources in this period? Laban: The. High Relief Committee provided free food and provisions to the people who needed it. Generally people co-operated and helped each other such that people did not go without basic foodstuffs. Q: Was there a significant influx of people into Beirut? Laban: No, not really, since many people from the central and southern suburbs left town and went to East Beirut. The people who went were the richer class since life in East Beirut is expensive. People left for East Beirut at the continuous suggestion of Israeli Radio Broadcasts. The ones who were left were mostly from the poorer classes . . . Most of the ones who did leave however returned after the evacuation of the Palestinian fighters. Q: We were informed that there was an increase in the population of Beirut due to people fleeing from Southern Lebanon. Leban: No, not Southern Lebanon but the southern suburbs of Beirut. The southern suburbs have been under continuous bombardment. This sector which is known as the slums of Beirut is the most populated area as most of the working classes live there. The reason for this is that most industries are in the proximity of the southern suburbs and they were all destroyed during the shelling. Many of the workers in this area wefe Lebanese - about 1.2 million - who worked at the industries and they all fled to the city. I cannot tell you how many came into Beirut or went to the south or how many stayed. These are all impressions and not based on statistics. There are no statistics in Lebanon today. We could tell however that areas were specifically mapped out to be devastated by Israeli bombardment and this had the migratory effect. If you walk around the city you will see stark evidence of this pattern of destruction and its magnitude. This destruction was aimed at the base of the community and could have no military purpose. The idea must have been to shell carelessly within sectors so as to hit everything. It was obviously callously planned like this since they are able to hit what they want with their sophisticated weaponry. It cost billions of dollars to destroy Beirut and if we had as much money to rebuild it we would not be near to repairing the damage done. This is mainly due to the massive disruption and destruction of the intricate interpersonal relations which existed in the Beirut community. Just one example is the chaos which now exists in property relations, ie former rented/owned accommodation.

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Q: In looking at the problems of reconstruction what immediate problems do you foresee in the winter? Laban: Our winter is very wet. We have lots of rain although its not very cold. This will cause more hardship than is usually the case. We will also face a lack of manual labour since most of our labour was Palestinian and Syrian with almost half a million working in building and agriculture. There is also a lack of skilled labour as well as materials and this will raise prices of both as demand is now high. The third problem is that most of our industry has been destroyed. Consequently industrialists are not able to pay workers and many industrialists arc attempting to dismiss workers. Due to the emergency situation the Government will allow these industrialists to get rid of as many workers as they see fit in order to survive. There will therefore be an increase in unemployment which will cause further social problems. Means therefore must be found to repair this damage as soon as possible. It was of course Israel’s aim to land us exactly in this situation; to destroy the Lebanese community and infrastructure - industry, tourism, social services, etc. Israel has done this to destroy competition from the most efficient national economy in the Arab world. Generally speaking I can see no justification for laying siege to a modem city which is dependent for all its basic needs on outside supplies ie, water, electricity, food, medical provisions, etc. It is the most inhuman act and transcends all military excuses because in laying siege to a city you know that it will tragically affect everybody - women, children, the sick, old people, the handicapped and innocent civilians in general. It is unwarranted, uncivilized and inhuman. □

Extracts from an article published in The Times, London, on 12 July 1982, by Robert Fisk.

A 2 ft wide trail of blood runs from the children’s ward on the third floor of Barbir hospital. Between the shards of glass and broken fittings, it snakes 20 feet across the tiled floor to the stairs. The Israeli shell had exploded scarcely 20 feet from the windows and in some places the blood is darker than usual, as if an abstract artist had run amuck with a tin of light brown pai nt. . . Thirty per cent of the wounded crammed onto makeshift beds and floors of the Barbir’s lower rooms are guerrillas, sometimes still in their tom khaki battledress or stripped beneath blood stained sheets, their faces bandaged beneath a vortex of drip-feeds and glucose bottles . . . But many of the Barbir’s patients have had to be transferred to other hospitals after the shellfire that damaged the building and more than half the 40 who still remain are civilians. Of the 21 brought in during Sunday’s bombardment, most were suffering from shrapnel wounds. ‘We had six casulaties inside the hospital when the shells hit round us,’ Dr

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Shamaa says. ‘The bombardment was continuous for nearly four hours in this vicinity and we were nearly paralysed. We were unable to use the operating theatre upstairs and when people arrived here needing immediate surgery we had to transfer them. ‘We were short of blood and in the end we had to ask volunteers from the hospital to go out into the shelling to two centres where we were told there were blood donors. It was a very tough decision to make. But they came back.' They were lucky. Three of the wounded brought to the Barbir during Sunday's bombardment were dead on arrival. The hospital has received more than 200 dead since June 4 . . All yesterday workmen were sweeping the floors of the broken wards, washing the floors and plastic screens and beds of blood, smashing out the remains of the windows. If the Israelis did not mean to shell the Barbir, the gunners did indeed pay precious little attention to its presence. □

The following item was broadcast by LBC (London Broadcasting Corporation) on 20 July 1982.

Our reporter Andrew Simmonds has visited the Muslim Orphanage Institute, where the children live in unventilated storerooms because of the danger of bombs and shells. ‘It's a pitiful sight. Twenty toddlers, none with any parents, living in the ridiculously crowded space of a storeroom, waving their only possessions, squeaky toys, in the air. They stare with eyes that cannot comprehend what is going on around them, within walking distance of the front line. Their institute has been hit by shells on two occasions. Now the Welfare workers insist that the children, around 100 in all, live on the ground floor. Their nurseries upstairs have cracked walls and floors that are crumbling away. These toddlers are of course too young to understand, but next door a group of little boys aged between 2 and 4, wearing just dark grey shorts and shabby vests, ask questions that have answers that lead to tears. The Institute's Director General, Mohammed Barakat tried to comfort a little boy crying in the comer of the room. M r Barakat says that up to 6,000 children have been orphaned during this war. Not all through the death of their parents though; many have been abandoned by mothers who are unable to cope after losing their homes. But even more disturbing than the number is that fact that the children of this Institute are in the war zone. □

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The following item wts broadcast in the BBC radio programme The World Tonight on 2 August 1982 from Chris Drake.

I think probably the best way to describe it [the situation in Beirut] is to imagine in one’s own home in Britain gening up in the morning. There is no electricity; there is no running water, there is no fresh food; any food that might have been refrigerated is now rotten, is now useless, because there’s been no electricity for the past week; there is very little fuel. The offices and the vast majority of shops have been closed for almost two months. It is the middle of the summer here and that means temperatures of eighty to ninety degrees every day; there is very little in the way of a fresh breeze and that may not sound significant in Britain, but here it is the one thing one looks forward to just to cool things down. And then when you put all that together and realise that the chances of being able to wash one’s hair, to be able to get a drink of water, are just so slim everyday; or if one can find water, or one can find fresh food, it has been a major battle to get it. Far more now is the daily plight of these children, whose first task as soon as it becomes light is to go out and try and find water. The Israelis say they’ve turned it back on but of course there is no electricity to actually pump it to any obvious destination, so it’s a major search. Those that aren’t looking for water are looking for bread, that’s the staple diet here, a few bakeries have managed to get a little fuel and are able to bake a little every day, but there are always long queues. □

The following dispatch from James Buchan in Beirut was published in the Financial Times on 9 July 1982.

Doctor Khaled, a neurosurgeon bom in Jaffa, (now in] Israel, but trained in East Germany, performed a craniotomy on Tuesday on the first floor of Beirut’s Gaza Hospital, slept in his green threatre overalls that night and was still wearing them the next day. Dr Khaled, who is 34, washes his overalls by hand himself, but the water comes from a well under the hospital and may well be contaminated. He does have sterile disposable gloves, but they are too valuable to be thrown away and cannot be properly sterilised unless there is a secure source of unvarying power for a specific length of time. It often seems that the Israelis, who have been tinkering with power and water since last Saturday, will not permit this. The intensive care room, where nurses are beginning to draw fluid from the unknown patient’s brain, is full of sandbags for fear of Israeli shelling from the hills to the east. The door has no glass, but D r Khaled blocks my way. ‘This is the green, or rather the sterile, line,’ he says. The patient has acute bleeding within the brain and has about a one-in-10 chance of surviving with total paralysis of his right side.

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The Gaza Hospital which is run by the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, began operating in the southern suburb of Sabra with 11 floors and 100 beds in 1975. Dr Khaled now has seven surgeons and 12 beds. He also has a kitchen, with which he feeds the surrounding streets where a handful of the poorest people in Beirut have remained. The kitchen is also shared with Ramallah, now doing about one delivery a day although on 4 June, the day the attack on Beirut began, three women gave premature birth in the basement, the lift and the lavatory. Dr Khaled divides his problems into two sorts. First are those of warfare, comprising the danger to the building and the injuries caused by new Israeli weapons which have altered the ‘traditional’ balance between death and injury from about 2:8 to 5:5. He particularly refers to the immense and extensive damage to several different organs, caused by cluster bombs. The second problem concerns the lack of secure electricity and water although the Israelis have apparently turned on mains power. The Gaza generator cannot be relied on for, say, the maintenance of a blood bank at the required temperature of four degrees centigrade. His approach has therefore been to take the addresses of blood donors, and send out ambulances with loudhailers during bombardments to transfuse patients in the streets or in basements. The lift also cannot be relied on. Often severely injured people are carried bodily down or up stairs. Hospital staff make no distinction between soldiers and civilians, and Dr Khaled said that Gaza treated an Israeli pilot now being held by the Palestinians as a prisoner of war. When the mental hospital was hit, 800 patients varying in condition from senile dementia to violent schizophrenia were released onto the streets of Beirut, Dr Khaled says. West Beirut has long been a barbaric place, but the Israeli siege is sending it back into the middle ages. □ Evidence relating to the m assacres at Sabra and Chatila Dr Ang (Gaza)'and Dr McKenna testified to the Commission on 4 October 1982 in Beirut. Dr Swee Chai Ang is a Singaporean, permanently resident in Britain, and is an orthopaedic surgeon by training. She arrived in West Beirut on 18 August with part of the Christian Aid medical team, which had been sent from London. Dr Ang was seconded to Gaza Hospital and started work there on 28 August. Dr Phil McKenna is an Irish citizen and volunteered to work at Gaza Hospital. She worked in West Beirut July-October 1982.

Commission: Dr Ang, can you relate to us your experiences from 15 September? Dr Ang: On 14 September, evening, President-elect Gemayel was assassinated. On 15 September, early in the morning, about 5-5.30 am, flights of airplanes began flying in at great speed towards Sabra and Chatila.

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W e expected trouble then. Shelling of Sabra, Chatila, Fakhani and Comiche Mazra began about 7.30-8 am. We didn’t receive many casualties then because the roads were almost totally blocked. Two Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulances left to collect casualties, but they never returned. Up to today, I cannot find out what happened to them. On the whole of Wednesday (15 September) we had very few casualties except people who were wounded by shrapnel, who could be brought in by their families. But on Thursday (16 September) our first major casualties arrived, and these were definitely high-velocity gunshot wounds. As a doctor I can say this, because the wound was small, there was a high vacuum, a huge area of tissue damage and a large area of exit wound. These can only be caused by high-velocity gunshot - rifle type weapons. We had people who were shot through the jaw, shot through the brain, shot through their legs, shot through their abdomen. And our bed capacity increased from about 45 to 82 in the same day. We had to transfer about 30 patients to Makassad hospital, because we were too overworked, we couldn’t cope. And our mortuary filled up. I have a set of slides of the dead bodies in the mortuary. I was actually terrified of being killed before being able to produce this evidence. It was evident from the casualties brought in then that gunmen had gone into the homes of the people in Sabra and Chatila camps and started shooting them in their homes. We were told by the casualties that the gunmen were not Israelis, but Lebanese with a Ba’albek accent. On the whole of Thursday night and Friday morning we were operating very hard. On Friday morning, a hospital administrator sensed that something was going very wrong, so she went out of the hospital in an ambulance, wearing a white coat, to Makassad hospital, where she contacted the ICRC to say that there was a whole team of foreigners working in Gaza hospital, and that the Israelis should at least protect the foreigners, and spare them. The second thing she did was, she tried to radio contact the Israelis, to tell them that we have 2,000 refugees in the hospital, plus a whole team of foreign doctors. She registered all of us with the ICRC. She came back and said that - this was on Friday 17 - something very, very terrible is going to happen by sunset, and she believes that either the Kataebs or maybe the Haddads are going to come into the hospital and kill everybody. At this warning, she went round the whole hospital and told the refugees to evacuate. Also the patients began to take their own discharge. After the hospital was evacuated, D r Phil McKenna and myself and a whole team of foreigners were left behind. On the following day (18 September) at 6.45 am soldiers appeared, and an American nurse spotted them and told me. So I sent one of the male doctors down to negotiate with them. And I went down as well. What they wanted at th at time was all the foreign doctors and nurses to assemble in front of the hall. So I sent this doctor upstairs to collect all the other staff, and I stood and talked to them and I asked them who they were and they said they were

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from the army. I asked, ‘what army'? They replied, ‘Lebanese Forces'. Now, I was new to the country and I didn't know what Lebanese Forces meant. Of course, I subsequently, found out that Lebanese Forces meant Kataeb. Q: How were these militiamen dressed? Ang: They had two yellow Arabic words on green uniforms, the Lebanese crest on one arm, and some of them had a blue triangle. Others had yellow insignia on their pockets. They said, ‘Don't be afraid. We want all foreign doctors to come down here, and we want to take you away for two or three hours for some interrogation, and we'll bring you back'. So I asked him whether we should bring our luggage, but they said ‘No, don’t worry, we will come back with you'. The rest of the members of the team came down, and we were taken away by these so-called Lebanese Forces. We left behind a Swedish nurse, and a medical student to look after the intensive care. They later said that about half an hour after we left there was heavy machine gun-like shots for 20-30 minutes, lots of screaming and crying and after that there was complete silence. We were passed to a different group of soldiers, and a different group of soldiers, and a different group of soldiers. We were passed through four different groups of soldiers. The first lot definitely looked Lebanese, but later on, by the time we were marched down Rue Sabra and taken to the U N IC EF building for interrogation, the soldiers no longer looked like Kataeb. On the way I saw a lot of militiamen who had no identification at all. Just green uniforms and wearing baseball caps. No identification. The officer that took us from the camp was dressed in that kind of proper, Lebanese uniform, but as we got passed on and on the identification was lost. There was no more until we arrived at the Israeli headquarters and then the Israeli signs became clear. They didn’t know what the World Council of Churches was, which surprised me, because if they were Phalangists, they would have known very well what the Middle East Council of Churches represents. Q: Were they speaking Arabic? Ang: Yes. Q: Could you go over what you saw as you were taken from the hospital? Ang: As we were marched down Rue Sabra, at 7-7.30 in the morning we saw about 800-1,000 people lined up in groups on both sides of the street. I can remember clearly seeing about five or six dead bodies who seemed to have been dead for a long time - as a doctor I would say they had been dead for more than 12 hours. They were lying on the roadside. I remember seeing three bulldozers, big ones, tearing down the camp houses, and pulling down the rubble, and I don’t know whether I am imagining it, but I could see that some of that rubble had bodies in it. Dr McKenna: I ’d like to make a point here. By Saturday morning and by ^4?te Friday evening, all the Palestinian staff had left the hospital at our ’quest and with our full approval. All of them, except for two teenage boys.

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And when the staff of the hospital met on the steps, before the ‘Lebanese Forces', these two Palestinians came with us, introduced themselves, showed their identity cards, and they were welcomed in Arabic. Together we all walked down through Chatila where the civilians were gathered in groups on either side of the road. About three or four hundred yards beyond that, one of the Palestinians was taken out of the group and brought behind us. And a German girl and myself looked behind. She said ‘Where are you taking him?' And they replied ‘Mind your own business, we’re doing our duty, just like you’re doing your duty’. And about ten seconds later we heard shots. That boy is now dead. As we came up the hill on the right hand side of the road (towards the Israeli headquarters), we were told to take off all white medical clothes. Some people were in white coats. Then we crossed the road towards the United Nations building. Suddenly an Israeli soldier approached the stragglers, of whom I was one and asked V here are they taking you’? He appeared out of nowhere, I don’t know where he came from, but suddenly he was there and I was, kind of, very happy to see somebody very worried about us. We said that we were being taken to the building ahead and asked him to get an Israeli officer here at once. We were taken into a compound, where our passports were all gathered up, and then one by one we were taken for a little chat. Some were questioned by somebody speaking German. I was questioned by somebody speaking good English and they were very interested in the people from Germany. At this point we met a female soldier. When she heard that we were Christians, working mainly (though I wasn’t myself) with the Middle East Council of Churches she was aghast, surprised that we were working with Palestinians and in Gaza Hospital. Did we go there voluntarily, or were we sent by somebody? And why didn’t we work in East Beirut? We explained that there were people working in East Beirut, for example in Mother Theresa’s home for children. Ang: We were taken from the U N IC EF building, which is at the end of Rue Sabra, back to the Kuwaiti Embassy, up to a high ground area, which is the Israeli headquarters. And there we met an Israeli officer, who told us not to be afraid, and that he will do everything to help us and our patients, and an Israeli television crew was there and we were all given food and water and so on in front of the Israeli cameras. The building is about five stories tall, and I could see Israeli soldiers on top of the building, and now having gone back to where the spot is, I realise that where the Israeli general headquarters is, is within eyc-range of what was going on in Sabra-Chatila. So there is no denying th a t the Israelis knew. And also during this period of detention the Israelis kept telling us that they’re trying to protect us from the Haddads. At one stage the so-called Haddads were trying to take away one physiotherapist with them, and an Israeli officer just went up to them and said stop it. Immediately they stopped. So obviously, I was very clear that whatever Haddad militiamen or

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Kataebs were present they were all directly taking command from the Israelis. Then at this stage, the Israelis asked us what we wanted to do. We said that we wanted to go back to the hospital, because there were very sick patients there, and we wanted to be with our patients. And they said, ‘no it is too dangerous, you can't go back’. After a little bit of argument, the Israelis said, ‘Okay, we will allow three of you to go back’. So two male doctors and one male nurse were allowed to go from the Israeli headquarters, back to Gaza [hospital]. They said they could escort us up to the Sports Stadium and from there we could find our way back to Gaza. Of course I wasn’t with those three, but I spoke to them afterwards. They were taken to the Stadium and one of the doctors said, ‘we are not going to walk from the Stadium to Gaza; anything could happen to us. We want a guarantee of safety’. So the Israeli colonel who was with them wrote a pass in Hebrew, saying ‘This pass will get you through the whole camp, don’t worry’. The doctor replied, ‘No. I ’m not going to have it because the Haddads wouldn't read Hebrew*. The colonel said, ‘D on’t worry, just show it to the Haddads, you will get through*. They continued to argue, so in the end the colonel called a soldier who wrote Arabic. So the soldier translated the pass into Arabic, and then w ith that pass, they found their way back to Gaza. No problem. The whole camp, Kuwaiti Embassy and Stadium seemed to be controlled by Israelis. The actual massacre could have been done by Kataebs, Haddads - and survivors from Sabra and Chatila told me there were a lot of gunmen who don*t even speak Arabic. So, it could be a mixture of Kataebs, Haddads, mercenaries, but certainly all of them took orders from the Israelis. McKenna: There are children, there are lots of people in Sabra and Chatila today, who could tell more about it, than we*re telling you. What we*re telling you is a pittance to w h a t . . . I met a woman yesterday, who can tell me that the child who was on her back, and her other three children, and her husband, were all shot. She and her daughter were the only survivors in that room, of six people. She had bullet wounds in her back, and in her arm. H er daughter is lying in AUH [American University Hospital] and will probably [be] a paraplegic for the rest of her life. She got a bullet in her spine. T h at’s just one woman. If she wasn’t so afraid, she could talk. There are many, many, many people in Chatila. □

The following statement was made to the Commission in Oslo on 30 October 1982 by Ryuichi Hirokawa, a Japanese photographer.

At 8 o’clock in the morning of 18th [September], I left a hotel in West Beirut for the Chatila Camp. I arrived at the camp at 8.20 or 8.30 am. I tried to enter the Chatila and Sabra camps from the north entrance, when I found two Israeli tanks whose barrels were set towards the camps. ‘I

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am a Japanese journalist. Let me enter the camp,' I said to the Israeli soldiers. But I was forced to get back by them. Then I went to the eastern entrance to fmd it closed, too. Therefore I tried to go into the camp from the southern side street, where there were still the remains of fire. The street was scorched and the trees seemed to be blown down by shelling. Anyhow I entered the camp. Nobody could be seen. Just when I was going out of the camp, somebody called me from the opposite side of the camp. He seemed to be a Lebanese. He told me that the execution of Palestinian people was taking place in the camp. According to him, Haddad’s soldiers were executing Palestinian residents. Being very surprised to hear that, I asked him to take me there. But he was afraid of being killed, and ran away. So there was no other alternative for me but to go into the camp by myself. Just then, I was almost hit; a shell exploded just 20 meters from me. I felt a fierce wind of explosion. Fortunately, I didn’t get injured. I went toward the Akka Hospital which I had visited several times before. On entering the hospital, I found traces of caterpillar [tracks] of tanks in the court yard. It showed that Israeli tanks were there a little while ago. Nobody is there. Fourth and fifth floor of the hospital building were still smoking. In the inner part of the first floor, I found an old woman who was crouching on the bed which was not burned yet. She was shaking with fear and never looked at me. Having walked in about 200 meters from there, I found a dead body on the left side for the first time. That was a corpse crushed out of shape in the rubble. Beside it, another dead body was found in the same condition; then another corpse was found after I walked again about 50 meters from there. I could not understand why these dead bodies were in the rubble and in such terrible shapes and conditions as I saw them. I imagined that they were probably blown up altogether with the houses as they were shelled in the midst of war. But this guess was wrong as I found the third and fourth corpses. The third corpse was of an old man who was shot in the temple by one bullet. Stiffening of the corpse did not seem to have started yet and the blood was not dried yet, either. The corpse lying next to [it] was also of an old man. As there was something green under the thigh of the latter old man, I approached to see what actually that is. It was a grenade whose safety valve was taken off. This means any relative or any group collecting corpses who come and touch the dead body is going to be injured by the explosion of the grenade. This is how I came to understand that the mass execution has taken place. Nevertheless, I could not know on what scale and how these mass executions were carried out at all. Besides the executors may still be wandering or patrolling somewhere near. Then I decided to walk into the alley leading to a school where I had visited once. On the way, I saw a dead body of a woman whose age was forty or fifty. T hen I returned to the previous wide street, when two women whose ages were thirty or forty came out of the shadow running towards me and cried

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‘Help us, Help!’ Then they pulled me by the sleeve of my shirt and, led by them, I entered with them deep inside the alley where I saw an old man killed in front of a house. Beside the house, there was an iron door. It was locked and we could not open it. The women cried at me saying, ‘Open it, please. At any cost! My father is inside.* I climbed up the wall and jumped inside, gathering my courage as I thought that I may never be able to get out of there. As soon as I opened the door from the inside, the women rushed in. Their father was still alive. That old man was lying on the mattress. The women left two loaves of bread and I locked the door from the inside again. Then we all jumped out of the house to run through Chatila and Sabra camps towards the Lebanese residential area beyond the camps. In th at area some people are . .. walking around; therefore, I myself returned into the camps after taking the women to the safe area. On the top of the hill, there was a watch tower from where the Israeli army must be able to see everything in the camps. They were calling for surrender in poor Arabic, saying that if anyone who is alive were staying in the camps, he had better surrender. I entered the garage; tens of people were lying one upon another I walked up to a little hilly place and turned around there. There were seven or eight women and children fallen on the ground. Descending that hilly ground, in the garden I arrived at I found all the family members of that house massacred. It looked as if those corpses were hidden by the bulldozer. A dead body of about two-year-old child was thrown out of the rubble. Next to that alley there, a girl and a boy, probably 5 years old or so, were also found killed. Only their mother was covered with rubble by a bulldozer. The rubble did not completely cover her dead body and some parts of her body could be seen. A girl was wearing toy earrings in her ears. A boy was wearing something like a chain which apppeared to have been tightened around his neck. I left that place around noon when journalists gathered around. When a journalist said, ‘Israeli army has come here,* or ‘H addad’s gang has also come,’ everybody started to run escaping at once and the witnesses were killed. The journalists were also seized with panic. This is how we were in those moments. Anyhow as far as the number of the corpses I witnessed is concerned, it amounted [to] at least 50. This number is limited to the ones I confirmed with my own eyes in the wide streets and the alleys in the short distance. Therefore we can imagine quite probably far more people were killed, for the camps are several hundred times bigger than the scale I walked around. We cannot tell how many more people were massacred by then. Then, I rushed to the office of Jiji Press, one of the Japanese news agencies in Beirut. But no one was there in their residence nor in the office. I found the Israeli army was in the midst of selecting Palestinians in the neighbouring building by closing one part of the apartments, taking all

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inhabitants out to have them sit on the ground, and by checking every identity card. If they found any Palestinians there, they immediately took them away. In other words, they were doing the same way to the Palestinians as they were once selected by the Nazis . . . in the same manner that the Jewish people were ordered to stand to the right and non-Jewish to the left. I then ran to the office of the other Japanese news agency, Kyodo. While waiting for the Kyodo correspondent to come back to the office who was running to the nearest hotel to send telex to Tokyo, I could not stop my tears of deep regret. Palestinians were betrayed not only by Israel but also by the United States, Italy and France. TTiese states by the name of national forces cheated the Palestinians by promising safety of the Palestinians, saying ‘Don’t worry. As we will stay here, PLO can live with no fear at all.* They implemented their guarantee only for enabling PLO to withdraw and after that they pulled out, leaving the Israeli troops to do anything they liked. T hen I went to the International Red Cross office to tell them about the massacre. The officials of the office, however, said that they were informed that so far about one hundred bodies had been found but they could not figure out the number of casualties nor could they know how many people more would be killed. Kyodo correspondent came back and told me that all the telex lines were cut by the Israeli army. He also said that no line was available for international calls. On Monday afternoon [20 Sept) while I was walking along Hamra Street I saw about 20 soldiers in strange uniforms marching in battle position from the opposite direction of the main street. As people were watching them fearfully, I asked who they were. People told me they were Haddad militiamen. I asked: ‘For what are they coming?’ ‘To hunt Palestinians’, was the reply. As I found this very important, I told it to one of the foreign correspondents I met, but he didn’t believe at the beginning, saying that nobody could expect the Haddad troops to appear in Beirut. He went out to make sure. Then he came back after he had confirmed that they really were Haddad gangs. Then what would happen to the Palestinians in the camps? I started to worry about them, so I hired a taxi by special fee and tried to rush down the street. While shooting the scenes by hiding the 8mm camera inside the car, we were stopped by the soldiers and ordered to go out of the car. After being interrogated, I was forced to leave the place. It was impossible to get closer. And when I visited this place for the next time, nobody was there. So next day, that was 21 September, I left to Damascus. I had to add here one more point as a conclusion. The responsibility for the massacre is much more on the Israeli side than on the side of Haddad and Kataeb gangs. One fact which proves this is that on Saturday 18 when I tried

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to enter the camps I was driven away by Israeli soldiers. The Israeli army was controlling the camps which is proved by the imprints of the wheels of the tanks on the ground near Akka hospital. □

Extracts from the testimony submitted by Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone at the private hearings of the Commission in Oslo on 30 October 1982. (Ralph Schoenman and Mya Shone are American journalists and spent six weeks in Lebanon, from 9 August to 23 September 1982.)

We entered [Sabra-Chatila] on the Saturday [18 September], the final day of the killing, shortly after 12 noon . . . When we entered the camp we saw bodies everywhere. We proceeded to photograph. We had earlier that day spoken to doctors and nurses who had been at Akka and Gaza and they had described to us what had happened to them that [Saturday] morning. We had also been with one of the nurses the previous day and had heard her story. But none of them had a complete understanding o f the nature of the slaughter that was taking place, because they were confined to the hospital and the shelling was so intense inside the camps. The artillery shelling came from Israeli artillery units. The camps were subjected to intense shelling throughout the period following the assassination of Bashir Gemayel. The shelling was one of the reasons why people could not move around easily in the camps and it prevented people in one part of the camp from being aware that there was slaughter taking place in another part. We spent four days talking to survivors in the camp. We photographed victims that had been mutilated with axes and knives. Only a few of the people we photographed had been machine-gunned. Others had had their heads smashed, their eyes removed, their throats cut, skin was stripped from their bodies, limbs were severed, some people were eviscerated. We confirmed from talking to doctors that free-flowing blood is indicative of mutilation prior to death rather than after it. We went to Akka hospital. The building was smouldering; the rehabilitation unit was on fire. As we emerged from there we were caught up in an Israeli military operation which we photographed. Tanks, half-tracks, Israeli soldiers in combat uniform and flak-jackets were advancing on Chatila down the main road from the Kuwaiti Embassy. This was on Saturday at maybe 12.45. They were broadcasting into the camp: ‘Anyone who does not surrender will be killed*. The broadcasts were in Arabic and made from loudspeakers on the half-tracks. We entered the camps again from a different vantage point and continued to photograph for the rest of the afternoon and to talk to survivors. Some of the survivors were people who had come back from north of the camp to look for relatives; some were people still inside the camps who emerged from shelters and houses and spoke to us. We established from interviews with O rig in a l fro m D ig itiz e d by

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people that on Thursday afternoon in the north of Sabra camp a delegation of four men were sent with a white flag to the Israeli command headquarters at the Kuwaiti Embassy in order to speak to the Israeli authorities and tell them that the camp was in a position of surrender. They went to say that the population was offering no resistance and was not intending to offer resistance and to appeal to the Israelis to cease the shelling into the camp and the killing caused by the shelling. The four men were found dead at the Israeli checkpoint, which is adjacent to the embassy. We were told that on the following day, Friday (17th), Israeli soldiers were in the camp. They apparently came down the main street of Chatila and fanned into the smaller alleys where they met no resistance. They then withdrew and formed a line, through which the militia units came and continued the killing. The slaughter continued until Saturday and many people were killed on Saturday morning. When we entered the camps we were unprepared for what we saw. We had heard that there had been some killing, but we were totally unprepared for what we found. We were in a state of shock, and concerned for our own safety. We were afraid that we might encounter some militia unit around the next corner. Our aim was to photograph whatever we could as fast as we could, and get out, before we were at the very least deprived of our pictures. It was clear that an attempt had been made not long before we arrived to bulldoze bodies under the rubble, and there had been a mass grave made. Some soldiers in the Lebanese Army mentioned that the Israelis had brought militia units into the airport. An officer in the Lebanese army told us that people had been detained in the airport area and that he thought he would go mad from the screaming. We have been to the Stadium where new bodies are being found and we photographed Palestinians and Lebanese being held there or subjected to identity checks and stamps. From amongst those checked, people have been pulled out and held, their present fate unknown. We have spoken to eye-witnesses who described truckloads of people being taken away from Sabra and Chatila. One woman told us she had seen the bodies of ten people who had been taken away. We spoke to many people from the north of Sabra camp, particularly on National Unity Street, who described how the militia killed with axes and knives. One man we spoke to had not been killed because the child he was holding was screaming so hysterically. There were two old women, sisters, who had been marched towards the stadium and they described to us how people on that march were forced to dig ditches and were then shot into the ditches. We were later told that these two women were Jews, living amongst the Palestinians. Bodies of people from the camps were later found in places such as the Pine Forest. We don't know whether the Israelis killed these people, but we were satisfied that the whole episode was an integral military operation and that if particular units were deployed by the Israeli armed forces it does not justify the conclusion that therefore the Israeli armed forces were not fully involved in the process. n

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ISRAEL IN LEBANON On 20 September Dr David Gray of the World Council of Churches was interviewed by David Sells for the BBC 2 television programme Netvsmght. The following is an extract from that interview.

David Sells: What, to the best of your knowledge, was going on in the camp? Did any of the refugees say? D r David Gray: It's very difficult to say, because we heard all sorts of rumours. First we heard the Israelis were in the camp and then we heard the Kataeb [Phalangists] were in the camp and then we heard the shooting - noone really knew what the hell was going on except something certainly was and we had casualties coming in from the camp. Sells: Now you were marched out [from Gaza Hospital] on Saturday morning after this massacre in the camp - you were marched out at gunpoint. What do you remember most about that march across Chatila? Gray: What I remember most was when we were stopped after about a mile and told to sit down and then told to stand up and we were then berated by an officer who told us that we were wrong to be fighting for, to be working for, their enemies and that therefore we were their enemies and therefore that we were dirty and we were communists and Baader Meinhof. Then they told us to take off anything which could identify us as doctors and nurses. We had to remove our operating gear and some had to take off their shirts. T hat was the worst time, because we wondered why - what would you think when they asked you to do that? Sells: Who were these ‘they' that you’re talking about and what did you think was going to happen? Gray: We don’t - we don’t know. They were armed militia and they were certainly not Palestinian and they were not Israeli, but as to who they were, I ’m still trying to find out. Sells: What did you think was going to happen? Gray: Well, what would you think in those circumstances? The worst that could happen is they were going to take us away and shoot us and . . . After about a mile and a half we came across an Israeli colonel who came across to me and asked who we were. I told him who we were, I told him what had happened to us and from that moment, the situation changed. Another uniformed officer came across and apologised to us for what had happened, asked us for our passports, said that we would have a short interview and after that we would be released. Sells: Had you seen any sign of human life as you crossed the camp? Gray: Yes, as we walked down - as we were marshalled down the main street - there were people obviously being herded together at different levels in the street and some of whom we recognised from the hospital. And some came forward to shake our hands or to pat our backs as we went through and that was it. We left them there. I don’t know what happened to them. I’ve been back this morning to try and find them but I haven’t seen any of them. □

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On 20 September David McDowall, an Oxfam field worker, was interviewed by Hugh Scully in the BBC TV programme Nationwide. The following is a slightly abbreviated text of that interview.

H ugh Scully: David McDowall is an Oxfam fieldworker who just got back from the Lebanon this afternoon via Damascus. You went into one of the camps, M r McDowall, yesterday. What did you see? David McDowall: Well, I saw a num ber of corpses of men, women and children. They were in a state of decomposition, and there was a very strong smell o f decomposing bodies in the camps. Many of them were in very grotesque postures and attitudes. They were piled in the alleys, and on the road. TTiere were some in their rooms. There was, I suppose about an eightyear-old girl, who had hidden behind the door, and had still not escaped the ferocity o f the massacre. Scully: Did you talk to survivors? McDowall: Yes, I did. I spoke with one or two survivors, and their story, I think is quite an interesting one, because they say that the militiamen in fact did come in on Thursday night, and didn't leave till Saturday morning. T hey were adamant that the militiamen they had seen were Haddad militiamen, and they in fact indicated this by describing the insignia. Scully: Did you imagine that this sort of thing could happen? McDowall: Well, since the invasion started, and throughout this period, we’ve held very great fears indeed about the human rights situation throughout south Lebanon, throughout the areas occupied by the Israeli army, where militiamen have been introduced. On 7 August I had watched the Haddad militiamen, and Kataeb, Phalangist, militiamen, destroy the lower part of Mieh M ieh camp outside Sidon, and drive out about a thousand people. No one on that occasion was killed, and I think that was a miracle. Scully: But it was a warning? McDowall: It was a warning. And subsequently, when I returned to Beirut on 31 August, there was the terrible news of a massacre o f a Palestinian family, and mutilation and rape, and - I felt that someone had to speak out.

□ Text of an interview with Jack Redden, United Press International reporter, broadcast by LBC (London Broadcasting Company) on 3 October 1982.

Presenter: T he horror of that massacre is continuing to reverberate around the world. A thirteen-year-old girl who was the only member of her family to survive the massacre in the Palestinian refugee camp of Chatila in Beirut two weeks ago has been talking about her ordeal. She told a reporter from the news agency, U PI, exactly what happened when soldiers from the rightwing Phalange took over the camp. The reporter, Jack Redden, said she described the butchering of her family impassively.

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Jack Redden: It started on the Thursday when the Phalange apparently first moved into the camp. She had left the bomb shelter where they were hiding at the time and saw the soldiers jumping over the back of a hill near her house. She ran back and warned the people in her bomb shelter. They came out waving a white flag and were immediately gunned down. She then hid in the bathroom of her house, which is why she survived, and she was there for about six or seven hours before she was discovered by the Phalange, who had a neighbour bring her out, assuring her that everything would be safe. They kept all these people, the remaining people, under lights all night long in the camp. In the morning there was more shooting. They made her uncle load bodies into a front-end loader and she saw where they were taken; they were taken up near a sports stadium and thrown into holes there. At that point, after dumping these bodies, they took the remaining women and children up to a playground near the stadium and they were warned not to leave, but at that point she fled. As she was leaving she found a neighbour’s two-year-old child buried under the body of the mother. The child was still alive so she grabbed the child and carried her off towards a check-point, which is an Israeli check-point, which would be, I think, nearly half a kilometre away. So she escaped while she saw the Phalange coming back and they were shooting the people that hadn’t run with her. So she appears to be probably the only survivor of that entire group. Presenter: There was a nine-month-old baby, a cousin of hers who was killed. She told you about that? Redden: Yes. The baby started crying. This is after she was discovered by the Phalange and came out. They started interrogating her, and at that point with the shooting going on and the yelling, her nine-month-old cousin started crying. The soldier at this point went in and shot the baby, but just shot it in the shoulder so the baby was still alive. This girl was pleading with them not to kill the baby and the soldier cut the baby in two at that point. Presenter: So, of her original family that was there when the Phalangists came in, how many were left? I mean, how many of her own relations were killed? Redden: Well, she’s staying with an aunt now who didn’t live in the camps. Her mother and father and brother were all killed that first afternoon [Thursday] when the soldiers first arrived. She found [her uncle’s] body later on, when she came back to the camp three days later. She found her grandmother’s body in a mass grave and there’s several cousins and aunts that were also killed. □

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Note o f Acknowledgement T h e work of the Commission was facilitated in many ways by people too num erous to mention by name, especially those witnesses who gave valuable evidence, oral and written, in the Middle East and Europe. The Report could not have been produced without generous financial support from m any sources. The stature of the Report also benefited from the wide sponsorship that the Commission has received from many concerned individuals around the world. T h e Commission would be remiss in the extreme if it did not specifically refer to the concrete and substantial contributions of a number of individuals. On both Commission trips to the Middle East it was greatly helped by Sana Osseiran, whose knowledge of, familiarity with and contacts in th e Lebanon were invaluable. We thank her also for providing us with gracious companionship and assistance under difficult circumstances of strain. T he Commission also wish to thank by name the Research Staff and Secretariat whose members worked with great dedication and skill: Annabel Black Saroush Javadi Ali Zarbafi

Musa Budeiri Hilary Lim Angie Blowman

Michael Hanley Maria Maguire Jane Foxworthy

In countless respects, the Report bears the unsung imprint of their influence by way of documentation and information. In an even more comprehensive sense the Commission is indebted to the Convening Committee consisting of the following persons: Michael Adams Uri Davis Kate Maguire Ernie Ross, MP, and Lord Tony Gifford who acted as adviser to the Committee The Convening Committee struggled hard to meet a great array of requests made by the Commission, mostly large and some small and assured arrangements and facilities that enabled us to carry on with the job of

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investigating in a manner at once efficient, pleasant and free from all unnecessary pressures. Despite the anguish of dealing with the terrible human ordeal of th e Lebanon War and the delicate and controversial nature of its undertaking, the Commission completed its work in a spirit of mutual res p e a and w arm collegial relations.

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