Amnesty accuses Israel of ‘wiping out families’ in Lebanon strikes, claims they’re ‘war crimes’

Amnesty International accuses Israel of wiping out families in its strikes on Lebanon during its war with Hezbollah, calling for these attacks to be investigated as war crimes.

Hezbollah drew Lebanon into the Middle East war on March 2 by launching rockets at Israel in support of its backer Iran.

Israel responded with major airstrikes and a ground invasion, killing more than 4,300 people according to Lebanese authorities, including more than 250 children. The IDF has said that as of late June, it had killed over 2,500 Hezbollah operatives, including hundreds of members of the terror group’s elite Radwan Force, since early March.

Amnesty says it analyzed three strikes on civilian homes between March 6 and 13, in which 24 civilians were killed, 12 of them children.

Its findings in the investigation are based on interviews with 15 people, including survivors, relatives, paramedics, journalists who visited attack sites and local officials.

“Based on the evidence gathered, in each of these air strikes, Amnesty International has reasonable basis to conclude that Israeli forces violated international humanitarian law, including by failing to distinguish between civilians and military objectives, by carrying out attacks directed against civilians or civilian objects, or by failing to take all feasible precautions to minimise harm to civilians,” the report reads.

The London-based rights group, which has lobbed numerous grave allegations at Israel in recent years, accuses the Jewish state of “wiping out families” in those strikes and calls for them to be treated as “war crimes.”

The group says it reached out to Israeli authorities, who said that some of the attacks were carried out against Hezbollah military targets, while others were “referred for examination.”

The authorities told Amnesty they were “committed to mitigating harm to civilians during operational activity.”

“Despite follow up, the Israeli military did not provide specific information regarding the three attacks… including what the targets may have been,” Amnesty adds.