Amnesty International (AI) said on Wednesday that Israel’s attacks on ambulances, paramedics and health facilities during its recent war with Hezbollah should be investigated as war crimes.
Following more than a year of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, including two months of full-blown war, a US-brokered ceasefire agreement was reached on November 27.
According to Amnesty, “the Israeli military's repeated unlawful attacks during the war in Lebanon on health facilities, ambulances and health workers, which are protected under international law, must be investigated as war crimes.”
It urged the Lebanese government to provide the International Criminal Court with “jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute crimes within the Rome Statute committed on Lebanese territory, and ensure victims' right to remedy.”
During the conflict, the Israeli military attacked several Hezbollah-linked healthcare facilities and workers, accusing the party of using ambulances belonging to the affiliated Islamic Health Committee for transporting fighters and weapons. Hezbollah denied the accusations.
In December, Lebanon's then health minister Firass Abiad said that during the hostilities, there were “67 attacks on hospitals, including 40 hospitals that were directly targeted,” killing 16 people.
“There were 238 attacks on emergency response organizations, with 206 dead,” he said, adding that 256 emergency vehicles including fire trucks and ambulances were also “targeted.”
Amnesty said it investigated four Israeli attacks on health facilities and vehicles in Beirut and south Lebanon from October 3 to 9 last year that killed 19 healthcare workers, wounded 11 and “damaged or destroyed multiple ambulances and two medical facilities.”
“Amnesty International did not find evidence that the facilities or vehicles were being used for military purposes at the time of the attacks,” the statement said.
The rights group said it wrote to the Israeli military in November with its findings but had not received a response by the time of publication.
“The Israeli military has not provided sufficient justifications, or specific evidence of military targets being present at the strike locations” to account for the “repeated attacks, which weakened a fragile healthcare system and put lives at risk,” Amnesty said.
According to the Lebanese health ministry, more than 4,000 people were killed during the war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Swathes of the south and east and parts of Beirut's southern suburbs were heavily damaged, with reconstruction costs expected to top $10 billion, Lebanese authorities have said.
