The Joint Incidents Assessment Team (JIAT) of the Coalition to Support Legitimacy in Yemen held parties using civilian objects for military purposes liable for damages or victims, noting that there would no longer be any legal protection when an object is militarized.
JIAT Spokesman Mansour Ahmed Al-Mansour confirmed that the Geneva Conventions and human rights laws prohibit exploiting civilians for military gains. Civilians, once involved in battle, lose legal human rights protection and become a valid military target.
In a Riyadh presser held on Tuesday, Mansour revised a number of cases presented to JIAT on Arab Coalition strikes allegedly hitting civilian targets.
One of these cases included a civilian home in Yemen’s southern Abyan province. It was allegedly struck with two surface-to-air missiles back in August 2015, killing three and wounding six.
Speaking on the matter, Mansour said investigations found that the Arab Coalition, at the time, carried out a mission on a legitimate military site 86 kilometers away from the house in question, which is considered a safe distance. This concludes that Coalition forces did not target the house.
In another report on extrajudicial killings, Coalition jets are cited as striking a Hodeidah hospital, killing seven civilians.
On that matter, Mansour said: “Upon verification, it was found that Coalition forces did not target any hospital in Hodeidah on the presented date… On that date, Coalition forces carried out an air raid against Houthi militia concentrations 100 kilometers from Hodeidah using a precision-guided bomb that struck the target accurately.”
In another report, Mansour tackled claims on a 2018 airstrike resulting in a number of deaths and injuries in Sanaa.
“Upon verification, the panel found credible Coalition intelligence on a Houthi militia site used to store and equip ballistic missiles in Sanaa to strike Saudi Arabia.”
“Accordingly, the Coalition carried out an aerial mission on a legitimate military target using a precision-guided bomb that struck its targets accurately, noting that the target struck was 17 kilometers away from Sanaa,” Mansour noted.
