Merchants of Death

Let us not forget how nations use American weapons for murder, very much including Israel.

An Israeli strike on an emergency and relief center in south Lebanon on March 27, 2024, was an unlawful attack on civilians that failed to take all necessary precautions, Human Rights Watch said today. If the attack on civilians was carried out intentionally or recklessly, it should be investigated as an apparent war crime. The strike, using a US-made Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit and an Israeli-made 500-pound (about 230 kilograms) general purpose bomb, killed seven emergency and relief volunteers from the town of Habbarieh, five kilometers north of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The strike, after midnight, targeted a residential structure that housed the Emergency and Relief Corps of the Lebanese Succour Association, a nongovernmental humanitarian organization that provides emergency, rescue, first aid training, and relief services in Lebanon. Human Rights Watch found no evidence of a military target at the site. Just a week before, Israel reportedly submitted written assurances to the US State Department that US-provided weapons were not being used in violation of international law.

“Israeli forces used a US weapon to conduct a strike that killed seven civilian relief workers in Lebanon who were merely doing their jobs,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s assurances to the United States that it is abiding by the laws of war ring hollow. The US needs to acknowledge reality and cut off arms to Israel.”

The United States should immediately suspend arms sales and military assistance to Israel given evidence that the Israeli military is using US weapons unlawfully, Human Rights Watch said. Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry should also swiftly move forward with filing a declaration with the International Criminal Court, enabling it to investigate and prosecute crimes within the court’s jurisdiction on Lebanese territory since October 2023.

In a Telegram post on March 27, the Israeli military said that “fighter jets struck a military compound in the area of al-Habbariyeh in southern Lebanon” and that “a significant terrorist operative belonging to the ‘al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya’ [The Islamic Group] organization who advanced attacks against Israeli territory was eliminated along with additional terrorists who were with him.” A parliament member representing The Islamic Group, a Lebanese Islamist political party whose armed wing, the Fajr Forces, has been engaged in cross-border hostilities with Israel, told Human Rights Watch that no fighters from the group were killed in the strike, and denied any affiliation with the Emergency and Relief Corps of the Lebanese Succour Association.

Human Rights Watch interviewed six people from Habbarieh: the parents of three people killed, the owner of the house, a member of the emergency and rescue team who left the center shortly before the strike, a resident who was at the site shortly after the attack, and a local official. Human Rights Watch also spoke to the head of the Emergency and Relief Corps at the Lebanese Succour Association, a member of parliament representing the Islamic Group, and two people at the General Directorate of the Lebanese Civil Defense, including the head of the civil defense team that pulled the bodies out of the rubble.

Human Rights Watch also reviewed photographs of weapon remnants found at the site; photographs and videos of the site before and after the attack shared online by journalists, news agencies, and rescue workers; and footage shared directly with researchers. Human Rights Watch sent a letter with findings and questions to the Israeli military and the US State Department on April 19 but has not received a response as of time of publishing.

Footage of weapons remnants found at the site of the strike, and shared with Human Rights Watch, included a metal remnant marked “MPR 500,” confirming it was a 500-pound class general purpose bomb, made by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, and remnants of the strake and a tail-fin belonging to a JDAM guidance kit, produced by the US-based Boeing Company.

Boeing? I’m surprised it worked.