Fisk: Untold story of the massacre of Marjayoun leaves blame on both sides

[IndianaGreen]

Robert Fisk: Untold story of the massacre of Marjayoun leaves blame on both sides of the border

Published: 23 August 2006

There are few marks on the road where the missiles hit the innocents of Marjayoun. But there are the memories of what happened immediately after the Israeli airstrike on the convoy of 3,000 people after dark on 11 August: a 16-year old Christian girl screaming "I want my Daddy" as her father's mutilated body lay a few metres away from her; the town mukhtar discovering that his wife, Collette, had been decapitated by one of the Israeli missiles; the Lebanese Red Cross volunteer who went into the darkness of wartime Lebanon to give water and sandwiches to the refugees and was cut down by another missile, and whose friends could not reach him to save his life.

There are those who break down when they recall the massacre at Joub Jannine - and there are the Israelis who gave permission to the refugees to leave Marjayoun, who specified what roads they should use, and who then attacked them with pilotless, missile-firing drone aircraft. Five days after being asked to account for the tragedy, they had last night still not bothered to explain how they killed at least seven refugees and wounded 36 others just three days before a UN ceasefire came into effect.

It is one of the untold stories of the Israeli-Hizbollah war; there are others - infinitely more bloody - but the ultimate tragedy of these largely Christian refugees involved a raft of Lebanese officers and ministers, the Prime Minister of Lebanon, the US ambassador and the Israeli Defence Ministry.

It all began on 10 August when the Israelis staged a small ground offensive into Lebanon after a month of massive bombing of Lebanese villages in the south. Brig-Gen Adnan Daoud, commanding a mixed force of 350 Lebanese paramilitary police and soldiers at the barracks in the pretty Christian town of Marjayoun, found a man at the gate at 9am, an Israeli officer calling himself Col Ashaya. Brig-Gen Daoud, whose men were not fighting the Israelis, called the Lebanese Interior Minister, Ahmad Fatfat, who "endorsed" - Fatfat's word - Daoud's decision to let him in. "Ashaya" spent four hours looking round the barracks to assure himself that there were no Hizbollah members there. Then he left. Daoud put a white flag on the guardhouse.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article1221078.ece

[Englander]

1. Another day, another massacre.

12-08-2006 Press Release 06/93
Lebanon – Israel: ICRC deplores increasing number of civilian casualties and lack of respect for medical mission

On the night of 11 August hundreds of people fleeing the area of Marjayoun by car came under fire from Israeli aircraft. Six dead and 32 wounded were evacuated by the LRC to nearby hospitals. Among the dead was one LRC first-aid volunteer, Mikhael Jbayleh, who was killed while assisting a wounded person. The ICRC and the LRC are deeply shocked by the loss of their colleague.

In another incident earlier that day, two volunteers were injured when an LRC ambulance was hit directly by two projectiles while heading to an LRC centre in Tebnine, east of Tyre. According to LRC sources, no hostilities were taking place in the vicinity at the time of the incident.

The ICRC deplores the continuing lack of respect for the rules governing the conduct of hostilities, such as the distinction between military objectives and civilian persons and objects.

Medical personnel, ambulances and other means of medical transport must be respected and protected, and their work must be facilitated.

The ICRC has repeatedly expressed its concerns about insufficient precautions taken in attacks by the parties to the armed conflict. It is unacceptable that after more than 30 days of ongoing military operations all necessary precautions to spare civilian life and those engaged in medical work have still not been taken.

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/lebanon-news-120806?opendocument

[Name removed]

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[4dsc]

2. more war crimes..

EOM!!

[breakaleg]

4. This kind of thing makes me enraged. I don't see how anyone can

find reason to support Israel when they do such things.