A human shield is a non-combatant who either volunteers or is forced to shield a legitimate military target in order to deter the enemy from attacking it.
Richard Joseph Goldstone is a South African former judge. After working for 17 years as a commercial lawyer, he was appointed by the South African government to serve on the Transvaal Supreme Court from 1980 to 1989 and the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South Africa from 1990 to 1994.
The code of purity of arms is one of the values stated in the Israel Defense Forces' official doctrine of ethics, The Spirit of the IDF. It states that:
The soldier shall make use of his weaponry and power only for the fulfillment of the mission and solely to the extent required; he will maintain his humanity even in combat. The soldier shall not employ his weaponry and power in order to harm non-combatants or prisoners of war, and shall do all he can to avoid harming their lives, body, honor and property.
Marc Garlasco is an American former Pentagon mid-level intelligence analyst, now senior civilian protection officer for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and senior military advisor for the Human Rights Council (HRC). Having served for seven years at the Pentagon, becoming chief of high-value targeting, Garlasco left in 2003 and joined Human Rights Watch (HRW) as a senior military expert, specializing in battle damage assessment, military operations, and interrogations for the Emergencies Division, where he investigated human rights issues in a number of different conflicts zones. The author of a World War II German anti-aircraft medals reference book, Garlasco was suspended by HRW with pay, "pending an investigation", on September 14, 2009, after it was alleged that he had collected Nazi memorabilia. Garlasco downplayed the controversy, indicating he collected German and US World War II memorabilia because of family history and his interest in military history. He resigned from HRW in February 2010. He served as senior civilian protection officer for UNAMA in 2011, heading the UN's Protection of Civilians office. In early 2012, as the U.N. senior military advisor for the HRC's Independent Commission of Inquiry on Libya, he investigated civilian casualties while leading a survey of NATO's activities in Libya.
Human rights in Israel refers to human rights in the State of Israel both legally and in practice. The subject has been evaluated by intergovernmental organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and human rights activists, often in the context of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, the wider Arab–Israeli conflict and Israel internal politics.
The 2006 Qana airstrike was an air strike carried out by the Israeli Air Force (IAF) on a three-story building in the small community of al-Khuraybah near the South Lebanese village of Qana on July 30, 2006, during the 2006 Lebanon War. 28 civilians were killed, of which 16 were children. Israel halted air strikes for 48 hours following the attack, amid increasing calls for a cease-fire in the conflict between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah guerrillas.
During the 2006 Lebanon War, Operation Sharp and Smooth, also known as the Baalbek operation, was an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) raid on a hospital in the city of Baalbek, which was being used as a Hezbollah headquarters, and a neighbourhood of the city. The precise objectives of the raid remain classified, but it is known that a number of Lebanese, including Hezbollah and armed Lebanese Communist Party members, were killed, and five Lebanese civilians were arrested and detained in Israel as suspected Hezbollah members, but released after three weeks. The casualty figures for the raid vary. According to inquiries by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Lebanese authorities 16 Lebanese residents, most of them civilians, were killed. According to IDF ten Hezbollah militants were killed in the attack.
The 2006 Lebanon War, also called the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah War and known in Lebanon as the July War and in Israel as the Second Lebanon War, was a 34-day military conflict in Lebanon, Northern Israel and the Golan Heights. The principal parties were Hezbollah paramilitary forces and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). The conflict started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon. Due to unprecedented Iranian military support to Hezbollah before and during the war, some consider it the first round of the Iran–Israel proxy conflict, rather than a continuation of the Arab–Israeli conflict.
Ruth Gavison was an Israeli expert of human rights, professor of law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and recipient of the Israel Prize.
Allegations of war crimes in the 2006 Lebanon War refer to claims of various groups and individuals, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and United Nations officials, who accused both Hezbollah and Israel of violating international humanitarian law during the 2006 Lebanon War, and warned of possible war crimes. These allegations included intentional attacks on civilian populations or infrastructure, disproportionate or indiscriminate attacks, the use of human shields, and the use of prohibited weapons.
Demolition of Palestinian property is a method Israel has used in the Israeli-occupied territories since they came under its control in the Six-Day War to achieve various aims. Broadly speaking, demolitions can be classified as either administrative, punitive/dissuasive and as part of military operations. The Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions estimated that Israel had razed 55,048 Palestinian structures as of 2022. Administrative house demolitions are done to enforce building codes and regulations, which in the occupied Palestinian territories are set by the Israeli military. Critics claim that they are used as a means to Judaize parts of the occupied territory, especially East Jerusalem. Punitive house demolitions involves demolishing houses of Palestinians or neighbors and relatives of Palestinians suspected of violent acts against Israelis. These target the homes where the suspects live. Proponents of the method claim that it deters violence while critics claim that it has not been proven effective and might even trigger more violence. Punitive house demolitions has been criticized by a Palestinian human rights organization as a form of collective punishment and thus a war crime under international law.
Kenneth Roth is an American attorney, human rights activist, and writer. He was the executive director of Human Rights Watch (HRW) from 1993 to 2022.
The Gaza War, also known as Operation Cast Lead, also known in the Muslim world as the Gaza Massacre, and referred to as the Battle of al-Furqan by Hamas, was a three-week armed conflict between Gaza Strip Palestinian paramilitary groups and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) that began on 27 December 2008 and ended on 18 January 2009 with a unilateral ceasefire. The conflict resulted in between 1,166 and 1,417 Palestinian and 13 Israeli deaths.
Incidents in the Gaza War include incidents involving attacks against civilians, a school, a mosque, and naval confrontations.
Accusations of violations regarding international humanitarian law, which governs the actions by belligerents during an armed conflict, have been directed at both Israel and Hamas for their actions during the Gaza War. The accusations covered violating laws governing distinction and proportionality by Israel, the indiscriminate firing of rockets at civilian locations and extrajudicial violence within the Gaza Strip by Hamas. As of September 2009, some 360 complaints had been filed by individuals and NGOs at the prosecutor's office in the Hague calling for investigations into alleged crimes committed by Israel during the Gaza War.
The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, also known as the Goldstone Report, was a United Nations fact-finding mission established in April 2009 pursuant to Resolution A/HRC/RES/S-9/1 of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) of 12 January 2009, following the Gaza War as an independent international fact-finding mission "to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law by the occupying Power, Israel, against the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression". South African jurist Richard Goldstone was appointed to head the mission. The other co-authors of the Report were Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers.
Gaza War fatalities estimates made by human rights NGOs and by the involved combatants:
In armed conflicts, the civilian casualty ratio is the ratio of civilian casualties to combatant casualties, or total casualties. The measurement can apply either to casualties inflicted by or to a particular belligerent, casualties inflicted in one aspect or arena of a conflict or to casualties in the conflict as a whole. Casualties usually refer to both dead and injured. In some calculations, deaths resulting from famine and epidemics are included.
In November 2012, the Israel Defense Forces launched Operation Pillar of Defense which was an eight-day campaign in the Hamas-governed Gaza Strip, which began on 14 November 2012 with the killing of Ahmed Jabari, chief of the Gaza military wing of Hamas by an Israeli airstrike.
Israeli Special Forces Operations in 2006 were part of the Second Lebanon War. Several commando units of the Israel Defence Forces launched dozens of operations against Hizbullah targets in Lebanon. Most of these were never publicized and many may have consisted of intelligence-gathering probes into Lebanese territory.
