\n Amnesty International said Tuesday that the Israeli army's extensive destruction of civilian property in south Lebanon, including after a ceasefire with Hezbollah was struck, should be investigated as a war crime.\n<\/p>\n
\n The November 27 truce largely ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that culminated in two months of open war during which Israel sent in ground troops and conducted a major bombing campaign.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The Israeli military's extensive and deliberate destruction of civilian property and agricultural land across southern Lebanon must be investigated as war crimes,\" Amnesty said in a statement.\n<\/p>\n
\n The rights group's Erika Guevara Rosas said in the statement that the destruction had \"rendered entire areas uninhabitable and ruined countless lives\".\n<\/p>\n
\n Israel has said its military action targeted Hezbollah sites and operatives, and it continues to strike Lebanon despite the ceasefire.\n<\/p>\n
\n Under the truce, Hezbollah was to pull its fighters back from near the border, with the Lebanese army deploying to the south and dismantling the militant group's infrastructure there.\n<\/p>\n
\n Israel was to fully withdraw its troops from Lebanon, but it has kept them in several border areas it deems strategic.\n<\/p>\n
\n Amnesty said it sent Israeli authorities questions in late June about the destruction but had not received a response.\n<\/p>\n
\n The group said its analysis covered from October 1 of last year -- around the start of Israel's ground offensive -- until late January of this year, and showed \"more than 10,000 structures were heavily damaged or destroyed during that time\".\n<\/p>\n
\n It noted that \"much of the destruction took place after November 27\", when the truce took effect.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Israeli forces used manually laid explosives and bulldozers to devastate civilian structures, including homes, mosques, cemeteries, roads, parks and soccer pitches, across 24 municipalities,\" it said.\n<\/p>\n
\n The rights group said it used verified videos, photographs and satellite imagery to investigate the destruction.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"In some videos, soldiers filmed themselves celebrating the destruction by singing and cheering,\" it said.\n<\/p>\n
\n It added much of the destruction was done \"in apparent absence of imperative military necessity and in violation\" of international humanitarian law.\n<\/p>\n
\n Amnesty noted that \"the previous use of a civilian building by a party to the conflict does not automatically render it a military objective\".\n<\/p>\n
\n In March, the World Bank put the war's total economic cost on Lebanon at $14 billion, including $6.8 billion in damage to physical structures.\n<\/p>\n
\n Authorities in cash-strapped Lebanon have yet to launch reconstruction efforts, and are hoping for international support, particularly from Gulf countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amnesty International said Tuesday that the Israeli army's extensive destruction of civilian property in south Lebanon, including after a ceasefire with Hezbollah was struck, should be investigated as a war crime. The November 27 truce largely ended more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that culminated in two months of open war […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-149103","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n