In this report, Human Rights Watch examines the activities of Israeli military forces and Lebanese guerrillas during the escalation of military activities that raged in Lebanon and parts of northern Israel from April 11 to 27, 1996 -- code-named "Operation Grapes of Wrath" by Israel. Israeli pilots carried out 600 air raids with fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, and artillery units fired some 25,000 shells into Lebanese territory. Some 154 civilians were killed in Lebanon, and another 351 injured. The guerrillas fired 639 Katyusha rockets into Israel. There were no Israeli civilian deaths, although three Israeli women sustained serious injuries.

In any international armed conflict, the conduct of all sides is governed by international humanitarian law (the laws of war), which is codified in the 1949 Geneva Conventions and the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions (Protocol I).⁽¹⁾ Protocol I, which supplements the Geneva Conventions, contains detailed rules which implement the customary international law principles that a distinction should be made between combatants and civilians, and that civilians and civilian objects may not be targeted for attack. The rules of the protocol are designed to provide more effective protection to the civilian population against the effects of hostilities during international armed conflicts. Israel has not ratified Protocol I. However, many of the provisions of Protocol I reaffirm, clarify, or otherwise codify pre-existing, customary international humanitarian law. As such, these rules are binding on both the Israel military and Lebanese guerrilla forces, and in this report Human Rights Watch uses the rules to assess the military conduct of both sides.

In April 1996, Israel sought, as it did during what it called "Operation Accountability" in July 1993, to effect a massive displacement of the civilian population in south Lebanon.⁽²⁾ This was a means of exerting pressure on the Lebanese government to disarm the guerrilla forces opposed to the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon and primarily affiliated with the Lebanese political movements Hizballah and Amal. The strategies used to force civilians to flee the south included: warnings to evacuate a large number of towns and villages in south Lebanon; threats that civilians unwilling or unable to leave would risk their lives; and statements that remaining civilians would be considered "connected with Hizballah" and thus without protection under the laws of war. Residents of the south learned of these strategies through explicit public statements made by Israeli military and government officials, and radio communiqués broadcast by Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army (SLA) throughout Operation Grapes of Wrath. In addition, travel on the main coastal highway linking Beirut with the south was prohibited in a southward direction, and announcements were made that Israeli forces would "strike at every suspicious vehicle." Taken together, these measures constituted acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which was to spread terror among the civilian population, and thus a grave violation of international humanitarian law.⁽³⁾

Civilians remained in south Lebanon for a number of reasons. The poor, the elderly and the disabled simply lacked the wherewithal to leave. Some pregnant women also remained in their homes. Many tobacco-farming families were reluctant to abandon their crops during the brief two-week period when seedlings were bedded out and irrigated. Some families who had evacuated during Operation Accountability in 1993 refused to repeat what had been a difficult experience, and others simply resented being ordered by the Israelis to leave their homes. But Israeli government and military officials made it clear throughout Operation Grapes of Wrath that Lebanese civilians would bear responsibility for their own deaths if they remained in towns and villages in south Lebanon that had been ordered evacuated by the Israeli military and the SLA.

The fact that Lebanese civilians were unwilling or unable to leave their homes according to timetables laid down by the Israeli military in no way absolved Israel of its duty under international humanitarian law to protect the civilian population from the dangers arising from military operations, nor did it give Israeli forces a license to attack without distinction or proper precautions homes and vehicles in Mansouri, Nabatiyeh, or elsewhere in south Lebanon.

After the warnings were issued, Israeli officials indicated that civilians who did not leave the designated towns and villages would lose the immunity and protection granted to them under the laws of war. Israeli government spokesperson Uri Dromi said on April 13: "We gave the residents advance warning to clear out so as not to get hurt. All those who remain there, do so at their own risk because we assume they're connected with Hizbollah." The next day, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) spokesperson said: "Anyone remaining in Tyre or these forty villages [named in the warnings] ... is solely responsible for endangering his life." SLA radio reinforced these messages. A broadcast on April 13 had the following text:

In light of the continued terrorist actions by Hizballah, the Israeli Army will intensify its activities against the terrorists staring tomorrow, 14 April 1996. Following the warning broadcast by the Voice of the South to the inhabitants of 45 villages, any presence in these villages will be considered a terrorist one, that is, the terrorists and all those with them will be hit. Any civilian who lags behind in the aforementioned villages and towns will do so on his own responsibility and will put his life in danger.

This often-articulated position, inconsistent with international humanitarian law, was perhaps the most overlooked aspect of Israel's prosecution of Operation Grapes of Wrath. As the documentation in this report indicates, it led to Lebanese civilian casualties for which Israel bears responsibility.

The report contains the findings of Human Rights Watch's investigation of the circumstances of eight attacks in south Lebanon by Israeli forces, including the three incidents that yielded the highest civilian casualty tolls during the conflict: the helicopter gunship attack on an ambulance in the village of Mansouri on April 13, 1996, that killed two women and four children; the helicopter gunship attack on a house in the village of Upper Nabatiyeh on April 18, 1996, that killed nine civilians, including a newborn baby, six children under thirteen years old, and their mother; and the artillery barrage in Qana, also on April 18, in which over one hundred civilians lost their lives and an unconfirmed number were maimed or permanently injured. These eight attacks fall into four broad categories, each of which raises grave concerns about Israel's compliance with the laws of war:

• Attacks in which civilians were killed because Israel alleged either that towns and villages were empty of civilians, when this obviously was not the case, or that residents who had not evacuated designated towns and villages were "connected with Hizballah" and thus legitimate military targets themselves.

• Indiscriminate and unlawful attacks on community-based medical services in Nabatiyeh provided by the Islamic Health Society, a nationwide health network administered by Hizballah.⁽⁴⁾
• Indiscriminate attacks on the vehicles of U.N. peacekeepers, which were part of a pattern during Operation Grapes of Wrath of Israel's attempt to impede U.N. peacekeepers' delivery of humanitarian assistance to civilians who were unable or unwilling to leave their homes.
• Artillery attacks near and on U.N. bases where civilians were openly sheltered, and the use during such attacks of anti-personnel shells designed to explode above the ground and spread shrapnel over a wide area in order to maximize casualties.

On April 18, 1996, the absence of precautions prior to the attack in close proximity to the town of Qana and the U.N. base located there, as well as the means and methods of attack chosen by the IDF (a sustained artillery barrage without lines of sight to the target), put Israel in violation of international humanitarian law. Israel did not fulfill its obligations to take constant care to spare the civilian population in the conduct of a military operation, nor did it take precautions to avoid or minimize civilian casualties. First, the artillery was fired without the customary warnings issued by the IDF in advance of attacks near positions of U.N. peacekeepers (known as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL). Second, the attack continued even after UNIFIL notified the Israeli military that the base was being shelled. Third, and perhaps most egregiously, Israel's claims that it had no knowledge that hundreds of civilians were sheltered at the Qana base are simply not credible. The decision of those who planned the attack to choose a mix of high-explosive artillery shells that included deadly anti-personnel shells designed to maximize injuries on the ground -- and the sustained firing of such shells, without warning, in close proximity to a large concentration of civilians -- violated a key principle of international humanitarian law.⁽⁵⁾ The particular tragedy at Qana was that this incident was not unique in its general features. As this report indicates, the Israeli military on previous occasions had violated the laws of war by not taking precautions to spare Lebanese civilians from death and injury prior to launching attacks, and indeed by showing an appalling willingness to conduct military operations in which civilians would bear the brunt of the suffering.

Military Operations in Northern Israel and South Lebanon by Lebanese Guerrilla Forces

Lebanese guerrillas who plan and carry out military activity against Israeli and SLA soldiers and other military targets in occupied south Lebanon are bound by the requirements of international humanitarian law. The guerrillas are in blatant violation of the laws of war when they deliberately target the civilian population inside Israel. Hizballah political leaders have consistently and publicly asserted that the guerrillas have a right to retaliate militarily against Israeli civilians in reprisal for Lebanese civilian deaths caused by Israeli military forces. At the beginning of Operation Grapes of Wrath, Hizballah's secretary-general, al-Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, promised residents of northern Israel that reprisals would be forthcoming: "What concerns us is that when our civilians are touched your civilians will be touched, too, no matter what consequences they talk about. Yesterday our civilians were the target of aggression, a clear and flagrant aggression. We will respond to the aggression and will bombard the settlements in northern Palestine." On April 14, 1996, a Hizballah spokesman told the Reuter news agency in Beirut: "We are firing dozens of Katyusha rockets into Zionist settlements. The northern settlements will be hit continuously and heavily and we will transform northern Israel into hell."

Of the total of 639 Katyusha rockets were fired into Israeli territory during Operation Grapes of Wrath, about 28 percent were launched on April 14 (eighty-one), the day after an Israeli helicopter attacked an ambulance in Mansouri, killing six civilians, and on April 19 (ninety rockets), the day after nine civilians were killed in a house in Upper Nabatiyeh in the early morning and over one hundred civilians perished in the afternoon in Qana.

Ninety of the 639 Katyusha rockets fired into Israel landed in the vicinity of the northern Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona, fifty-eight of them in the city proper, all causing injury or property damage, according to Israeli sources interviewed by Human Rights Watch. The three serious Israeli civilian casualties during the conflict were all residents of Kiryat Shmona.

There were direct hits on eleven houses in Kiryat Shmona, and seven of them sustained heavy damage. Two of the homes were totally destroyed, and two were completely destroyed by fires ignited when the Katyushas exploded. Another 250 homes were moderately damaged, and 1,757 were lightly damaged. Most structures that were not directly hit by rockets were damaged by shrapnel. Some 2,018 homes were damaged in the city, out of a total of 5,800 homes. The area of the Havradim housing development alone, home to 2,100 people, was hit eight times. Three hundred factories and manufacturing plants were also damaged, seven of them badly. Most of these buildings were located within the city's industrial zone, where rockets fell on April 19, April 23, and April 26.

Particularly at the beginning of Operation Grapes of Wrath, the Katyusha attacks appeared timed to yield maximum casualties: rockets were fired in the early morning, when civilians set out for work and school, and in the evening when residents returned home. But residents of the north told Human Rights Watch that after the first three days, the rocket fire became more sporadic. "Once they knew we were in the shelters, they fired at all hours to keep us guessing," said one resident of Kiryat Shmona. "This made it impossible to know when it might be safe to come out." The Katyushas typically were fired in volleys of between two to seven at a time. On April 16, for example, six rockets landed in a Kiryat Shmona neighborhood at the same time. The next day, pairs of rockets rained on different parts of the city throughout the day. "It's a war of nerves," another resident said. "You never know where or when the next Katyusha will land."

The rocket attacks terrorized the civilian population in northern Israel, and forced the displacement of tens of thousands of residents. Katyushas are inaccurate weapons with an indiscriminate effect when fired into areas where civilians are concentrated. The use of such weapons in this manner is a blatant violation of international humanitarian law. In addition, when guerrillas fired the rockets in reprisal for attacks by Israeli military forces that killed or injured Lebanese civilians, they committed another grave violation of the laws of war.⁽⁶⁾

In south Lebanon, one of the most relevant rules in the context of the guerrillas' military operations is the one that requires their forces "to the maximum extent feasible...avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas."⁽⁷⁾ This rule clearly encompasses the positioning of mortars and Katyusha rocket launchers within or in close proximity to concentrations of civilians, including displaced civilians sheltered on U.N. bases.

Because it positioned and launched rockets and mortar shells from sites close to the Qana base on April 18, Lebanese guerrilla forces also bear responsibility for the civilian casualties caused by the massive Israeli retaliatory fire. The burden is on the guerrillas to explain the military necessity that required its forces to carry out military operations at these specific locations in such close proximity to a large number of civilians, particularly given their long experience with the predictability of Israeli counterfire in such circumstances. The rules of customary international humanitarian law require all parties to a conflict to take constant care to spare civilians in the conduct of military operations. In the days and hours leading up to the Qana massacre, the guerrillas exhibited a willful disregard for the safety of the civilian population.

On the basis of the findings in this report, and our earlier investigation of violations of international humanitarian law during Operation Accountability in July 1993, Human Rights Watch calls on all parties directly or indirectly involved in the ongoing military conflict in south Lebanon and northern Israel to undertake strenuous efforts in order to ensure that the civilian population on both sides is not targeted for attack.

To the Government of Israel

• Issue clear written instructions to the IDF to halt indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian objects in south Lebanon.
• Further instruct the IDF to attack only military objectives. In cases where there is doubt about a civilian object being used for military purposes, the IDF should be instructed to presume that the object is civilian and thus immune from attack, as required by international humanitarian law.
• Ensure that the IDF, prior to firing at targets in Lebanon from the air, sea or ground, takes proper precautions to avoid or minimize harm to civilians, as required by the laws of war.
• Discontinue the practice of firing antipersonnel weapons -- including but not limited to proximity-fuzed artillery shells -- in close proximity to concentrations of civilians.
• Ensure that the South Lebanon Army (SLA), which is trained and supplied by Israel, acts in strict adherence to international humanitarian law. SLA officers and soldiers should receive ongoing training with respect to the laws of war, particularly those rules that provide protection to civilians against the dangers arising from military operations.
• Investigate and hold fully accountable IDF officers and soldiers who violate the laws of war in the conduct of military operations.
• Appoint an independent commission of inquiry to investigate fully the circumstances of the attack on the ambulance in Mansouri on April 13, 1996, and the attacks on Upper Nabatiyeh and Qana on April 18, 1996. The findings of this commission should be made public, and those military planners and decision makers found to have violated the laws of war should be held fully accountable for their actions.

To Lebanese guerrilla forces and Hizballah

• Refrain from carrying out indiscriminate attacks on Israeli civilians, and disavow the long-standing policy of reprisals against Israeli civilians.
• Publicly pledge to abide by the laws of war in carrying out military operations in south Lebanon, particularly those provisions which offer protection to civilians from the dangers arising from military operations.
• Avoid locating military objects within or near areas that are in close proximity to the Lebanese civilian population, and refrain from launching attacks from these areas.

• Ensure that Lebanese guerrilla forces carry out military activities in Lebanon in strict adherence to international humanitarian law. Provide military commanders and soldiers with ongoing education and training in international humanitarian law, particularly those rules that provide protection to the civilian population against the dangers arising from military operations.
• Investigate and hold fully accountable military commanders and soldiers who violate the laws of war in the conduct of military operations.

To the Government of Lebanon

• Use all possible means -- including persistent public pressure by the most senior Lebanese government officials, including the minister of defense -- to ensure that Lebanese guerrilla forces implement the recommendations listed above.
• Block the transshipment of Katyusha rockets to Lebanese guerrilla forces until there is a halt to the use of these rockets for reprisals and indiscriminate attacks against the Israeli civilian population.

To the South Lebanon Army (SLA)

• Halt all military activities that directly or indirectly target or indiscriminately attack civilians and civilian objects in south Lebanon.
• Publicly pledge to abide by the laws of war in the conflict in south Lebanon, especially with regard to the targeting of civilians, and publicly disavow policies and practices of reprisals against civilians by SLA forces.
• Ensure that SLA soldiers and officers receive ongoing training in international humanitarian law, particularly those rules which protect civilians against the dangers arising from military operations.
• Investigate and hold fully accountable SLA officers and soldiers who violate the laws of war in the conduct of military operations.

To the Government of the United States

• Seek public and written assurances from the government of Israel that U.S.-supplied or U.S.-designed weapons are not used by Israeli forces in Lebanon in violation of international humanitarian law.
• Monitor Israel's use in Lebanon of all U.S.-manufactured and U.S.-supplied arms, including fixed wing aircraft, helicopters and artillery, and issue periodic public reports about the use and misuse of such arms, including incidents in which violations of international humanitarian law caused Lebanese civilian casualties.
• Publicly condemn actions by Israeli and Lebanese guerrilla forces that violate international humanitarian law and put the civilian population on both sides of the border at risk.
• Use all possible means -- including linkages of aid and supply to Israeli of fighter aircraft, attack helicopters, and artillery to Israel -- to persuade Israel to implement the recommendations in this report.
• Use all possible means to persuade the government of Syria to halt the transshipment of Katyusha rockets through its territory until Lebanese guerrillas and Hizballah political leaders publicly disavow and discontinue their stated policy of carrying out reprisal attacks against Israeli civilians.

To the European Union and Member States

• Use all possible means to persuade Israel to implement the recommendations in this report, and make clear that violations of international humanitarian law by Israeli forces in Lebanon shall constitute breaches of the human rights provisions of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, a wide-ranging trade, aid and security cooperation agreement presently being ratified by Member States.

• Use all possible means to persuade the government of Iran to stop providing Katyusha rockets to Lebanese guerrillas forces until Hizballah's political leaders publicly disavow the current policy of targeting Israeli civilians in reprisals and indiscriminate attacks.
• Use all possible means to persuade the government of Syria to halt the transshipment of Katyusha rockets through its territory until Hizballah political leaders publicly disavow the current policy of targeting Israeli civilians in reprisals and indiscriminate attacks.

To the Government of Syria

• Use all possible means to ensure that Lebanese guerrilla forces and Hizballah implement the recommendations above.
• Halt the transshipment of Katyusha rockets through Syrian territory until Hizballah's political leaders make a specific and public commitment that Lebanese guerrillas forces under its control or influence will cease targeting Israeli civilians in indiscriminate or reprisal attacks.

To the Government of Iran

• Use all possible means, including linkage of aid, to ensure that Lebanese guerrilla forces and Hizballah implement the recommendations above.
• Stop the transfer of Katyusha rockets to Lebanese guerrilla forces until Hizballah's political leaders make a specific and public commitment that forces under its control or influence will refrain from targeting Israeli civilians in indiscriminate or reprisal attacks.

The months and weeks prior to Israeli's launch of Operation Grapes of Wrath on April 11, 1996, were not periods of calm for civilians in south Lebanon and northern Israel. As has been the case historically in the ongoing military conflict between Lebanese guerrillas and Israeli forces and their South Lebanon Army (SLA) proxies in Israeli-occupied south Lebanon, it was in Lebanon where the bulk of the military activity and civilian casualties occurred. Between January 22, 1996 and April 10, 1996, United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon (known as the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, or UNIFIL) recorded 10,000 artillery, mortar, and tank rounds fired by Israeli and SLA forces in response to attacks by Lebanese guerrillas.⁽⁸⁾ Military activities by the guerrillas in south Lebanon were extremely limited in January 1996 but, according to UNIFIL records, they mounted twenty-four operations in February 1996, eighteen in March 1996, and six in the first ten days of April 1996.⁽⁹⁾

In March 1996, operations by the guerrillas deep inside occupied Lebanon resulted in major casualties for Israeli forces: four soldiers were killed and nine wounded on March 4, one was killed and four wounded on March 10, eight soldiers were wounded on March 14, and an officer was killed and seven soldiers wounded on March 20. As a result of these attacks, the mood on both sides of the border became quite tense. The tension was only heightened by the deadly suicide bombings carried out by Palestinian militants inside Israel, which claimed the lives of sixty-two people. The crisis escalated when Lebanese civilians were killed on March 30 and April 9, in two separate incidents in south Lebanon, and guerrillas, in reprisal, fired Katyushas into northern Israel.

According to UNIFIL, on March 30 two men who had been working on a water tower in Yater, a village less than two kilometers from the border of Israel's self-described "security zone," were killed, and another was wounded, by a missile fired by the IDF. In reprisal, guerrillas fired over twenty Katyusha rockets into northern Israel late the same night, wounding one woman.⁽¹⁰⁾ An initial Israeli report identified the two dead men in Yater as "Hizballah terrorists rather than innocent civilians," and said that "they were standing among a group of armed men."⁽¹¹⁾ Soon thereafter, however, the Israeli government acknowledged that the two men were in fact civilians and that the attack had been a mistake.⁽¹²⁾

Lebanese guerrillas struck again at the Israeli civilian population on April 9, after a Lebanese boy was killed and three others, two of them children, were injured when a roadside bomb exploded on April 8 near Brachit, another village extremely close to the front line.⁽¹³⁾ In reprisal, at 7:15 on the morning of April 9, fourteen Katyusha rockets were fired into northern Israel. According to information collected by Human Rights Watch, seven of the rockets landed in Kiryat Shmona, and two homes there sustained direct hits; five Israelis were wounded, one of them seriously, and thirty-eight people were treated for shock.⁽¹⁴⁾ Israeli military retaliation in south Lebanon followed. According to UNIFIL, "Israeli aircraft dropped nine bombs on the Majdal Silm-Sultaniyeh area, and Israeli artillery fired some 250 rounds [of] artillery toward the same area."⁽¹⁵⁾

In Israel, there was a clamor for a military response. "Israel must not restrain itself, and it has to teach Hezbollah a lesson that the lives of our citizens are not fair game," Minister of Public Security Moshe Shahal said during a visit to Kiryat Shmona, where, according to the New York Times, he was jeered. Benjamin Netanyahu, who was competing at the time for the post of prime minister, said this in Kiryat Shmona: "A city in northern Israel is absorbing Katyushas and there's no response. This is simply impossible. This has to be stopped."⁽¹⁶⁾ The seventeen-day military assault on Lebanon, code-named Operation Grapes of Wrath by Israel, began two days later.

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1. Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and Relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol I) of June 8, 1977.

2. For information about violations of international humanitarian law by both sides during Operation Accountability, see Human Rights Watch Arms Project and Human Rights Watch/Middle East, Civilian Pawns: Laws of War Violations and the Use of Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border (New York, Human Rights Watch: May 1996).

3. Article 51(2) of Protocol I prohibits attacks, and threats of attacks, which are launched or threatened with intent to terrorize the civilian population. It specifically provides: "Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited." This provision is intended to make clear that terror bombing violates the laws of war. On the other hand, the fact that attacks upon legitimate military targets may cause terror among the civilian population do not make such attacks unlawful. In addition, Article 75(2) of Protocol I prohibits collective punishments "at any time and in any place whatsoever."

4. Article 51(4) of Protocol I states that indiscriminate attacks are prohibited, and then provides definitions of such attacks. Article 51(4)(a) states that one type of indiscriminate attack is an attack that is "not directed at a specific military objective."

5. This principle, as articulated in Article 57(2)(a) (ii) of Protocol I, states that those who plan or decide upon attacks must "take all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods of attack with a view to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects."

6. Article 51(6) of Protocol I states: "Attacks against the civilian population or civilians by way of reprisals are prohibited."

7. Article 58(b) of Protocol 1. Article 58(c) also requires that parties to the conflict, to the maximum extent feasible, shall "take other necessary precautions to protect the civilian population, individual civilians and civilian objects under their control against the dangers resulting from military operations."

8. U.N. Security Council, Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (for the period from 22 January 1996 to 20 July 1996), S/1996/575, 20 July 1996, para. 7. Hereinafter UNIFIL Report.

9. UNIFIL Report, para. 4.

10. Joel Greenberg, "An Attack on Israel Brings Woes To Peres," New York Times, April 10, 1996.

11. Israel TV, Channel 1, Jerusalem, March 30, 1996, as reported by BBC Monitoring Summary of World Broadcasts, April 1, 1996.

12. "We aren't speaking of terrorists, apparently it was two civilians. Israel said it was a mistake," then-Prime Minister Shimon Peres said on March 31. Amy Michaels, "Second Rocket Barrage Hits Northern Israel," Reuter, March 31, 1996.

13. Joel Greenberg, "An Attack on Israel Brings Woe to Peres," New York Times, April 10, 1996. It was unclear who had planted the bomb. According to UNIFIL: "Hizbullah claimed to have collected evidence that IDF had planted the explosives. The Israeli authorities, for their part, denied any involvement and suggested that the explosions had been caused by old mines. UNIFIL investigated the explosion and found that it had been caused by four serially connected and booby-trapped roadside bombs; UNIFIL could not determine who had placed them." UNIFIL Report, para. 6.

14. Human Rights Watch interview with Yedidya Freudenberg, head of emergency services in the Kiryat Shmona municipality, Kiryat Shmona, Israel, June 1996. See "Indiscriminate Attacks in Northern Israel," below, for additional information.

15. UNIFIL Report, para. 6.

16. Joel Greenberg, "An Attack on Israel Brings Woe to Peres," New York Times, April 10, 1996.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  SUMMARY

  RECOMMENDATIONS

  INTRODUCTION

ISRAEL'S MILITARY OPERATIONS IN LEBANON

Threats to Attack Lebanon's Economy and Infrastructure
Terrorizing and Targeting the Civilian Population

Warnings to Evacuate
Threats Directed at Civilians
Characterizing Civilians as Military Targets
Designating the Southbound Coastal Highway a Military Target