Last update - 00:00 05/10/2006
UN envoy tells international court to probe Israel for war crimes
By The Associated Press
GENEVA - The International Criminal Court should investigate whether Israel is guilty of war crimes for a bombing campaign in Lebanon that blocked access to food and water, a United Nations rights expert said Thursday.
Israel's bombing of farmland and blockade of Lebanon's ports in its monthlong war with Hezbollah - during the main farming and fishing season - caused considerable hardship to the Lebanese that was still being felt, said Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Council's special envoy on the "right to food."
"The government of Israel should be held responsible under international law for the violations of the right to food of the Lebanese civilian population," he said in an 18-page report. "Individuals should be held responsible for violations of the right to food and water."
Ziegler, an independent expert appointed by the Human Rights Commission, visited Lebanon in September in the aftermath of the 34-day conflict that ended in mid-August.
He said the contamination of fishing waters by an oil slick and the presence of hundreds of thousands of cluster bomblets in the south of the country would have a "long-term impact on livelihoods and access to food and water."
Ziegler cited a Lebanese Ministry of Agriculture estimate that the conflict caused direct losses to farming of several hundred million U.S. dollars.
However, the UN food agency, which coordinated aid deliveries to Lebanon during the conflict, said it is pulling out of the country as planned on October 24.
"WFP came to Lebanon on an emergency assignment, and now this emergency is over. This is a decision that has made in close consultation with the government and our partners in Lebanon," WFP spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume told The Associated Press.
"There is poverty and food insecurity for specific vulnerable groups in Lebanon," she said, but added that they would receive aid from the government as well as non-governmental organizations including the Red Cross.
"For us to stay beyond October, the government would have to ask us to stay," Berthiaume said.
Ziegler's report focused only on the impact of Israeli bombing in Lebanon and did not cover the effects of Hezbollah rocket fire on northern Israel.
It was warmly received by Arab and Muslim countries when presented to the 47-nation council in Geneva this week.
Israel, however, denounced Ziegler, saying he went beyond the authority given to him by the council.
"In all of his reports, Mr. Ziegler always transgresses the limits of his mandate. The latest report - which touches upon several external issues - is no exception," Itzhak Levanon, Israel's ambassador to the UN in Geneva, told the AP.
Like its predecessor, the UN Human Rights Commission, the council appoints outside experts who are assigned countries or subjects and are given wide latitude in their reports. Ziegler first was appointed by the commission in 2000 and was given a second three-year mandate in 2003, which was taken over by the council.
Ziegler previously has sparred with Israel and the United States. Last year, Ziegler compared the Gaza Strip to an "immense concentration camp."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour criticized Ziegler for the comparison.