United Nations human rights chief Louise Arbour said on Wednesday the scale of killing in Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories could involve war crimes.
The obligation to protect civilians during hostilities was laid down in international criminal law "which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity," she said in a statement.
"The scale of the killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control," she said.
Meanwhile, not surprisingly, Israel is skeptical of a UN peacekeeping force. Israel and the UN have rarely seen eye to eye, and the UNIFIL, created in 1978, has been a frequent flashpoint in relations. Some Israeli leaders accuse UNIFIL of providing legitimacy to Hezbollah, allowing it to build up arms while turning a blind eye when Israeli soldiers were seized at the border in 2000.
UPDATE 07/20 @ 13:54: Israel's UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman has just dismissed these charges:
Q Ambassador Gillerman, can you respond -- yesterday, the U.N. human rights commissioner, Louise Arbour, raised the prospect of possible war crimes prosecutions. She didn't say Israel, but it was implicit that it was Israel and Hezbollah might be subject to this. Have they contacted you directly about this and raised this issue? And can you give us your response? And is there a court that would even have jurisdiction to sort of --
AMB. GILLERMAN: I did not hear that statement. What is happening in the region is a war which was imposed on us, which we retaliated to, which we did not seek, which the international community recognizes we only did in self-defense. The secretary- general himself recognized Israel's right to self-defense. So I think that kind of statement is totally irrelevant under these circumstances.
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