2006 Qana airstrike

The 2006 Qana airstrike was launched by the Israel Air Force (IAF) on the South Lebanese village of Qana, on 30 July 2006, during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, according to the Israel Defense Forces, in response to Hezbollah firing numerous Katyusha rockets in a two week period from the village into Israel. The airstrike is blamed for the collapse of a three-story building onto its bomb shelter. Most media reports from July 30 indicated the casualties to be more than 50, including 37 children, but a Human Rights Watch report of August 2 as well as Tyre hospital officials cite a lower figure of 28, including 16 children, with 13 people reported missing. Considerable controversy ensued over the propriety of the attack (see reactions and conspiracy theories below).

Timeline according to residents

According to residents the timeline was:

• IAF bombed the building which is located in the Hariva neighborhood of Qana around 1:00 A.M.
• At least part of the building collapsed instantly, killing at least several young children, according to eyewitness reports.
• Following initial strike, some of the people in the building exited in an attempt to survey the damage.
• Within ten minutes, a second IAF airstrike hit the building, causing the walls to collapse on the residents who did not vacate, killing them in the process.

Medical and humanitarian response

Sami Yazbuk, the head of the Red Cross in Tyre, told the Guardian that the first call about the bombing was received at 7 AM. He claimed that previous shelling on the road to Qana had delayed the arrival of Red Cross personnel.

Position of Lebanon

Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora said the Qana bombing made the need for a settlement more urgent. He denounced "Israeli war criminals" and cancelled talks with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Prime Minister Siniora appealed to the U.N. Security Council for an emergency session, which held consultations on July 30, 2006. AFP reported that according to a Lebanese MP nearly half of the children killed were physically or mentally handicapped children awaiting evacuation.

Position of Israel

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert expressed regret over the incident and apologized for the pain the Lebanese people have endured but said that residents had been warned to leave the area. Olmert said that Hezbollah used Qana to store and fire Katyusha rockets, and used the villagers as human shields. "We will not blink in front of Hezbollah and we will not stop the offensive despite the difficult circumstances."

The IDF has claimed that the airstrike was in response to over 150 Katyusha rockets fired from the village into Israel in a two week period. In addition, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman accused Hezbollah of possibly being responsible for the civilian deaths: "Israel has [beseeched] and asked repeatedly for the residents of Qana to leave. I would not be surprised if the Hezbollah made them stay." The Fourth Geneva Convention states that "The presence of a protected person may not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations."

On July 31, in response to global criticism, Israel agreed to suspend air strikes over southern Lebanon for up to 48 hours, which would allow for further civilian evacuations from the area, as well as investigation of the incident, but would not refrain from responding to imminent threats.

Timeline according to the IDF

• A high-ranking IAF officer said 31 July that the IDF had targeted the village since July 28, when it struck 10 targets there, and that the building that was hit on July 30 was chosen as a target after Israeli intelligence indicated that Hezbollah militants along with Katyusha rockets and launchers were hidden inside. The IDF also said they believed the building to be empty. "We warned the residents that we would be attacking there," the high-ranking officer said. "We work under the belief that the villages are empty and that whoever is there is affiliated with Hezbollah."

• According to the IAF Chief of Staff, Brigadier-General Amir Eshel, missiles struck the building a little after midnight. He also stated that he didn't know when the building collapsed, but "according to foreign press reports, and this is one of the reports we are relying on, the house collapsed at 8 A.M. We do not have testimony regarding the time of the collapse. If the house collapsed at 12 A.M., it is difficult for me to believe that they waited eight hours to evacuate it."

• Senior IAF officers said that the collapse could have been caused by an unexploded missile or by a Hezbollah-planted explosive device.

• The IDF did not release footage of the airstrike itself, but did release a video it said was taken some time before the incident showing Katyusha rockets being fired from near Qana, and rocket launchers being hidden in residential areas of the village.

Investigations into the incident

IDF investigation

On August 2, the IDF investigation concluded its investigation into the attack on Qana. The report was not released to the public but was presented to IDF Chief of Staff Halutz and Defense Minister Peretz. In a statement read out to the press Chief of Staff Halutz's summary of the report was given. The IDF stated that the building was thought to have been empty, and "was struck at 00:25 Sunday by two bombs launched by the IAF. One of the bombs exploded and the other was apparently a dud." The statement accused Hezbollah of using human shields. The statement noted that the IDF "operated according to information that the building was not inhabited by civilians and was being used as a hiding place for terrorists." Had they known that civilians were in the building, the statement continued, "the attack would not have been carried out". The statement also noted that "the building was adjacent to areas from which rockets had been launched towards Israel" and prior to the 30 July attack "several other buildings which were part of the infrastructure for terror activity in the area were targeted."

Human Rights Watch

According to the Human Rights Watch on 2 August, the initial estimate of 54 persons killed was based on a register of 63 persons who had sought shelter in the basement, and the rescue teams first having located only nine survivors. However, it was later established that 22 had escaped the basement and that 28 bodies had been recovered, whereof 16 were children. There were still 13 people missing, and locals feared they were buried in the rubble. Human Rights Watch also added that its own researchers, who visited Qana on 31 July, the day after the attack, did not find any destroyed military equipment in or near the house. "Similarly, none of the dozens of international journalists, rescue workers and international observers who visited Qana on July 30 and 31 reported seeing any evidence of Hezbollah military presence in or around the home. Rescue workers recovered no bodies of apparent Hezbollah fighters from inside or near the building."

Questions raised over military accounts of the incident

Israeli Haaretz reports:

As the Israel Air Force continues to investigate the air strike [at Qana], questions have been raised over military accounts of the incident.

It now appears that the military had no information on rockets launched from the site of the building, or the presence of Hezbollah men at the time.

The Israel Defense Forces had said after the deadly air-strike that many rockets had been launched from Qana. However, it changed its version on Monday.

The site was included in an IAF plan to strike at several buildings in proximity to a previous launching site. Similar strikes were carried out in the past. However, there were no rocket launches from Qana on the day of the strike.

Bomb details

A piece of bomb fuselage bearing the markings (in English) "FOR USE ON MK-84 GUIDED BOMB BSU-37/B", plus various serial numbers, was reportedly unearthed by Lebanese Civil Defence officials at the scene of the bombing and was seen by the international media. The BSU 37/B is a bomb stabilization unit which is used to provide a precision-guidance capability to the Mk 84 bomb, a United States-made general-purpose bomb which weighs around 2,000 lb (900 kg). Israel received some 2,500 Mk 84s equipped with precision-guidance systems in an arms transfer agreed with the United States Government in 2004.

Reactions

Main article: International reactions to the 2006 Qana airstrike

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New York City: Union Square protest of Israeli bombing of Lebanon, August 3, 2006

International reactions to the 2006 Qana airstrike involved the condemnation of Israel by many countries, bringing about a partial 48 hours cessation of air operations by the IAF. Human Rights Watch labelled the attack a "possible war crime". Futhermore, Human Rights Watch warned that “consistent failure to distinguish combatants and civilians is a war crime.” During the 30 July edition of Meet the Press, Dan Gillerman spoke with Tim Russert. Gillerman's reaction included the comments:

"If Hezbollah wasn’t there [Qana], this would never have happened. And I wouldn’t put it beyond that vicious, brutal, cynical terrorist organization to have held those people there against their will after we’d repeatedly asked them to leave, so that they would actually be used as human shields, and maybe even, as farfetched as this may sound, for this to happen, because this serves nobody’s purpose, except Hezbollah and Iran.

Prior to this, a correspondent in Qana reporting for Meet the Press, Ricard Engel, gave an indication of Hezbollah support in Qana:

"There were no Hezbollah militiamen or gunmen on the scene, but people I spoke to clearly were sympathetic to Hezbollah. I spoke with one man who was there helping to evacuate some of the people from the area, to make room for heavy bulldozers that were still looking for bodies. He had Hezbollah tattoos on his arms. So there is—there were Hezbollah flags all around the, the town. So it clearly is an area with tremendous Hezbollah support."

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in a 30 July statement on the IDF's attack on Qana said:

"Issuing advance warning to the civilian population of impending attacks in no way relieves a warring party of its obligations under the rules and principles of international humanitarian law. In particular, the principles of distinction and proportionality must be respected at all times... The ICRC once again urgently calls for a distinction to be drawn at all times between civilians and civilian objects on the one hand, and military objectives on the other. All necessary precautions must be taken to spare civilian life and objects and to ensure that the wounded have access to medical facilities."

Some commentators have pointed out similarities to the 1996 shelling of Qana, in which over 100 civilians were killed by Israeli anti-personnel shells. In both cases, the IDF was acting in response to repeated rocket attacks by Hezbollah, and both incidents resulted in increased pressure on Israel to declare a cease-fire. Qana's strategic location at the confluence of five major roadways and on the northern edge of Hezbollah-controlled southern Lebanon may have contributed as to its repeatedly being caught in the crossfire.

Allegations of Hoax

Some have alleged that some or all of the loss of life reported during the Qana attack was either faked (by planting previously-killed corpses) or done by Hezbollah fighters themselves, in order to generate anti-Israel sympathy. Evidence cited for this claim includes conflicting reports about the time and nature of the incident, a Lebanese news website that claimed Hezbollah had destroyed the building, and a large banner protesting the incident that appeared suspiciously soon afterwards. On August 2, the Israel Defense Forces stated they were "aware of the rumors", and were looking into the allegations.

Others have claimed that some widely-circulated images of the dead were staged, though the Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse news agencies have strongly denied this.

Another theory, drawing upon the suspicions found in some quarters that Hezbollah itself is responsible for the destruction of the building in question, posits that Hezbollah brought disabled/handicapped children to the scene beforehand, prior to firing rockets from that location.

A French-language Christian Lebanese website, Libanoscopie, said on July 30 that "a source" has told it that Hezbollah had arranged the disaster by keeping disabled children there in Qana and then launch rockets to provoke an Israeli attack, thus creating a "Qana 2" which would stop Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's attempt to disarm Hezbollah.

See also

• 1996 shelling of Qana

External links

• Video of the scene of the air strike in the morning from Al Manar TV Template:Ar icon
• Undated Israeli Aerial Surveillance footage of Hezbollah rockets launched South West outside Qana Template:En icon Template:He icon

Frontline photographs

Warning: the following links contain graphic wartime imagery.

• CNN Photographs of the Israel Airstrike on Qana
• Pictures From Qana