Amnesty accuses Hezbollah of war crimes in Israel conflict

AMNESTY International has accused Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah of committing war crimes in its conflict with Israel.

The human rights body said Hezbollah had targeted civilians with rockets packed with metal ball bearings

And it said around a quarter of the nearly 4000 rockets that Hezbollah launched into Israel during the 34-day war were fired directly into urban areas. Amnesty's secretary-general, Irene Khan, said: "The scale of Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli cities, towns and villages, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used and statements from the leadership confirming their intent to target civilians make it all too clear that Hezbollah violated the laws of war."

And she said the fact Israel had also committed serious violations in no way justified violations by Hezbollah.

"Civilians must not be made to pay the price for unlawful conduct on either side."

Amnesty's criticism of Hezbollah came three weeks after the organisation levelled similar charges at Israel. It said Israel purposely destroyed food shops, deliberately blocked aid convoys and put hospitals and public utilities like water and power plants out of action.