Lebanon/Israel: Israel Must Provide Safe Passage to Relief Convoys
Shortages of Food, Medicine a Risk as IDF Blockades Air, Sea and Land Routes
(Beirut) – Israel must allow relief convoys safe entry into and passage inside Lebanon, and take all feasible
precautions to avoid attacking them, Human Rights Watch said today. Border towns in Lebanon are already facing serious
shortages of food and medicine, and are in urgent need of supplies.
According to news reports, eyewitnesses and official Lebanese sources, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have struck
several supply trucks entering Lebanon over the last two days.
In one incident on Monday, Israeli missiles struck a convoy of trucks from the United Arab Emirates near the town of
Zahleh as it approached Beirut from Syria, damaging or destroying three of the trucks, as well as four passenger
vehicles. Washington Post and Agence France-Press reporters at the scene wrote that the trucks contained supplies of
medicines, vegetable oil, sugar and rice. The Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates (UAE RC) said in a
statement that the convoy contained medical supplies and medicines, as well as several ambulances. The statement said
that at least one person was killed. UAE officials have said that the convoy was clearly marked as a relief operation.
A Human Rights Watch researcher who saw the aftermath of the attack on Tuesday observed at the scene that the lead
vehicle was completely burned out, and that a projectile had penetrated the cab of a second truck. A third truck was
carrying what appeared to be large bags of flour or rice.
The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that it had been approached by the UAE RC about the matter.
“Israel is legally obliged to permit free passage of materials essential for civilians and to protect humanitarian
personnel delivering those supplies,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, director of the Middle East and North Africa division at
Human Rights Watch. “If attacks are hitting relief and medical convoys, the implications for civilian protection are
serious. Such attacks would indicate that Israel is failing to take appropriate precautions to avoid targeting civilian
objects.”
In a July 19 statement on its website, an IDF spokesperson said that the IDF had carried out aerial attacks on “Trucks
carrying weaponry, including four trucks in the Beka valley area carrying weapons from Syria to Lebanon.” When told that
the trucks appeared to be carrying food, an IDF spokesperson, according to the Washington Post, responded, “We attack
only terror targets that relate to Hezbollah and their terror infrastructure.”
The duty to respect and protect humanitarian relief personnel and objects used for humanitarian relief is a
well-established norm of customary international law – a rule about which the International Committee of the Red Cross
reminded the parties to the conflict on Wednesday. International law also obliges parties to an armed conflict to take
all feasible precautions to minimize harm to civilians and civilian objects, and to refrain from attacks that would
disproportionately harm the civilian population or fail to discriminate between combatants and civilians.
Following Israel’s attacks on Lebanese airports and roads, its ongoing blockade of Lebanese seaports, and its attacks on
the Lebanese-Syrian border, Lebanon has seen its food and medical supplies reduced over the last few days.
Representatives of two major international relief organizations in the country told Human Rights Watch that they were
having difficulty purchasing relief and medical supplies inside the Lebanese market, and were unable to import these
goods by air or sea. They also said that many drivers were unwilling to bring supplies across the Syrian border due to
the security risk.
Israel has said that the goal of its blockade is to shut off the supply of weapons to Hezbollah. However, Human Rights
Watch said that Israel must weigh any legitimate military goal against the costs to the Lebanese civilian population.
The United Nations’ top humanitarian official, Jan Egeland, told the BBC on Tuesday that air strikes on roads and
bridges were hampering relief teams from reaching the displaced. “It's already very bad, and it is deteriorating by the
hour,” he said.
“The blockade has started to affect the availability of essential supplies,” said Whitson. “Israel must facilitate the
provision of food and other humanitarian aid, and assure those providing assistance that they are not risking their
lives to do so.”
The availability of essential goods is particularly worrisome in villages along the Israeli-Lebanese border that the
conflict has left completely isolated. Lebanese officials from the Ministry of Social Affairs said that some villages
had run out of food and hunger had begun to set in.
On Tuesday night, the inhabitants of `Ain Abel, a village in the far south of the country, issued a plea for assistance
after they said they were experiencing shortages of food and essential goods. Nicolas Farah, mayor of the border town of
`Alma Al-Cha’ib, called on aid organizations to assist “the villagers under siege … who have a lack of medication, bread
and water, and that no one has tried to help yet.”
Freddy Yarak, an advisor to the Lebanese Ministry of Social Affairs, stated, “We’re having problems with the
malnutrition of babies.” The local head of an international aid organization that operates four relief centers near the
Lebanese-Israeli border confirmed to Human Rights Watch that medicine and food supplies, especially for infants and
children, were in short supply. He said that even convoys able to make the journey were arriving in southern villages
after long delays. One convoy that his organization sent to the town of Beint Jbeil on Saturday arrived only on Tuesday,
a trip that ordinarily takes three hours.