Flooding South Lebanon - Human Rights Watch

epeated requests, have declined to disclose with greater specificity the particular
objectives that they targeted.
In this regard, the scholar Yoram Dinstein writes: “a specific land area can be regarded
per se as a military objective.” 347 However, he also qualifies this, explaining: “Admittedly,
the incidence of such locations cannot be too widespread; there must be a distinctive
feature turning a piece of land into a military objective (e.g., an important mountain pass;
a trail in the jungle or in a swamp area; a bridgehead; or a spit of land controlling the
entrance to a harbour).” 348 This view accords with the authoritative Pictet commentary on
the additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions, which confirms that area denial
may be a legitimate military objective, but warns: “Of course, such a situation could only
concern limited areas and not vast stretches of territory. It applies primarily to narrow
passages, bridgeheads or strategic points such as hills or mountain passes.” 349 Israel’s
use of cluster munitions over large areas of south Lebanon would not pass muster under
this standard.
The laws of international armed conflict also specifically prohibit “an attack by
bombardment by any methods or means which treats as a single military objective a
number of clearly separated and distinct military objectives located in a city, town,
village or other area containing a similar concentration of civilians or civilian
objects.” 350 Israel’s systematic “flooding” of certain villages and populated areas
with cluster munitions suggests there may have been a violation of this aspect of the
principle of discrimination as well.
Even if Israel fired on legitimate military targets, something that many commentators,
including the two UN inquiries, have challenged, its use of cluster munitions in
population centers was highly likely to violate international humanitarian law, given
that cluster munitions are imprecise area weapons and their duds cannot distinguish
between military objectives and civilians. The huge number of submunitions
347 Yoram Dinstein, The Conduct of Hostilities under the Law of International Armed Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2004), p. 92.
348 Ibid.
349 ICRC, Commentary on the Additional Protocols of 8 June 1977 to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 (Geneva:
Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1987), p. 621.
350 Protocol I, art. 51(5)(a).
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