Flooding South Lebanon - Human Rights Watch

direct attacks against only military objectives. 35 Military objectives are members of the
armed forces, other persons taking a direct part in hostilities, and “those objects
which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to
military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the
circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.” 36 IHL prohibits
attacks “of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without
distinction.” 37 Indiscriminate attacks include those that “are not directed at a specific
military objective,” those that use means that “cannot be directed at a specific military
objective,” and those that “employ a method or means of combat the effects of which
cannot be limited.” 38 Bombardments that treat as a single military objective a number
of clearly separated and distinct targets are indiscriminate as well. 39
Another key principle is that of proportionality. Attacks that violate the principle of
proportionality are indiscriminate because they are “expected to cause incidental
loss of civilian life, injury to civilians [or] damage to civilian objectives…which would
be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated”
from that attack. 40
When conducting military operations, parties to a conflict must take constant care to
spare the civilian population and civilian objects from the effects of hostilities.
Precautions include:
• Doing “everything feasible to verify” that the objects to be attacked are
military objectives and not civilians or civilian objects or subject to special
protection.
• Taking “all feasible precautions in the choice of means and methods” of
warfare so as to avoid and in any event minimize “incidental loss of civilian
life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”
35 Protocol I, art. 48.
36 Ibid., arts. 51(3), 52.
37 Ibid., art. 51(4).
38 Ibid., art. 51(4)(a, b, c).
39 Ibid., art. 51(5)(a).
40 Ibid., art. 51 (5)(b).
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