By Haider Rizvi
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 31 (IPS) – A leading international human rights group is calling into question the findings of an Israeli inquiry into the Jewish state’s war with Lebanon in 2006.
The London-based Amnesty International says the Israeli government-appointed Winograd Commission is “deeply flawed” because it fails to address the issue of war crimes against the civilian population in Lebanon.
The Winograd Commission report was released Wednesday, following a more than year-long inquiry that involved a series of hearings into the Israeli government’s conduct of war.
The commission, chaired by retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, determined that Israel went into the conflict without a clear strategy and said there were “serious failures and shortcomings” by the government.
But the commission did not explain in its report why the Israeli military failed to discriminate between Hezbollah fighters and Lebanese civilians.