'An obscene war'
When Israeli government spokesman Daniel Seaman stridently defended his country's use of cluster bombs in South Lebanon on RTE recently, he commented that he didn't know how Ireland 'conducted war' but Israel wouldn't apologise for how it defended itself.
In fact, Irish soldiers have traditionally 'conducted peace' rather than war, and have done so for years in places where Israel has been conducting wars. This might be a reason why Kilcullen's Des Travers repeatedly used the word 'obscene' when talking to the Diary about his recent investigations in South Lebanon on behalf of Amnesty.
After a ten-day trip through destroyed towns and villages in the area pounded by the Israeli armed forces, the now-retired Colonel Travers is quite convinced that the Israelis have a war crimes case to answer.
"There is abundant evidence of the targeting of undefended civilians by all available military means," he says. "This is sufficient to merit an investigation into significant breaches of international humanitarian law."
The request from Amnesty came through Lieut-General Gerry McMahon, former Chief of Staff of the Irish Army. The organisation wanted somebody with military experience of Lebanon to help identify and comprehend the nature of the conflict, and see if there was evidence of war crimes having taken place.
"He asked me if I was prepared to go, and I went at 24 hours' notice. I travelled with Amnesty's Desk Officer for the Middle East, Donatella Rovera, who is a very accomplished officer and among several languages she speaks both Hebrew and Arabic."
Their itinerary began in Damascus and from there it was a perilous journey over the Shouf Mountains into Lebanon to enter Beirut.
"All the roads in the area had been 'cratered' and there was also Israeli air activity continuously overhead, and we never knew who was going to be hit next. They were targeting lorries with foodstuffs, and the problem was that if you were close to one of these you were in danger of getting some of the detonation effect."
From Beirut, Des and Donatella teamed up with a local Amnesty group and they decided to head south while there was a temporary cessation of conflict.
First stops were Sidon and the old port city of Tyre, and from there they negotiated with taximen to take them further afield. "We had to pay quite a lot of money, but it was good value because we had the services of these taximen who knew the war situation, and seemed to have a kind of a bush telegraph about danger."
The mobile phone is the most important communication system in Lebanon. But it is also one of the great hazards because the Hizbollah use them to trigger roadside bombs. So they are listened for by Israel and the group knew of at least one instance of a person being targeted simply because he was using his mobile phone.
"I personally was very uncomfortable about electronic leakages, and when I could avoid it I didn't use my phone or laptop. But my colleagues were dependent on it because they were constantly being sought after to give interviews."
From Tyre the group travelled to Bint Jbeil, the principal city in the region, and on that journey they found that most of the villages on the route had been destroyed. It was also clear in many villages that the food stores had been targeted, along with automotive repair shops, but in a different way than residences. Munitions had been used which didn't explode but instead entered the building and then set the interiors alight.
"When targeting residential buildings they used laser-guided bombs. If you can strike one or more foundation uprights in typical Lebanese buildings, the building topples in on itself. I came across places which had been apartment blocks up to 20 stories high, and all that was left was a crater, a hollow. It was outrageous and appalling."
Given that they were themselves travelling by taxi, it was also more than disconcerting when they came across other taxis which had been targeted by guided missiles while carrying civilian families trying to flee the area.
"We came across one with a white flag on its antenna, but it had nevertheless been destroyed, its occupants killed. We looked through the wreck, and any allegations that they were carrying Katushkas or other weapons in the boot are utter nonsense. It was an obscenity; the man who fired the missile into that car knew exactly what he was doing. The missile went straight for the engine block, then ended up a metre into the ground underneath."
He believes the weapons used on such cars were heat-seeking anti-armour missiles, probably an American product known as Hellfire, which costs $58,000 per missile. "To me it was particularly offensive to use such a device against taxis with people fleeing through what the Israelis had said was an 'exit zone'."
Their journey was made more difficult because virtually every bridge in the region had been flattened, and many roads were effectively impassable. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that the Israelis were deliberately destroying the essential infrastructure of a modern nation.
"I don't understand the logic behind deliberately destroying a bridge that will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to rebuild, when simply cratering the road on either side will achieve the same military purpose at far less cost to the community."
He was brought to a house where a 2,000lb bomb lay unexploded, and admits that he was 'not happy' being there, even though the fuse had been removed. The bomb was clearly identifiable as being made by Israeli Military Industries, to an American design and specification.
Many of the destroyed buildings they came across still had bodies unrecovered from the rubble, because the group could smell the decomposition.
They also arrived at several places where cluster bombs, which jettison incendiaries across a wide area on impact, had been used. "The use of these is a war crime as far as I'm concerned. They are particularly obscene devices because a fifth of them do not detonate on impact and leave in effect a minefield."
The main shopping and markets area of Bint Jbeil had been 'utterly destroyed', and was strewn with cluster bombs. "These outrageous devices should be condemned, and the only reason that they haven't been condemned internationally is because Britain and America insist on retaining them."
Des tells of seeing farmers picking up unexploded cluster bomblets with shovels and gingerly carrying them across to beyond their fields. "I asked them if they were mad, and they just shrugged and said they 'had to use their fields'."
He notes that the whole of south Lebanon is 'pockmarked' with 155mm artillery shells, targeted at roads and dwellings.
The site of the infamous massacre at Qu'an was also on their route. "My interpretation of what happened here, was that they got a thermal signature of the large group of children who were hiding there, while all the other buildings were clearly empty, so they just said 'let's hit it'. I regard that as a criminal act where a decision was taken with complete disregard for the nature of the occupants. They ought to have known that Hizbollah would not be stupid enough to pack 60 soldiers into a basement."
Beirut in the north of the country was itself also a target during the weeks of the conflict and the group visited several areas which had been levelled. At one building where rescue and recovery efforts were still going on, they waited while the body of a woman was taken out. She had died in the basement with her four children. The total number of bodies taken from the building was 22.
Des Travers makes no apology for saying this was a very deliberate, cold-blooded, calculated war on the Israeli side.
"They were able to target specific buildings where groups of people were sheltering in the basements. They could evaluate the heat signatures from these groups, probably using unmanned flying drones, and then send a missile in very accurately to bring the building down on them. In no case that I saw were there indications of any secondary explosions, as there would have been if there were weapons and munitions stored in these buildings."
He also talks of evidence that Israel used the war to test 'unusual or abnormal munitions', including the notorious fuel-air bombs which are known as the 'poor man's atomic weapon' and inflict horrendous injuries with very little chance of survival. The possibility of such action was raised by doctors trying to treat some of the casualties, the healing of whose injuries in some cases were rendered difficult or impossible because of the nature of the damage to their tissue.
While this aspect remains to be proven, there is growing evidence of the wide use of all available combat options and delivery systems in the Israeli Defence Forces being deployed, Des Travers's report to Amnesty concludes. He also comments that, with a dynamic defence industry in Israel, it is 'tempting to surmise' that new munitions would be tested in combat at the first available opportunity.
"It was a technological war, which made it more obscene. People could do what they liked from a distance and not live with the horror of their actions. Some man looking at a screen in Israel was making a very easy decision."
"For example, on our way to Baalbeck we came across a state of the art dairy factory which had won the contract for providing dairy products to the UNIFIL peacekeeping force. It was a contract which had previously been held by an Israeli company. You have to ask yourself why did the Israelis see fit to destroy a dairy factory?"
A lifelong career military man, Des Travers nevertheless admits that he was shocked by what he saw. "On the first day, I was wiped out by what I was seeing. I knew there were a few things I could be doing 'on autopilot', such as taking photographs and writing notes, and a lot of the time I was rummaging around because by doing so I could keep my face averted."
Brian Byrne.
NOTE: Pictures used here were supplied by Des Travers, many taken by himself, and some by other members of the group he travelled with. A number were considered too brutal to publish here.
