A displaced child holds her sibling, at the city’s downtown business district, where their families shelter, amid the ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel, in Beirut, Lebanon, Thursday. (Credit: Louisa Gouliamaki/Reuters)
"Inadequate, and in some cases misleading" Amnesty International said, describing the evacuation warnings issued by the Israeli army to residents of southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut, in a statement Thursday.
In a statement, the rights group said the orders do not absolve Israel of its obligations under international law to never target civilians and take all possible measures to minimise harm to them.
The Israeli Army's Arabic spokesperson Avichay Adraee has issued almost daily warnings to Lebanese on X warning them to leave areas or specific buildings before the Israeli Army strikes them. His posts often have maps attached with certain roads and buildings marked in red, indicating Israel's next targets.
“Our analysis shows that not only did the warnings issued by the Israeli military include misleading maps, but they were also issued at short notice – in one instance less than 30 minutes before strikes began – in the middle of the night, via social media, when many people would be asleep, offline or not following media reports,” Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, said.
“Furthermore, instructing the residents of entire towns and villages in south Lebanon to evacuate is an overly general warning that is inadequate and raises questions around whether this is intended to create the conditions for mass displacement. Regardless of the efficacy of the warnings, they do not mean that Israel can treat any remaining civilians as targets. People who choose to stay in their homes or are unable to leave because members of their household have limited mobility, due to disability, age or other reasons, continue to be protected by international humanitarian law," the statement explained.
"To be effective a warning must be timely and provide information on safe routes and destinations," Amnesty said.
The rights group examined two warnings issued to residents of the crowded urban area of Dahieh (Beirut’s southern suburbs) overnight on 27/28 September, after the surprise strike that killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. The airstrikes demolished entire residential buildings in the densely populated area. Each warning identified three military targets and requested that residents evacuate a 500-metre radius around that location. The warnings were issued through the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson on X (formerly Twitter), at night, without a clear timeline or details on safe routes.
In the two warnings issued to residents of the southern suburbs, the maps published by the Israeli military alongside the evacuation warnings, covering six different areas, were misleading. In each of these cases the area highlighted on the maps to indicate the danger zone for civilians covered a much smaller area than the 500-metre radius that the Israeli military had advised civilians was the minimum distance civilians should evacuate.
The Israeli military also issued evacuation warnings to residents of around 118 towns and villages in south Lebanon between 1 -7 October, following the start of its ground invasion. These warnings, which included towns that were more than 35 km from the border with Israel and outside the UN-declared buffer zone, do not make south Lebanon a free-fire zone.
Israel’s warnings in southern Lebanon covered large geographical areas, raising concerns as to whether they were designed instead to trigger mass relocation.
Around 1.5 million people have been displaced in Lebanon since fighting broke out between Hezbollah and Israel and further escalated on Sept.23.
Over the past year, at least 2,141 people have been killed in Lebanon, with nearly 10,099 others injured, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry.
