Mideast ceasefire under UN resolution ‘generally holding’: Annan News
Mideast ceasefire under UN resolution ‘generally holding’: Annan

[JURIST] The Middle East ceasefire directed in a UN resolution [text; JURIST report] adopted Friday that took effect at 8 AM local time (0500 GMT) Monday, "appears to be generally holding," Secretary-General Kofi Annan [official profile; JURIST news archive] has said in a statement [text]. The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reported [press release text] that it knew of no "incidents or breaches of the agreement" as of 1 PM. Israeli media nevertheless reported isolated violence, including four skirmishes in which six Hezbollah fighters were killed [Ha'aretz report], while Iran's state news agency claimed that Israeli forces had already violated Resolution 1701 [IRNA report] by fatally shooting a Hezbollah fighter near the Litani River in southern Lebanon. The UN News Centre has more.

Meanwhile, the Adalah [advocacy website] center for Arab minority rights in Israel has sent a letter to Israeli Attorney General Menahem Mazuz [official profile] claiming that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) [official website] have committed war crimes by killing civilians, bombing villages and demolishing houses in the latest hostilities. Ha'aretz has more. In an address to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva Friday UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour again [JURIST report] raised the specter of personal criminal liability for violations of laws regulating the conduct of hostilities, pointedly reminding all belligerents that "war crimes and crimes against humanity may be committed even by those who believe, accurately or not, that their combat is a just one and their cause a worthy pursuit."