UN human rights team to start Lebanon probe

GENEVA, Sep 19 (Reuters) A three-strong team of experts will travel to Lebanon on Saturday to begin a probe into allegations of human rights violations by Israel during last month's war, a top United Nations official announced.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour yesterday said the team would stay in Lebanon for two weeks and report back on its findings to the UN Human Rights Council in two months.

''They plan to travel to Lebanon on September 23,'' Arbour told the Council on the opening day of its second three-week session.

The Council, composed of 47 states, voted in August for a high-level commission to investigate what it called ''systematic targeting and killing'' of Lebanese civilians by Israel.

The resolution, brought by countries of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and the Arab League, also called for the probe to examine the types of weapons used by Israel, their conformity with international law and their impact on property, infrastructure and the environment.

International rights groups have accused the Jewish state of deliberately destroying food shops by shelling and air attacks, blocking aid convoys and putting hospitals and public utilities out of action to force people to flee.

They have also levelled charges of war crimes against the Lebanese guerrilla group Hizbollah for targeting civilians in a barrage of rockets fired directly at urban areas.

The United Nations also estimates that 100,000 Israeli cluster bomblets which failed to explode lie in Lebanon, with most landing during the final 72 hours before the war ended in an August 14 ceasefire.

The UN team is made up of Clemente Baena Soares, a former secretary-general of the Organisation of American States, Mohamed Chande Othman, a judge on Tanzania's Supreme Court and Stelios Perrakis a professor at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens, Greece.

Reuters LL GC0927