Arab, Muslim states blast UN envoys' Lebanon report

GENEVA, Oct 4 (Reuters) Arab and Muslim countries today angrily rejected a report by four UN human rights investigators on the Lebanon war, calling it ''biased'' and too soft on Israel.

The report accused Israel of committing ''serious violations'' of humanitarian law during the July 12-August 14 conflict, but it also said Lebanon's Hizbollah guerrillas broke the law with their rocket attacks on Israeli civilians.

''The report is deferential to Israel, condescending towards Lebanon and accusatory towards Hizbollah,'' said Pakistan's ambassador Masood Khan speaking for the Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) states.

''The OIC council members have decided to distance themselves from the conclusions of the report, which does not have any operative value,'' he told the United Nations' human rights watchdog, the Human Rights Council.

Holding its second three-week session, the 47-state Geneva-based Council was debating the findings of the envoy's mission to Israel and Lebanon in mid-September.

The four -- investigator into arbitrary executions Philip Alston, right to health investigator Paul Hunt, Secretary-General Kofi Annan's representative on displaced people Walter Kaelin and rapporteur on housing Miloon Kothari -- made the visit on their own initiative.

They concluded that Israel did not distinguish between military and civilian targets, failed to apply the principle of proportionality and did not take all necessary precautions to limit injury and damage to civilians.

They said Hizbollah, whose seizure of two Israeli soldiers triggered the fighting, broke human rights law by firing rockets loaded with ball bearings at civilian areas in northern Israel.

Both Israel and its main ally the United States also criticised the findings, without rejecting them outright, with Israel saying that they failed to hold Lebanon to account for allowing the Hizbollah attacks.

But US ambassador Warren W Tichenor said the conclusions were more even handed than a Council resolution passed in August that condemned Israel for ''massive violations'' of human rights.

That resolution set up a special commission of inquiry, which is now in the region, to investigate the ''systematic targeting and killing'' of Lebanese civilians by Israel.

''I felt that the Council missed a chance to address the plight of the victims,'' mission member Kaelin told journalists after today's session, adding that the body had paid little attention to the envoys' recommendations.

These included a call to the international community to ban the use of cluster munitions -- heavily used by Israel in the war -- because of the threat posed to civilians.

While Arab and Muslim states spurned the report of the four, they praised the findings of a fifth UN investigator, Jean Ziegler, rapporteur on the right to food, whose separate mission focused on the suffering of the Lebanese.

REUTERS DKA BD2114