Arab Legislators Demand Israelis Be Tried

Arab lawmakers demanded Friday that Israeli officials be tried for war crimes for the killing of 91 Lebanese refugees when Israeli shells hit a U.N. peacekeepers’ base in this southern village.

The legislators from 18 countries, gathered for the 27th meeting of the Union of Arab Parliaments, denounced “Israel’s brutal massacre” on April 18 as “an act of organized state terrorism.”

The deaths occurred during a 16-day Israeli onslaught last month against Hezbollah guerrillas in south Lebanon in which 165 people were killed and about 340 wounded. All the fatalities and most of the wounded were Lebanese.

“Those responsible for this act should be put on trial as war criminals according to international law,” the legislators said in a statement.

Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres, campaigning for Israel’s May 29 elections in the Arab town of Nazareth, in northern Israel, said he was sorry for the deaths of civilians in last month’s Israeli bombardment.

“Believe me, I do feel regret for every woman and child [who died],” Peres told about 1,000 supporters. Because of the blitz, Israeli Arab leaders have withheld their endorsement from Peres, who needs the Israeli Arab vote to win.

The Arab legislators held their closing session in a high school in Qana in a show of support for Lebanon. The meeting mainly took place in Damascus, the capital of Syria, Lebanon’s powerful neighbor.

The lawmakers demanded that Israel withdraw from the border enclave it occupies in south Lebanon and that Lebanon be compensated for the destruction caused by Israeli shells, estimated at $500 million. They also urged Arab states to help Lebanon rebuild.

Israel has said the Qana barrage, in which 100 refugees were wounded, was a mistake committed as its gunners sought to target guerrillas firing rockets on Israel from near the U.N. base here. It has blamed the U.N. peacekeeping force for not stopping the guerrillas from launching missiles near the base.

A U.N. investigation concluded that “while the possibility cannot be ruled out completely, it is unlikely that the shelling of the United Nations compound was the result of gross technical and/or procedural errors.”

The United States and Israel were highly critical of that report.