ISRAEL: Israel has warned its civil servants and military officers to watch what they say about the Lebanese and Palestinian conflicts, fearing that some talk could invite war crimes lawsuits, political sources said yesterday.
They said the foreign ministry has set up a legal team to counter efforts by foreign groups to arrange the prosecution abroad of Israelis involved in the war against Lebanon's Hizbullah guerrillas and crackdowns on the Palestinian uprising.
A ministry memorandum issued to Israel's military and other government agencies urges officials to avoid belligerent remarks that could potentially be used to back up allegations that they were complicit in excessive use of force in Lebanon or Gaza.
"The type of language now considered off-limits includes 'crushing' the enemy, and 'cleansing', 'levelling', or 'wiping out' suspected enemy emplacements," a political source who saw the memo told Reuters.
The source quoted the memo as censuring one official who called for Israel to respond to Hizbullah rockets strikes against the strategic port city of Haifa during the 34-day war by "getting rid of a village in Lebanon". The foreign and justice ministries declined to comment.
According to the memo, numerous war crimes lawsuits against Israeli officials were being prepared. It cited venues such as France, Belgium, Morocco and Britain, but no further details were immediately available.
Three Moroccan lawyers said last month they were suing Israeli defence minister Amir Peretz over the recent offensives in Lebanon and Gaza. Some 1,200 Lebanese and 200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, have died in recent operations.
Israel Radio reported that a Danish politician tried to have Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni detained and prosecuted during a recent visit to Copenhagen.
The politician's request for an arrest warrant was turned down by Danish prosecutors, the radio said. Israel plans to build 690 new homes in two Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank despite an obligation under a US-backed peace "road map" to halt such construction on land Palestinians seek for a state.
The Israel Lands Administration, a government agency, issued a tender inviting bids on 348 plots in the Maaleh Adumim settlement and 342 in Beitar Ilit.
The tenders published by Israeli media yesterday were the largest number of housing bids for settlement building offered since prime minister Ehud Olmert took office on May 4th.
A spokesman for the Peace Now settlement watchdog group said: "The government is building hundreds of housing units in the territories against its commitments to the road map and Israeli voters."