TEHRAN The international human rights group Amnesty International said Tuesday Israel's detention of Lebanese prisoners without trial was a "serious breach" of international law, and expressed support for relatives of detainees who have started a hunger strike in Beirut, AFP reported.
Amnesty "continues to demand the release of the Lebanese detainees.
.. since Israel is obliged in the context of its withdrawal and in accordance with Article 77 of the fourth Geneva Convention to release immediately the Lebanese still in its jails," said Josee Lambert, Lebanon coordinator for the Francophone Canadian section of Amnesty.
The convention, drawn up in 1949 to protect civilians in war, states that inhabitants of occupied areas "who have been accused of offences or convicted by the courts in occupied territory shall be handed over at the close of occupation ... to the authorities of the liberated territory." Lambert was visiting the hunger strikers who have put up a tent outside the UN headquarters in Beirut.
"Amnesty considers that the detention of Sheikh Abdel Karim Obeid and Mustapha Dirani are a grave breach of the fourth Geneva Convention and believes that in holding these Lebanese, the Israeli courts are violating the basic principles of humanitarian law," she said.
Although Israel withdrew from Southern Lebanon on May 24 after 22 years of occupation, 19 Lebanese nationals are still held in Israeli prisons.