Only Hezbollah targets civilians

CHARLES HAYES (Irish Examiner letters, August 14) grossly misrepresents and misquotes my letter of August 9.

1. I did not suggest that either Hezbollah or Israel is ever “quite entitled to bomb civilians”, but only Hezbollah deliberately targets civilians, and warns Arabs to leave Haifa so they can kill only Jews.

Israel, like any state, has a duty to disarm the aggressor, not wait for yet another attack, while Hezbollah commits the specified war crime of cynically placing its Iranian rocket launchers among civilians, and so is legally and morally responsible for tragic accidents that result.