More Fallout Over Israel-Hezbollah War

Top General Resigns, War Crimes Charges Against Israel Considered

(CBS/AP) 
The U.N. also has harshly criticized Israel's use of cluster bombs in the last days of the conflict. The world body's humanitarian chief Jan Egeland last month called the cluster bomb attacks "completely immoral."

At the request of Islamic nations, the United Nations Human Rights Council in August established a commission of experts to investigate alleged Israeli war crimes — a move that was denounced by human rights groups and voted against by European nations, Japan and Canada because it failed to set up a similar probe into Hezbollah's deadly hail of rockets.

However, the council has no power to punish countries. And despite the international investigation, prosecution by the International Criminal Court in The Hague is considered unlikely because neither Israel nor Lebanon accepts its jurisdiction.

Israelis also are more likely to be caught in other countries where they could be tried because they travel overseas far more than Hezbollah representatives.

Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, whose Hezbollah militant group is holding two Israeli soldiers, demanded on Tuesday that Kantar be freed as a condition of any exchange.

Asked about Kantar, Peretz did not rule out the possibility of releasing the Lebanese militant.

"There is no doubt that Samir Kantar is one of the central questions being dealt with in any negotiation of this type," Peretz told Israel Radio on Wednesday. "But I suggest that we allow this issue to be dealt with in a very, very secret, very serious, very significant manner."

Releasing Kantar would be an extremely charged political decision because of the brutality of the raid. After bursting into a building in northern Israel, he shot a man in front of his 4-year-old daughter, then killed the girl by smashing her head against a rocket with his rifle butt.

The man's wife, who had hidden in a crawl space in the family's apartment, held her hand over the mouth of their 2-year-old daughter to keep her from crying out. In trying to save their lives, the mother smothered the child.

Although Israel has rejected calls for a prisoner swap and the U.N. cease-fire ending the Lebanon war called for the soldiers' unconditional release, Israel has exchanged prisoners in the past. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said he will appoint a mediator to broker indirect talks between Israel and the Islamic militant group on the servicemen's release.

On Tuesday, Nasrallah said he accepted the U.N. mediation, and that the envoy would launch talks next week.

Kantar is serving prison terms totaling 542 years in the 1979 attack.