Meanwhile, the Center for Constitutional Rights has filed a class-action lawsuit against a former Israeli defense chief currently in the US on a research fellowship in Washington. Moshe Ya’alon, former Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defenses Forces, is being sued for alleged war crimes committed during the Israeli shelling of a United Nations compound in the southern Lebanese town of Qana in 1996. Hundreds of civilians were killed in the bombings. They had taken refuge in the compound following Israeli attacks on their villages. The lawsuit, submitted Thursday, was filed on behalf of several Lebanese nationals who lost family members in the bombings. The case comes a week after the Center for Constitutional Rights launched a similar action against Avi Dichter, the former head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service. Dichter is being sued on behalf of the family members of 14 Palestinians killed during an IDF assassination attempt on a Hamas leader in Gaza in July 2002.