'Human Rights Watch' Lowers the Boom on the IDF

In its harshest condemnation of Israel since the Second Lebanon War, Human Rights Watch charged that most of the Lebanese civilian casualties came from indiscriminate Israeli air strikes, according to a report to released Thursday.

Presenting the group's findings at a news conference, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth said there were only rare cases of Hezbollah operating in civilian villages.

"To the contrary, once the war started, most Hezbollah military officials and even many political officials left the villages," he said. And indeed what we found is that most Hezbollah military activity was conducted from prepared positions outside Lebanese villages in the hills and valleys around."

Israel has said that it attacked civilian areas because Hezbollah set up rocket launchers in villages and towns. More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the 34-day conflict last summer, which began after Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid, killing three Israel Defense Forces soldiers and capturing two others, Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev. They are still being held.

The group said simple movement of vehicles or people, such as attempting to buy bread or moving around private homes, could trigger a deadly Israeli attack. The group charged that Israeli aircraft targeted vehicles carrying fleeing civilians.

Roth said that Hezbollah guerrillas did not wear uniforms, making it hard to pick them out from civilians, but that did not justify the Israeli military's failure to distinguish between them. He said the laws of war dictate if in doubt to treat the person as a civilian.