Amnesty and HRW Claims Discredited in Detailed Report
Summary: During the Israel-Hezbollah war in July/August 2006, major NGOs claiming to promote human rights, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), published numerous reports primarily condemning Israeli military actions. The claims were based on “evidence” provided by Lebanese eyewitnesses, whose credibility and links to Hezbollah were not investigated. The Intelligence and Terrorism Center at the Israeli Center for Special Studies, in conjunction with the American Jewish Congress, has now issued a detailed report on these events. It provides extensive documentation and photographic evidence of “Hezbollah’s consistent pattern of intentionally placing its fighters and weapons among civilians,” showing that Hezbollah was “well aware of the civilian casualties that would ensue” from this activity. This contrasts with claims made by Human Rights Watch that it found “no cases” in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as human shields. Similarly, Amnesty International alleged that “[i]n the overwhelming majority of destroyed or damaged buildings it examined, Amnesty International found no evidence to indicate that the buildings were being used by Hezbollah fighters as hide-outs or to store weapons.” This study on the extensive Hezbollah military presence in Qana, Bint Jbeil, Aitaroun, and other sites discredits these and many other NGO allegations. This NGO Monitor report compares the documented evidence presented in the report with HRW’s and Amnesty’s claims.
During the Israel-Hezbollah war in July/August 2006, major NGOs claiming to promote human rights, such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW), published numerous reports that primarily condemned Israeli military actions. These publications emphasized terms such as “war crimes,” “deliberate attacks against civilians,” “indiscriminate,” “disproportionate,” collective punishment, and violation of international law. These condemnations were based on claims, largely made by Lebanese “eyewitnesses,” that Hezbollah did not deploy military assets, such as rocket launchers, storage and staging areas, etc., in civilian areas. (See NGO Monitor’s analysis of these claims and this research methodology for a broader discussion on this topic.) Journalists, diplomats and officials of international organizations repeated these charges.
Following the war, the Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S.) in Israel, headed by Dr. Reuven Erlich, published a detailed report (“Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report”) documenting “Hezbollah’s consistent pattern of intentionally placing its fighters and weapons among civilians,” and that Hezbollah was “well aware of the civilian casualties that would ensue” from this activity. A New York Times article of December 5, 2006, “Offering Video, Israel Answers Critics,” highlighted the findings. The report showed that the accusations made by Amnesty International and HRW were unjustified.
The following charts summarize the main discrepancies in the reports issued by HRW [1] and Amnesty International,[2] as documented in the Erlich study. These examples are representative, but are not exhaustive.
Human Rights Watch Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report Discredits HRW’s “Fatal Strikes” Report (August 2006)
HRW’s “Fatal Strikes” | Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report |
Claims HRW “found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.” | Shows through images, videos, seized documents, and other evidence that Hezbollah had a deliberate policy of “cynically exploiting the civilian population” by planting its “military infrastructure” within civilian areas.[3] |
Specific Instances of Hezbollah Activity in Areas HRW Claims There was No Hezbollah Presence |
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“Fatal Strikes” | Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report |
Bint Jbeil: Killing of 4 Civilians on July 15.
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Qana: Killing of “at least” 28 civilians on July 30.[8] |
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Aitaroun: Killing of 16 Civilians, July 16, and 10 civilians, July 17.
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Dibbin (near Marja’youn): Killing of three civilians, July 19.
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Tallouseh: Killing of Three Civilians, July 20. |
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Zibqine: Killing of 12 civilians, July 13. | |
Houla: Killing of two civilians, July 15.
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Kafra: “Heavy Israeli bombardments in Kafra had trapped fifty members of the extended Shaita family in a single home since the beginning of the war.”
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Baflay: Killing of 9 Civilians, July 13. |
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Amnesty International Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report Discredits Amnesty’s “Deliberate Destruction or Collateral Damage?”(August 2006) and “Out of All Proportion” (November, 2006)
Amnesty Reports | Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report |
Amnesty alleged that “[i]n the overwhelming majority of destroyed or damaged buildings it examined, Amnesty International found no evidence to indicate that the buildings were being used by Hezbollah fighters as hide-outs or to store weapons.” “[T]he extent of [Hezbollah’s use of human shields] and its qualification in terms of international humanitarian law remains unclear.”[28] | Shows through images, videos, seized documents, and other evidence that Hezbollah had a deliberate policy of “cynically exploiting the civilian population” by planting its “military infrastructure” within civilian areas.”The IDF was forced to fight a terrorist organization which deliberately positioned and hid a vast military infrastructure . . . within a civilian environment. That was done by cynically using the Lebanese population within which it is located as a human shield.”[29] |
Specific Instances of Amnesty Claims Discredited by Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report |
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Amnesty Reports | Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report |
Claims the victims of Israeli “bombardment were predominantly civilians.” |
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Claims “None of the people interviewed by Amnesty International in towns and villages in south Lebanon and elsewhere in the country alleged that Hezbollah prevented or tried to prevent them from leaving their town or village.” | |
Bint Jbeil “Deliberate Destruction or Collateral Damage?”
“Out of all Proportion”
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Qana: Killing of “at least” 28 civilians on July 30.“Out of all Proportion”
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Tyre: Killing of Civilians on July 16.“Out of All Proportion”
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Aitaroun: Killing of Civilians July 16, 17.“Out of All Proportion”
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Baflay: Killing of 9 Civilians, July 13 |
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Zibqin: Killing of 12 civilians, July 13 | |
Al Manar Television: 3 strikes from July 14-17.“Deliberate Destruction or Collateral Damage?”
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Footnotes:
1. See Human Rights Watch, “Fatal Strikes: Israel’s Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon”. August 3, 2006.
2. See Amnesty International, “Israel/Lebanon:Israel/Lebanon: Out of all proportion – civilians bear the brunt of the war” November 22, 2006; Amnesty International, “Lebanon: ‘Deliberate destruction’ or ‘collateral damage’? Israeli attacks on civilian infrastructure”, August 23, 2006.
3. See Erlich, Reuven, “Hezbollah’s use of Lebanese civilians as human shields: the extensive military infrastructure positioned and hidden in populated areas. From within the Lebanese towns and villages deliberate rocket attacks were directed against civilian targets in Israel”, Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center at the Center for Special Studies (C.S.S) November, 2006 (“Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report”).
4. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report, Part 2, at 76.
5. Id., Appendix 4, at 256 [rocket launches as tracked by IDF Radar].
6. Id., Part 2, at 77.
8. For HRW’s original statement on Qana as and its revisions, see HRW’s “Israel-Lebanon Conflict” webpage at http://www.hrw.org/campaigns/israel_lebanon/.
9. Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report, Appendix 4, at 256.
10. Id., Part 1, at 44, Part 2, at 122.
12. Id., Part 1, at 46.
13. Id., Appendix 4, at 256.
14. Id., Part 1, at 56.
15. Id., Part 1, at 39.
16. Id., Appendix 1, at 171-76.
17. Id., Appendix 4, at 256.
19. Id., Part 2, at 133.
20. Id., Appendix 4, at 256.
23. Id., Part 1, at 29.
24. Id., Part 2, at 88.
25. Id., Appendix 4, at 256.
26. Id., Part 1, at 44.
27. Id., at 45.
28. Amnesty International, Israel/Lebanon:Israel/Lebanon: Out of all proportion – civilians bear the brunt of the war November 22, 2006.
29. Id., Part 1, at 10.
33. Id., Part 2, at 133-34, 36.
34. Id., Part 2, at 76-82, Appendix 4, at 253.
35. Id., Part 2, at 76.
36. Id., Appendix 4, at 256.
37. Id., Part 2, at 77.
38. Id., Appendix 4, at 256.
39. Id., Part 1, at 44, Part 2, at 122.
41. Id., Part 1, at 46.
42. Id., at 40, n.11.
46. Id., Appendix 4, at 256.
47. Id., at 59.
48. Id., Appendix 4, at 256.
49. Id., Part 2, at 133.
50. Id..
51. Contrary to Amnesty’s statement, according to the Red Cross, the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, and other military and legal scholars, “installations of broadcasting and television stations; telephone and telegraph exchanges of fundamental military importance” are considered military objectives.
52. Id., Part 1, at 29.