Focus: Misleading Claims by Amnesty and HRW Discredited by New Report Documenting Hezbollah War Crimes
The Intelligence and Terrorism Center at the Israeli Center for Special Studies, in conjunction with the American Jewish Congress has issued a detailed report on Hezbollah activity during the Lebanon War. It provides extensive documentation of a "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.
The report overwhelmingly discredits numerous misleading statements issued by Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International that accused Israel of “deliberately targeting civilians,” engaging in "indiscriminate attacks," and "war crimes". (Click here for NGO Monitor’s detailed summary of NGO statements and campaigns related to this war.) HRW officials claimed that its investigations (largely citing Lebanese sources whose links to Hezbollah were not specified) found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as human shields. Indeed, HRW officials stated that the assertions about Hezbollah’s use of human shields were merely a “convenient excuse” on Israel’s part to justify counter-attacks. Similarly, 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.”
The explicit documentation and photographic evidence contained in the report highlight Hezbollah activity in many of the villages where these NGOs claimed to have found no evidence of such activity. These villages include Aitaroun, Zibqin, Al-Khaim, Marjayoun, Maroun al-Ras, and Qana.
The report also documents that more than half of the Lebanese killed during the war were Hezbollah combatants and not civilians as HRW, Amnesty, and other NGOs have claimed.
NGO Monitor is planning to issue an extensive analysis on this evidence and the claims made by NGOs regarding the Lebanon War.
See also "Human Rights NGOs Drop the Ball on Human Shields," Alex Margolin, Opednews.com, December 5, 2006.
