A. Gaza Beach Incident (June 9, 2006)
HRW held a press conference, issued two press releases, and gave a number of interviews, filled with contradictions and speculation. At first, they repeated the Palestinian claims blaming live Israeli artillery fire and rejecting the possibility of unexploded ordnance in the sand. Later, HRW accepted the second version, but then reversed course. The cause and details remain unclear, and HRW has not issued corrections.
HRW press release (June 13, 2006): “‘There has been much speculation about the cause of the beach killings, but the evidence we have gathered strongly suggests Israeli artillery fire was to blame,’ said Sarah Leah Whitson.” “Human Rights Watch...interviewed victims, witnesses, Palestinian security officers and doctors who treated the wounded after the incident ... [and] spoke to the Palestinian explosive ordnance disposal unit who investigated three craters on the beach”
The Guardian article (June 16, 2009): “Marc Garlasco...‘You have the crater size, the shrapnel, the types of injuries, their location on the bodies. That all points to a shell dropping from the sky, not explosives under the sand...’”
Jerusalem Post article (June 19, 2006): “‘We came to an agreement with General Klifi that the most likely cause [of the blast] was unexploded Israeli ordnance’ [HRW researcher Marc] Garlasco told the Jerusalem Post...” “Lucy Mair - head of the HRW’s Jerusalem office - said Klifi’s team had conducted a thorough and professional investigation of the incident and made ‘a good assessment.’”
HRW press release (June 19, 2006): “‘An investigation that refuses to look at contradictory evidence can hardly be considered credible,’ said Marc Garlasco...”
B. Second Lebanon War (July-August 2006) – two of many such examples
On Qana, HRW issued a press release condemning Israel for allegedly killing 54 civilians and ignoring ICRC evidence of 28 casualties. Then HRW conducted a “preliminary investigation”, and belatedly and quietly acknowledged the ICRC version, but without the accompanying press conference. On August 3, in the middle of the war, HRW’s major publication headlined “Fatal Strikes” and focused entirely on Israel, claimed that they “found no cases in which Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect them from retaliatory IDF attack.” In the example of Bint Jbeil (a Hezbollah stronghold), HRW quoted “eyewitnesses” who said that there was no Hezbollah activity. Photographs and videos, including of rocket fire during the war, disprove this claim.
1) Qana Incident (July 30, 2006)
HRW press release (July 29, 2006): “‘Today’s strike on Qana, killing at least 54 civilians, more than half of them children, suggests that the Israeli military is treating southern Lebanon as a free-fire zone,’ said Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.”
Lebanese Red Cross, (July 30, 2006): “At the time of writing, the Lebanese Red Cross Society and the Lebanese Civil Defense have extracted 28 bodies from the rubble...”
Study by Martin Kalb, Harvard University Shorenstein Center: “A Human Rights Watch official on the scene [July 30, 2006] said that actually 28 bodies had been found in the wreckage.”
HRW press release (August 1, 2006): “A preliminary Human Rights Watch investigation into the July 30 Israeli air strike in Qana found that 28 people are confirmed dead thus far.”
LA Times article (August 4, 2006): “Investigators for Human Rights Watch said they discovered the apparent discrepancy in the death toll after interviewing witnesses, emergency workers and hospital officials...said Lucy Mair, a researcher for Human Rights Watch.‘The original 54 number actually came from the fact that one of the survivors was saying, ‘We were 63 people from two families camped out in the basement.’”
2) Bint Jbeil
HRW report (August 3, 2006): “According to an HRW eyewitness, in Bint Jbeil there was no fighting taking place in the village – there was no one but civilians.”
Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center Report (December 5, 2006), documented aerial photograph of 20 bases and 5 weapons storehouses in Bint Jbeil prior to the war. There were also 60 regular Hezbollah operatives in the village. Arms, ammunition, and equipment were stored in the village before the war. Some equipment was placed in storehouses; some inside civilian residential buildings. During the war, 87 rockets were fired from within village houses, 109 from within a 200 meter radius, and 136 within a 500 meter radius.
C. Reuters Cameraman (April 14, 2008)
As in the examples above, HRW rushed to condemn Israel for deliberately “targeting” a journalist carrying a camera on his shoulder in a battle zone. When the detailed IDF report was completed, and the facts emerged showing that this was accidental, HRW did not issue any statement or alter its version.
HRW press release (April 18, 2008): “‘Israeli soldiers did not make sure they were aiming at a military target before firing, and there is evidence suggesting they actually targeted the journalists,’ said Joe Stork, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.”
IDF investigation (August 13, 2008): “[T]he investigation shows that the tank shot was authorized after the tank crew reported identifying, from afar, suspicious figures wearing bulletproof vests and protective gear who were affixing a large unidentified black object to a tripod and aiming it at the tank. Only in retrospect was it discovered that the suspicious figures were Reuters cameramen wearing vests, and that the object mounted on a tripod was a camera and not an anti-tank missile or tripod-mounted mortar as the crew believed at the time.”
D. Gaza war – white phosphorous (publication and press conference)
HRW “researchers”, who were not in Gaza during the fighting, issued numerous condemnations alleging that Israel had illegally used white phosphorous weapons. This was also the focus of a special report after the war. These pseudo-technical claims were based entirely on Palestinian eyewitness accounts that could not be verified and speculation disguised as analysis of weapons effects. (The use of WP in air bursts to protect troops is entirely legal.)
1) Claims that HRW (or any other organization) cannot verify
HRW report (March 25, 2009): “[T]he Israel Defense Forces (IDF) repeatedly exploded white phosphorus munitions in the air over populated areas, killing and injuring civilians, and damaging civilian structures, including a school, a market, a humanitarian aid warehouse and a hospital.”
HRW report (March 25, 2009): “Barred by Israel from entry into Gaza, the researchers were unable to determine precisely where the white phosphorus landed and what effect it had on the civilian population.”
2) Al-Quds Hospital
HRW report (March 25, 2009): “The [Al-Quds] hospital is clearly marked and there does not appear to have been fighting in that immediate area at the time”
Sydney Morning Herald article (January 26, 2009): “Hamas made several attempts to hijack the al-Quds Hospital’s fleet of ambulances during the war.”
3) Beit Lahiya
HRW report (March 25, 2009): “[I]n Beit Lahiya...Human Rights Watch found no indication that IDF units or Palestinian armed groups were operating in the area at the time.”
Intelligence and Terrorist Information Center report (February 18, 2009): “Fortified position on the roof of a residential building in the heart of a civilian neighborhood in Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza Strip.”
E. Gaza war – drone attacks (publication and press conference)
Another HRW pseudo-technical and pseudo-legal condemnation of Israel, relying on Palestinian testimony, and using a very small sample (6 cases, of which at least 2 were later partly retracted by HRW authors) “proving” IDF “war crimes”. Many aspects, such as claims by Palestinians to have heard and seen the drones, are impossible. Similarly, the detailed description of the weapons supposedly involved (Spike missiles) are speculative, at best.
HRW report (June 30, 2009): “This report focuses on six Israeli drone strikes...the impact mark of the missile and the fragmentation pattern were consistent with the Israeli-produced Spike missile”
Reuters article (June 30, 2009): “Spike’s state-controlled manufacturer, Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., says the missile, which has been sold widely abroad, can be fired by helicopters, infantry units and naval craft... Garlasco conceded that two of the incidents cited took place in the evening or night, something that could potentially rule out anyone seeing the small and often high-flying aircraft.”
