"On August 17, Kenneth Roth,Executive Director of Human Rights Watch in New York, wrote a column in the Jerusalem Post explaining HRW’s position on Israel’s war with Hezbollah. Roth’s intent is clear from the start:

Why did so many Lebanese civilians lost their lives to Israeli bombing? The government line is that the IDF was doing the best it could, but these deaths were the result of Hizbullah hiding its rockets and fighters among civilians. But that assertion doesn’t stand up to the facts.

Roth graciously grants that Hezbollah ‘sometimes’ hid among Lebanese civilians, and ‘possibly’ committed the war crime of using civilian shields, but insists that in the 2 dozen instances of Israeli bombings of Lebanon that they investigated–"in none of those cases was Hizbullah anywhere around at the time of the attack."

Roth insists HRW knows this based on their procedure:

We probed and cross-checked multiple eyewitnesses, many of whom talked openly of Hizbullah’s presence elsewhere but were adamant that Hizbullah was not at the scene of the attack. We examined bombing sites for evidence of military activity such as trenches, destroyed rocket launchers and military equipment, or dead or wounded fighters. If we were unsure, we gave the IDF the benefit of the doubt.

The case of Kana shows how this works…"

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