In this report, Human Rights Watch examines military operations by Israeli and Hezbollah forces in Lebanon during the armed conflict that lasted from July 12 until August 14, Human Rights Watch issued an earlier report on the conflict, researched and published while the war was ongoing.
Because of our concerns about the conduct of that conflict by both sides and the difficulty of doing research in the midst of the fighting, Human Rights Watch conducted substantial additional research in the less difficult post-war environment. According to this new research, the conflict resulted in at least 1, Lebanese deaths, the vast majority of whom were civilians, 4, injured, and an estimated 1 million displaced.
Hezbollah's indiscriminate rocket attacks on Israel, the subject of a separate Human Rights Watch report, Civilians under Assault: Israeli warplanes launched some 7, bomb and missile strikes in Lebanon, which were supplemented by numerous artillery attacks and naval bombardment. In some villages, homes completely destroyed by Israeli forces numbered in the hundreds: The list throughout southern Lebanon is extensive. Were the Lebanese who died in Israeli air strikes civilians or combatants?
Did Israel abide by international humanitarian law the laws of war in its attacks in Lebanon? To what extent did Hezbollah's actions contribute to the civilian death toll inside Lebanon? To answer these three questions, Human Rights Watch investigated over 94 separate incidents of IDF air, artillery, and ground attacks that claimed civilian lives and those of 51 Hezbollah combatants, or almost half of the Lebanese deaths in the conflict.
Our research shows that the primary reason for the high Lebanese civilian death toll was Israel's frequent failure to abide by a fundamental obligation of the laws of war: This was compounded by Israel's failure to take adequate safeguards to prevent civilian casualties.
