JERUSALEM, 7 September 2007 — In its harshest condemnation of Israel since last summer’s war, Human Rights Watch yesterday charged that most of the Lebanese civilian casualties came from “indiscriminate Israeli airstrikes.”

The international human rights organization said there was no basis to the Israeli claim that civilian casualties resulted from Hezbollah guerrillas using civilians for cover. Israel has said that it attacked civilian areas because Hezbollah set up rocket launchers in villages and towns.

More than 1,000 Lebanese were killed in the 34-day conflict last summer, which began after Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others.

They are still being held. Israeli warplanes targeted Lebanese infrastructure, including bridges and the Beirut Airport, and heavily damaged a neighborhood in Beirut known as a Hezbollah stronghold, as well as attacking Hezbollah centers in villages near the border. Hezbollah fired nearly 4,000 rockets at northern Israel, killing 119 soldiers. In the fighting, 40 Israeli civilians were killed.

Presenting the group’s findings at a news conference in Jerusalem, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth said there were only “rare” cases of Hezbollah operating in civilian villages.

“To the contrary, once the war started, most Hezbollah military officials and even many political officials left the villages,” he said.

“And indeed what we found is that most Hezbollah military activity was conducted from prepared positions outside Lebanese villages in the hills and valleys around.” Roth’s group also has been highly critical of Hezbollah’s tactics during the war.

Human Rights Watch said it investigated 94 cases of Israeli air, artillery and ground attacks “to discern the circumstances surrounding the deaths of 510 civilians and 51 combatants,” about half the death toll in Lebanon in the conflict.

The group acknowledged that Israel warned civilians that aircraft were going to bomb villages, announcing a 48-hour cease-fire at one point to let civilians leave. But the air strikes that followed targeted militants and civilians as well, the report said.

The simple movement of vehicles or people, “such as attempting to buy bread or moving around private homes,” could trigger a deadly Israeli attack, according to the report. The group charged that Israeli aircraft targeted vehicles carrying fleeing civilians.