Human Rights Watch accused Hizbullah
of trying to silence it on Wednesday as the US-based watchdog faced heavy criticism in Lebanon over a report critical of the guerrilla group's rocket attacks on Israel last year.
Both Hizbullah and the Lebanese government slammed Human Rights Watch (HRW) over the report, which states that the rocket attacks targeted Israeli civilians in violation of the laws of war during a 34-day-long conflict with Israel.
HRW had planned to launch the report in Beirut on Thursday. But a hotel had revoked permission for the organization's news conference following a furor in Lebanese media over plans for the Beirut launch.
Hizbullah's Al-Manar TV led its news broadcasts with reports containing scathing criticism of HRW.
Some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, were killed in Lebanon by the war, which was triggered on July 12 when Hizbullah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid. The conflict killed 158 Israelis, mostly soldiers.
'Lebanese government was loving our report'
Sarah Leah Whitson, director of HRW's Middle East and North Africa division, told Reuters: "It's quite appalling to us that Hizbullah can't take the criticism. When it comes down to it, Hizbullah were more interested in shutting us up."
Hussein Rahhal, head of Hizbullah's media unit, said there was a "distortion of facts" in the report.
"We were targeting soldiers and military bases principally but Israel's main direct targets were civilians. Civilian casualties inflicted by us were indirect," he said.
Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora also criticized HRW. "It is impermissible to put the killers and the killed on the same level," he said in remarks published on Wednesday.
Whitson said: "Certainly the Lebanese government was loving our report when it was critical of Israel's actions .... But when it's politically sensitive, they shy away from the report."
HRW has issued a report critical of Israel's actions. It has also released statements condemning the tactics of both Israel and Hizbullah during the war.
In the report, HRW said it "found that numerous rockets were fired in which there was no apparent legitimate target in the vicinity at the time of the attack, indicating that civilians were deliberately attacked".
During the war, Hizbullah fired nearly 4,000 rockets into northern Israel while the Jewish state launched intensive air assaults on Hizbullah bastions in south Lebanon and southern Beirut. It also hit bridges and roads across the country.