"In 2006 HRW additionally leveled war crimes charges against Palestinian militants who captured Gilad Shalit — a uniformed soldier on active duty — on the grounds that they intended to exchange him for Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. Consequently, the main and clearest finding of “Israel: Gaza Offensive Must Limit Harm to Civilians” (28 June 2006), is that “A hostage is a person held in the power of an adversary in order to obtain specific actions, such as the release of prisoners, from the other party to the conflict … which is a war crime under the laws of war”. Against this apparently unprecedented act in the annals of military history, Israel’s own actions, which included the mass arrest of Palestinian parliamentarians and in some respects resembled a test run for Israel’s latest onslaught on the Gaza Strip (and which were the alleged subject of the press release), elicited only legal exegesis, shorn of meaningful conclusions.
More recently, the organization has issued a fatwa that any Arab launching a projectile at an Israeli target is by definition a war criminal, because such rockets and mortars are — unlike the state-of-the-art shells and missiles fired by Israel at apartment blocks, schools, hospitals, and UN facilities — not precision-guided and therefore according to HRW incapable of distinguishing between a military and civilian target. Such gunners can also not hide behind the excuse that they hit an empty field or even that they successfully aimed at and struck a legitimate military target; for HRW it is the act of using yesterday’s weapon rather than its impact that defines the crime. (There is, parenthetically, no record of HRW condemning Israel or the US of committing war crimes by virtue of using unguided projectiles)."
More recently, the organization has issued a fatwa that any Arab launching a projectile at an Israeli target is by definition a war criminal, because such rockets and mortars are — unlike the state-of-the-art shells and missiles fired by Israel at apartment blocks, schools, hospitals, and UN facilities — not precision-guided and therefore according to HRW incapable of distinguishing between a military and civilian target. Such gunners can also not hide behind the excuse that they hit an empty field or even that they successfully aimed at and struck a legitimate military target; for HRW it is the act of using yesterday’s weapon rather than its impact that defines the crime. (There is, parenthetically, no record of HRW condemning Israel or the US of committing war crimes by virtue of using unguided projectiles)."
