In an unprecedented report, the Human Rights Watch accused Hamas Thursday of committing war crimes during an 11-day conflict with Israel in May by firing thousands of rockets toward populated areas in Isarel .

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The watchdog, which has a long-standing history of criticizing Israel, also concluded that a misfired rocket launched by Hamas killed seven Palestinians when it landed in the Gaza Strip.

The New York-based rights group has repeatedly come under fire by Israel and its supporters over reports accusing Israel of war crimes against the Palestinians as well as of "apartheid" and persecution. But in its latest report, it agreed with most legal experts – and Israel itself – that rocket fire from Palestinian population centers directed at Israeli civilian areas is a violation of international law.

"Palestinian armed groups during the May fighting flagrantly violated the laws-of-war prohibition on indiscriminate attacks by launching thousands of unguided rockets towards Israeli cities," said Eric Goldstein, acting executive director of the group's Middle East and North Africa division.

The watchdog based its conclusions on an investigation into Hamas rocket attacks that killed 12 civilians in Israel, including two children and one soldier.

The war erupted on May 10 after Hamas fired a barrage of rockets toward Israel in support of Palestinian protests at Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa Mosque compound and the Sheikh Jarrah eviction dispute.

Israel has said it struck over 1,000 targets in the Gaza Strip during the fighting, while Hamas launched more than 4,300 rockets and mortar rounds at Israel, including barrages directed at major population centers around Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

"The rockets and mortars that Palestinian armed groups fired lack guidance systems and are prone to misfire, making them extremely inaccurate and thus inherently indiscriminate when directed toward areas with civilians," the report said. "Launching such rockets to attack civilian areas is a war crime."

Human Rights Watch concluded that a Hamas rocket fired on May 10 killed seven people, including two children, in the Gaza Strip city of Jabaliya. It said the number of Palestinians killed by errant Hamas fire might be higher.

"Munitions apparently directed toward Israel that misfired and fell short killed and injured an undetermined number of Palestinians in Gaza," the report said, adding that Hamas has not "provided information about how many rockets misfired or how many people died as a result in Gaza and there are no precise independent estimates."

The May conflict was the fourth war between Israel and Hamas since the terrorist group seized control of Gaza in 2007. Founded in the 1980s, the group rejects Israel's existence, is responsible for scores of deadly attacks on Israeli civilians and is considered a terrorist group by the United States, European Union and Israel.

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The government and watchdog group NGO Monitor criticized a forthcoming report from Human Rights Watch that accuses Israel of apartheid and calls for an international legal campaign against it.

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Human Right Watch has a history of anti-Israel rhetoric and has previously published several reports criticizing the Jewish state using methodology that lacks credibility and military and legal expertise.

On Tuesday, the organization is expected to release a report titled "A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution," to be distributed internationally.

NGO Monitor, which received advance copies of the report, said it is "not merely a critique of Israeli policy in the West Bank, but an attack on the very foundations of Israel and a rejection of the legitimacy of a Jewish state, regardless of borders."

According to NGO Monitor, the HRW report "is part of a concerted campaign over the past 18 months to interject the term 'apartheid' into discourse about Israel."

In it, HRW denies Israel's legitimacy as a Jewish state, specifically with regard to the 1950 "Law of Return," and repeatedly denounces what they term as Israel's so-called racist demographic policies.

As NGO Monitor describes in its analysis of the report, the law "provides Jews dispersed around the world access to Israeli citizenship. Nothing in the law discriminates against non-Jewish Israeli citizens and is not unique – other countries, such as Ireland, Spain, and Germany, have legislation to simplify emigration for diaspora populations."

HRW does not include the fact that Israel enacted the "Law of Return" post-World War II and Holocaust to provide safe haven for Jews who survived Nazi Germany's Final Solution, coupled with centuries of persecution in regions around the world.

"The demonization of Israel through comparisons to the heinous legacy of the South African apartheid regime has deep roots, going back to the Soviet and Arab campaigns, and the infamous Durban NGO Forum, President of NGO Monitor Gerald Steinberg said.

"HRW's latest contribution consists of the standard mix of shrill propaganda, false allegations, and legal fictions. Exploiting the 'apartheid' image for propaganda is a cynical appropriation of the suffering of the victims of the actual apartheid regime," he said.

The analysis also says that HRW's report "adds to decades of [its] obsessively singling out of Jews and Israel and rejection of the legitimacy of a Jewish nation-state per se, and regardless of policies or borders."

NGO Monitor noted that for the last 20 years, HRW "has backed various BDS campaigns against Israel and companies that do business in Israel," and that the report dismisses Israeli security concerns and counterterror measures; supports the anti-Israel campaign currently playing out in the International Criminal Court in The Hague; and cuts and pastes anti-Israel claims from like-minded political organizations.

In its report, HRW is calling on the international community to support the BDS campaign, calling for an embargo, banning entry of Israeli citizens, freezing assets, and banning business deals with Israelis. It also called on the Palestinians to end the security coordination with Israel, a move contrary to all values of human rights and non-violence.

"The distorted reality presented by Human Rights Watch is part of its ongoing political and obsessive campaign against Israel in recent years," Strategic Affairs Minister Michael Biton said.

The Israel legal system is one of the most respected ones in the democratic world. It works tirelessly to protect civil and human rights. The HRW report has nothing to do with human rights. It only aims to discredit Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state, Biton said.

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Arsen Ostrovsky, CEO of the International Legal Forum, an Israel-based global network of lawyers dedicated to fighting antisemitism, terrorism, and the delegitimization of Israel in the international legal arena, issued a statement denouncing HRW.

The group's report accusing Israel of apartheid "is just the latest attack in HRW's longstanding and relentless obsession and lawfare campaign against the State of Israel.

"Written under the guise of 'international law and human rights,' this report is replete with malicious lies and gross distortions of truth and law while peddling in unhinged hate, incitement, and racist stereotypes.

"In short, this report is tantamount to an antisemitic 'blood libel' against the Jewish state," he said.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org

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Omar Shakir, a US citizen, was ordered to leave the country after Israel's Supreme Court upheld an expulsion order under a 2017 law that allows Israel to deport foreigners who support the boycott movement aimed at economically isolating Israel, but has also been accused of anti-Semitism and ties with terrorism.

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"This has never been about BDS. It's always been about the Israeli government's efforts to muzzle Human Rights Watch," Shakir said in a statement. "But it's had exactly the opposite effect. The world has seen through this for what it is. It's an attack on the human rights movement."

Nevertheless, a watchdog group said that Shakir has long targeted the Jewish state.

"Shakir's career, including at HRW, has been devoted to uniquely and intensely targeting Israel. His personal involvement in campaigns concerning Israeli banks, Airbnb and FIFA membership was meant to trigger far-reaching boycotts, divestment, and sanctions. Two courts carefully reviewed the evidence we provided and came to the same conclusion," NGO Monitor said in a statement.

"Now that Shakir has lost, he and HRW have suddenly forgotten the due process and exceptional access that he enjoyed," it said.

Reprinted with permission from JNS.org.

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Speaking with public broadcaster Kan News, Kenneth Roth said he was opposed to the notion after being asked about Israel's right to exist as the homeland of the Jewish people.

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"No one has ever questioned Israel's right to exist, Israel can define itself however it wants, many states define themselves in nationalist terms," ​​Roth said, adding that he prefers the country move towards becoming a more egalitarian "democratic state."

Pressed by Kan about his reluctance to define Israel as a Jewish state, Roth justified his argument by pointing out that there are many Palestinians who live in Israel who also "deserve their full rights."

When asked if he would oppose Egypt defining itself as an Arab state, Roth said "yes," if it means that non-Arabs are looked upon as second-class citizens.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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A lower court in April ordered Omar Shakir to leave the country, saying his activities against the West Bank settlements amount to a boycott of the country. Israeli law bars entry to those who have publicly supported a boycott of Israel or its settlements.

Shakir, who is a U.S. citizen, had appealed to the court to allow him to stay for the duration of the proceedings.

In Sunday's ruling, the Supreme Court did not set a date, but said the appeal should be heard in the current court year ending July 21.

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In a 134-page report, the group said it documented arbitrary arrests, enforced disappearances, torture, extrajudicial killings, and possibly unlawful air and ground attacks against civilians.

"Some of these abuses, part of an ongoing campaign against members of the local ISIS affiliate, the Sinai Province group, amount to war crimes," the report said. ISIS is an alternative acronym for the Islamic State group.

Egyptian officials had no immediate comment.

The terrorists have also committed horrific crimes, including kidnapping and torture of residents, some of whom were killed, the New York-based watchdog said. They have also killed and captured members of the security forces, HRW said.

"Instead of protecting Sinai residents in their fight against militants, the Egyptian security forces have shown utter contempt to residents' lives, turning their daily life into a nonstop nightmare of abuses," said Michael Page, HRW's deputy Mideast and North Africa director.

Access to northern Sinai has been restricted for years, making it difficult to independently verify what is happening on the ground. HRW said the findings were based, in part, on interviews with Sinai residents and former detainees.

The group also said, citing government statements and media reports, that 3,076 suspected militants and 1,226 members of the military and police were killed in fighting between January 2014 and June 2018 in Sinai. It said, however, that Egyptian authorities frequently counted civilians among the alleged militants killed and that hundreds of civilians have been killed or wounded in the violence.

The government has not provided a tally for civilians killed in Sinai.

HRW said the Egyptian military has recruited Sinai residents into a militia to help it "by providing intelligence and carrying out missions on the military's behalf." But these militia members also used their powers for arbitrary arrests and to settle scores and personal disputes.

"They have also participated in torture and extrajudicial killings," the group said.

The insurgency in Sinai intensified after the military's 2013 ouster of Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi was toppled amid mass protests against him, a year after he took office.

In February last year, Egypt began a massive anti-militant operation, mainly focused on Sinai but also on parts of Egypt's Nile Delta and the Western Desert along the porous border with Libya.

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The judge said she wanted more time to study the Twitter history of Omar Shakir, who is contesting the revocation of his work permit last year. The New York-based watchdog group has cast the case as a bid to suppress global criticism of Israel's treatment of Palestinians.

Israel says that Shakir, a U.S. citizen, supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. Israel has criminalized BDS and has lobbied Western powers to follow suit.

The case hinges in part on Shakir's pro-BDS tweeting before he became Human Rights Watch's director for Israel and the Palestinian territories in 2016, and whether his statements after the appointment also constitute such support.

Human Rights Watch says it does not support boycotts of Israel. It has defended Shakir's statements since joining the rights group, including a tweet backing Airbnb's delisting of Jewish homes in Judea and Samaria.

Right-wing advocacy groups represented in court argued that Israeli law does not distinguish between boycotts of the settlements and boycotts of Israel itself. One advocate, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat Hadin Israel Law Center, said Israel should consider barring Human Rights Watch entirely.

Shakir's Israeli lawyer, Michael Sfard, said that was what the case boiled down to, as "deporting the appellant means deporting the organization."

The case should not hinge on trying to determine Shakir's personal views, as "the question is not what he thinks, but what he does, and whether he calls openly for a boycott," Sfard said.

The state's representative, Jerusalem District prosecutor Moran Brown, was circumspect about Human Rights Watch's status.

"The organization is not defined by us as a boycott group, but it takes part in activity that supports boycotts," he said.

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