"The scale of Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli cities, towns and villages, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used and statements from the leadership confirming their intent to target civilians make it all too clear that Hezbollah violated the laws of war," said Amnesty's secretary-general Irene Khan.

"The fact that Israel has also committed serious violations in no way justifies violations by Hezbollah. Civilians must not be made to pay the price for unlawful conduct on either side."

Amnesty's claims come less than a month after it called for both sides to be investigated for "grave violations" of human rights law, accusing Israel of "indiscriminate and disproportionate" attacks on civilian infrastructure and war crimes.

Any inquiry should be conducted by the United Nations and look in particular at the impact of the hostilities on civilians on both sides with a view to bringing those responsible to account and compensating victims.

During the month-long conflict, Amnesty said Hezbollah's firing of 900 "inherently inaccurate" Katyusha rockets into urban areas flouted the principle in international law of distinguishing between civilian and military targets.

The modified missiles with ball bearings were "designed to inflict maximum death and injury", it said, adding that one of them killed eight railway workers.

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, plus other senior figures, also repeatedly stated their aim of targeting civilians as a form of reprisal for the Israeli military bombardment, Amnesty said.

The militia's rockets damaged houses, apartment blocks, schools, kindergartens, synagogues, public buildings, factories and shops in towns and villages across northern Israel, they added.

Amnesty said the document was based on its own research in Israel and Lebanon, interviews with victims, official statements, plus discussions with government officials in Israel and Lebanon and senior Hezbollah figures.

It did not address Israeli claims that Hezbollah used the civilian population as cover for its military activities and was therefore responsible for civilian deaths. Hezbollah has denied the claims.

That issue would be addressed in a future report, Amnesty said.

The 34-day conflict, sparked by the kidnap of two Israeli soldiers in a Hezbollah cross-border raid on July 12, left nearly 1,300 Lebanese dead, the majority of them civilians, as well as 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers.

It ended with a UN-brokered ceasefire on August 14.

There was no immediate word on the report from Hezbollah while Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Mark Regev refused to comment directly on Amnesty's claims.

But he told AFP that during the conflict Hezbollah carried out attacks on civilian targets to "kill or injure the maximum number of innocent civilians".

Haifa, Israel's third largest city, was one of Hezbollah's prime targets during the fighting. Israeli air raids repeatedly hit Dahiyeh, Hezbollah's major stronghold, where Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and other officials had their homes and offices.

The report is Amnesty's most extensive condemnation of Hezbollah since the conflict began in July, and comes after Amnesty accused Israel of violating international law with indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks on civilian targets in Lebanon.

The human rights group previously called on Hezbollah to release two kidnapped Israeli soldiers, whose July 12 capture sparked the fighting, and abstain from targeting civilians.

The report indicates that international law forbids the targeting of civilians and reprisals.

Approximately a quarter of all rockets were fired directly into urban areas, including rockets packed with thousands of metal ball bearings.

"The scale of Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli cities, towns and villages, the indiscriminate nature of the weapons used, and statements from the leadership confirming their intent to target civilians make it all too clear that Hezbollah violated the laws of war," Amnesty International's Secretary General Irene Khan said in a comment on the report.

"The fact that Israel has also committed serious violations in no way justifies violations by Hezbollah. Civilians must not be made to pay the price for unlawful conduct on either side."

Combined with its earlier publication on Israel's targeting of Lebanese civilian infrastructure, the latest findings underlined the urgent need for the United Nations to establish a full and impartial investigation into violations committed by both sides.

The Amnesty report on Israel was severely criticized in Israel and by Jewish groups abroad, who accused the organization of bias. These same critics maintain that Amnesty should have waited and issued the two reports simultaneously.

Haaretz learned that the decision on the timing of the report's release was made in London.

The director of the Amnesty International office in Tel Aviv, Amnon Yarden, will present Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav with a copy of the report Thursday.

The commander asserted that there was massive use of MLRS rockets despite the fact that they are known to be very inaccurate - the rockets' deviation from the target reaches to around 1,200 meters - and that a substantial percentage do not explode and become mines. Due to these facts, most experts view cluster ammunitions as a "non-discerning" weapon that is prohibited for use in a civilian environment. The percentage of duds among the rockets fired by the U.S. army in Iraq reached 30 percent and the United Nations' land mine removal team in Lebanon claims that the percentage of duds among the rockets fired by the IDF reaches some 40 percent. In light of these figures, the number of duds left behind by the Israeli cluster rockets in Lebanon is likely to reach half a million.

According to the commander, in order to compensate for the rockets' imprecision, the order was to "flood" the area with them. "We have no option of striking an isolated target, and the commanders know this very well," he said. He also stated that the reserve soldiers were surprised by the use of MLRS rockets, because during their regular army service, they were told these are the IDF's "judgment day weapons" and intended for use in a full-scale war.

The commander also said that at least in one case, they were asked to fire cluster rockets toward "a village's outskirts" in the early morning: "They told us that this is a good time because people are coming out of the mosques and the rockets would deter them." In other cases, they fired the rockets at a range of less than 15 kilometers, even though the manufacturer's guidelines state that firing at this range considerably increases the number of duds. The commander further related that during IDF training exercises hardly any live rockets are fired, for fear that they would leave duds behind and fill the IDF's firing grounds with mines.

After being discharged from his reserve duty, the commander sent a letter to Defense Minister Amir Peretz and protested the number of cluster rockets fired in Lebanon, which "perhaps the generals forgot to mention." "As far as the duds are concerned," he wrote, "we have no control over who is hurt. Sooner or later they will explode in people's hands." He has yet to receive a response from the defense minister.

At the same time, soldiers are reporting that they fired phosphorous shells, which are supposed to be used by the IDF for marking or setting fire to areas, in order to start fires in Lebanon. The artillery commander says he saw trucks with phosphorous shells en route to artillery batteries in the North.

A direct hit from a phosphorous shell causes severe burns and a painful death. Around a year ago, there was an international scandal after a television crew presented harsh pictures of the charred bodies of Iraqis injured by phosphorous bombs during the course of the American attack on the city of Fallujah.

International law prohibits the use of weapons that cause "excessive damage and unnecessary suffering," and many experts feel that phosphorous is included in this category. The International Red Cross determined that international law prohibits the use of phosphorous against humans. The American "Book of War," published in 1999, which sets down the rules of war for the American army, states: "The ground war law prohibits the use of phosphorous against human targets." The pact on prohibiting or limiting flammable weapons bans the use of phosphorous against civilian targets and against military targets found amid large civil populations.

The IDF Spokesperson said: "International law does not contain a sweeping ban on the use of cluster bombs. The Conventional Weapons Pact does not stipulate a ban on the use of inflammatory weapons (i.e., phosphorous - M.R.), rather it only offers rules for organizing the use of this weapon. For understandable operational reasons, the IDF will not comment on a detailed listing of the weaponry at its disposal. The IDF uses only methods and weapons that are permitted according to international law. The firing of artillery in general, including the firing of artillery to demolish a target, was initiated in response to firing at the State of Israel only." The defense minister's bureau said in response that it had yet to receive an inquiry on the matter of firing cluster rockets.