Hezbollah operated during the second Lebanon war from within civilian structures and its operatives disguised themselves as civilians, and is therefore guilty of war crimes, according to a report authored by Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.

The report also says that 650 out of the 1,084 people the Lebanese government has said were civilians killed in the conflict were in fact Hezbollah militants.

According to international law on warfare, the use of civilian structures during combat is forbidden, and turns the structures into legitimate military targets. International human rights organizations and the United Nations have accused Israel of attacking civilian targets during the war.

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The Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center works in close cooperation with the Israel Defense Forces Intelligence Corps. The center's director, Colonel (res.) Reuven Erlich, said the report is intended to help make Israel's case to the world regarding IDF activities during the war.

"I think it could offer a response to allegations of human rights organizations on why the Israel Defense Forces operated in civilian areas," Ehrlich said.

The report said Hezbollah operated from civilian areas to deter the Israeli military and gain a propaganda advantage if an Israeli counterattack caused civilian casualties. Militants stashed weapons in hundreds of private homes and mosques, had missile transports closely follow ambulances and fired rockets near UN monitoring posts, the report said

The report's authors say it proves that Hezbollah made serious efforts to blend in with the civilian population in Beirut and southern Lebanon. The report includes aerial photographs of buildings and facilities in civilian neighborhoods being used by Hezbollah, as well as pictures of Hezbollah militants firing rockets next to residential buildings. In at least one instance, say the authors, Hezbollah weapons were found in a mosque.

The report also includes testimony given by captured Hezbollah militants, in which they admit they were instructed to hide in civilian buildings. One militant said, according to the report, that he transported a Katyusha rocket under the cover of a white flag. Another militant is quoted as saying that he and his comrades wore civilian clothes and traveled in civilian vehicles, to avoid being identified as militants.

One video included in the report showed a captured Hezbollah guerrilla telling his interrogators how the militia rented houses in residential areas to secretly store missiles.

"Even the owner of the house, he knows he's giving (the building) to Hezbollah, they rent it for instance, but its not possible for him to know what's in it," said the militant, identified as 30-year-old Maher Hassan Mahmoud Kourani.

The report presents Hezbollah Katyusha rocket "firing cards", which include instructions on how to aim in order to hit civilian population centers in northern Israel.

The report concludes by offering a legal determination accusing Hezbollah of war crimes. Three chapters in the report addressing the war crimes issue were prepared by the IDF legal department, in conjunction with Foreign Ministry lawyers, the report said.

A Hezbollah official dismissed the Israeli report as "totally untrue," saying it was part of "a campaign to vilify Hezbollah and justify the unjustified Israeli massacres in Lebanon."

"These allegations are part of Israeli propaganda aimed at protecting Israel's generals and officials who face accusations of committing massacres against Lebanese civilians during the summer war," Hussein Rahhal, Hezbollah's media chief, told The Associated Press in Lebanon.

Amnesty International said the report did not contain many new allegations. "In terms of the fact that Hezbollah had weapons, tunnels, militia facilities in villages, no one disputes it. Hezbollah does not dispute it," said Claudio Cordone, a senior director of research at Amnesty.

Cordone called for "a proper international investigation ... to look into these allegations and other ones," including Hezbollah's rocket attacks on northern Israel.