Israeli attacks on Lebanon may amount to war crimes, UN rights office says 

Israeli attacks on residential buildings and civilian infrastructure in Lebanon may amount to war crimes, the United Nations human rights office says as the Israeli military pummels its northern neighbour as part of the wider war engulfing the Middle East.

At a news briefing on Tuesday in Geneva, a spokesperson for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said hundreds of homes and other buildings, including healthcare facilities, have been destroyed in intensified Israeli strikes on the capital, Beirut, and other parts of the country.

Thameen al-Kheetan noted that displaced Lebanese civilians living in tents along the Beirut seafront were killed in Israeli strikes while other attacks since early March also have killed at least 16 health workers.

“International humanitarian law demands distinction between military targets and civilians and civilian objects and insists on feasible precautions being taken to protect civilians. Deliberately attacking civilians or civilian objects amounts to a war crime,” al-Kheetan said.

“In addition, international law provides for specific protections for healthcare workers as well as people at heightened risk, such as the elderly, women and displaced people.”

At least 886 people, including 111 children, have been killed and 2,141 wounded in Israel’s attacks on Lebanon since March 2, according to the latest figures from the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health.

Israel began carrying out intensified strikes in early March after Iran-backed Hezbollah launched rockets into northern Israel after the assassination of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in United States-Israeli attacks on February 28, the first day of the war they launched on Iran.

The Israeli military has since been carrying out a widespread aerial and ground assault across Lebanon in what it says is a campaign against Hezbollah. The Lebanese armed group has responded by firing barrages of rockets into northern Israel and engaging Israeli forces on the ground in southern Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the UN and international humanitarian groups have raised concerns about the conflict’s worsening toll on civilians across Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities said more than one million people have been forced out of their homes as a result of the conflict as Israel issues forced displacement threats for areas of southern Lebanon below the Litani River and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

This week, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said the residents of southern Lebanon “will not return to their homes south of the Litani River until the security of the residents of the north [of Israel] is guaranteed”.

Michael Adams, the country director at CARE Lebanon, said on Tuesday that the humanitarian response “is struggling to keep pace with the scale of the [displacement] crisis”.

“There are not enough resources, not enough essential supplies, and not enough funding to meet the immense needs we are seeing,” Adams said in a statement. “In this conflict, the disregard for civilian life is unbearable.”

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also expressed concern over the displacement crisis, noting that Israel’s orders for residents of southern Lebanon to leave their homes “may amount to forced displacement, prohibited under international humanitarian law”.

“With this displacement comes a wide array of human rights concerns. Proper healthcare, sufficient food and drinking water are lacking,” al-Kheetan said.

“Education has been interrupted for another academic year, freedom of movement no longer exists, and livelihoods have now been lost. And while people are displaced, Israeli attacks are destroying and damaging their houses, farmland and other civilian infrastructure.”