NEW YORK CITY: Deliberate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure in Lebanon might amount to war crimes, the UN Human Rights Office said on Tuesday, as escalating violence between Hezbollah and Israel continued to exact a growing toll on civilians.
“Another tragic chapter in Lebanon’s history is being written,” the office said, warning that actions by both sides were raising serious concerns related to international humanitarian law, which requires that a distinction be made between military targets and civilian locations, and mandates that precautions be taken to protect noncombatants.
Since March 2, at least 886 people have been killed, including at least 111 children, Lebanese authorities say. Israeli airstrikes have destroyed hundreds of homes and civilian infrastructure, including healthcare facilities. In many cases, the strikes have flattened entire residential buildings in densely populated areas, killing several members of families, including women and children.
At the same time, Hezbollah fighters have launched indiscriminate barrages of rockets at Israel, injuring people and damaging residential buildings and other civilian infrastructure.
Such attacks raise serious concerns under international humanitarian law, the Human Rights Office said.
Displaced people living in tents along the Beirut seafront have also been hit, and in recent days at least 16 medical staff have been killed. International law explicitly protects healthcare workers and vulnerable groups, including the elderly, women and displaced people. Deliberately targeting civilians or civilian objects constitutes a war crime, the UN office stressed.
Israeli forces have expanded their warnings and displacement orders across southern Lebanon, including areas between the Litani and Zahrani rivers, adding to the broad swath of territory already under evacuation measures. Such orders might amount to forced displacement, which is prohibited under international humanitarian law, the rights office said.
Large numbers of displaced people have lost their homes and have nowhere safe to go. Families are sleeping in makeshift tents on the streets, exposed to harsh weather including recent storms. Others are sheltering in overcrowded conditions within host communities where several families are forced to share single apartments and tensions are rising amid soaring living costs.
The displacements have triggered a broad range of human rights concerns, the UN office warned, including lack of access to healthcare, food and safe drinking water. Education has been disrupted for another academic year, freedom of movement has been curtailed and livelihoods have been lost, it added. Meanwhile, Israeli strikes continue to destroy homes, farmland and more civilian infrastructure.
The office also reported discrimination against displaced people in Lebanon’s rental market, and a rise in hateful rhetoric targeting certain communities on social media.
Those who remain in southern Lebanon face growing isolation and difficulty accessing humanitarian aid after Israeli airstrikes destroyed bridges linking the region to the rest of the country, the UN said.
Statements by Israeli officials threatening to inflict destruction on Lebanon on a similar scale to that seen in Gaza are “wholly unacceptable,” the office said.
The rhetoric, combined with announcements by the Israeli military of additional troop deployments and an expanded ground incursion, has heightened fears among civilians.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, called for an immediate end to hostilities, accountability for all rights violations, and he urged the international community to increase its support for the humanitarian response in Lebanon.
