(Beirut) – More than a thousand Israeli strikes across Lebanon that have killed hundreds of people and injured thousands since September 23, 2024, are placing civilians across the country at grave risk of harm, Human Rights Watch said today.
The UN should urgently establish, and UN member countries should support, an international investigation into the recent hostilities in Lebanon and northern Israel and ensure that it is dispatched immediately to gather information and make findings as to violations of international law and recommendations for accountability.
“The Israeli military killed hundreds of people in Lebanon in just one day; thousands have been injured and forced to flee from their homes, and hundreds of homes, businesses, and farms have been destroyed” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It is paramount for Israel and Hezbollah to comply with the laws of war to minimize civilian harm.”
The Israeli military on September 24 said that it struck more than 1,600 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on the same day that attacks killed 558 people, including 50 children and 94 women, and injured over 1,835, while damaging “hospitals, medical centers and ambulances.” Tens of thousands of people have since been displaced, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Since September 22, Hezbollah has launched more than 200 rockets into northern Israel towns, injuring 6 people, according to media reports. On September 22, Hezbollah said that it targeted an Israeli military base and the headquarters of a weapons manufacturing company, but one rocket reportedly struck a residential neighborhood near Haifa, and part of an intercepted rocket reportedly fell in Nazareth in northern Israel.
On September 17 and 18, thousands of pagers and two-way radios exploded across Lebanon, killing at least 37 people, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry, including children and medical workers. US officials and others have said that Israel was responsible for the attacks, although the Israeli military has not commented on them. The weaponization of these communication devices appears to violate the prohibition against booby-traps under the Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices of 1996.
The use of an explosive device whose exact location could not be reliably known would be unlawfully indiscriminate, a means of attack that could not be directed at a specific military target and as a result would strike military targets and civilians without distinction.
On September 23, Israel’s military spokesperson stated that civilians in Lebanon “located in and next to buildings and areas used by Hezbollah for military purposes [should] immediately move out of harm’s way.” According to media reports, tens of thousands of people across Lebanon received calls with prerecorded messages in Arabic warning them to evacuate their buildings. Residents in south Lebanon, reportedly received calls ordering them to distance themselves one kilometer from Hezbollah posts, Reuters reported. In a post to his account on X (formerly known as Twitter), the Israeli military’s Arabic-language spokesman told residents in Lebanon’s Bekaa region to do the same “within two hours.”
The same day, Lebanon recorded its highest daily death toll since the country’s 1975-1990 civil war.
Human Rights Watch reviewed two screenshots posted to X, and a photograph taken by Agence France-Presse, of identical messages sent in Arabic received by residents at 8:20 a.m. and 8:35 a.m. on September 23, according to the time shown on the message, via SMS. These messages instruct people to leave “the village” until further notice “if they are located in a building containing Hezbollah weapons.”
Many civilians fleeing south Lebanon were trapped on the single north-south highway connecting the region with Beirut for hours amid the congestion and chaos of those trying to flee. They reported little to no cell phone connectivity and that strikes were reported near the highway and other main roads.
Human Rights Watch reviewed fire detection data recorded by the Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) on September 23 that shows a substantial increase in thermal anomalies across Lebanon’s South and Nabatieh governorates compared to data collected on September 22. Some of these thermal anomalies were detected along or in close proximity to roads.
International humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, requires parties to a conflict to take constant care during military operations to spare the civilian population, and to “take all feasible precautions” to avoid or minimize the incidental loss of civilian life and damage to civilian objects. These precautions include doing everything feasible to verify that the objects of attack are military objectives and not civilians or civilian objects, giving “effective advance warning” of attacks when circumstances permit, and refraining from an attack if the requirement for proportionality will be violated.
Warnings that do not give civilians adequate time to leave for a safer area would not be considered “effective” under the law. Broad warnings unrelated to any imminent attack cannot be considered “effective,” and may instead improperly instill fear in the affected population.
Customary international law prohibits “acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population.” Statements that call for evacuating areas that are primarily intended to cause panic among residents or compel them to leave their homes for reasons other than their safety would fall under this prohibition.
Civilians who do not evacuate following warnings are still fully protected by international humanitarian law. Forced displacement is prohibited under the laws of war, except in cases in which civilian security is involved or for imperative military reasons. Moreover, some civilians are unable to heed a warning to evacuate, for reasons of health, disability, fear, or lack of any place else to go.
Forces deployed in populated areas must, to the extent feasible, avoid locating military objectives – including fighters, ammunition, weapons, equipment, and military infrastructure – in or near densely populated areas, and endeavor to remove civilians from the vicinity of military objectives. Belligerents are prohibited from deliberately using civilians to shield military objectives or operations from attack.
At the same time, the attacking party is not relieved from its obligation to take into account the risk to civilians, including the duty to avoid causing disproportionate harm to civilians if the defending party has located military targets within or near populated areas.
In April, Lebanon’s Council of Ministers instructed the Foreign Affairs Ministry to file a declaration with the International Criminal Court (ICC) registrar accepting the court’s jurisdiction over serious crimes committed on Lebanese territory since October 7, 2023.
However, the ministry never followed through, and the government eventually reversed its decision. Accepting the ICC’s jurisdiction through a declaration would have given the court’s prosecutor a mandate to investigate serious crimes committed in Lebanon, regardless of the nationality of the suspects.
Human Rights Watch has called on Israel’s key allies to suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel, given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses.
“The presence of a Hezbollah commander, rocket launcher, or other military facility in a populated area does not justify attacking the area without regard to the civilian population, including the duty to distinguish combatants from civilians and adhere to the rule of proportionality,” Fakih said. “Given the gravity of the situation, UN member states should take urgent action to establish an independent inquiry into violations during the current hostilities. In parallel, Lebanon should also give the ICC a mandate to investigate grave international crimes.”
