The French-Lebanese artist and filmmaker Ali Cherri, together with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) filed a civilian complaint in which the Israeli army denounced a bomb attack on a “civilian object” on Thursday.
A civilian property is any property that is not considered a military target, including homes, schools, hospitals, transportation facilities, civilian infrastructure, and places of worship. Particularly in the context of international humanitarian law Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, civilian objects are protected from direct attack and seizure; Their bombing or destruction could constitute a war crime under international humanitarian law.
Article 24 paragraph 3 reads: “Any bombing of cities, villages, homes and buildings not in the immediate vicinity of land force operations is prohibited.”
“In a context characterized by persistent impunity, this complaint represents the first initiative to bring to the judicial authorities the crimes committed by the Israeli army on Lebanese territory, whose main victims were civilians,” Wadih Al-Asmar, co-founder and president of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH), said in a statement opinion.
“These attacks represent a clear and repeated violation of international humanitarian law, which imposes the obligation to distinguish between military targets and civilian objects and populations,” said Clémence Bectarte, lawyer and coordinator of the FIDH Litigation Action Group. “The French justice system must ensure that these crimes do not go unpunished and that those responsible are prosecuted, especially when their own citizens are the victims.”
Cherri’s dual French-Lebanese nationality gives French judicial authorities the authority to investigate the bombing of his home. However, they are not responsible for the murder of his parents.
A few hours before the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah —A Lebanese Shia Islamist political party – scheduled to come into force on November 26, 2024 at 5:30 p.m., Mr. Cherri’s ninth floor apartment – in the Noueiri residential district of Beirut, Lebanon – where he lived with his parents, was targeted by an Israeli military bombing and destroyed. The victims included Mahmoud Naim Cherri and Nadira Hayek, Cherri’s parents, and a domestic worker named Birki Negesa Press release. The bombing also destroyed the apartments on the 7th and 8th floors of the building.
Based on documentation from Amnesty International and digital reconstruction work carried out by an organization called Forensic Architecture, Cherri’s complaint contains evidence that the attack appears to have been targeted and that this proves the Israeli army’s responsibility for carrying it out. Cherri said in a statement:
As a son, citizen and victim, it is my duty to ensure that this war crime committed by the Israeli army is recognized for what it is so that it can be brought to justice – for my parents and for all the civilians killed that day. Justice cannot undo death, but seeking justice means refusing to let impunity lead to the destruction of other lives.
As a result of the Israeli-Iranian war, authorities across the Middle East, particularly in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, “announced hundreds of arrests for leaking information about the impact of the attacks. In Kuwait, authorities imposed one new decree Prison sentences and heavy fines for anyone who “undermines the reputation of the military” or (attempts to) undermine the public’s trust in the armed forces.”
The attack of November 26, 2024 is part of the broader context of the military operation carried out by Israel in Lebanon since October 2023, which has had devastating consequences on the civilian population and objects and led to the deaths of more than 4,300 Lebanese.
On March 11, 2026, Mohamad Shehab, a Forensic Architecture cameraman who had been filming Ali Cherri’s parents’ home, was killed along with his three-year-old daughter in an Israeli attack on their home. This attack, which is eerily similar to the attack on Cherri’s apartment, “illustrates the persistence and intensification of Israeli military operations in Lebanon, including those directed against civilians.”
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