Airstrikes in Lebanon have violated humanitarian law, says the UN – National refugee chief
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Filippo Grandi, said on Sunday that airstrikes in Lebanon violated international humanitarian law by targeting public infrastructure and killing civilians, referring to Israel’s bombing of the country.
“Unfortunately, many cases of violations of humanitarian law around the world in the form of airstrikes that have damaged or destroyed civilian infrastructure, killed civilians, and affected humanitarian operations,” he told reporters in Beirut.
Grandi was in Lebanon as it struggles to cope with the displacement of more than 1.2 million people due to increased Israeli air and ground operations it says are targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The fighting has previously been concentrated along the Israel-Lebanon border, in line with Israel’s war in Gaza with the Palestinian group Hamas.
Grandi said that all the conflicting parties and those who influence them should “stop the massacre that is happening in Gaza and Lebanon today.”
More than 2,000 people have been killed and about 10,000 injured in Lebanon in a year of fighting, most of them in the last two weeks, said the Ministry of Health in Lebanon. Israel says around 50 civilians and soldiers have been killed.
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Israel says it is looking at military force and is taking steps to reduce the risk of civilian casualties, while Lebanese authorities say civilians are being targeted.
Israel accuses Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among civilians, which they deny.
Grandi said the World Health Organization has informed him of “serious violations of IHL in relation to health facilities in particular that have affected various areas of Lebanon,” using an acronym for international humanitarian law.
Attacks on people’s homes may be a violation of the law, although the issue needs further investigation, he said.
The fighting has led to about 220,000 people crossing the Lebanese-Syrian border, 70 percent of them Syrian and 30 percent Lebanese, Grandi said, adding that these are variable estimates.
Israel’s attack on the main border crossing into Syria at Masnaa on Friday “was a major setback,” he said.
Many Syrians from Lebanon had sought refuge and fled the fighting and security crackdowns after Syria’s civil war began in 2011.
Now was an opportunity for the Syrian government to show that “the safety and ability of returnees to return to their homes wherever they need to go is respected,” Grandi said.
