Four separate air strikes by Israeli forces, which killed at least 49 civilians and decimated entire families in Lebanon, must be investigated as war crimes, Amnesty International said today. Under international law, direct attacks on civilians or civilian objects, indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians, and disproportionate attacks that cause excessive incidental civilian loss are war crimes.

In a research briefing, ‘The sky rained missiles’: Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon must be investigated as war crimes, Amnesty International found that Israeli forces unlawfully struck residential buildings in the village of al-Ain in northern Bekaa on 29 September, the village of Aitou in northern Lebanon on 14 October, and in Baalbeck city on 21 October. Israeli forces also unlawfully attacked the municipal headquarters in Nabatieh in southern Lebanon on 16 October.

The Israeli military did not issue warnings ahead of any of these strikes.

“These four attacks are emblematic of Israel’s shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law,”

Amnesty International’s Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns

“These four attacks are emblematic of Israel’s shocking disregard for civilian lives in Lebanon and their willingness to flout international law,” said Amnesty International’s Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns.

“These attacks must be investigated as war crimes. The Lebanese government must urgently call for a Special Session at the UN Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism into the alleged violations and crimes committed by all parties in this conflict. It must also grant the International Criminal Court jurisdiction over Rome Statute crimes committed on Lebanese territory.”

Amnesty International interviewed 35 survivors and witnesses, surveyed the locations of the strikes in Nabatieh, Aitou and Baalbeck city and visited a hospital where some of the wounded received treatment. Researchers also photographed remnants of the munitions used in the attacks for expert identification, verified dozens of videos and photographic material from local sources and available on social media, and examined satellite imagery of the locations.

The organization wrote to the Israeli authorities on 11 November seeking information about the military objectives targeted at these locations and the measures taken to avoid or minimize causing civilian casualties, but did not receive a response prior to publication.

Families decimated in their homes

On 29 September, at approximately 4:50am local time, an Israeli strike on the outskirts of al-Ain destroyed the house of the Syrian al-Shaar family, killing all nine members of the family who were sleeping inside.

Ibrahim al-Shaar, the only surviving family member who was not home that night, told Amnesty International he had no idea why his house was hit. Another man, Youssef Jaafar, the mukhtar of the village, told Amnesty International that the al-Shaar family had lived in the village for years: “This is a civilian house, there is no military target in it whatsoever. It is full of kids. This family is well-known in town.”

In a separate strike on 21 October, at around 5:45am local time, Israeli forces hit the al-Nabi Inaam neighbourhood in Baalbeck, destroying a building housing 13 members of the Othman family.

The strike killed six people, two women and four children, and injured the seven others.

Fatima Drai, who lost her two sons Hassan, 5, and Hussein, 3, in the attack, told Amnesty International: “My son woke me up; he was thirsty and wanted to drink. I gave him water and he went back to sleep, hugging his brother. […] When he hugged his brother, I smiled and thought, I’ll tell his father how our son is when he comes back. I went to pray, and then everything around me exploded. A gas canister exploded, burning my feet, and within seconds, it consumed my kids’ room.”

Given that all those killed in these two attacks were civilians and that Amnesty International found no evidence of military objectives being present in the houses or their immediate vicinity, this raises serious concerns that the strikes on the al-Shaar and Othman family homes were direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects. These strikes should be investigated as war crimes.

Attack in northern Lebanon kills 23 civilians

An Israeli air strike on 14 October destroyed a building in Aitou, killing 23 civilians displaced from southern Lebanon, as well as Ahmad Fakih, the man presumed by those staying in the building to be the target of the attack. The attack took place minutes after Ahmad Fakih arrived at the house.

The youngest casualty was Aline, a five-month-old baby who was flung from the house into a pick-up truck nearby and was found by rescue workers the day after the strike.

The Israeli military did not publicly comment on the strike and who or what it was targeting in Aitou, deep in Lebanon’s Christian heartland and more than 115 kilometres away from the border with Israel. Amnesty International researchers visited the site of the strike and saw children’s books, toys, clothes and cooking utensils among the rubble where the house once stood.

Even if Israel intended to target Ahmad Fakih, whom survivors believed was affiliated with Hezbollah, the means and method of this attack on a house full of civilians likely would make this an indiscriminate attack and it also may have been disproportionate given the presence of a large number of civilians at the time of the strike.. It should be investigated as a war crime.

A fragment of the munition found at the site of the attack was analysed by an Amnesty International weapons’ expert and based upon its size, shape and the scalloped edges of the heavy metal casing, identified as most likely a Mk-80 series aerial bomb, which would mean it was at least a 500lb bomb. The United States is the primary supplier of these types of munitions to Israel.

One of the survivors, Jinane Hijazi, who lost her 11-month-old child, Ruqayya Issa, said: “I’ve lost everything, my entire family, my parents, my siblings, my daughter. I wish I had died that day too.”

Strike on municipal headquarters in Nabatieh

During the morning of 16 October, an Israeli air strike hit the municipal headquarters of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, killing 11 civilians, including the mayor, and injuring at least three other civilians.

The air strike took place without warning, just as the municipality’s crisis unit was meeting to coordinate deliveries of aid, including food, water and medicine, to residents and internally displaced people who had fled bombardment in other parts of southern Lebanon.

Following the strike, the Israeli military stated that its forces attacked dozens of Hezbollah targets in the Nabatieh area, without explicit reference to this particular strike. However, Amnesty International did not find any evidence of a military target at the municipal headquarters at the time of the attack.

“Israel has an appalling track record of carrying out unlawful air strikes in Gaza and past wars in Lebanon taking a devastating toll on civilians. The latest evidence of unlawful air strikes during Israel’s most recent offensive in Lebanon underscores the urgent need for all states, especially the United States, to suspend arms transfers to Israel due to the risk they will be used to commit serious violations of international humanitarian law,” Erika Guevara Rosas said.