Attack on emergency center in Lebanon ‘unlawful’

An Israeli airstrike in Lebanon that killed seven first responders was an unlawful attack on civilians and the US should suspend the sale of weapons to Israel, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday.

The Israeli strike “targeted a residential structure that housed the Emergency and Relief Corps of the Lebanese Succour Association, a civil society association that provides emergency services, ambulances, first-aid training, and primary care and relief services in Lebanon,” the group said.

“If the attack on civilians was carried out intentionally or recklessly, it should be investigated as an apparent war crime.”

The Israeli military said at the time of the attack that the target was a military compound and that the strike killed a “significant terrorist operative” from Jamaa Islamiya, a Lebanese group close to Hamas,

However, Human Rights Watch said it found no evidence of a military target at the site of the attack in the southern village of Habbariyeh on March 27.

The group said weapons parts found at the site included the remains of an Israeli bomb and remnants of a “guidance kit produced by the US-based Boeing company.” Human Rights Watch’s Lebanon researcher Ramzi Kaiss said: “Israeli forces used a US weapon to conduct a strike that killed seven civilian relief workers in Lebanon who were merely doing their jobs.” The rights group urged the US to “immediately suspend arms sales and military assistance to Israel given evidence that the Israeli military is using US weapons unlawfully.”

It also asked Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry to “take immediate action by submitting a declaration to the International Criminal Court, allowing it to investigate crimes falling within its jurisdiction committed on Lebanese territory since October 2023, and prosecute the perpetrators.”