French judges probe war crimes complaint against Israeli army in Lebanon
France has opened a judicial investigation into a war crimes complaint over an Israeli strike on a residential building in Lebanon in 2024, lawyer Clemence Bectarte told AFP on Tuesday.
French-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, whose parents were killed in the Beirut strike, filed the complaint as a civil party last spring alongside the International Federation for Human Rights, Bectarte explained.
The crimes against humanity unit of the Paris Judicial Court has appointed two investigating judges to the case, she added, hailing the move as "a first".
AFP has reached out to the Israeli military for comment.
"For nearly two years, I have been fighting... to ensure that the Israeli bombing that killed my parents and five other civilians does not go unpunished," Cherri told AFP of the November 2024 strike on the residential building in central Beirut.
"What happened to my parents is not an isolated case... I hope this investigation will help break the impunity enjoyed by Israeli officials responsible for attacks against civilians in Lebanon and Palestine," he added.
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, an ally of Palestinian militant group Hamas, opened a front against Israel at the start of the war in the Palestinian territory of Gaza after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
The hostilities, which escalated into open war in September 2024, have left more than 4,000 dead in Lebanon and forced more than a million people to flee.
Source: Agence France Presse
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