Artist Ali Cherri files war crimes complaint in France over Israeli airstrike in Beirut that killed his parents

French-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri filed a war-crimes complaint in France on 2 April with the French War Crimes Unit over an Israeli airstrike in Beirut’s Noueiri neighborhood that killed his parents, Mahmoud Naim Cherri and Nadira Hayek, and five other civilians on 26 November 2024. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) is supporting the case, which comes from a strike that occurred hours before a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was agreed after a 13-month conflict that killed more than 4,000 people in Lebanon. The complaint cites Amnesty International’s briefing “The Sky Rained Missiles,” which said four Israeli airstrikes should be investigated as war crimes and reported at least 49 civilian deaths with no warnings and no evident military objective, and it also references a Forensic Architecture reconstruction using satellite imagery, witness testimony, and video. Lawyer Clémence Bectarte of FIDH said the attacks violated international humanitarian law’s requirement to distinguish military objectives from civilians, and urged French prosecutors to pursue accountability.

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