(Beirut) – The Israeli military has carried out repeated attacks harming United Nations peacekeeping operations in southwestern Lebanon in apparent violation of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said today. Israeli forces should cease unlawful attacks and allow the UN mission to fulfill its civilian protection and humanitarian duties as mandated by the UN Security Council.
In a public statement, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) said that on October 10, 2024, an Israeli tank fired upon and hit an observation tower at UNIFIL headquarters, injuring two peacekeepers. UNIFIL also said that on October 9, Israeli forces deliberately fired on and disabled the headquarters’ monitoring cameras. Under the laws of war, UN personnel involved in peacekeeping operations, including armed members, are civilians, and deliberate attacks against them and peacekeeping facilities are unlawful and amount to war crimes.
“UN peacekeepers in south Lebanon have long played a critical civilian protection and humanitarian role,” said Lama Fakih, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Any targeting of UN peacekeepers by Israeli forces violates the laws of war and dangerously interferes with UNIFIL’s civilian protection and aid work.”
The UN should urgently establish, and UN member countries should support, an international investigation into the hostilities in Lebanon and Israel with a mandate to publicly report on violations. The UN and member countries should ensure that investigators are dispatched immediately to gather information and make findings as to violations of international law by the warring parties and make recommendations for accountability.
In an October 10 post on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter, Israeli forces said that “Hezbollah operates from within and near civilian areas in southern Lebanon, including areas near UNIFIL.”
In its statement, UNIFIL said that its “Naqoura headquarters and nearby positions have been repeatedly hit.” On October 10, “two peacekeepers were injured after an IDF [Israel Defense Forces] Merkava tank fired its weapon toward an observation tower at UNIFIL’s headquarters in Naqoura, directly hitting it and causing them to fall.”
UNIFIL additionally said that the Israeli military fired on UN position 1-31 in Labbouneh, where peacekeepers were sheltering, and an Israeli military drone was observed flying inside the UN position and up to the entrance of the bunker in which UN personnel were sheltering. UNIFIL also stated that Israeli soldiers “deliberately fired at and disabled the position’s perimeter-monitoring cameras” on October 9 and also deliberately fired on UN position 1-32A in Ras Naqoura. Human Rights Watch has not independently verified these claims.
The Israeli military said that Hezbollah fired approximately 105 projectiles into Israel on October 10. Rocket and missile attacks that do not discriminate between military targets and civilians violate the laws of war.
On October 6, UNIFIL had publicly raised concerns regarding Israeli military activities immediately adjacent to the mission’s position southeast of Maroun el-Ras in southeastern Lebanon. Satellite imagery analysis by the independent investigative collective Bellingcat, based on an analysis of satellite images, found that new Israeli military activity was visible near UNIFIL’s position 6-52, where at least 30 military vehicles that appeared to belong to the Israeli military were present near UNIFIL’s position on October 5.
The attacks follow an Israeli military request to UNIFIL to relocate more than five kilometers from the Israel-Lebanon border “as soon as possible, in order to maintain your safety.” The UN peacekeeping chief, Jean-Pierre Lacroix, told reporters that UNIFIL would not evacuate its personnel, and the peacekeepers have remained in south Lebanon.
Between October 1 and October 7, the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson published six evacuation warnings that affected 119 villages in south Lebanon, including the site of the UNIFIL headquarters in Naqoura, calling on residents to go north of the Awali River, about 60 kilometers north of the Lebanon-Israel border.
UNIFIL had also raised concerns about its ability to fulfill its humanitarian work in south Lebanon. In a media interview on October 7, the UNIFIL spokesperson stated that thousands of people were stuck in villages in UNIFIL’s area of operation in Lebanon with no food or water and urged that a humanitarian convoy be allowed to operate.
Lebanon’s Health Ministry reported on October 9 that Israeli attacks in Lebanon since October 2023 have killed at least 2,141 people, including 127 children. Since October 2023, Hezbollah has launched thousands of rockets and missiles into towns in northern Israel, killing at least 16 civilians, according to media reports. In July, 12 children were killed in an attack on the town of Majdal Shams, in the occupied Golan Heights.
UNIFIL is a peacekeeping mission in south Lebanon that the UN Security Council established in 1978. The Security Council expanded the original mandate, to confirm Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. Under its expanded mandate, UNIFIL forces were to monitor the cessation of hostilities and help to ensure humanitarian access to civilians and the return of displaced persons.
As a peacekeeping force, UNIFIL “has the mandate to ensure stability in the area, protect the civilian population, and support the parties in discharging their respective responsibilities towards achieving a permanent ceasefire.” This includes the use of force to “protect civilians under imminent threat of physical violence.”
UN personnel involved in peacekeeping operations, including armed peacekeepers, are civilians under international humanitarian law, also known as the laws of war, and are entitled to all civilian protections. The laws of war require parties to a conflict to take constant care during military operations to spare the civilian population and to “take all feasible precautions” to avoid or minimize the incidental loss of civilian life and damage to civilian objects.
These precautions include doing everything feasible to verify that the objects of attack are military objectives and not civilians or civilian objects, giving “effective advance warning” of attacks when circumstances permit, and refraining from an attack if the requirement for proportionality will be violated. Civilians who do not evacuate following warnings are still fully protected by international humanitarian law. Under the laws of war, parties to the conflict must also allow and facilitate the rapid passage of impartial humanitarian aid for all civilians in need.
Under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), “intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations,” that are entitled to civilian protections, are war crimes in both international and non-international armed conflicts.
In April, Lebanon’s Council of Ministers instructed the Lebanese Foreign Affairs Ministry to file a declaration with the ICC registrar accepting the court’s jurisdiction over serious crimes committed on Lebanese territory since October 7, 2023. However, the ministry never followed through, and the government eventually reversed its decision. Lebanon should urgently give the ICC jurisdiction to enable the court’s prosecutor to investigate grave international crimes, Human Rights Watch said.
Israel’s allies should suspend military assistance and arms sales to Israel, given the real risk that they will be used to commit grave abuses, Human Rights Watch said.
Governments, including the United States, should ensure that preventing atrocities by all parties is at the center of their response to the hostilities.
“With over 2,000 people killed and over a million people displaced in Lebanon since mid-September, it is crucial for UNIFIL to be allowed to fulfill its civilian protection and humanitarian functions,” Fakih said. “Attacks on UNIFIL not only impede the peacekeeping forces’ work but also the ability of civilians in the south to access much-needed humanitarian aid.”
