As part of its ongoing investigation into violations of the laws of war in Lebanon, Amnesty International has documented four illustrative cases in which unlawful Israeli strikes killed at least 49 civilians.
These attacks must be investigated as war crimes.
Israeli forces struck three residential buildings in the village of al-Ain in northern Bekaa on September 29, 2024, in the village of Aitou in northern Lebanon on October 14, and in Baalbeck city on October 21, decimating entire families. Additionally, on October 16, Israeli forces attacked the municipal headquarters of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military did not issue warnings ahead of any of these strikes.
The organization found that the Israeli attacks on al-Ain, Baalbeck city, and the Nabatieh municipality were likely direct attacks on civilians or on civilian objects, as the organization did not find evidence of military targets at any of these locations at the time of the attacks.
However, even if Israeli forces intended to strike what they considered to be legitimate military objectives, the means and methods of these attacks, using large bombs on populated civilian buildings at times of day when they would have been known to be full of civilians, and without any prior warning, would likely make them indiscriminate attacks, and hence unlawful. The attack on a residential building in Aitou, which in addition to killing 23 civilians, killed one person who may have been a Hezbollah operative, was likely an indiscriminate attack and potentially a disproportionate attack.