The United Nations’ refugee chief Filippo Grandi said last night that many strikes on Lebanon had violated international humanitarian law – an apparent reference to Israel’s bombardment of large parts of the country.
“Unfortunately, many instances of violations of international humanitarian law in the way the airstrikes are conducted that have destroyed or damaged civilian infrastructure, have killed civilians, have impacted humanitarian operations,” he told media in Beirut.
Destroyed buildings in Dahiyeh, Beirut on Sunday.Credit: AP
Grandi was in Lebanon as it struggles to cope with the displacement of more than 1.2 million people as a result of an expanded Israeli air and ground operation that it says is targeting Iran-backed Hezbollah.
Fighting had previously been mostly limited to the Israel-Lebanon border area, in parallel to Israel’s war in Gaza against Palestinian group Hamas.
Grandi said all parties to the conflict and those with influence on them should “stop this carnage that is happening both in Gaza and in Lebanon today”.
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The World Health Organisation had briefed him “about egregious violations of IHL in respect of health facilities in particular that have been impacted in various locations of Lebanon”, Grandi said, using an acronym for international humanitarian law. Attacks on civilian homes may also be violations, he said.
The fighting has led some 220,000 people to cross the Lebanese border with Syria, 70 per cent of whom are Syrians and 30 per cent Lebanese, Grandi said, saying these were conservative estimates.
Israel’s bombardment of the main border crossing with Syria at Masnaa on Friday was “a huge obstacle” in terms of helping refugees, he said.
Many of the Syrians leaving Lebanon had sought refuge after the onset of the Syrian civil war in 2011. Grandi said the Syrian government now had an opportunity to show that returnees’ “safety and ability to go back to their homes or wherever they need to go is respected”.
Reuters