France has opened a judicial investigation into a war-crimes complaint over an Israeli airstrike that destroyed a residential building in Beirut and killed seven civilians, including the parents of French-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, according to AFP.
Cherri filed the complaint with the International Federation for Human Rights after losing his father, 87, and mother, 77, in the November 26, 2024 bombing of their 12 storey apartment building in central Beirut. The strike came only hours before a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah took effect.
The crimes against humanity unit of the Paris Judicial Court has appointed two investigating judges to examine the case. Cherri’s lawyer, Clemence Bectarte, called the decision a historic first in France’s response to alleged Israeli abuses in Lebanon.
“For nearly two years, I have been fighting to ensure that the bombing that killed my parents and five other civilians does not go unpunished,” Cherri said. “What happened to my parents is not an isolated case.”
The complaint cites research by Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture, which examined the attack and its aftermath. AFP said it had contacted the Israeli military for comment.
The war between Israel and Hezbollah began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and escalated into open conflict in September 2024. More than 4,000 people were killed in Lebanon, and over one million were displaced.
Other French-based cases remain pending. They include a complaint over strikes in Tyre that killed relatives of a French-Lebanese man, an allegation that Israeli forces uprooted centuries-old olive trees, and investigations into the interception of humanitarian flotillas bound for Gaza.
For Cherri, the investigation is not only a personal quest for accountability. It is, he said, a fight for the dignity of every civilian caught in war.
