UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Sunday that air strikes in Lebanon violated international humanitarian law by striking civilian infrastructure and killing civilians, referring to Israel’s bombing of the country.
“Unfortunately, there are many cases of violations of international humanitarian law in the way airstrikes are carried out that destroyed or damaged civilian infrastructure, killed civilians, and affected humanitarian operations,” he told media in Beirut.
Grande was in Lebanon, where he is struggling to cope with the displacement of more than 1.2 million people as a result of an expanded Israeli air and ground operation that he says targets Iran-backed Hezbollah.
The fighting was previously limited to the Israeli-Lebanese border area, in parallel with the war launched by Israel in Gaza against the Palestinian Hamas movement.
Grandi said that all parties to the conflict and those who influence them must “stop this massacre that is taking place in Gaza and Lebanon today.”
The Lebanese Health Ministry says more than 2,000 people have been killed and nearly 10,000 others wounded in Lebanon during nearly a year of fighting, most of them in the past two weeks. Israel says about 50 civilians and soldiers were killed.
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Israel says it is targeting military capabilities and taking steps to mitigate the risk of harm to civilians, while Lebanese authorities say civilians have been targeted.
Israel accuses Hezbollah and Hamas of hiding among civilians, which both sides deny.
Grandi said the World Health Organization briefed him on “flagrant violations of international humanitarian law with regard to health facilities in particular that were affected in various locations in Lebanon,” using an abbreviation for international humanitarian law.
He added that attacks on civilian homes may also be violations, although the matter needs further evaluation.
Grandi said that the fighting led to about 220,000 people crossing the Lebanese border with Syria, 70 percent of whom were Syrians and 30 percent Lebanese, noting that these are conservative estimates.
He added that the Israeli bombing of the main border crossing with Syria in the Masnaa area on Friday was a “major obstacle” to the continued flows of people.
Many of the Syrians who left Lebanon had sought refuge and fled the war and security crackdown after the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
Grandi said that now is an opportunity for the Syrian government to show respect for “the safety of the returnees and their ability to return to their homes or to wherever they need to go.”
