Beirut – The Israeli army is committing a complex crime and setting a dangerous precedent by enforcing illegal displacement policies in Lebanon. This involves forcing civilians to leave their homes and threatening residents of other areas with bombing or destruction of their towns if they host displaced people.
The Israeli unlawful threat, directly communicated to local officials in several villages in southern Lebanon to bomb and destroy their towns unless a specific sect of displaced persons was forced to leave, demonstrates a dangerous pattern of using unlawful destruction and death threats against civilians and their homes. It coerces civilian communities into acts against other civilians, going beyond standard military warnings to manipulating social behaviour under duress, inflaming local tensions, threatening civil peace, and creating hotspots of internal conflict.
In March, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor documented Israeli army officers contacting mayors, village leaders, and local officials in at least eight predominantly Christian and Druze villages in southern Lebanon. They explicitly ordered them to force displaced families, most of them Shiite, to leave their shelters immediately, warning that any village or town continuing to host them would be bombed and destroyed. Under these unlawful threats, local communities complied and forcibly expelled the displaced families in an attempt to protect their towns and residents.
Threats of bombing, destruction, and severe psychological pressure to force local communities to expel displaced persons on a sectarian basis, reveals a complex mechanism that targets not only the displaced but also the Lebanese social fabric
According to field documentation collected by Euro-Med Monitor, the leader of the border town of Rmeish in southern Lebanon received a call from an Israeli army officer at the beginning of March ordering him to immediately expel the Shiite displaced persons who had taken refuge in the town, threatening to target the town if he failed to comply. The same pattern was repeated with local leaders in other towns, including Al-Qlayaa and Aalma ash-Shaab, compelling these communities, under the unlawful threat of bombing and destruction, to forcibly expel hundreds of Shiite displaced persons in an effort to protect their towns and residents.
According to Euro-Med Monitor's field team, local leaders are avoiding explicitly informing residents and displaced persons that they have received calls from the Israeli army ordering the expulsion of displaced individuals from the Shia sect. Simultaneously, municipal police are instructed to enforce these orders on the displaced to prevent the destruction of host towns.
In a testimony to Euro-Med Monitor, M. J., a resident of Bint Jbeil who had been displaced to Rmeish, stated that he remained there until 10 March, when municipal police unexpectedly asked him and other families to leave.
"All of a sudden, municipal police came and told people they had to leave. The decision affected more than 100 families from several towns, including Bint Jbeil and Aitaroun. We did not know where to go," he said. "Everyone started searching for shelter by any means. Some [displaced] people turned to relatives or acquaintances [in other areas], while other families left without a clear destination, driving their cars into the unknown."
He continued: "After many calls with relatives, we managed to find a place in Sidon for my family and me. I don't know what happened to the others, where they went, or whether they managed to find shelter, or if they remained in their cars on the roads. The pain is not only in our leaving. It is in not knowing where to go, or whether there is any place we can return to."
This systematic pattern, involving threats of bombing, destruction, and severe psychological pressure to force local communities to expel displaced persons on a sectarian basis, reveals a complex mechanism that targets not only the displaced but also the Lebanese social fabric. These Israeli threats not only cause forced displacement and discrimination but also seek to erode trust between Lebanese communities, fuel suspicion and hostility, and undermine the foundations of civil solidarity. In doing so, they turn civilians into instruments of coercion in the implementation of a policy of displacement, social fragmentation, and internal tension, with effects that may extend far beyond the immediate incident.
Forcing residents of host villages who belong to sects and religions that are different from those of the displaced persons to take part in their expulsion creates division and social tension, especially given that these same residents had initially welcomed them and, in many cases, sheltered them in their homes. This indicates that the Israeli strategy extends beyond direct military objectives to inflame religious and sectarian divisions, subjugate civilians, deepen their suffering, and forcibly reshape social realities.
This Israeli policy entrenches repeated forced displacement, as civilians who had already fled conflict areas are forced to flee again under threat.
Threatening to target villages, homes, or shelters simply for hosting displaced persons constitutes a grave violation of international humanitarian law. Displaced persons remain civilians entitled to protection, and their shelters retain civilian status unless that protection is lost under the strict conditions set by law. Using threats of bombing and destruction to force local communities to expel displaced persons, therefore, violates the principle of distinction and the prohibition of collective punishment, and may also constitute forced displacement, persecution, and other serious violations that, depending on the context and available evidence, may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Israel's responsibility for this displacement is not negated simply because the evacuation was carried out by local communities or civil leaders. The Rome Statute defines deportation or forcible transfer as the coerced displacement of persons from a place where they are lawfully present through expulsion or other coercive acts and makes clear that coercion is not limited to physical force but also includes threats, fear of violence, psychological pressure, and the exploitation of a coercive environment. Accordingly, by creating a threatening environment that compels host villages to expel displaced persons to avoid bombing, Israel bears direct responsibility for the resulting displacement as the foreseeable outcome of its coercive actions.
Threatening to strip host villages of civilian protection and destroy them merely for sheltering displaced persons is a blatant violation of the principle of distinction under international humanitarian law. The presence of displaced persons does not deprive residential areas or civilian communities of their protected status, nor does it provide any legal basis for treating them as lawful military targets. Such threats amount to systematic intimidation, which is expressly prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The Israeli army's use of extortion and direct military threats to compel local leaders to carry out expulsion orders forms part of a policy of collective punishment prohibited under international law. Host communities are punished through intimidation and threats against their civilian environment, while displaced persons are subjected to repeated forced displacement. Using military force to coerce civilians into implementing unlawful displacement policies sets a dangerous precedent that undermines the core rules protecting civilians during armed conflict.
The international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Geneva Conventions, must act immediately and effectively to halt this Israeli policy, adopt concrete measures to protect displaced persons and host communities in southern Lebanon, and hold Israeli officials accountable for using threats of bombing and destruction to coerce civilians into expelling displaced persons on a sectarian basis. Euro-Med Monitor stresses that this practice constitutes an unlawful use of force to bring about the forced displacement of civilians who had already been compelled to flee.
Effective protection for internally displaced persons and host communities is essential to ensure that they are not subjected to threats, coercion, or discrimination based on sectarian or religious affiliation, and that their rights under international humanitarian law are guaranteed, including protection from attack, repeated forced displacement, and expulsion.
Lebanese authorities must fulfil their responsibility to preserve civil peace, take proactive measures to counter Israeli incitement and coercion, and provide safe and dignified alternative shelter to prevent further displacement and loss of protection. They must also ensure that displaced persons are not left exposed to the effects of Israeli threats and their consequences.
Additionally, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) must act in line with its mandate under Security Council Resolution 1701 to protect civilians facing imminent risk of violence within its areas of deployment, and use its capacities to help ensure a safe environment for humanitarian assistance to displaced and affected persons.
Euro-Med Monitor calls for independent fact-finding missions and monitoring mechanisms with full access to examine these incidents, document and verify them, track patterns of threats, coercion, and forced displacement, preserve evidence in accordance with international standards, and establish a basis for accountability for the violations committed.
