The Lebanese government should take immediate, concrete steps to help secure access to justice, truth, and reparations for thousands of civilian victims of abuses stemming from the armed conflict with Israel, five Lebanese and international human rights organizations said today in a letter to Lebanon's justice minister and deputy prime minister, who heads Lebanon's National Committee for International Humanitarian Law.
The groups are Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Legal Agenda, the Union of Journalists in Lebanon, and Reporters without Borders.
A year after the deadline for Israel to withdraw its troops from southern Lebanon, ongoing Israeli attacks and large-scale destruction of infrastructure have prevented tens of thousands of people from returning to their homes or rebuilding their lives. Israel has conducted near-daily attacks in Lebanon, killing over 380 people, including at least 127 civilians, since the ceasefire agreement came into effect. The Israeli military remains in parts of Lebanese territory and has continued to extensively destroy civilian structures along the border, leaving entire communities to grapple with destruction and loss.
The Lebanese government is ignoring a concrete set of legal actions it could have taken during this past year, starting with domestic investigations and accepting the International Criminal Court's (ICC) jurisdiction over international crimes committed in Lebanon, the organizations said. They should now act on them as a matter of urgency.
Israel must immediately allow safe return for Lebanese still displaced from their villages and provide full, effective and adequate reparations for all serious violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law committed by its military. For thousands of families, 'post-ceasefire' has not meant safety or stability. It has meant prolonged displacement, devastated livelihoods, and the anguish of living in limbo, while accountability and reparations are nowhere in sight.
The organizations are urging the Lebanese government to explore every available legal avenue, both at the domestic level and internationally, to ensure that crimes under international law are investigated and prosecuted. A critical step the government could immediately take is filing a declaration with the ICC, accepting the court's jurisdiction under article 12(3) of the court's treaty, the Rome Statute, to investigate and prosecute crimes under international law committed on Lebanese territory since at least October 7, 2023. The government should also consider ratifying the Rome Statute.
The government should support the establishment of prompt, thorough, independent, and impartial domestic judicial investigations into war crimes committed on Lebanese territory, the groups said. This includes providing judicial investigators with the authority, protection, and resources necessary to complete their work effectively and impartially. To provide a legal framework for these efforts, the government should urgently issue and introduce in parliament a law criminalizing war crimes and other acts that are crimes under international law.
The government should establish a registrar to record all killings, injuries, and other damages to civilians, and invite the United Nations special rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence to visit Lebanon and to recommend measures that Israel, Hezbollah, and the government of Lebanon should take to uphold victims' rights.
The Lebanese government has the opportunity to take historic steps towards dismantling the entrenched impunity that has defined past periods of armed conflict in the country, the organizations said. By doing so, it can begin laying the foundation for victims and affected communities to fully realize their right to justice, truth, and reparations, and be able to rebuild their lives.
Other countries, especially the United States, should immediately suspend all arms transfers and other forms of military assistance to Israel, due to the significant risk that these weapons could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international law, the groups said.
Given the long-standing pattern of serious violations of international humanitarian law committed by Israeli forces in Lebanon and beyond, other countries should also urgently step up efforts to ensure accountability, including by exercising universal or other forms of extraterritorial jurisdiction to investigate violations amounting to serious international crimes and, where sufficient evidence exists, bring prosecutions. The government of Lebanon should cooperate fully with such efforts.
The ceasefire deal between Lebanon and Israel entered into effect in November 2024 and included a requirement for the Israeli military to withdraw from southern Lebanon within 60 days. However, on February 18, 2025, Israel announced it would maintain a military presence in, and temporarily control, five "strategic" vantage points in southern Lebanon.
On February 27, Israel's defense minister stated that Israeli forces were "staying indefinitely" in a buffer zone on the border. In August, Israel's prime minister further linked the "phased reduction" of troops to the disarmament of Hezbollah.
Lebanese and international rights groups have previously reported on the devastating impact on civilians caused by the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah. This includes the Israeli military's use of white phosphorus, indiscriminate simultaneous mass explosions targeting electronic devices, and attacks on journalists, health facilities, ambulances, and paramedics.
Other reports documented unlawful air strikes against civilians and civilian objects, the extensive and ongoing destruction of Lebanon's border villages even after the ceasefire, as well as Hezbollah's repeated firing of unguided rockets into populated civilian areas in Israel.
