Lebanonupdated 1h ago3 min read
Archive photoAli Cherri Secures French Judges’ War Crimes Inquiry Into Israeli Strike In Beirut
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Two French judges opened a Paris judicial information into an Israeli Beirut strike (Nov 2024). Ali Cherri filed civil party complaint with FIDH alleging deliberate attack on civilian property.
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Paris inquiry opened
Two French judges opened a judicial information in Paris into suspected war crimes committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon, after Franco-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri secured the inquiry following a complaint filed with civil party status alongside the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). Ali Cherri told AFP, "For nearly two years now, I have been fighting (...) so that the Israeli bombing that killed my parents and five other civilians does not go unpunished," as he welcomed the referral of the two investigating judges. The complaint tied the case to a November 26, 2024 bombing of a twelve-story building in the Noueiri district of central Beirut, where seven civilians were killed, including Ali Cherri's parents aged 87 and 77.
The complaint said the strike occurred "just a few hours before the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah entered into force," and it cited detailed investigations by Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture into the incident. Me Clémence Bectarte said the information judiciaire was reportedly "the first judicial investigation related to war crimes committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon since the start of the military operation in October 2023."
Lawyer frames precedent
Clemence Bectarte told AFP that the crimes against humanity unit of the Paris Judicial Court appointed two investigating judges, and she described the move as "a first" in the case.
Ali Cherri said, "What happened to my parents is not an isolated case. Beyond my personal story and the memory of my parents, this struggle is also that of the dignity of all civilian victims," as he argued the inquiry should address impunity.
The complaint described the bombing as a deliberate attack on civilian property, and Ali Cherri obtained the opening of the investigation for "deliberate attack against a civil property, constituting a war crime," according to his counsel.
The FIDH said the judicial information would concern only the destruction of Ali Cherri's apartment because his dual French-Lebanese nationality meant French justice was not competent to adjudicate the deaths of victims who were not French nationals.
The FIDH announcement also placed the case in a wider context of investigations, saying the judicial information was opened on the grounds of launching a deliberate attack against civilian property, constituting a war crime.
Broader war-crimes docket
The French investigation into Ali Cherri's complaint sits alongside other cases that the sources describe as pending in Paris, including a complaint by Franco-Lebanese man Mohamad H. over strikes on Tyre during the night of April 16–17, 2026. The sources also described a separate complaint by a French entrepreneur born in Lebanon accusing the Israeli army of uprooting 600 century-old olive trees belonging to his family in a village in southern Lebanon. The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office (PNAT) was described as handling war crimes matters and as having opened preliminary investigations into torture and war crimes after intercepting humanitarian flotillas to Gaza in 2025 and 2026.
The sources further said PNAT asked a Paris judge to investigate war crimes after the death of two French children in an Israeli bombing on Gaza in October 2023, while excluding the qualifications of genocide and crimes against humanity. In Lebanon, the sources tied the broader conflict to Hezbollah opening a front against Israel from Lebanon after Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israeli soil, and they said hostilities escalated into open war in September 2024, leaving more than 4,300 dead in Lebanon according to Beirut.
