An alleged airstrike on an emergency relief center in south Lebanon, in March 2024, was made using US-manufactured weaponry, according to a Tuesday release from the organization Human Rights Watch (HRW.)
The strike was reportedly made using Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance kit and an Israeli-made 500-pound general purpose bomb.
Some seven aid workers were reportedly killed in the strike, according to HRW.
HRW described the attack as unlawful, claiming it was on civilians and that Israel failed to take all necessary precautions. If the attack on civilians was carried out intentionally or recklessly, it should be investigated as an apparent war crime, the organization claimed.
The strike, which occurred after midnight, hit a residential structure that housed the Emergency and Relief Corps of the Lebanese Succour Association, a nongovernmental humanitarian organization that provides emergency, rescue, first aid training, and relief services in Lebanon, according to the release.
Human Rights Watch's investigation
HRW claimed to have found no evidence of a military target at the site.
“Israeli forces used a US weapon to conduct a strike that killed seven civilian relief workers in Lebanon who were merely doing their jobs,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Israel’s assurances to the United States that it is abiding by the laws of war ring hollow. The US needs to acknowledge reality and cut off arms to Israel.”
It is the position of HRW that the United States should immediately suspend arms sales and military assistance to Israel given evidence that the Israeli military is using US weapons unlawfully.
The organization also expressed the belief that Lebanon’s Foreign Ministry should move forward with filing a declaration with the International Criminal Court, enabling it to investigate and prosecute alleged crimes within the court’s jurisdiction on Lebanese territory since October 2023.
In October 2023, Hamas launched a massive terror attack which resulted in more than 1200 people being killed and over 250 more kidnapped. Hezbollah, a Lebanese-based terror group, began launching rockets toward Israeli residential communities and Israeli military bases in the north, resulting in the IDF conducting strikes against Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanese territory. A number of Hamas terrorists have also been eliminated during the strikes in Lebanon.
In a Telegram post on March 27, the Israeli military said that “fighter jets struck a military compound in the area of al-Habbariyeh in southern Lebanon” and that “a significant terrorist operative belonging to the ‘al-Jama’a al-Islamiyya’ [an Islamic terrorist group] organization who advanced attacks against Israeli territory was eliminated along with additional terrorists who were with him.”
A parliament member representing The Islamist terror group, a Lebanese Islamist political party whose armed wing, the Fajr Forces, has been engaged in cross-border hostilities with Israel, told Human Rights Watch that no fighters from the group were killed in the strike, and denied any affiliation with the Emergency and Relief Corps of the Lebanese Succour Association.
HRW later interviewed six people from Habbarieh, including the parents of three people killed, the owner of the house, a member of the emergency and rescue team who left the center shortly before the strike, a resident who was at the site shortly after the attack, and a local official.
In addition, HRW representatives spoke to the head of the Emergency and Relief Corps at the Lebanese Succour Association, a member of parliament representing the Islamist terror group, and two people at the General Directorate of the Lebanese Civil Defense, including the head of the civil defense team that pulled the bodies out of the rubble.
Photographs of weapon remnants found at the site were also reviewed, after photographs and videos of the site before and after the attack shared online by journalists, news agencies, and rescue workers; and the footage was shared directly with researchers.
Footage of weapons remnants found at the site of the strike, and shared with Human Rights Watch, included a metal remnant marked “MPR 500,” confirming it was a 500-pound class general purpose bomb, made by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, and remnants of the strake and a tail-fin belonging to a JDAM guidance kit, produced by the US-based Boeing Company.
Based on the above investigation, HRW claimed to have sent a letter with findings and questions to the IDF and the US State Department on April 19 but state that they have not received a response as of time of publishing.
Were those killed aid workers?
The HRW investigative team concluded that there was no evidence of a military target. The IDF’s Telegram post about targeting the center was said to indicate, at a minimum, failure to take all feasible precautions to verify that the target was military and avoid loss of civilian life and damage to civilian objects, making the strike unlawful.
An official from the terror group admitted that some Islamist terror group supporters are volunteers in the Lebanese Succour Association, however, they claimed they do not include any fighters from its armed wing, the Fajr Forces.
Two people killed in the strike were likely supporters of the group, HRW acknowledged. In one case, the person posted four photographs to his Facebook page with the banner and imagery of the Islamist terror group between 2016 and 2018.
Another photograph posted on social media showed a third person holding an assault rifle while wearing camouflages fatigues. The person’s mother claimed that her son, like other men in the village, used rifles for hunting and was not affiliated with any armed group.
“We turned every stone,” Hamdan said. “Everything we found were emergency and medical equipment and devices. Overalls, helmets, gauze, first aid kits. That’s it.”
“The uninterrupted and unconditional flow of arms despite Israel’s systematic violations of the laws of war and impunity for those abuses facilitate the continued unlawful killing of civilians, including aid workers.” Kaiss said. “Israel's conduct in Gaza and Lebanon violates US and international laws, and President Biden needs to stop the flow of weapons as a matter of urgency to avoid further atrocities.”