BEIRUT, November 3, 2026 — Two French judges from the country’s War Crimes Unit have opened a judicial investigation into an Israeli air strike on a residential building in Beirut that killed seven civilians, including the parents of the Franco-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri. The probe, confirmed by the International Federation for Human Rights, is the first French judicial investigation into alleged crimes by the Israeli army in Lebanon since October 2023.
The strike hit a 12-storey apartment block in Beirut’s Noueiri district at about 5.30pm on 26 November 2024, roughly ten and a half hours before a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was due to take effect. Three floors of the building collapsed. Among the dead were Cherri’s father Mahmoud Naim Cherri, 88, his mother Nadira Hayek, 78, and the couple’s live-in domestic worker, Birki Negesa. Cherri’s ninth-floor apartment was destroyed.
What the Investigation Covers
The complaint was filed on 1 April 2026 by Cherri and the FIDH, and the case has been opened on charges of “intentionally directing an attack against a civilian object, amounting to a war crime.” The French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office, which oversees war crimes matters, had asked for judicial investigations to be opened in September after prosecutors identified what a source close to the case described to AFP as “serious and consistent” indications that offences had been committed.
The scope of the case is narrow, and that matters for the families involved. Cherri holds dual French and Lebanese nationality, which gives French courts jurisdiction over the bombing of his apartment. But the FIDH says French courts do not have jurisdiction over the events that led to the deaths of victims who were not French nationals. Cherri was therefore unable to bring a homicide complaint over his parents’ deaths, and the investigation concerns the alleged deliberate attack on civilian property.
“The opening of this judicial investigation marks another important step in our fight against impunity and our struggle for justice for those who were killed,” Cherri said in a statement. “For my family and me, it is essential that this investigation establish responsibility, and ensure that those who ordered and carried out this bombing are held accountable for their actions.”
Speaking to AFP, he described the decision as “a huge step forward for my family and me, even though we know that the road to justice will still be long and difficult.” He added: “What happened to my parents is not an isolated case. Beyond my personal story and the memory of my parents, this fight is also about the dignity of all civilian victims.”
A Rare Avenue for Accountability
Clémence Bectarte, a lawyer and coordinator of the FIDH Litigation Action Group, said the case appeared to be unprecedented. “To our knowledge, this is the very first judicial investigation opened into the crimes committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon since October 2023,” she said. “We hope that this investigation will shed full light on the bombing of 26 November 2024, which we qualified as a war crime in our complaint.”
The French investigation draws on research by Amnesty International and the investigation group Forensic Architecture. Amnesty’s February 2025 report found that no effective advance warning was given before the strike and uncovered no evidence of a military objective in the vicinity. Its researchers also reported finding evidence at the site of a US-manufactured GBU-39 precision-guided bomb. In a report published in April 2026, Amnesty said it again found no evidence of a military target near the building at the time of the strike.
“The opening of this judicial investigation by the French War Crimes Unit is a critical, long-overdue step towards making a dent in the wall of pervasive impunity enjoyed by Israeli forces for war crimes committed in Lebanon,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty International’s regional director. “For victims and their families, this case offers a rare and vital avenue for truth, justice, and long-awaited accountability through a European court.”
The Wider Cost of the Conflict
The strike came at the close of a period of intense fighting. Tensions between Israel and Hezbollah escalated in 2023 when the Iran-backed group stepped up attacks along Israel’s northern border after the 7 October Hamas attacks. Israel launched a military campaign in Lebanon in September 2024, involving aerial bombardment and a ground invasion, which killed more than 4,000 people and displaced around one million inhabitants, according to Deadline.
The human cost has continued to mount. Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health says the death toll from Israeli attacks in Lebanon since October 2023 has reached 8,956, with 30,664 injured, as of 30 October 2026. A fragile ceasefire has held since November 2024, though the Israeli army still occupies parts of southern Lebanon and sporadic skirmishes continue. Amnesty says that as Israeli military operations in southern Lebanon go on, civilians continue to bear the cost of displacement and destruction of civilian property.
For families across the region, the French case is one of the few routes to a courtroom. Amnesty has documented repeated unlawful attacks by Israeli forces in Lebanon since October 2023, and says victims continue to be denied justice, truth or reparations. The organisation is urging states to use every available legal avenue, including extraterritorial jurisdiction, to ensure that suspects are brought to justice in fair trials.
France has taken similar steps in other cases. The PNAT has opened preliminary investigations into allegations of torture and war crimes related to the interception by Israeli forces of humanitarian flotillas heading to Gaza in 2025 and 2026. At the end of 2025, the prosecutor’s office also asked a Paris investigating judge to open a war crimes investigation into the deaths of two French children in an Israeli bombing in Gaza in October 2023, though sources close to that case said charges of genocide and crimes against humanity were ruled out by prosecutors.
Cherri, who divides his time between Paris and Beirut, is one of Lebanon’s best-known contemporary artists, with work shown at the Guggenheim, Tate Modern and the Jeu de Paume. His feature film The Dam was selected for Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. In his statement, he framed the legal fight as one that reaches beyond his own family: “I hope that this investigation will help to break the impunity enjoyed by Israeli officials responsible for attacks against civilians in Lebanon and Palestine.”
Two investigating judges have now been appointed to the case.
Sources
- France/Lebanon: Opening of war crimes investigation into deadly Israeli strike is a critical step towards justice, truth and reparation
- France Opens War Crimes Investigation Into Deaths Of Artist's Parents
- French judges open war crimes probe into Israeli strike that killed seven in Beirut
- Ali Cherri case : A judicial investigation opened in France
Photo: Ryan Byrnes from DC (CC BY-SA 2.0)
