Israel kills 16 in Lebanon, UN to probe international law violations

At least 16 people have been killed in Israeli air strikes on Tyre and its surrounding areas in southern Lebanon, according to Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA).

Nine people were killed in an Israeli air strike on the village of Tayr Debba, while three were killed in a strike on the municipality Deir Qanoun en-Nahr, the agency reported on Wednesday.

At least one person was killed in an air strike on the city of Tyre, the NNA report said.

On Wednesday evening, an Israeli warplane raided the village of Deir ez-Zahrani, targeting a mosque and a clinic. The attack killed at least three people, according to NNA.

Al Jazeera’s Obaida Hitto, reporting from Tyre, said that Israel is trying to give the impression that it has given residents of these villages sufficient time to safely leave, but that is not the case.

“The Geneva Convention requires that evacuation routes are safe, that people are given enough time, and that a return route is provided so the occupation does not continue,” said Hitto, adding: “Israeli military activities in southern Lebanon do not meet those requirements”.

“If people try to leave Tyre today and go north, they are at high risk of being targeted by drone strikes,” said Hitto. “It is an extremely dangerous situation, and there are no reasonable guarantees for civilians trying to journey out of the city.”

UN investigators

Also on Wednesday, United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk said that a team of investigators will be deployed to Lebanon next week to assess potential violations of international law by all parties involved in the current hostilities.

“It’s the first time that we are sending this assessment mission, and the idea is indeed to look at violations by all parties – violations of international law, violations of international human rights law, and to document this, and eventually to report back to you on our findings,” Turk said.

In early May, Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam told a regular cabinet meeting that it was important to continue documenting potential crimes and to submit them to the UN, according to Lebanese Information Minister Paul Morcos.

Salam also said an agreement had been reached that Turk visit Lebanon in the near future to carry out investigations, Morcos said at the time.

Lebanon was pulled into the United States-Israel war on Iran in March when Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel, citing near-daily Israeli strikes on Lebanon and the killing of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The Lebanese group rejected last week’s conditional truce deal, which stipulated a “complete cessation” of Hezbollah fire but did not mention a halt to Israeli strikes.