Franco-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri files complaint against Israel for 'war crime' in Lebanon

Franco-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri, whose parents were killed by an Israeli strike on a residential building in Beirut’s Barbour neighborhood, near Mazraa, in late November 2024, has turned to the French justice system in hopes of prompting a “war crimes” investigation.

Cherri filed a complaint Thursday as a civil party with the crimes against humanity division of the Paris Judicial Court, alongside the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), his lawyer, Clémence Bectarte, told AFP.

Seven civilians — including the artist’s parents, aged 87 and 77 — were killed by an Israeli attack on their 12-story building in central Beirut, on Nov. 26, 2024, hours before the cease-fire came into effect, she said.

A first case

Bectarte said such proceedings would be unprecedented. “To this day, no legal proceedings have been launched, either in Lebanon or abroad,” regarding Israeli strikes on Lebanon between October 2023 and November 2024, she said.

In that time frame, the Israeli war on Lebanon killed over 4,000 people and displaced over a million.

“These attacks are a clear and repeated violation of international humanitarian law, which requires respect for the principle of distinction between military objectives and civilian property and populations,” Bectarte said. “French justice must ensure that these crimes do not go unpunished and guarantee the prosecution of those responsible, especially when its own nationals are victims.”

‘Hope for justice’

“Justice will not bring my parents back, but I hope it will help break the cycle of impunity,” Cherri told AFP.

The Beirut-born visual artist, who grew up in the destroyed building and now lives in Paris, has exhibited at institutions including the National Gallery in London, the Jeu de Paume in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

“It’s going to be very long and difficult; it may seem almost absurd in today’s context,” he said, as Hezbollah and Israel are again at war, as Israeli attacks killed over 1,300 people in a month. “But if this can help prevent more lives from being lost in this madness, I’m holding on to the hope of getting justice.”

In a post on Instagram, Cherri said the family building “remains in ruins.” He also paid tribute to Mohammad Chehab, a cameraman and drone operator who documented the site for weeks and was killed with his 3-year-old daughter by an Israeli strike on March 12 in Aramoun, south of Beirut.

The attack, which left his wife Natalie critically injured, “strengthened” Cherri’s determination to pursue the case, he said.

French courts do not have jurisdiction over the deaths of Cherri’s parents because they were not French nationals. He instead filed a complaint for the war crime of “deliberate attack against civilian property,” as the owner of the apartment destroyed in the strike.

The complaint relies on investigations by Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture. In a February 2026 report, Amnesty said the strike was carried out without warning and that it could “reasonably conclude” it violated international humanitarian law.

“Amnesty International’s research did not find any evidence that military targets were present at the time of the attack,” the group said. Even if such targets had existed, “the means used and the method of this attack on a residential building inhabited by civilians would probably make it an indiscriminate attack,” it added. Amnesty said it had asked Israeli authorities for comment but received no response.