The National Human Rights Commission Supports Civil Lawsuit Against Israel in France Following Airstrike on Residential Building in Beirut

The National Human Rights Commission, which includes the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, welcomed in a statement “the civil lawsuit filed before the War Crimes Unit in France by the French-Lebanese artist and director Ali Sherri, in cooperation with the International Federation for Human Rights, regarding the Israeli airstrike that targeted a residential building in the Nweiry neighborhood of Beirut on November 26, 2024.”

The commission considered that “this lawsuit holds particular significance as it is directly linked to a personal and painful experience, as Ali Sherri lost his mother, Nadera Haik (78), and his father, Mahmoud Naeem Sherri (88), in this attack. They were residing in their apartment within the targeted building, along with their live-in assistant, Berki Negesa. The airstrike also resulted in the deaths of at least four other civilians from the same building, and caused extensive damage to the building and neighboring homes, in one of the strikes that occurred just hours before the ceasefire took effect.”

The statement emphasized that “according to documentation by Amnesty International in its February 2026 report, the attack was not preceded by any effective warning, no military targets were identified at the site or in its vicinity at the time of the strike, and the Israeli authorities did not provide any subsequent justification proving the existence of a legitimate military target. These findings, according to legal assessment, provide reasonable grounds to believe that the airstrike may constitute a serious violation of international humanitarian law, rising to the level of a war crime requiring investigation and accountability.”