Paris, 3 November 2026. Following the complaint filed in France on 1 April 2026 by the Franco-Lebanese artist and filmmaker Ali Cherri, alongside the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), a judicial investigation has been opened on charges of intentionally directing an attack against a civilian object, amounting to a war crime. Two investigating judges from the French War Crimes Unit have been appointed to investigate the case.
On 26 November 2024, just a few hours before the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah was due to come into effect, Ali Cherri’s family apartment was targeted by an Israeli military bombing, killing seven people, including the artist’s parents, Mahmoud Naim Cherri and Nadira Hayek, as well as a domestic worker employed by the couple, Birki Negesa. Located in the residential neighborhood of Noueiri in Beirut (Lebanon), the building targeted by the strikes housed Ali Cherri’s apartment on the 9th floor, where his parents lived. The bombing completely destroyed this apartment, as well as those on the 7th and 8th floors of the building.
“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. 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,” says Ali Cherri.
“To our knowledge, this is the very first judicial investigation opened into the crimes committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon since October 2023,” says Clémence Bectarte, lawyer and coordinator of the FIDH Litigation Action Group. “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.”
As Ali Cherri holds dual French and Lebanese nationality, the judicial investigation will focus only on the bombing of his apartment. Indeed, the French courts do not have jurisdiction over the events that led to the deaths of the victims, who were not French nationals.
This report was produced by the HuMedia newsroom.
