Could French judges bring Israeli officials to justice over Lebanon attacks?

For Ali Cherri, a French-Lebanese, France’s decision to open a war crimes investigation into the killing of his parents in an Israeli strike in 2024 is a step towards “restoring a little faith in justice”.

The crimes against humanity unit of the Paris Judicial Court has appointed two investigating judges to the case, following a complaint he filed as a civil party earlier this year with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH).

“I'm doing this to seek justice for my parents. And we, as victims, still believe in justice. It's the only path we have left,” Mr Cherri told The National.

His lawyer, Clémence Bectarte, hailed the move as the “first” publicly known investigation opened abroad into alleged Israeli war crimes in Lebanon. The aim of the investigation is to identify those bearing the highest levels of responsibility for the bombing, including political and military officials, Ms Bectarte explained to The National.

She said high-profile investigations opened in France into atrocities committed by Bashar Al Assad’s regime during the Syrian civil war have established a “precedent” for Mr Cherri’s investigation. These investigations led French judges to issue several arrest warrants over the years for Mr Al Assad and other senior officials.

The crimes against humanity unit which has been entrusted with Mr Cherri's case is “the same one that issued arrest warrants in the Syrian cases, including against Mr Al Assad”, she added.

Ms Bectarte was directly involved as the lawyer of several victims in the French legal proceedings that led to the arrest warrant for Mr Al Assad and his associates. “Something similar could happen in this investigation, this time targeting Israeli officials,” she said.

'No military objectives'

Mr Cherri lost his father and mother, aged 87 and 77, in an Israeli strike on a 12-storey apartment building in central Beirut on November 26, 2024, which killed five other civilians, just before a ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel came into effect, according to an Amnesty International investigation into the attack.

Iran-backed Hezbollah, an ally of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, attacked Israel the day after the Gaza war began following Hamas's October 7 attacks. The clashes escalated into full-blown war in September 2024. A ceasefire failed to bring Israeli attacks to a complete halt, with large-scale violence between Israel and Hezbollah resuming on March 2, 2026.

Show caption: A firefighter walks through destroyed cars after an Israeli …

Overall, Israeli attacks have killed nearly 9,000 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. A US-mediated framework agreement between Lebanon and Israel produced a fragile ceasefire in June.

Hundreds of thousands of people remain displaced from southern Lebanon, as Israel continues to occupy roughly 7 per cent of Lebanese territory in what it calls a “security zone”, encompassing dozens of villages it has razed.

Mr Cherri was about to board a flight from Paris to Vienna when he spoke to his parents for the last time. They discussed the Israeli bombardments near their home and the ceasefire due to take effect hours later. When his plane landed, he learnt that his parents had been killed in an Israeli strike on his childhood neighbourhood.

“I had spoken to my parents before boarding the plane, and when we landed, I learnt what had happened,” he recalled. “I wouldn't wish it on anyone. The violence of what happened was simply inhuman.”

Amnesty International investigated the strike as part of a broader investigation into apparently unlawful Israeli attacks that were not linked to any identified military target, caused significant civilian casualties and may have violated international humanitarian law.

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Israel strikes Lebanon 100 times in 10 minutes

Amnesty’s investigation into the strike that killed Mr Cherri’s parents found that at least seven civilians, all residents of the building, were killed. “No effective advance warning was given to civilians. There was no evidence of a military objective in or around the building at the time of the attack,” Sahar Mandour, Amnesty International’s researcher on Lebanon, who investigated the strike, told The National.

Amnesty's investigation illustrates “a pattern of indiscriminate attacks or direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects”, she said.

Path to accountability

The case could pave the way for other victims and survivors to seek accountability, she added.

The French judiciary has jurisdiction over Mr Cherri’s case because he holds dual French-Lebanese nationality. Lebanese citizens who do not hold a second nationality, by contrast, have virtually no domestic legal avenues through which to seek accountability.

Lebanon is not a party to the Rome Statute, which established the International Criminal Court (ICC). Meanwhile, under the controversial Article 13 of a framework agreement with Israel, both parties are required to suspend legal proceedings during negotiations.

Mr Cherri said his motivation for filing a complaint following the killing of his parents was not only personal. “I hope that all those who don't have the possibility of filing a complaint, as is the case for the majority of Lebanese people, can find in this some form of collective justice,” he added.

Show caption: A Lebanese flag placed on a damaged olive tree in a southern…

Other legal complaints are still pending. A French-Lebanese man, Mohamad H., represented by lawyer Emmanuel Daoud, has filed a complaint after his mother, sister and two nephews were killed in Israeli strikes on the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on the night of April 16–17, 2026

A French-Lebanese man born in Lebanon, represented by lawyer William Bourdon and Nicolas Busin, has sought legal action against the Israeli army over the uprooting of 600 century-old olive trees belonging to his family in a village in southern Lebanon.

“More fundamentally, such proceedings increase pressure on the Lebanese authorities to end the long-standing accountability vacuum for grave international crimes,” Ms Mandour said. The growing number of legal proceedings abroad could build momentum for the establishment of a domestic judicial system capable of investigating and prosecuting war crimes in Lebanon, she added.

“It reinforces calls for Lebanon to accept the Rome Statute and accept international jurisdiction over crimes committed on its territory.”

Mr Cherri said he found the strength to fight, for him and other Lebanese victims, in his parents' memory. “Even though I'm not really religious, I would like to believe that it's my parents who are guiding me and giving me the strength to do this. At least in a poetic sense, I can say that they're giving me strength.”