United Nations — The United Nations said Friday that the detonation of handheld communication devices in Lebanon could constitute a war crime as Beirut’s top diplomat accused Israel of orchestrating what he called a terror attack.
The blasts that killed at least 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday targeted communication devices used by the Iran-backed Hezbollah group.
Pagers and walkie-talkies exploded as their users were shopping in supermarkets, walking on streets and attending funerals, plunging the country into panic.
“International humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby-trap devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects,” the U.N.’s high commissioner for human rights, Volker Turk, told the Security Council during an emergency session on Lebanon requested by Algeria.
“It is a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians,” he added, repeating his call for an “independent, rigorous and transparent” investigation.
“I am appalled by the breadth and impact of the attacks,” said Turk.
“These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons,” he added. “This cannot be the new normal.”
Speaking at the Security Council, Lebanon’s top diplomat, Abdallah Bouhabib, called the attack “an unprecedented method of warfare in its brutality and terror.”
“Israel, through this terrorist aggression, has violated the basic principles of international humanitarian law,” he said, calling Israel a “rogue state.”
Israel has not commented on the device blasts but has said it will widen the scope of its war in Gaza to include the Lebanon front.
“We have no intention to enter a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, but we cannot continue the way it is,” Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., Danny Danon, told reporters Friday.
Speaking at the Security Council, he said Israel would do “whatever it takes” to restore security in northern areas.
Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said the body was “very concerned about the heightened escalation” across the Lebanon-Israel frontier after Friday’s Israeli strike on Beirut. He called for “maximum restraint” from all sides.
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