HRW: Israel Attack on Lebanon Rescuers was ‘Unlawful’

Human Rights Watch said Tuesday an Israeli strike in Lebanon that killed seven first responders was “an unlawful attack on civilians”, and urged Washington to suspend weapons sales to Israel.
The Israel-Lebanon border area has witnessed near-daily exchanges between the Israeli army and Hamas ally Hezbollah since the Palestinian group attacked southern Israel on October 7 sparking war in Gaza.
“An Israeli strike on an emergency and relief center” in the southern village of Habariyeh on March 27 “killed seven emergency and relief volunteers” and constituted an “unlawful attack on civilians that failed to take all necessary precautions”, HRW said in a statement.
Jamaa Islamiya later denied it was connected to the emergency responders, and the association said that it had no affiliation with any Lebanese political organization.
HRW said “the Israeli military’s admission” it had targeted the centre in Habariyeh indicated a “failure to take all feasible precautions to verify that the target was military and avoid loss of civilian life making the strike unlawful”.
The rights group said those killed were volunteers, adding that 18-year-old twin brothers were among the dead.
However, it noted that social media content suggested at least two of those killed “may have been supporters” of Jamaa Islamiya.
HRW said images of weapons parts found at the site included the remains of an Israeli bomb and remnants of a “guidance kit produced by the US-based Boeing Company”.
“Israeli forces used a US weapon to conduct a strike that killed seven civilian relief workers in Lebanon who were merely doing their jobs,” HRW’s Lebanon researcher, Ramzi Kaiss, said.
The rights group urged the United States to “immediately suspend arms sales and military assistance to Israel given evidence that the Israeli military is using US weapons unlawfully”