Lebanese artist Ali Cherri has filed a war crimes complaint, along with the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), before the Crimes Against Humanity unit of the Paris Judicial Court in France. The artist’s complaint is against Israel for an airstrike in Lebanese territory that killed seven civilians, including both of his parents.
Cherri’s parents, Mahmoud Naim Cherri and Nadira Hayek, and Birki Negesa, an employee, were in their family home in the Barbour district of Beirut when an airstrike landed on the building just hours before a planned ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel on 26 November 2024.
The complaint, which accuses Israel of violating international law by targeting civilian infrastructure with no military purpose, is supported by a number of investigations, including one by research group Forensic Architecture, which was commissioned by Cherri and the FIDH. In the investigation, Forensic Architecture reconstructed the apartment building known as the Cherri building, identifying the munition used in the strike, examining the extent of the damage and suggesting potential munition trajectories based on these findings.
Other open-source investigations and reports by Amnesty International on four distinct airstrikes by Israel without prior evacuation warnings are also being used to support the case.
Cherri, who filed the complaint on 2 April, holds Lebanese and French citizenship and is based in Paris. Although French law dictates that the investigation of international crimes only applies to those with links to France, Cherri is the owner of the apartment building in which his parents were killed, providing the case for the complaint to move forward in the French courts.
On the artist’s Instagram page, in a post detailing his decision to pursue legal action, Cherri said: ” This is only the beginning of a long legal process. It will not be easy. But I felt it was my duty, as a son, a citizen, and a victim, to document, to bear witness, and to ensure that those responsible for this war crime are named and held accountable.”
In the same post, Cherri paid tribute to the cameraman and drone operator, Mohamad Chehab, who had worked with him to document the damage to the building. On 12 March, Chehab and his three-year-old daughter were killed by an Israeli airstrike in Aramoun just outside of Beirut. Chehab’s wife is still in critical condition following the strike.
