The experts call Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon on April 8 ‘a blatant violation of the UN Charter’. Published On 15 Apr 202615 Apr 2026A group of United Nations experts has denounced Israel’s attack on Lebanon a day after the United States and Iran agreed a ceasefire as illegal and urged UN member states to halt all arms transfers to Israel.The 19 experts – including special rapporteurs and independent experts across a range of human rights mandates – issued the condemnation on Wednesday as Israel continued to pound areas of southern Lebanon, killing at least 16 people, including four paramedics, Lebanese state media reported.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listReferring to a devastating wave of Israeli attacks across Lebanon on April 8, which Lebanese authorities said killed more than 350 people, including 30 children, the experts said: “This is not self-defence. It is a blatant violation of the UN Charter, a deliberate destruction of prospects for peace, and an affront to multilateralism and the UN-based international order.”They called for Israel to “cease all military operations in Lebanon” and urged UN member states to halt arms transfers to Israel while “there is credible evidence of serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law”, according to the UN Human Rights Council.Israel escalated its attacks on Lebanon on March 2 after the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in response to the US-Israel killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei two days earlier, the first day of their war on Iran.Israel has carried out a devastating bombardment across Lebanon and a ground invasion in the south, killing more than 2,000 people and forcibly displacing more than 1.2 million. Advertisement The UN experts said such forced displacement “of a civilian population constitutes crimes against humanity”. They also condemned Israel’s targeted “destruction of homes”, particularly in predominantly Shia areas of the south, as “a form of collective punis …
