Lebanon Artist Ali Cherri Files War Crime Complaint Over Beirut Strike

Lebanese-French artist and filmmaker Ali Cherri and the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) have filed a war crime complaint in France related to the killing of his parents in 2024 in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut.

Cherri, who divides his time between Paris and Beirut, is one of Lebanon’s best-known contemporary artists, whose work has shown at the Guggenheim, Tate Modern and the Jeu de Paume among many other galleries, while his first feature The Dam premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in 2023.

His official complaint has been lodged with the judges of the French War Crimes Unit and concerns Israel’s bombing of a residential building in Beirut on November 26 2024, which killed seven civilians.

The strike destroyed three floors of the apartment block with Cherri’s father and mother,  Mahmoud Naim Cherri and Nadira Hayek, as well as a domestic worker employed by the couple, Birki Negesa, among those killed.

The attack occurred at the tail-end of a flareup in fighting between Israel and  Hezbollah in the fall of 2024, and the Israeli military operation Northern Arrows aimed at wiping out the Iran-backed militant group, and just hours before the implementation of a ceasefire.

Cherri and the FIDH’s complaint, filed against unknown perpetrators, denounces the Israeli army’s bombing of a civilian object, which could constitute a war crime under French criminal law and international humanitarian law.

Based on the digital reconstruction work carried out by the organization Forensic Architecture, as well as on documentation from Amnesty International, the complaint highlights the targeted nature of the attack and demonstrates the Israeli army’s responsibility in it.

“As a son, a citizen, and a victim, it is my duty to ensure that this war crime committed by the Israeli army is recognized for what it is, so that it may be brought to justice—for my parents and for all the civilians killed that day. Justice cannot undo death, but seeking justice means refusing to let impunity lead to the destruction of other lives,” said Cherri.

FIDH said the killing of Cherri’s parents were part of a larger pattern of some 4,300 civilian deaths in Lebanon, as Israel pursued its military objectives against Hezbollah.

Wadih Al-Asmar, co-founder and president of the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH), said Cherri’s complaint marked “the first initiative to bring before judicial authorities the crimes committed by the Israeli army on Lebanese territory, of which civilians were the primary victims.”

“These attacks constitute a clear and repeated violation of international humanitarian law, which imposes an obligation to distinguish between military objectives and civilian objects and populations,” said Clémence Bectarte, lawyer and coordinator of the FIDH Litigation Action Group.

“The French justice system must ensure that these crimes do not go unpunished, and that those responsible are prosecuted, particularly when its own citizens are the victims.”

The filing of the complaint comes just days after the death in an Israeli strike on March 11, 2026 of well-known cameraman and director Mohamad Shehab along with his four-year-old daughter Taline while they were sleeping in their apartment in the town of Aramoun outside Beirut.

Shehab had been involved in recording footage of Cherri’s parents’ apartment as part of his work for Forensic Architecture.

His wife Natalie Kamal El-Din, a clothes store owner and influencer with some 58,000 followers, is in critical condition in hospital.

According to a report in the New York Times, Israeli military said the strike, which occurred without an evacuation order, was targeting another man it believed to be Hezbollah commander.  

The FIDH said the death of Shebab and his daughter occurred in circumstances similar to those surrounding the strike on the Cherri family’s building, and illustrated the persistence and intensification of Israeli military operations in Lebanon, including those targeting civilians.