New York : The United Nations has condemned the suspected Israeli detonations this week of hand-held devices by Hezbollah members in Lebanon, stating that the attack violated international law and could be considered a war crime.
“International humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby-trap devices disguised as harmless portable objects,” Volker Turk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the UN Security Council which met in emergency session late Friday following Israeli strikes on Beirut, resulting in the deaths of at least a dozen people.
The pager blasts , which killed at least 37 people and wounded nearly 3,000 on Tuesday and Wednesday, targeted communication devices used by the Hezbollah group.
“It is a war crime to commit violence intended to spread terror among civilians,” he added, reinforcing his call for an “independent, rigorous and transparent” investigation.
“I am appalled by the breadth and impact of the attacks,” Turk said.
“These attacks represent a new development in warfare, where communication tools become weapons,” he added.
“This cannot be the new normal,” he added.
Opening the debate, the top UN political affairs official warned that the risk to security and stability, not only in Lebanon but also in the wider Middle East region, could not be clearer.
Rosemary DiCarlo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peace-building Affairs, told the 15-member Council that strikes and exchanges of fire across the Blue Line, which have been going on for nearly a year, have expanded in scope and intensity.
In some cases, she said, they reached much deeper into Lebanese and Israeli territory, displacing tens of thousands of people on both sides and causing numerous casualties, including among civilians.
Lebanon’s UN Ambassador, 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 declined comments 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.