People carry banners with pictures of Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the political bureau of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), during his funeral in Beirut on January 4, 2024. Photograph: Muhammad Azakir – Reuters. reuters_tickers
This content was published on January 09, 2024 – 20:57 July, January 9, 2024 – 20:57
GENEVA (Reuters) – Two United Nations international law experts on Tuesday condemned the killing of Saleh Al-Arouri, deputy head of the political bureau of the Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), and other fighters in drone attacks in Lebanon, noting that the attack amounted to extrajudicial killings.
Israel did not confirm or deny the assassination of Al-Arouri, but his killing comes a month after the Israeli General Security Service (Shin Bet) vowed to track down Hamas in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar, even if it took years, after Hamas launched a cross-border attack from Gaza on Israel on October 7. October.
“Killing on foreign soil is unjust as long as it is not authorized under international law,” Ben Saul and Maurice Tidball-Baines, the rapporteurs on extrajudicial executions, said in a statement issued in Geneva.
They added, “Israel was not defending itself because it did not provide evidence that the victims launched an armed attack on Israel from Lebanese territory.”
Al-Arouri was killed last week by a drone in the southern suburb of Beirut in an attack widely attributed to Israel. The southern suburb is the stronghold of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group.
The two experts also said that “there is no legal basis for unlimited geographical attacks on members of an armed group wherever they are.”
Hezbollah has been launching guided missiles and other weapons across Lebanon’s southern border at Israeli sites since Israel launched its war on Hamas in Gaza three months ago, and Israel is carrying out air and artillery bombardment on Lebanon.
Sources familiar with Hezbollah operations said that Israeli forces killed Wissam al-Tawil, a prominent Hezbollah leader, in an attack on southern Lebanon on Monday.
Hezbollah responded on Tuesday by bombing the Israeli army headquarters in Safed, northern Israel, with drones.
(Prepared by Muhammad Aysem for the Arabic Bulletin – Edited by Moaz Abdel Aziz)
2024-01-09 19:57:24
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