Lebanon files UN complaint against Israel over pager attacks

GENEVA: Lebanon said on Wednesday (6 November) it had filed a complaint with the United Nations labor agency over deadly attacks on communications equipment in September across the country, with Israel being blamed.

Lebanese Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram called the attack a “blatant war against humanity, against technology, against labor,” and said his country had filed the complaint with the International Labor Organization in Geneva.

“It is a very dangerous precedent,” he told journalists in the Swiss city at an event organized by the UN correspondents association ACANU.

The move comes after Israel escalated its airstrikes on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Beqaa Valley on September 23, after nearly a year of cross-border fire, and sent ground troops to southern Lebanon a week later.

The escalation began with sabotage attacks pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, killing dozens of people and injuring thousands across Lebanon.

Israel has not officially taken responsibility for these attacks, but Bayram said it was “widely accepted internationally… that Israel was behind this heinous act.”

“Within a few minutes, more than 4,000 civilians fell, among martyrs, wounded and maimed,” he said through an interpreter.

Among the unkilled victims, he said many people had “lost their fingers; some have lost their sight completely.”

“We are in a situation where ordinary objects, objects that you use in everyday life, are becoming dangerous and deadly,” he said.

“If left unchecked, this crime could become normalized,” he said, adding that the filing of the complaint was intended “to prevent such crimes from happening in the future.”

“I consider it a moral obligation to my country and the world.”