U.N. experts in international law on Tuesday condemned the killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri and other fighters in drone strikes on Lebanon, saying this amounted to the crimes of extrajudicial killings and murder.
Saleh al-Arouri
U.N. experts in international law on Tuesday condemned the killing of Hamas deputy leader Saleh al-Arouri and other fighters in drone strikes on Lebanon, saying this amounted to the crimes of extrajudicial killings and murder.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied that it assassinated Arouri but his demise came a month after Israel's domestic security agency Shin Bet vowed to hunt down Hamas in Lebanon, Turkey and Qatar even if took years, following Hamas's cross-border rampage from Gaza into Israel on Oct. 7.
"Killings in foreign territory are arbitrary when they are not authorised under international law," the two U.N. Special Rapporteurs, Ben Saul and Morris Tidball-Binz, said in a statement issued in Geneva.
"Israel was not exercising self-defence because it presented no evidence that the victims were committing an armed attack on Israel from Lebanese territory."
Arouri was killed last week by a drone in Beirut's southern suburbs, the stronghold of Hamas' Iranian-backed Lebanese ally Hezbollah, in an attack widely attributed to Israel.
The U.N. Special Rapporteurs also said there was "no legal basis for geographically unlimited attacks against members of an armed group wherever they are".
Saleh al-Arouri was not a respectable politician but a terrorist leader. In this context, any country can choose the time and place for elimination. Human rights have nothing to do with it.
Reporting by Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Mark Heinrich
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told his U.S. counterpart that military operations in the Gaza Strip have created conditions that would enable a hostage deal to be reached, Gallant's office said on Wednesday.
A meeting of the United Nations Security Council on the Middle East was briefly interrupted on Wednesday when two protesters stood with signs and yelled for the release of Israeli hostages held by Palestinian militants Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian factions, including rivals Hamas and Fatah, will hold unity talks in China in July, two senior Hamas and Fatah officials told Reuters on Monday, as they try to resolve deep divisions.
To make this website run properly and to improve your experience, we use cookies. For more detailed information, please check our Cookie Policy.
Necessary cookies enable core functionality. The website cannot function properly without these cookies, and can only be disabled by changing your browser preferences.