France probes Israel Lebanon war crimes complaint: lawyer

France has opened a judicial investigation into a war crimes complaint over what the complaint describes as an Israeli strike on a residential building in Beirut, French-Lebanese artist Ali Cherri's lawyer Clemence Bectarte said Tuesday.

Bectarte said the crimes against humanity unit of the Paris Judicial Court had appointed two investigating judges to the case. She described the move as a first over alleged war crimes by Israeli forces in Lebanon.

Cherri filed the complaint as a civil party this year with the International Federation for Human Rights. The complaint says seven civilians, including Cherri's parents, aged 87 and 77, were killed when a 12-storey apartment building in central Beirut was bombed on November 26, 2024. It says three floors were destroyed.

The complaint says the strike happened a few hours before a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah took effect, and cites research by Amnesty International and Forensic Architecture.

Cherri said he took legal action “for the dignity of all civilian victims” and hoped the investigation would help break what he called impunity for Israeli officials responsible for attacks against civilians in Lebanon and Palestine.

Hezbollah opened a front against Israel at the start of the Gaza war after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. The hostilities, which escalated into open war in September 2024, have left more than 4,000 dead in Lebanon and forced more than a million people to flee.