Qualifying this attack of “blatant war against humanity, against technology, against work”, the Lebanese Minister of Labor, Mustafa Bayram, indicated during a press conference in Geneva that his country had filed a complaint with the International Labor Organization (ILO), a specialized agency of the UN.
“This is a very dangerous precedent”, he added in front of the correspondents of the Association of Journalists Accredited to the UN (ACANU) who organized the event.
The move comes after Israel intensified its air raids on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, Beirut and the Bekaa plain since September 23, after nearly a year of cross-border fire.
4000 civilians affected
The escalation began with attacks on pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah and transformed into explosive devices that killed dozens of people and injured thousands more 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”.
“In a few minutes, more than 4,000 civilians fell, including martyrs, wounded and mutilated”, he recalled. Among the victims who were not killed, many people “lost their fingers, some have completely lost their sight”, he added.
“If nothing is done, this crime could become normalized”
Mustafa Bayram, Lebanese Minister of Labor
“We are in a situation where ordinary objects, objects that you use in everyday life, are becoming dangerous and deadly”, lamented the minister. “If nothing is done, this crime could become normalized”, he added, specifying that the purpose of filing the complaint was “to prevent such crimes from happening again in the future”. “I consider it a moral obligation towards my country and towards the world”, he insisted.
Asked why Lebanon filed a complaint with the ILO, Bayram spoke of all the workers who were at their workplace when the pagers and walkie-talkies — tools they used in the part of their work — suddenly exploded.
“We deemed it necessary to highlight that this goes against the working environment, safety and security, and the principles of decent work upheld by the ILO.”, he explained.
He added that Lebanese authorities could still file complaints about the pager attacks with other international bodies, including the World Trade Organization. More generally, the Lebanese government wishes to file a multitude of complaints against Israel over its operations in the country, because “the number of crimes is enormous”.
More than 3,000 people have been killed in Lebanon since the start of clashes between Hezbollah and Israel in October 2023, according to the Ministry of Health, including at least 1,964 since September 23, according to an AFP count.
The war also caused more than a million people to flee their homes.
