A case focused on the apartment
The judicial investigation concerns the alleged war crime of intentionally directing an attack against a civilian object. FIDH says French criminal law provides for a 15-year prison sentence for that offense.
Cherri's French-Lebanese citizenship gives French courts jurisdiction over the bombing of his apartment, but not over the events that caused the deaths: none of those killed were French nationals. The investigation is therefore limited to the attack on his property.
Before the investigation opened, the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office (PNAT), which handles war crimes matters, requested judicial investigations in September 2026. Middle East Eye, citing an AFP source close to the case, reported that prosecutors had found "serious and consistent" indications that the alleged offenses had occurred.
"For my family and me, it is essential that this investigation establish responsibility, and ensure that those who ordered and carried out this bombing are held accountable for their actions," Cherri said.
Clémence Bectarte, a lawyer who coordinates FIDH's Litigation Action Group, described the case's significance with a qualification: "To our knowledge, this is the very first judicial investigation opened into the crimes committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon since October 2023."
Seven killed hours before the ceasefire
The Israeli military struck the building in Beirut's residential Noueiri neighborhood just hours before the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire was due to begin. Cherri's ninth-floor apartment, where his parents lived, was destroyed, along with the apartments on the seventh and eighth floors.
His parents, Mahmoud Naim Cherri and Nadira Hayek, were killed, as was Birki Negesa, a domestic worker they employed. The Observer reported that the other four victims were three neighbors and a delivery driver who was in the building's elevator when the strike hit.
The ceasefire took effect on November 27, 2024. According to UNICEF figures cited by FIDH, more than 4,000 people had been killed in Lebanon between the start of hostilities and that date.
Cherri divides his time between Paris and Beirut. Deadline describes him as one of Lebanon's best-known contemporary artists, noting exhibitions of his work at the Guggenheim, Tate Modern and the Jeu de Paume. His feature film "The Dam" was selected for Cannes Directors' Fortnight.
Reconstruction and weapons evidence
FIDH's published Q&A says the complaint draws on Amnesty International's documentation and a digital reconstruction by Forensic Architecture, a research agency based at Goldsmiths, University of London.
Amnesty said in an April 2026 report that its researchers had found no evidence that a military target was near the residential building when it was struck. The organization also reported evidence at the site of a US-manufactured GBU-39 precision-guided bomb. Its assessment was that there was a "reasonable basis" to suspect a violation of international humanitarian law.
A weapons expert's assessment reported by The Observer indicated that the attack involved at least two bombs. The expert considered it highly unlikely that the recovered warhead and tail actuation system belonged to a single munition.
Forensic Architecture also commissioned Flyingcam Lebanon to photograph the damaged building by drone, according to The Observer. Mohamed Shehab, the pilot who filmed it, was killed with his 3-year-old daughter in an Israeli strike on his home south of Beirut in March 2026.
Other French war crimes proceedings
Separately, PNAT has opened preliminary investigations into allegations of torture and war crimes involving Israeli forces' interception of humanitarian flotillas bound for Gaza in 2025 and 2026, Middle East Eye reported, citing AFP.
The same report said that, at the end of 2025, the prosecutor's office asked a Paris investigating judge to open a war crimes investigation into an Israeli bombing in Gaza in October 2023 that killed two French children.
