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 So-called international law “experts” at the anti-Israel United Nations have denounced Israel’s recent air and ground operations in Lebanon to root out the Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorists’ leadership, command-and-control centers, and weaponry. “Israel’s latest breach of international law – a ground invasion in violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and Security Council resolution 1701 – will only add to this mounting toll of death and displacement,” the UN “experts” said.

Although begrudgingly condemning the “indiscriminate attacks by non-State armed groups based in Lebanon that have displaced some 63,000 within Israel,” the so-called “experts” declared that such “crimes” do not justify Israel’s alleged “atrocities” in Lebanon. This assortment of UN “experts” accused Israel of committing “acts of violence intended to spread terror among civilians and indiscriminate warfare,” which “would amount to collective punishment” in violation of international law.

These self-proclaimed “experts” could not be more wrong. Here are some basic truths that elude the UN’s Israel-bashers and that fully justify Israel’s air and ground military operations in Lebanon conducted in self-defense:

1.      Beginning on October 8, 2023 – the day after Hamas’s horrific invasion of Israel and its massacres of civilians – Hezbollah launched an unprovoked barrage of rockets, missiles, and drones against Israel in violation of Israel’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. Hezbollah did not even try to claim that it was acting in self-defense. Neither did the state of Lebanon from whose territory the aerial attacks originated. Hezbollah’s leaders said that their terrorist organization attacked Israel in solidarity with Hamas and would not cease the barrages from Lebanon until Israel withdrew completely from Gaza.

2.      Israel responded to Hezbollah’s aggression with proportional aerial strikes on Hezbollah positions and facilities that the terrorists had used to attack Israel. But Hezbollah continued firing rockets and drones, as well as missiles, at targets within Israel rather than heed Israel’s message to cease its attacks or face the consequences.

3.      After months of Hezbollah’s unrelenting attacks preventing Israeli civilians from returning to the homes that they evacuated in northern Israel following Hezbollah’s initial unprovoked aggression more than a year ago, Israel’s leadership decided that it had enough. The only effective means of self-defense available to Israel was to destroy Hezbollah’s capabilities to continue waging its war of aggression against Israelis inside Israel.

4.      Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter prohibits member states from engaging in “the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence” of any other states. Israel is fighting the terrorist group Hezbollah, which the state of Lebanon has allowed to operate freely from within its territory to attack the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Israel. The truth is that the state of Lebanon is captive to Hezbollah, which has a military that dwarfs Lebanon’s national army, and which holds significant power within Lebanon’s government. The consequences befalling the state of Lebanon for failing to control the terrorist cancer within its borders are the state of Lebanon’s responsibility alone.

5.      Article 51 of the UN Charter provides that each member state has an “inherent right” to defend itself from armed attacks against it “until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.” The Security Council has failed to take such measures, despite passing resolutions regarding removal of non-state military forces from Lebanon that the Security Council has not enforced.

6.      Resolution 1701, which the Security Council adopted in 2006, reiterates previous resolutions requiring the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state. Moreover, Resolution 1701 calls for “the immediate cessation by Hizbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations.”  (Emphasis added) Moreover, it states that there be an area free of any armed personnel, assets, and weapons except those of the Lebanese authorities and the UN’s Lebanon peacekeeping force between the Blue Line in southern Lebanon and the Litani River. Hezbollah, with the state of Lebanon’s implied consent or acquiescence, has continued to conduct attacks from Lebanon against Israel in violation of Resolution 1701, including its offensive aerial attacks on Israeli territory on October 8, 2023 and thereafter. Israel has responded in self-defense. Hezbollah has also grossly violated international law by concealing rockets, missiles, and other weaponry within Lebanese civilians’ homes and other civilian facilities.

Professor Yuval Shany is a genuine legal scholar whose views on Israel’s military operations in Lebanon are based on a credible and thorough analysis of the facts and relevant international law. In addition to serving as the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law and former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, he is currently a faculty member of Georgetown University Law’s Center for Transnational Legal Studies. Professor Shany has also been a research fellow at Harvard and Amsterdam University, as well as a visiting professor at the Michigan University Law School, Columbia University Law School, and the Faculty of Law of the University of Sydney. Even the United Nations has recognized Professor Shany’s expertise in international law. He was one of the members of the UN Human Rights Committee from 2013 to 2020, which consists of independent experts who monitor implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by its state parties.

As referenced in an article co-authored by Professor Shany, Article 9 of the Articles on State Responsibility attributes responsibility to States for acts by a “person or group of persons [that] is in fact exercising elements of the governmental authority in the absence or default of the official authorities and in circumstances such as to call for the exercise of those elements of authority.” This means that military acts undertaken by Hezbollah from areas that are outside the actual control of the Lebanese army are still attributable to the Lebanese state.

“This is especially so,” this article’s co-authors argue, “because Hezbollah has been recognized by the Lebanese government as a military force that operates alongside the Lebanese army and complements its activities. The upshot of this situation appears to be that, to the extent that Hezbollah attacks against Israel from 8 October, 2023 onwards constitute an armed attack, Israel has the legal right to take self-defense measures against Hezbollah, and probably also against the Lebanese State…”

Professor Shany has also pointed to the U.S.’s and its allies’ military operations in Syria by way of comparison. Consider the justifications that the United States has provided for its direct military actions with its coalition partners against ISIS and al Qaeda inside Syria without Syria’s consent. The U.S. homeland remains a prime target for attacks by ISIS and al Qaeda. In addition, Iraq has asked for U.S. assistance in defending its sovereign territory from terrorist attacks launched from the terrorists’ havens in Syria. Syria has been unable or unwilling to take effective action itself against ISIS and al Qaeda and to suppress their offensive activities. To protect its own civilians and assist Iraq in its self-defense, the U.S. government argues that it has the inherent right of self-defense to go after the terrorists inside Syria directly, whether Syria consents or not. The purpose is to thwart the terrorists from using Syria as a sanctuary from which to recruit, plan, and execute attacks on the U.S. homeland and against Iraq.

The U.S. has a legally supportable justification for its actions in Syria. However, Israel’s justification of self-defense for its military operations in Lebanon to neutralize Hezbollah’s terrorist capabilities used against Israelis is far stronger. The United States is not presently under attack by ISIS or al Qaeda, nor under an imminent threat of immediate attack. And while both terrorist groups have conducted numerous cross-border incursions into Iraq over the years, they have not during the last several years represented a major threat to Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Israel, on the other hand, faces an immediate existential threat from Iranian terrorist proxies on multiple fronts, including by Hezbollah from Lebanon, as well as from Iran itself. Hezbollah, the strongest and most well-armed Iranian terrorist proxy, has launched its unprovoked rocket, missile, and drone attacks in violation of Israel’s sovereignty and territorial integrity from its bases inside Lebanon non-stop since October 8, 2023. The state of Lebanon has done nothing to stop Hezbollah nor would be able to do do if it tried.

Israel has the moral and legal right to take whatever military actions – when, where, and how it deems necessary – to defend its citizens from terrorist attacks by evildoers who want to destroy the Jewish state.