UN experts urge member states to suspend Israel arms transfers

The experts call Israel’s bombardment of Lebanon on April 8 ‘a blatant violation of the UN-charter" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="38449" data-entity-type="organization">UN Charter’.A group of United Nations experts has denounced Israel’s attack on Lebanon a day after the United States and Iran agreed a ceasefire as illegal and urged UN member states to halt all arms transfers to Israel.The 19 experts – including special rapporteurs and independent experts across a range of human rights mandates – issued the condemnation on Wednesday as Israel continued to pound areas of southern Lebanon, killing at least 16 people, including four paramedics, Lebanese state media reported.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Italy suspends long-standing defence agreement with Israellist 2 of 3Israel and Lebanon hold direct talks for first time in decadeslist 3 of 3Iran says $270bn war loss must be compensated, as fresh talks with US loomend of listReferring to a devastating wave of Israeli attacks across Lebanon on April 8, which Lebanese authorities said killed more than 350 people, including 30 children, the experts said: “This is not self-defence. It is a blatant violation of the UN-charter" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="38449" data-entity-type="organization">UN Charter, a deliberate ‌destruction of prospects for peace, and an affront to multilateralism and the UN-based international order.”They called for Israel to “cease all military operations in Lebanon” and urged UN member states to halt arms transfers to Israel while “there is credible evidence of serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law”, according to the UN-human-rights-council" class="entity-link entity-organization" data-entity-id="3938" data-entity-type="organization">UN Human Rights Council.Israel escalated its attacks on Lebanon on March 2 after the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in response to the US-Israel killing of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei two days earlier, the first day of their war on Iran.Israel has carried out a devastating bombardment across Lebanon and a ground invasion in the south, killing more than 2,000 people and forcibly displacing more than 1.2 million.