HRW: April 16 Strike Destroyed Qasmieh Bridge, Severing Last Major Civilian Crossing Over Lebanon’s Litani

Human Rights Watch said Friday that an Israeli strike on April 16 destroyed the Qasmieh bridge in southern Lebanon, which the group described as the last main operational crossing over the Litani River for civilian use, and said the attack should be investigated as a potential war crime because of the foreseeable humanitarian harm to tens of thousands of people south of the river.

The bridge sat on a main highway linking villages in the Tyre district with areas farther north across the Litani, a key dividing line in southern Lebanon. Human Rights Watch said the strike came hours before a ceasefire was announced. The rights group said Qasmieh had become the last main operational crossing for civilians after earlier Israeli strikes destroyed or severely damaged the other main bridges over the river. It said Qasmieh itself had already been damaged in an April 8 strike.

Human Rights Watch said it verified photographs and videos showing at least two large munitions striking the bridge, followed by smoke and debris. The material, it said, also showed vehicles approaching from both directions and a large crater on the southern side that destroyed the crossing.

“The Israeli military’s systematic and repeated attacks on bridges, which threaten to isolate civilians in southern Lebanon from access to means of survival, demonstrate a callous disregard for the welfare of the tens of thousands of people still living there,” said Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher at Human Rights Watch.

The group said local officials, health care workers and a hospital official in Tyre told it the bridge was essential for civilians still south of the Litani, where tens of thousands of people remain. It said the crossing was critical for access to humanitarian aid, food, medicine and medical care.

Human Rights Watch said the Israeli military has previously accused Hezbollah of using Litani crossings to move fighters and combat equipment, and had said bridge strikes were intended “to prevent the movement of reinforcements and means of combat.” But the group said the Israeli military did not issue an immediate statement specifically justifying the April 16 strike on Qasmieh.

The legal question, Human Rights Watch said, is whether the bridge was a military objective and, if so, whether the expected civilian harm made the attack disproportionate under international humanitarian law, the rules of war that govern attacks during armed conflict. Even if a bridge has both civilian and military uses, the group said, an attacking force must weigh the concrete military advantage against the expected harm to civilians. If the bridge was not a military objective, Human Rights Watch said, the strike would amount to an attack on a civilian object. Either scenario, it said, could amount to a war crime.

The strike’s significance, the group said, lies not only in the destruction of one bridge but in the cumulative effect of weeks of attacks on crossings over the Litani. With other main bridges already destroyed or badly damaged, Qasmieh had become the last main operational route for civilians moving between communities south of the river and the rest of the country.

The United Nations had already warned about that effect. Human Rights Watch said the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which coordinates emergency aid, and the spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights had both warned that Israeli strikes on bridges over the Litani were isolating residents, severing connectivity and impeding humanitarian access and essential supplies.

For civilians south of the river, the loss of the Qasmieh bridge means more than damage to infrastructure. According to Human Rights Watch and local medical and municipal officials it cited, it threatens a main route for reaching hospitals, receiving aid and moving basic goods at a moment when access had already been narrowed by earlier strikes on the remaining crossings.