The photographs were posted to Facebook by civil defense workers. They show men with hoses on the rooftops of Yohmor, a small town in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, extinguishing fires that the workers said burned differently from anything they had seen before. Human Rights Watch spent days verifying, geolocating, and cross-referencing what those images actually showed.
On Monday morning, they published the answer: white phosphorus. Artillery-delivered, airburst over a residential neighborhood, in violation of international humanitarian law. (Human Rights Watch, March 9, 2026)
The incident occurred on March 3 - the third day of Lebanon's renewed war. But the documentation is landing on March 9, Day 10 of what is now the most violent week Lebanon has seen in a generation. By that date, 394 people are dead. Eighty-three of them are children. Nine of them are rescue workers. And 517,000 people have registered as displaced from their homes. (Lebanese Ministry of Public Health; Lebanon Social Affairs Ministry, March 8, 2026)
White phosphorus was not supposed to be part of this war. It is, according to HRW, a feature of it.
The Burn That Doesn't Stop
White phosphorus is not a banned substance in the technical sense. It does not appear on the Chemical Weapons Convention's scheduled list. But its use in populated areas is regulated by Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, which prohibits incendiary weapons being directed at concentrations of civilians.
The prohibition exists because white phosphorus burns in a specific, horrifying way. The substance ignites on contact with oxygen and cannot be extinguished by water alone. It continues to burn until it either consumes all available oxygen or penetrates deep enough into tissue that oxygen is cut off. On a rooftop, in a neighborhood, it burns homes and cars. On a human body, it burns through to the bone.
"The Israeli military's unlawful use of white phosphorus over residential areas is extremely alarming and will have dire consequences for civilians. The incendiary effects of white phosphorus can cause death or cruel injuries that result in lifelong suffering." - Ramzi Kaiss, Lebanon researcher, Human Rights Watch, March 9, 2026
HRW verified seven photographs showing white phosphorus munitions airburst over Yohmor's residential zones. The organization identified the munition type as an M825-series 155mm artillery projectile - an American-manufactured round, designed for smoke marking and screening operations but widely documented in misuse as an area weapon. The smoke cloud pattern was described as consistent with the distinctive "knuckle" shape caused by the expelling and bursting charge of this specific projectile type.
Civil defense workers documented fires starting in at least two homes. A car was also set alight. Images show white felt wedges - the white phosphorus-impregnated pads that disperse from the M825 shell - scattered across rooftops and streets. Once these wedges contact oxygen, they continue burning. If the felt works its way into crevices or, in medical emergencies, into wounds, extinguishing them requires removing them entirely from air contact.
Israel had previously used white phosphorus in Lebanon. HRW documented its use across border villages in southern Lebanon between October 2023 and May 2024. That documentation produced calls for restraint. The practice continued.
How Lebanon Was Dragged Back In
Smoke from multiple strike sites over Lebanese urban areas. A ceasefire held from November 2024 to late February 2026 - but near-daily Israeli violations kept the tension at a simmer. (Unsplash)
Lebanon's re-entry into full-scale conflict was not spontaneous. A ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah had technically held since November 2024, pausing the first major clash of the war cycle that began with Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack on Israel. But "held" understates the reality: Israeli forces carried out near-daily violations of the ceasefire agreement throughout late 2024 and into early 2025, striking targets in southern Lebanon that Israel characterized as Hezbollah infrastructure. Hezbollah absorbed the strikes without triggering full escalation.
The collapse of that fragile arrangement came from outside Lebanon's borders. On February 28, 2026, US and Israeli forces launched coordinated strikes on Iran, killing Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei among a wave of senior officials and military commanders targeted in the early hours of the operation. (Multiple sources, confirmed)
For Hezbollah - ideologically committed to Khamenei's vision of the Islamic Republic and materially dependent on Iranian supply lines - this was not a distant geopolitical shock. It was the death of the patron around whom the entire resistance axis had organized for four decades. Within hours of Khamenei's death being confirmed, Hezbollah launched a mass rocket and drone barrage into northern Israel. Lebanon was back at war.
Israel's response was ferocious and immediate. Air strikes hit southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut's southern suburbs - Dahieh - in the first days. Ground forces began pushing across the border in the south, seizing hilltops. Tanks and armored bulldozers massed at the frontier. Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said within days: "Our country has been drawn into a devastating war that we did not seek and did not choose." (Al Jazeera, March 8, 2026)
The speed of civilian displacement reflected the scale of the bombardment. Lebanon had not finished recovering from the 2024 war. The economy was still fractured. The housing stock in the south was still partially in ruins. When the displacement orders came again, hundreds of thousands had nowhere safe to go except government shelters - of which there were not enough - or the streets.
Beirut Struck for the First Time
The escalation crossed a symbolic threshold on Sunday, March 8, when an Israeli drone struck a hotel in Raouche - a seafront neighborhood in the heart of Beirut, normally crowded with tourists and, in recent weeks, with displaced families who had fled fighting in the south and east.
Four people were killed. Ten were wounded. Lebanese health officials confirmed the toll. Israel's military stated the strike killed five senior commanders of the Quds Force, the IRGC's overseas operations branch, who it said were "operating to advance terror attacks against the state of Israel." (Israeli military statement, March 8, 2026)
Raouche had been spared in the previous war. The neighborhood - home to the iconic Pigeon Rock formation on the Mediterranean - had functioned as a de facto civilian refuge zone, its tourist hotels filling with Beirut's most vulnerable displaced residents. That status ended with a single drone strike.
The strike on Raouche represented Israel's first direct hit on the geographic heart of Beirut - not the southern suburbs, not military infrastructure, but a central civilian commercial and residential district. The choice of target sent a message about the new parameters of the conflict.
The same day, Israeli forces confirmed two of their own soldiers had been killed in southern Lebanon - the first Israeli fatalities since the renewed fighting began. Master Sergeant Maher Khatar, 38, from Majdal Shams, was identified. A second soldier died in the same engagement. Israel said it had killed approximately 200 Hezbollah fighters since hostilities resumed. Hezbollah did not publish its own figures. (Israeli military statement, Al Jazeera, March 8, 2026)
Beirut strikes had also targeted Hezbollah neighborhoods in the city's southern suburbs - Ghobeiry, Haret Hreik, and the Safir area received multiple strikes on Monday morning. Israel said these targeted Hezbollah command and logistics infrastructure. For the civilians who lived there, the distinction between a military and civilian target had already become meaningless.
517,000 Without a Home
Displacement crises in conflict zones leave hundreds of thousands dependent on emergency shelters, often overwhelmed within days of a new escalation. Lebanon registered 117,228 people in government shelters alone. (Unsplash)
Lebanon's Social Affairs Minister Haneen Sayed gave the figure plainly: as of Sunday, March 8, the ministry's displacement registration website had logged 517,000 people. Of those, 117,228 were in government shelters. The rest were with family, in vehicles, in informal settlements, or simply on the move. (Al Jazeera, March 8, 2026)
The number, which climbed throughout the week from near zero when fighting resumed on March 1, represents approximately 10 percent of Lebanon's total population. Lebanon's entire population is around 5 to 6 million. This displacement happened in seven days.
Minister Sayed warned the scale could produce "unprecedented" humanitarian and political consequences. The warning was not rhetorical. Lebanon entered this war already in a state of institutional collapse. The country's banking system has been functionally frozen since 2019. Electricity supply across much of the country had never been reliably restored after the 2024 war. The healthcare system - already stretched beyond capacity during peacetime - was now absorbing mass casualty events daily.
The dead: 394 confirmed as of March 8, a number that was still climbing as hospitals in the south reported additional arrivals. Of those 394, the breakdown released by Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health included 83 children - more than one in five of the dead. Forty-two women. Nine rescue workers, killed while trying to reach the wounded. (Lebanese Ministry of Public Health, March 8, 2026)
The 9 rescue workers killed is a figure that demands particular attention. Under Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, medical and rescue personnel are explicitly protected during armed conflict. Their deaths are not collateral - they are violations. Whether they result from poor targeting discrimination or deliberate attacks on identified rescue assets is a question for future investigations, but the number itself signals that the humanitarian space in southern Lebanon has effectively collapsed.
More than 1,000 people have been wounded. Lebanese hospitals in the south began transferring patients north within days, lacking the capacity to treat the volume of cases. Some transferees could not be moved safely. Reports from medical NGOs operating in the south described critical shortages of blood, surgical supplies, and functioning power at facilities relying on generators that were running low on fuel.
The War's Expanding Reach
On the other side of the border, Hezbollah's campaign against northern Israel has not diminished as Israel escalated. The group has continued launching rockets and drones into northern Israel daily, hitting targets as far south as Nahariya and Haifa.
Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, is not just a civilian center. It hosts significant port infrastructure, industrial zones, and military assets. Hezbollah's ability to reach Haifa with sustained fire reflects a weapons inventory that survived the 2024 war largely intact - a fact Israeli planners had consistently noted but had not eliminated during that campaign's air operations.
"There are now serious concerns being raised in Israel about attacks being launched from Lebanon. There is no advanced notice for these northern communities. They have a few seconds to rush to the shelters, and there is now consideration of evacuating those northern communities." - Al Jazeera's Nour Odeh, reporting from Ramallah, March 8, 2026
The prospect of evacuating northern Israeli communities adds a domestic political dimension to the military calculus. Israel entered this war having already committed air and naval assets to the primary front against Iran. It is simultaneously sustaining operations in Gaza, conducting raids in the West Bank, and now absorbing a multi-front pressure campaign from Lebanon that is threatening to render significant portions of its own territory uninhabitable.
Hezbollah fighters clashed with Israeli troops near the border town of Aitaroun on Sunday. Israeli forces had seized hilltops in the area but have not, as of Monday, launched the full-scale ground invasion that tank and bulldozer movements near the frontier have suggested is being prepared. The question of whether Israel launches a ground invasion of southern Lebanon - as it did in 2006 and again in 2024 - defines the next phase of this war's trajectory.
The Legal and Diplomatic Fallout
Human Rights Watch's white phosphorus report, published Monday, does more than document a single incident. It attaches legal and political obligations to specific governments.
HRW concluded its report with a set of demands directed not at Israel alone but at its arms suppliers. The organization called on the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany - the three largest suppliers of weapons to Israel - to immediately suspend military assistance and arms sales. It called for targeted sanctions against Israeli officials credibly implicated in grave crimes. (Human Rights Watch report, March 9, 2026)
The M825-series 155mm artillery projectile is manufactured in the United States and has been a component of US arms transfers to Israel for decades. While originally designed as a smoke and screening round for masking troop movements, the shell disperses 116 felt wedges impregnated with white phosphorus over a wide area on airburst. HRW has documented its use in civilian areas in both Gaza and Lebanon. Its presence in Lebanon now creates a chain of legal accountability that runs directly from the IDF battery that fired the round to the US defense contractor that made it and the US government that exported it.
These calls are not new - HRW and Amnesty International have been issuing similar demands since October 2023. The political response from Washington, London, and Berlin has been to express "concern" while allowing transfers to continue. The white phosphorus documentation adds to an accumulating legal record that human rights lawyers argue will eventually support accountability proceedings - whether at the International Criminal Court, in domestic courts under universal jurisdiction principles, or in future truth-commission type processes.
Israel has consistently denied unlawful use of weapons in civilian areas and disputes HRW's methodology and conclusions. The Israeli military did not immediately respond to Monday's report.
What the report cannot do is reach the people currently sheltering in the dark in Yohmor, or sleeping in Beirut parking lots, or waiting for fuel at hospitals in Tyre. For those 517,000, the question of legal accountability is an abstraction. The immediate reality is fire, smoke, and the question of where to sleep tonight.
Key Actors: Who Is Fighting This War in Lebanon
Founded in 1982 with Iranian backing, Hezbollah has grown into the most militarily capable non-state armed group in the world, estimated to possess over 100,000 rockets and missiles before the 2024 war. The killing of its Iranian patron Khamenei triggered its return to full hostilities. Leadership structure remains opaque following significant losses in 2024. Current rocket and drone campaigns indicate a substantial weapons reserve survived.
Operating on at least three active fronts - Iran (air and naval), Lebanon (air and ground), Gaza (ground). The IDF's air campaign in Lebanon is being conducted from assets including F-35s and attack drones. RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus is being used for US surveillance flights supporting the broader operation. Two soldiers killed in Lebanon as of March 8 - first IDF combat deaths in this Lebanese campaign.
Prime Minister Nawaf Salam has publicly stated Lebanon did not choose this war. The Lebanese Armed Forces have not been drawn into combat operations. The government is managing a humanitarian crisis with depleted resources and no functioning state budget. Its ability to negotiate a ceasefire is constrained by the fact that Hezbollah does not answer to Beirut.
Five senior Quds Force commanders were killed in the Raouche hotel strike on March 8. The Quds Force is the IRGC's external operations directorate, responsible for coordinating Iran's proxy network across the region. The loss of a Beirut-based command cell - if Israel's claims are accurate - represents a significant disruption to the operational coordination between Tehran and Hezbollah at exactly the moment Iran is managing a succession crisis at home.
Timeline: Lebanon's Second Front, Day by Day
Lebanon Front - Chronology
What Comes Next
The ground invasion question dominates Israeli military planning right now. Tanks, armored bulldozers, and mechanized infantry units have been massing at the Lebanese border. The historical precedent is grim: Israel invaded Lebanon by ground in 1982, 2006, and 2024. Each time, it found Hezbollah or its predecessors capable of sustained guerrilla resistance that prolonged the campaign far beyond initial projections. Each time, the humanitarian toll was catastrophic. Each time, Israel eventually withdrew without achieving a permanent end to the threat.
A third Lebanon ground war - coming on top of the ongoing Iran air campaign, the continuing Gaza operation, and domestic Israeli pressure from Hezbollah rocket fire on Haifa - would represent a massive overextension of Israeli military capacity. But the political logic inside Israel may be pointing precisely in that direction. When civilians in Haifa and Nahariya have seconds to reach shelters, doing nothing is not politically viable.
For Lebanon, the equation is already catastrophic. The country has no army capable of resisting an Israeli ground operation, no functioning financial system to fund recovery, and no functioning state institutions capable of coordinating a humanitarian response at the scale needed. Lebanese Prime Minister Salam has appealed for international support but received only "concern" from Western capitals that are simultaneously funding and arming Israel's campaign.
The UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher told the BBC this week: "This is a moment of grave peril." The phrase was measured. Accurate. And entirely insufficient to describe what 517,000 displaced Lebanese, sleeping in tents, cars, and government buildings, are living through right now. (BBC, March 8-9, 2026)
As for the white phosphorus: HRW has documented it. The photographs exist. The M825 shell casings - an American-made product - have been identified in Lebanese neighborhoods. The question now is whether the US, UK, and German governments that supply these munitions will respond to HRW's demands for suspension, or whether they will, as they have consistently done since October 2023, respond with concern and then continue the transfers.
History, so far, provides a clear answer to that question. Whether this war changes it remains to be seen.
Get BLACKWIRE reports first.
Breaking news, investigations, and analysis - straight to your phone.
Join @blackwirenews on Telegram