Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Wednesday that Israeli forces have occupied and vandalized schools in Lebanon in acts that amounted to war crimes. HRW visited seven schools in Lebanon between January and March, and documented “damage and destruction to the schools as well as the surrounding villages.” HRW cautioned that Israel’s pillaging of Lebanese schools constitutes war crimes.

According to the report:

Human Rights Watch found evidence—including Israeli food items, other trash with Hebrew writing, and Hebrew graffiti on school walls and classroom boards—indicating that Israeli forces occupied five of seven of the schools visited, all except for the schools in Aitaroun and Bani Hayyan, which had also been damaged.

Israel remains in ongoing conflict with Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia Islamist political party, with numerous accusations of the commission of war crimes by Israel. An independent organization emphasized the impacts of this turmoil on children and on children’s education specifically, stating, “At least 500 public schools–about half of Lebanon’s public schools–are now being used as collective shelters, following escalating violence on 23 September that led to the displacement of over 1.2 million people, or about one fifth of the population.” Moreover, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that school attendance “remains very low” in Lebanon, even following the ceasefire agreement reached in 2024.

A military spokesperson for the IDF told HRW that “vandalism of civilian property does not align with the IDF’s values and constitutes a violation of its regulations” and that “exceptional incidents raising concerns of deviation from IDF orders and expected conduct will be addressed accordingly.”

There have also been various depictions of the IDF’s interactions with schools in Lebanon on social media. A Palestinian journalist posted a photo of Israeli soldiers invading a secondary school and appropriating it as a military base. Another photo on X shows an Israeli soldier who drew Golani battalion logos on school walls. 

The UN Security Council condemned the “attacks on schools and hospitals” as one of the “six grave violations” committed against children during times of conflict.