Lebanon files complaint against Israel to UN labor committee over deadly pager blasts

GENEVA (AP) — Lebanon has filed a complaint against Israel with the U.N. Labor Organization over a series of deadly pager blast attacks, saying workers were among the dead and wounded, a Lebanese government minister said Wednesday.

A wave of remotely triggered explosions that hit the pagers and walkie-talkies of Hezbollah members in mid-September were widely blamed on Israelwho neither confirmed nor denied involvement. Explosions rang out in grocery stores, houses and on the streets at least 37 people diedincluding two children, and injured about 3,000 people, according to Lebanese authorities, deeply disturbing even to Lebanese with no connection to Hezbollah.

In addition to the fighters, the explosive devices hit employees of Hezbollah’s civilian institutions, including health care and the media.

Lebanese Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram and other officials said he traveled to Geneva and on Tuesday formally filed a complaint against Israel with the International Labor Organization, a broad UN agency that brings together governments, businesses and workers.

“This method of waging war and conflict may open the way for many who evade international humanitarian law to embrace this method of waging war,” he told reporters at the UN complex in Geneva.

“This is a very dangerous precedent if it is not condemned,” he said. “We are in a situation where ordinary objects – objects that are used in everyday life – are becoming dangerous and deadly.”

Speaking in Arabic, Bayram insisted that ILO conventions guarantee the safety of workers who, according to an interpreter, “were at their workplace and their pagers or walkie-talkies suddenly exploded.”

“I don’t know what the outcome (of the complaint) will be, but at least we have raised our voice to speak out and warn against this dangerous approach that hurts human relations and leads to new conflicts,” he added.

An ILO spokeswoman said she was not immediately aware of the complaint or what compensation might be possible because of it.