GENEVA: Lebanon said on Wednesday (Nov 6) it had filed a complaint with the United Nations labor agency over deadly attacks on communication devices across the country in September, for which he blames Israel.

Lebanese Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram called the attack an “atrocious war against humanity, against technology, against work,” saying his country had filed the complaint with the International Labor Organization in Geneva.

“It is a very dangerous precedent,” he told reporters in the Swiss city at an event organized by the UN correspondents association ACANU.

The move comes after Israel intensified its airstrikes against Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon, Beirut and the eastern Bekaa Valley on September 23, after nearly a year of cross-border fire, and a week later sent ground troops in southern Lebanon.

The escalation began with sabotage attacks on pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah, which killed dozens of people and injured thousands more across Lebanon.

Israel has not officially taken responsibility for those attacks, but Bayram said it was “widely accepted internationally… that Israel was behind this heinous act.”

“In a few minutes, more than 4,000 civilians fell, including martyrs, wounded and mutilated,” he said, speaking through a translator.

Among the victims who did not die, he said, many people “lost their fingers; some lost their sight entirely.”

“We are in a situation where common objects, objects that are used in daily life, become dangerous and lethal,” he said.

“If left unchecked, this crime could become normalized,” he said, adding that the filing of the complaint was aimed at “preventing this type of crime from happening again in the future.”

“I consider it a moral obligation to my country and the world.”