Is the US government liable for the killing of civilians in Lebanon?

The Guardian: A US-made munition was used in a strike on central Beirut that killed 22 people and wounded 117, according to an analysis of shrapnel found by the Guardian at the scene of the attack.

The strike on Thursday night hit an apartment complex in the densely populated neighbourhood of Basta, levelling the apartment building and destroying cars and the interiors of nearby residences.

Strike is first time US-made munition confirmed to have been used in attack on central Beirut since 2006. 

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Noncombatant Immunity is a fundamental human right principle that states that a person who noncombatant is immune from attacks during armed conflict and that such immunity can only be lost once a person becomes a direct threat or consents to give up his or her right to immunity. Under international humanitarian law, all persons who are not or no longer taking part in hostilities are protected. In the context of international armed conflicts, they are referred to as “protected persons,” but they benefit from protection under humanitarian law in non-international conflicts as well.

Armed conflicted in which Western governments have taken part, however, saw a degradation of this principle. 

Martin Shaw's argument that the new Western way of war in the post-Vietnam era is characterized by the transfer of risk from soldiers to enemy noncombatants to reduce the military casualties and, by implication, the political costs stemming from the growing social sensitivity to casualties domestically. (Martin Shaw, The New Western Way of War: Risk-Transfer War and Its Crisis in Iraq (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005)).

The current conflict in Gaza and Lebanon is another test to the West's commitment to the protection of noncombatants. Western governments are not only bound by international law and treaties, but they are also bound by their own national laws respecting human rights, some of which bars them from transferring or selling weapons to a states that could use them in violation of international law or national laws respecting human rights.