In 1996, the Monitoring Group on the Implementation of the 1996 Israel-Lebanon Ceasefire Understanding, consisting of France, Israel, Lebanon, the Syrian Arab Republic and the United States, issued communiqués requesting that all parties avoid arbitrary or indiscriminate attacks on inhabited areas which directly or indirectly endangered civilian life or integrity. 

On the basis of a statement by the Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs before the UN General Assembly in 1997, the Report on the Practice of the Syrian Arab Republic asserts that the Syrian Arab Republic considers Article 51(4) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to be part of customary international law.