Israeli war crimes

Israeli war crimes are violations of international criminal law, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide, which Israeli security forces have committed or been accused of committing since the founding of Israel in 1948. These have included murder, intentional targeting of civilians, killing prisoners of war and surrendered combatants, indiscriminate attacks, collective punishment, starvation, persecution, the use of human shields, sexual violence and rape, torture, pillage, forced transfer, breach of medical neutrality, enforced disappearance, targeting journalists, attacking civilian and protected objects, wanton destruction, incitement to genocide, and genocide.
Israel ratified the Geneva Conventions on 6 July 1951, and on 2 January 2015 the State of Palestine acceded to the Rome Statute, granting the International Criminal Court (ICC) jurisdiction over war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories. Human rights experts argue that actions taken by the Israel Defense Forces during armed conflicts in the occupied Palestinian territories fall under the rubric of war crimes. Special rapporteurs from the United Nations, organizations including Human Rights Watch, Médecins Sans Frontières, Amnesty International, and human rights experts have accused Israel of war crimes.
Since 2006, the United Nations Human Rights Council has mandated several fact finding missions into violations of international law, including war crimes, in the occupied Palestinian territories, and in May 2021 established a permanent, ongoing inquiry. Since 2021, the ICC has had an active investigation into Israeli war crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories. Israel has refused to cooperate with the investigations. In December 2023, South Africa invoked the 1948 Genocide Convention and charged Israel with war crimes and acts of genocide committed in the occupied Palestinian territories and Gaza Strip. The case, South Africa v. Israel, was set to be heard at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and South Africa presented its case to the court on 10 January. In March 2024, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories found there were "reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission" of acts of genocide had been met. In November 2024, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. In December 2024, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Israel of genocide.
During the 1948 Palestine war in which the State of Israel was established, around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs, or 85% of the total population of the territory Israel captured, were expelled or fled from their homes. Most scholars consider that the majority of Palestinians were directly expelled or else fled due to fear. Causes of the exodus include direct expulsions by Israeli forces, destruction of Arab villages, psychological warfare including terrorism, dozens of massacres, crop burning, water deprivation, and typhoid epidemics in some areas caused by Israeli well-poisoning.Many historians consider the events of 1948 to fit the definition of ethnic cleansing.
Between 10 and 70 massacres occurred during the 1948 war. According to Benny Morris the Yishuv (or later Israeli) soldiers killed roughly 800 Arab civilians and prisoners of war in 24 massacres. Aryeh Yizthaki lists 10 major massacres with more than 50 victims each. Palestinian researcher Salman Abu-Sitta lists 33 massacres, half of them occurring during the civil war period. Saleh Abdel Jawad lists 68 villages in which the indiscriminate killing of prisoners and civilians took place while no threat was posed to Yishuv or Israeli soldiers.
According to Rosemarie Esber, both Israeli archives and Palestinian testimonies confirm mass-killings occurred in numerous Arab villages. Israeli soldiers raped Palestinian women in at least a dozen incidents, often murdering their victims afterwards. Most of these occurred as villages were overrun and captured during the Second phase of the Civil War, Operation Dani, Operation Hiram and Operation Yoav. Morris said that the "worst cases" were the Lydda massacre with around 250 killed, the Deir Yassin massacre with around 112, the Saliha massacre with 60 to 70, and the Abu Shusha massacre with 60–70. In Al-Dawayima, accounts of the death toll vary. Saleh Abd al-Jawad reports 100–200 casualties, Morris has estimated "hundreds" and also reports the IDF investigation which concluded 100 villagers had been killed. David Ben-Gurion gave the figure of 70–80. Saleh Abd al-Jawad reports on the village's mukhtar account that 455 people were missing following the al-Dawayima massacre, including 170 women and children.
On the night of 28 August 1953, Ariel Sharon and his military Unit 101 carried out a massacre on the Bureij refugee camp, killing at least 20 civilians. According to UN officials, the Israelis threw bombs through the windows of huts while Palestinian refugees were sleeping and shot at those who tried to flee. The incident was described as an “appalling case of deliberate mass murder” by the UN Mixed Armistice Commission, which was set up to monitor the 1948 truce.
On 14 October 1953, Sharon and his forces carried out a massacre in the village of Qibya, in the then Jordanian-controlled West Bank, killing 69 villagers, two thirds of them women and children. In addition to that, they destroyed forty-five houses, a school, and a mosque. Ariel Sharon wrote in his diary that "Qibya was to be an example for everyone," and that he ordered "maximal killing and damage to property". Post-operational reports speak of breaking into houses and clearing them with grenades and shooting. The attack was condemned internationally, with the Mixed Armistice Commission calling it "coldblooded murder." Britain and the United States also denounced the attack, with the US State Department saying that "those responsible should be brought to account."
On March 28, 1954, around midnight, Israeli forces attacked the Jordanian village of Nahalin with mortars, machine guns, grenades and incendiary bombs. Between one and 14 civilians were killed, including at least one woman, and 10 to 18 civilians were injured, including women and children. Explosives were placed and detonated, destroying houses and the village mosque. The Jordanian National Guard and Arab Legion intercepted and engaged the IDF, resulting in the deaths of five national guards and three legionnaires.
During the Suez Crisis in 1956, Israel invaded the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip. On 3 November, the IDF attacked Egyptian and Palestinian forces at Khan Yunis. The city of Khan Yunis resisted being captured, and Israel responded with a bombing campaign that inflicted heavy civilian casualties. After a fierce battle and some street-fighting, Khan Yunis fell to the Israelis, and by noon of 3 November, the Israelis had control of almost the entire Gaza Strip, trapping in it an estimated 4,000 Egyptian and Palestinian regulars, and many Palestinian fedayeen. During the occupation, Israeli forces carried out massacres and summary executions, killing about 500 Palestinian civilians during and after the conquest of Gaza. As a result of foreign press coverage, mass killings in the Gaza Strip ended, though Israel continued to employ summary executions. The head of the United Nations observer mission interpreted these actions as aimed at ridding the Gaza Strip of its refugee population.
On 29 October 1956, the Israeli army ordered that all Arab villages near the Jordanian border be placed under a wartime curfew from 5 p.m. to 6 a.m. on the following day. Any Arab on the streets was to be shot. The order was given to Israel Border Police units before most of the Arabs from the villages could be notified. The new curfew regulations were imposed in the absence of laborers who were at work and unaware of the new rules, and did not reach the mukhtar of Kafr Qasim until 4:30 p.m.. Between 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m., in nine separate shooting incidents, the platoon stationed in Kafr Qasim killed 49 Palestinian civilians, including 19 men, 6 women and 23 children, who did not make it home before curfew. One survivor, Jamal Farij, recalled arriving at the entrance to the village in a truck with 28 passengers, stating, "We talked to them. We asked if they wanted our identity cards. They didn't. Suddenly one of them said, 'Cut them down' – and they opened fire on us like a flood." According to accounts from survivors collected by Samia Halaby, the many injured were left unattended and could not be succored by their families because of the curfew. When the curfew ended, the wounded were picked up from the streets and trucked to hospitals. Israeli soldiers gathered volunteers under duress from the nearby village of Jaljuliya to dig graves, and buried the dead at night, while the curfew was underway, without the permission of their confined families.
On 3 November, after capturing Khan Yunis, the IDF searched the town and its refugee camp for fedayeen. During the search, the IDF troops shot and killed 275 Palestinian local residents and refugees, including dozens of summary executions. Israeli authorities later stated that there was resistance to their occupation, while the refugees stated that all resistance had ceased at the time of the incident. According to Jean-Pierre Filiu, the process of identifying 'fedayin' was inexact, it sufficing to have a picture of Nasser on one's wall to become suspect, or be arrested because one had a similar name to someone on Shin Bet's suspect list. Local children were reported to have been used by the IDF as human shields in areas where snipers were suspected of lying in wait, or where sites might have been booby-trapped. Homes and shops were often willfully damaged and looted. According to one account from a fleeing fedayeen, Saleh Shiblaq, Israeli forces walked through the town on the morning of 3 November, forcing men out of their homes or shooting them where they were found. In 2003, Shiblaq told Joe Sacco in an interview that all the old men, women, and children were removed from his household. Upon their departure, the remaining young men were sprayed with bursts of gunfire by Israeli soldiers. Adult male residents of Jalal Street were allegedly lined up and fired upon with Bren light machine guns, firing extraneously to the point that a stench of cordite filled the air. Israeli soldier Marek Gefen, in his account of post-occupation Khan Yunis, said, "In a few alleyways we found bodies strewn on the ground, covered in blood, their heads shattered. No one had taken care of moving them. It was dreadful. I stopped at a corner and threw up. I couldn't get used to the sight of a human slaughterhouse."
Israel's invasion of Rafah began on 1 November, and on 7 November fighting between Israeli forces and Egyptians and local militants had ceased. On 12 November, the IDF killed 111 in Rafah and the nearby refugee camp. As with the earlier Khan Yunis massacre, Israeli forces claimed that refugees continued to resist the occupying army, while Palestinian accounts maintain that all resistance had ceased when the killings took place. On the morning on 12 November, Israeli troops in Rafah summoned all men aged 15 to 60 to gather at a school, using loudspeakers and firing rifles into the air to enforce compliance. According to an UNRWA official, the Israeli loudspeaker summons was not heard throughout all of Rafah, and insufficient time was given for those summoned to reach the screening points, so that many refugees ran in order not to show up late. It appears soldiers panicked on observing the rush and opened fire on the crowd. Soldiers searched homes for those who failed to appear, killing any they found. As the men were herded toward the school, they were taunted and subjected to sporadic gunfire, leading to additional deaths. Survivors were lined up against a wall and forced to walk while being shot at, with many wounded or killed. Upon reaching the schoolyard, the men faced further humiliation, including beatings, intimidation, and being forced to relieve themselves publicly, as soldiers continued firing over their heads. The bodies of those killed were dumped in the Tell Zurub neighborhood on the western side of Rafah, where their families in defiance of the curfew, went to pick up the bodies of their kin and bury them. These burials took place without identification, making subsequent attempts to arrive at a precise figure for those killed difficult.
During the Six Day War in 1967, the IDF killed surrendering Egyptian soldiers, Egyptian POWs, and civilians. Gabby Bron, a journalist for Yedioth Ahronoth, said he witnessed ten executions of Egyptian prisoners that were first forced to dig their own graves. Michael Bar-Zohar said that he had witnessed the murder of three Egyptian POWs by a cook, and Meir Pa'il said that he knew of many instances in which soldiers had killed POWs or Arab civilians. Israeli historian Uri Milstein stated there were many incidents in the 1967 war in which Egyptian soldiers were killed by Israeli troops after they had raised their hands in surrender. "It was not an official policy, but there was an atmosphere that it was okay to do it," Milstein said. "Some commanders decided to do it; others refused. But everyone knew about it." Israeli historian and journalist Tom Segev, in his book "1967", quotes one soldier who wrote, "Our soldiers were sent to scout out groups of men fleeing and shoot them. That was the order, and it was done while they were really trying to escape. If they were armed, they got shot. There was no other option. You couldn't even really take prisoners. And sometimes you had to finish people off when they were lying on the ground with their heads on their hands. Simply shoot them."
In addition, the war also caused displacement of civilian populations, as around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled, known as the Naksa, from the West Bank and the Golan Heights, respectively. A number of Palestinian villages were also destroyed by the Israeli military, such as Imwas, Yalo, Bayt Nuba, Beit Awwa, and Al-Jiftlik, among others.
In September 1995, The New York Times reported that the Egyptian government had discovered two shallow mass graves in the Sinai at El Arish containing the remains of 30 to 60 Egyptian civilian and military prisoners allegedly shot by Israeli soldiers during the 1967 war. Israel declined to pursue charges, owing to its 20-year statute of limitations. The Israeli Ambassador to Cairo, David Sultan, asked to be relieved of his post after the Egyptian daily Al Shaab said he was personally responsible for the killing of 100 Egyptian prisoners, although both the Israeli Embassy and Foreign Ministry denied the charge. After his retirement, Brigadier-General in reserve, Arieh Biroh admitted in interviews to killing 49 Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai. In June 2000, Egypt's Al-Wafd newspaper reported that a mass grave was discovered in Ras Sedr, containing remains of 52 prisoners killed by Israeli paratroopers during the war. The report said that some skulls had bullet holes in them, indicating execution. Initial reports in Israeli newspaper Haaretz were censored. The New York Times reported that as many as 300 unarmed Egyptians were killed in the 1967 and 1956 wars. Israeli military historian Aryeh Yitzhaki estimated from army documents that, in the 1967 war, Israeli soldiers killed about 1,000 Egyptians after they surrendered.
Author James Bamford posits that massacres of civilians and bound prisoners may have served as a casus belli for the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty, that the Israeli Defense Forces were concerned that the USS Liberty, a signals intelligence collection ship, may have collected evidence of the massacre at El Arish, and was thus attacked in an effort to suppress the evidence.
On 8 April 1970, during the Egyptian-Israeli War of Attrition, four F-4 Phantoms of the Israeli Air Force bombed a primary school in the village of Bahr El-Baqar, located in the Province of Sharqia. The attack killed 46 children and injured at least another 50, many of whom suffered permanent disabilities. The school was also completely destroyed. Israel claimed the bombing was an accident, alleging the school was mistaken for a military installation, while Egypt and international observers widely condemned the attack as a war crime, pointing to the deliberate targeting of a civilian school.
In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and the IDF occupied Southern Lebanon. Following the siege of Beirut, the PLO forces and their allies negotiated passage from Lebanon with the aid of United States Special Envoy Philip Habib and the protection of international peacekeepers. By expelling the PLO, removing Syrian influence over Lebanon, and installing a pro-Israeli Christian government led by President Bachir Gemayel, Israel sought to sign a treaty which Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin promised would give Israel "forty years of peace". However, after the assassination of Gemayel in September, Israel's position in Beirut became untenable and the signing of a peace treaty became increasingly unlikely. Outraged by the assassination, Phalangists called for a revenge attack.
On 16 September the IDF allowed Lebanese militias to enter Beirut's Sabra neighbourhood and the adjacent Shatila refugee camp. From approximately 18:00 on 16 September to 08:00 on 18 September, the militias carried out a massacre while the IDF had the Palestinian camp surrounded. The IDF had ordered the militias to clear out the fighters of the PLO from Sabra and Shatila as part of a larger Israeli maneuver into western Beirut. As the massacre unfolded, the IDF received reports of atrocities being committed, but did not take any action to stop it. Israeli troops were stationed at the exits of the area to prevent the camp's residents from leaving and, at the request of the militias, fired flares to illuminate Sabra and Shatila through the night. Between 460 and 3,500 civilians—mostly Palestinians and Lebanese Shias—were killed in the massacre. Many of the victims were tortured before they were killed; women and girls were repeatedly raped; some victims were skinned alive, some had limbs chopped off with axes, while others were tied to cars and dragged through the streets. Afterward, bulldozers were brought in to bury bodies and demolish the camps.
On 16 December 1982 the United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre and declared it to be an act of genocide. In February 1983, an independent commission chaired by Irish diplomat Seán MacBride (the then-assistant to the Secretary-General of the United Nations) launched an inquiry into the violence and concluded that the IDF, as the erstwhile occupying power over Sabra and Shatila, bore responsibility for the militia's massacre. The commission also stated that the massacre was a form of genocide. That same month, the Israeli government launched the Kahan Commission to investigate the cause and circumstances of the Sabra and Shatila massacre, and found that Israeli military personnel had failed to take serious steps to stop the killings despite being aware of the militia's actions. The Israeli commission deemed that the IDF was indirectly responsible for the events, and forced erstwhile Israeli defense minister Ariel Sharon to resign from his position "for ignoring the danger of bloodshed and revenge" during the massacre.
Israeli forces withdrew from Beirut on 29 September 1982, but continued to occupy Lebanon's southern half. Amid rising casualties from guerrilla attacks, the IDF withdrew south to the Awali river on 3 September 1983. For nearly the next two decades, an armed conflict took place in which Hezbollah, along with Shia Muslim and left-wing guerrillas, fought against Israel and its ally, the Catholic Christian-dominated South Lebanon Army, until Israel's withdrawal in May 2000.
On 20 September 1984, the South Lebanon Army, with the backing of the IDF, opened fire at a group of men, killing 13 civilians in the Lebanese village of Sohmor. Lebanese Information Minister Joseph Skaff called the attack part of a "series of massacres perpetrated by Israel or encouraged by it and carried out under its direct coverage and with its full support".
On 25 July 1993, Israeli forces launched a week-long attack against Lebanon. Israel specified two purposes to the operation: to strike directly at Hezbollah, making it difficult for Hezbollah to use southern Lebanon as a base for striking Israel, and to displace Lebanese and Palestinian civilians in the hopes of pressuring the Lebanese government to intervene against Hezbollah. During the attack, around 120 Lebanese civilians were killed and close to 500 injured by Israeli assaults on population centers, which also displaced around 300,000 Lebanese villagers and Palestinian refugees. Israeli bombardment fully destroyed 1,000 homes, partially destroyed another 1,500, lightly damaged another 15,000, and damaged schools, mosques, churches, and cemeteries. Israeli forces also cut civilian water and electricity supplies, a war crime. Human Rights Watch stated, "To the extent that civilians were the immediate targets of this military assault-to sow terror and induce behavior that would serve Israel's political goals-Israel was in grave violation of international humanitarian law." They further stated that Israel gave inadequate or ineffective warnings to civilians before attacks, and said that the likely intent of some warnings was to sow terror among the population, inducing them to flee in service of pressuring the Lebanese government. International humanitarian law prohibits actions primarily aimed at terrorizing a population. Human Rights Watch also stated that Israeli forces directly attacked civilian targets with no military objective, including a market and refugee camp, hindered and attacked ambulances and vehicles of relief organizations, attacked civilians attempting to flee, and used flechettes and white phosphorus munitions in an antipersonnel capacity in populated areas.
On 17 April 1996, Israel launched a seventeen-day campaign against Hezbollah which attempted to force the group north of the Litani River. In their attempt to degrade and destroy Hezbollah, the IDF conducted more than 600 air raids and fired approximately 25,000 shells, killing approximately 154 Lebanese civilians and wounding 351. During the operation, Hezbollah launched cross-border rocket attacks targeting northern Israel, and participated in numerous engagements with Israeli and South Lebanon Army forces. The conflict was de-escalated on 27 April by a ceasefire agreement banning attacks on civilians.
On 13 April 1996, an IDF helicopter rocketed an ambulance carrying 13 civilians in Mansouri, killing two women and four children. Reporters on the scene filmed the incident. The IDF claimed the ambulance was being used by Hezbollah fighters to flee, but UN soldiers who arrived immediately after found no weapons or military equipment in the car, and an investigation by Amnesty International found no connection between anyone in the vehicle to Hezbollah. Both Amnesty and B'Tselem called it a war crime.
On 18 April 1996, when Israeli warplanes bombed an apartment in the village of Nabatiyya al-Faqwah, killing at least nine people, including a mother and seven of her children. The planes returned and hit a neighbouring house, causing no injuries, and, at about the same time, helicopters rocketed a third house with no injuries. Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres stated that Katyusha rockets had been fired from the houses–a claim the IDF did not itself make. The IDF said that Hezbollah fighters who had fired on them from a nearby position were sheltering in the houses. Human Rights Watch stated that the IDF provided no evidence to support either claim. Amnesty and B'Tselem also disputed the IDF claim, and said it wouldn't have justified the attack, with Amnesty stating it indicated a "blatant disregard for the need to maintain the principle of distinction at all times."
On 18 April 1996, near Israeli-occupied Qana, a village Southern Lebanon, the Israeli military fired artillery shells at a UNIFIL compound, which was sheltering around 800 Lebanese civilians, killing 106 and injuring around 116. Four Fijian UNIFIL soldiers were also seriously injured. Israel said it had launched the artillery barrage to cover an Israeli special forces unit after it had come under mortar fire launched from the vicinity of the compound, but its claims were later refuted by a United Nations investigation which said that the Israeli shelling was deliberate, based on video evidence showing an Israeli reconnaissance drone over the compound before the shelling. The Israeli government at first denied the existence of the drone, but then said, after being told of the video evidence, that the drone was on a different mission. Amnesty International visited the compound and conducted an investigation which found the attack to have been deliberate. Human Rights Watch said it was both an indiscriminate and disproportionate attack, respective war crimes.
On 10 October 1990, amid elevated tensions over the Sukkot march, a crowd of Palestinians began throwing rocks at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall of the Temple Mount. In response, 40 Israeli Border Police opened fire with automatic weapons on the Palestinian crowd, killing at least 21 and injuring at least 150. There were no Israeli deaths. In a resolution on 12 October, the UN condemned the violence committed by the Israeli forces, and proposed an investigation. Israel rejected the resolution and refused to cooperate with an investigation. Failing to get agreement from Israel, the Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar on 31 October published his report. In it, he said, "some 17 to 21 Palestinians were killed and more than 150 wounded by Israeli security forces, and more than 20 Israeli civilians and police were wounded by Palestinians. While there are conflicting opinions as to what provoked the clashes, observers on the spot, including personnel of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), stated that live ammunition was used against Palestinian civilians."
Subsequently, United Nations Security Council Resolution 681 on 20 December 1990, referring to Resolutions 672 and 673, called on Israel to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention to Palestinians in the occupied territories. In their Annual 1990 World Report Human Rights Watch condemned the Israeli report on the incident as "only mentioning in passing the 'uncontrolled use of live ammunition' by police, giving scant attention to what should have been a central issue: the use of excessive force, including shooting into a crowd with bursts of automatic-weapon fire." Palestinians stated they only threw rocks after being attacked with tear gas and live weapons, in an effort to defend themselves and stop the soldiers.
Between 2 and 11 April 2002 a siege and fierce fighting took place in the Palestinian refugee camp of the city of Jenin. The camp was targeted during Operation Defensive Shield after Israel determined that it had "served as a launch site for numerous terrorist attacks against both Israeli civilians and Israeli towns and villages in the area." The Jenin battle became a flashpoint for both sides, and saw fierce urban combat as Israeli infantry supported by armor and attack helicopters fought to clear the camp of Palestinian militants. The battle was eventually won by the IDF, after it employed a dozen Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers to clear Palestinian booby traps, detonate explosive charges, and raze buildings and gun-posts; the bulldozers proved impervious to attacks by Palestinian militants.
During Israeli military operations in the camp, Palestinian sources alleged that a massacre of hundreds of people had taken place. A senior Palestinian Authority official alleged in mid-April that some 500 had been killed. During the fighting in Jenin, Israeli officials had also initially estimated hundreds of Palestinian deaths, but later said they expected the Palestinian toll to reach "45 to 55." In the ensuing controversy, Israel blocked the United Nations from conducting the first-hand inquiry unanimously sought by the Security Council, but the UN nonetheless felt able to dismiss claims of a massacre in its report, which said there had been approximately 52 deaths, criticising both sides for placing Palestinian civilians at risk.
At the same time human rights organizations charged Israel with war crimes and crimes against humanity. In November, Amnesty International reported that there was "clear evidence" that the IDF committed war crimes against Palestinian civilians in Jenin and Nablus. The report accused Israel of blocking medical care, using people as human shields, shooting and killing unarmed civilians, including one in custody, bulldozing houses with residents inside, in one case knowingly crushing a severely disabled man to death, in another case killing eight members of a family, the reckless killing of civilians with explosives charges on doors, mass arbitrary detentions and beatings of prisoners, which resulted in one death, and preventing ambulances and aid organizations from reaching the areas of combat even after the fighting had reportedly stopped. Amnesty criticized the UN report, noting that its officials did not actually visit Jenin.
The Observer reporter Peter Beaumont wrote that what happened in Jenin was not a massacre, but that the mass destruction of houses was a war crime, covered by Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention in its prohibition on "the extensive destruction or unlawful appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity committed either unlawfully or wantonly." Some reports noted that Israel's restriction of access to Jenin and refusal to allow the UN investigation access to the area were evidence of a coverup, a charge echoed by Mouin Rabbani, Director of the Palestinian American Research Center in Ramallah.
On June 28, 2006, Israel invaded Gaza in response to the capture of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants on 25 June 2006. Hamas sought the release of a large number of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel in exchange for Shalit. Large-scale conventional warfare occurred in Gaza until November 26, resulting in a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas and an Israeli withdrawal. No deal was reached for the release of Shalit or Palestinian prisoners.
On 12 July, nine members of the Abu Selmiyeh family were killed when the IDF landed a 550-pound bomb on a building in Gaza City. B'Tselem called for the attack to be investigated as a war crime, characterizing it as indiscriminate and disproportional.
B'Tselem reported that the IDF used Palestinian civilians as human shields during a military operation in Beit Hanoun. According to the report, civilians were held on staircases near soldiers engaged in gunfire, forced to accompany soldiers during searches, walking ahead of them and opening doors the soldiers feared would be fired on when opened, and subjected to physical abuse, such as being tied, blindfolded, and beaten.
On 28 June 2006, the Israeli Air Force bombed Gaza's only electrical power plant, leaving 1.4 million residents without reliable electricity and causing widespread disruptions to essential services, including healthcare, water, sewage, and refrigeration. Human Rights Watch and B'Tselem criticized the attack as a war crime, with the latter stating that the power plant was a civilian object and that less harmful alternatives were available. B'Tselem called on Israel to repair the damage, compensate affected residents, and investigate those responsible for the decision to target the plant, urging adherence to laws forbidding attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure.
In July 2006, a conflict erupted between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, triggered by a cross-border raid by Hezbollah militants who captured two Israeli soldiers. The ensuing 34-day war involved extensive Israeli airstrikes and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon, resulting in at least 1,109 Lebanese deaths—of which at least 900 were civilians—4,399 injured, and an estimated 1 million displaced. In a 249-page report, Human Rights Watch found that "Israel conducted the war with reckless indifference to the fate of Lebanese civilians and violated the laws of war" and asked the secretary-general of the United Nations to establish an international commission of inquiry to investigate reports of war crimes. In a report, Amnesty International also said that during the month-long conflict in Lebanon, Israel committed war crimes, including indiscriminate attacks, if not direct attacks against civilians, disproportionate attacks, including the sustained artillery bombardment of south Lebanon and the widespread use of cluster bombs in civilian areas, attacks on civilian objects, and collective punishment.
The United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict found that Israel targeted the people of Gaza as a whole. The Mission gave its opinion that ″the operations were in furtherance of an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience and for its apparent support for Hamas, and possibly with the intent of forcing a change in such support.″
Israel was widely criticized by human rights groups for using heavy firepower and causing hundreds of civilian casualties. A group of soldiers who took part in the conflict echoed the criticism through both the Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence and a special report by Israeli filmmaker Nurit Kedar that was shown on Britain's Channel 4 in January 2011. Israel was accused of having a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population. Israel has said that operational orders emphasized proportionality and humanity while the importance of minimising harm to civilians was made clear to soldiers. Some IDF soldiers, however, reported that they had been encouraged to shoot indiscriminately and disproportionately, and were ordered to "cleanse the neighbourhoods, the buildings, the area."
On 24 March 2009 a report from the UN team responsible for the protection of children in war zones was released: it found "hundreds" of violations of the rights of children and accused Israeli soldiers of using children as human shields, bulldozing a home with a woman and child still inside, and shelling a building they had ordered civilians into a day earlier. One case involved using an 11-year-old boy as a human shield, by forcing him to enter suspected buildings first and also inspect bags. The report also mentioned the boy was used as a shield when Israeli soldiers came under fire. The UK newspaper The Guardian has also received testimony from three Palestinian brothers aged 14, 15, and 16, who all claimed to have been used as human shields.
The Guardian conducted an investigation of its own, which, according to the paper, uncovered evidence of war crimes including the use of Palestinian children as human shields. An Israeli military court later convicted two Israeli soldiers of using human shields, which was outlawed by the Israeli Supreme court in 2005.
The UN fact-finding mission investigated four incidents in which Palestinian civilians were coerced, blindfolded, handcuffed and at gunpoint to enter houses ahead of Israeli soldiers during military operations. The mission confirmed the continued use of this practice with published testimonies of Israeli soldiers who had taken part in the military operations. The mission concluded that these practices amounted to using civilians as human shields in breach of international law. Some civilians were also questioned under threat of death or injury to extract information about Palestinian combatants and tunnels, constituting a further violation of international humanitarian law.
Israeli forces made extensive use of white phosphorus during Operation Cast Lead. Reports of its use emerged in January, which Israel initially and repeatedly denied, then later admitted when faced with mounting evidence and international criticism. Civilian objects including homes, schools, hospitals, and UN buildings all took direct hits.
On 4 January, the IDF fired a white phosphorus shell into a house sheltering the Abu Halima family, killing one man and four of his children and igniting an intense fire; five more members of the family suffered burns, with one later dying from her injuries. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said the incident constituted the war crime of an indiscriminate attack. On 12 January, The Times reported that over 50 phosphorus burn victims were taken to Nasser Hospital. On 15 January, the IDF fired air-burst white phosphorus directly over homes and apartment buildings in the crowded neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa, killing at least four civilians from a single family.
On 15 January, the field office compound of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), at the time sheltering 600 to 700 civilians and containing a large fuel depot, was shelled with high explosives and white phosphorus munitions. Despite being alerted to the risks, the IDF continued attacking for several hours. On the same day, according to the report, the IDF "directly and intentionally" attacked Al-Quds Hospital with white phosphorus, starting fires and causing evacuations. On 5, 6 and 16 January, the IDF hit Al-Wafa Hospital in eastern Gaza City with missiles and white phosphorus shells. The UN report said the IDF violated international law in both cases. An Israeli response to the report later admitted that "shells were fired in violation of the rules of engagement prohibiting use of such artillery near populated areas."
On 17 January, Israeli forces air-burst at least three white phosphorus shells over another UN facility, a school in Beit Lahiya sheltering around 1,600 displaced persons. One shell hit a classroom, killing two brothers, aged 4 and 5, and injuring their mother and cousin, resulting in amputations for both. Others were injured, and the classroom and parts of the school burned.
On 25 March 2009, Human Rights Watch published a 71-page report titled "Rain of Fire, Israel's Unlawful Use of White Phosphorus in Gaza" and said that Israel's usage of the weapon was illegal. Donatella Rovera, Amnesty's researcher on Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories said that such extensive use of this weapon in Gaza's densely populated residential neighborhoods is inherently indiscriminate. "Its repeated use in this manner, despite evidence of its indiscriminate effects and its toll on civilians, is a war crime," she said. The Goldstone Report said that the Israelis were "systematically reckless" in using white phosphorus in built up areas and called for serious consideration to be given to the banning of its use as an obscurant.
Testimonies from Israeli soldiers allegedly admitting indiscriminate killings of civilians, as well as vandalizing homes, were reported in March 2009. Israel military officials challenged notions of systematic violations, though with admissions of some wrongdoing. Following investigations, the IDF issued a report concluding that no war crimes were committed. Human rights groups criticized the Israeli investigation as hasty, biased, and ignoring key evidence. Nine Israeli rights groups issued a joint statement calling for an "independent nonpartisan investigative body to be established to look into all Israeli army activity" in Gaza.
In July 2009, the Israeli human rights organization Breaking the Silence published a 110-page report, including video interviews in which faces were blurred out, of testimonies from 26 soldiers who took part in the Gaza assault and said that the IDF used Gazans as human shields, improperly fired incendiary white phosphorus shells over civilian areas, in at least one case to incinerate a house, and used overwhelming firepower that caused needless deaths and destruction. Israeli military officials criticized Breaking The Silence, initially saying they had not submitted the report for the IDF to investigate. Yehuda Shaul, one of the heads of Breaking the Silence, countered that the report had been submitted 24 hours before its publication. Subsequently, Israeli officials accused Breaking The Silence of having a motive to slander the IDF, saying that if they wanted an investigation they would have turned over the identities of the soldiers and locations where the incidents took place. Shaul rejected the accusation, pointing out that the report included unit names along with most of the locations in the testimonies. Breaking the Silence said that their methodology includes the verification of all information by cross-referencing the testimonies it collects and that published material has been confirmed by a number of testimonies, from several different points of view. A representative stated "the personal details of the soldiers quoted in the collection, and the exact location of the incidents described in the testimonies, would readily be made available to any official and independent investigation of the events, as long as the identity of the testifiers did not become public."
In response to the report, a dozen English-speaking reservists who served in Gaza delivered signed, on-camera counter-testimonies via the SoldiersSpeakOut group, about Hamas' "use of Gazans as human shields and the measures the IDF took to protect Arab civilians". The special report by Israeli filmmaker Nurit Kedar shown on Channel 4 detailed similar allegations by former IDF soldiers that included vandalism and misconduct by Israeli troops.
The first Israeli soldier to be prosecuted for actions committed during the war was a Givati Brigade soldier who stole a Visa credit card from a Palestinian home and used it to withdraw NIS 1,600 ($405). He was arrested and tried before the Southern Command Military Court on charges of looting, credit card fraud, and indecent conduct. He was found guilty and sentenced to seven and a half months in military prison.
In a report submitted to the UN in January 2010, the IDF stated that two senior officers were disciplined for authorizing an artillery attack in violation of rules against their near populated areas. Several artillery shells hit the UNRWA compound in Tel al-Hawa. During the attack on 15 January 2009, the compound was set ablaze by white phosphorus shells. The officers involved were identified as Gaza Division Commander Brigadier-General Eyal Eisenberg and Givati Brigade Commander Colonel Ilan Malka. An IDF internal investigation concluded that the firing of the shells violated the IDF orders limiting the use of artillery fire near populated areas and endangered human life. IDF sources added later that the shells had been fired to create cover to assist in the extrication of IDF troops, some of whom were wounded, from an area where Hamas held a superior position. An Israeli Government spokesman stated that in this particular case they had found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing and so had not referred the case to criminal investigation.
In October 2010 Colonel Ilan Malka was interrogated by Israeli military police over the Zeitoun killings, and a criminal investigation was opened. Malka was suspected of authorizing an airstrike on a building that left numerous members of the Samouni family dead. His promotion to the rank of Brigadier-General was suspended due to the investigation. Malka told investigators that he was unaware of the presence of civilians. He was eventually reprimanded over the incident, but it was decided not to indict him. No other charges were brought over this incident. The IDF denied that they were targeting civilians and The New York Times reported that Hamas members had launched rockets at Israel about a mile away from the residents, an area "known to have many supporters of Hamas". The Palestinian Center for Human Rights called the result "disgraceful" and Btselem stated the need for an external investigator to look into IDF actions during Cast Lead.
In July 2010, Chief Advocate General Avichai Mandelblit announced manslaughter charges against an unnamed IDF sniper for firing on a group of civilians waving white flags, killing the 35 year old Majda Abu Hajaj and her 64-year-old mother, Rayah. In 2012, the soldier agreed to a plea bargain, the manslaughter charges were dropped, and the soldier was sentenced to 45 days in prison.
In July 2010, the officer who authorized the airstrike on the Ibrahim al-Maqadna Mosque was subjected to disciplinary action, as shrapnel caused "unintentional injuries" to civilians inside. The IDF said that the officer "failed to exercise appropriate judgement", and that he would not be allowed to serve in similar positions of command in the future. Another Israeli officer was also reprimanded for allowing a Palestinian man to enter a building to persuade Hamas militants sheltering inside to leave.
In November 2010 two Givati Brigade Staff Sergeants were convicted by the Southern Command Military Court of using a Palestinian boy as a human shield. The soldiers had been accused of forcing nine-year-old Majed R. at gunpoint to open bags suspected of containing bombs in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood. Both soldiers were demoted one rank and given three-month suspended sentences.
According to the U.S. State Department's 2010 Human Rights Report, the Military Advocate General investigated over 150 wartime incidents, including those mentioned in the Goldstone Report. As of July, the Military Advocate General launched 47 criminal investigations into the conduct of IDF personnel, and completed a significant number of those.
The UN report on the conflict was denounced by the United States Congress and Israeli leadership, with Benjamin Netanyahu stating that the report, along with Hamas rockets and a nuclear-armed Iran, was one of the three main threats to Israel. Judge Richard Goldstone, the report's lead author, was subjected to personal attacks. Robert Fisk reported that Goldstone was pressured by Israel and members of his family to recant his report, was harassed by the Jewish community of South Africa, and was "in a state of great personal distress." On 1 April 2011 Goldstone published an op-ed piece in The Washington Post titled "Reconsidering the Goldstone Report on Israel and war crimes". In the piece, though he maintained the validity of incidents involving individual soldiers, Goldstone said that subsequent investigations conducted by Israel indicated that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy, and that such evidence "probably would have influenced our findings about intentionality and war crimes." The other principal authors of the UN report, Hina Jilani, Christine Chinkin and Desmond Travers, rejected Goldstone's reassessment, arguing that there was "no justification for any demand or expectation for reconsideration of the report as nothing of substance has appeared that would in any way change the context, findings or conclusions of that report with respect to any of the parties to the Gaza conflict". After publication his op-ed, and pressure from the United States and Israel to nullify the report, Goldstone refused to recant it, stating, "As presently advised I have no reason to believe any part of the report needs to be reconsidered at this time."
On 18 November 2012, the IDF conducted an airstrike that killed ten members of the al-Dalu family, including five children and an elderly woman, and two of the family's neighbors. At least nine other civilians were injured, and several nearby houses were destroyed. Human Rights Watch called the strike disproportionate and a war crime, and called for the perpetrators of the strike to be punished and the surviving family members of the victims to be compensated.
Israel received some 500 complaints concerning 360 alleged violations. 80 were closed without criminal charges, 6 cases were opened on incidents allegedly involving criminal conduct, and in one case regarding 3 IDF soldiers in the aftermath of the Battle of Shuja'iyya, a charge of looting was laid. Most cases were closed for what the military magistrates considered to be lack of evidence to sustain a charge of misconduct. No mention was made of incidents during the "Black Friday" events at Rafah.
According to Assaf Sharon of Tel Aviv University, the IDF was pressured by politicians to unleash unnecessary violence whose basic purpose was 'to satisfy a need for vengeance', which the politicians themselves tried to whip up in Israel's population. Asa Kasher wrote that the IDF was pulled into fighting "that is both strategically and morally asymmetric" and that, like any other army, it made mistakes, but the charges it faces are "grossly unfair". The Israeli NGO Breaking the Silence, reporting on its analysis of 111 testimonies concerning the war by some 70 IDF soldiers and officers, cited one veteran's remark that "Anyone found in an IDF area, which the IDF had occupied, was not a civilian," to argue that this was the basic rule of engagement. Soldiers were briefed to regard everything inside the Strip as a threat. The report cites several examples of civilians, including women, being shot dead and defined as "terrorists" in later reports. Since leaflets were dropped telling civilians to leave areas to be bombed, soldiers could assume any movement in a bombed area entitled them to shoot. In one case that came under investigation, Lt Col Neria Yeshurun ordered a Palestinian medical centre to be shelled to avenge the killing of one of his officers by a sniper.
Many of those killed were civilians, prompting concern from many humanitarian organisations. An investigation by Human Rights Watch concluded that Israel had probably committed war crimes on three specific incidents involving strikes on UNWRA schools. Amnesty International stated that: "Israeli forces have carried out attacks that have killed hundreds of civilians, including through the use of precision weaponry such as drone-fired missiles, and attacks using munitions such as artillery, which cannot be precisely targeted, on very densely populated residential areas, such as Shuja'iyya. They have also directly attacked civilian objects." B'Tselem has compiled an infogram listing families killed at home in 72 incidents of bombing or shelling, comprising 547 people killed, of whom 125 were women under 60, 250 were minors, and 29 were over 60. On 24 August, Palestinian health officials said that 89 families had been killed.
Nine people were killed while watching the World Cup in a café, and 8 members of a family died that Israel has said were inadvertently killed. A Golani soldier interviewed about his operations inside Gaza said that the IDF often could not distinguish between civilians and Hamas fighters. U.S. military officials said that Israel took measures to limit civilian casualties.
International humanitarian law requires giving effective advance warning of attacks that affect civilians. Prior to attacks, the IDF issued evacuation warnings to civilians with phone calls, leaflets, and roof knocks with light or inert missiles, but was criticized for giving ineffective warnings in many cases. Amnesty International stated, "When Israeli forces have given warning in many cases key elements of effective warning have been missing, including timeliness, informing civilians where it is safe to flee, and providing safe passage and sufficient time to flee before an attack. There also have been reports of lethal strikes launched too soon after a warning to spare civilians." A report by Jaffa based NGO Physicians for Human Rights, released in January 2015, said that Israel's alert system had failed, and that the roof-knock system was ineffective. The Geneva-based Euro-Mid Observer for Human Rights stated that roof knock warnings were lethal and had resulted in civilian casualties, and that insufficient time was provided for civilians to evacuate, with attacks following only a minute after the warning shot. Amnesty International said that "although the Israeli authorities claim to be warning civilians in Gaza, a consistent pattern has emerged that their actions do not constitute an "effective warning" under international humanitarian law." Human Rights Watch concurred, finding several cases where an attack was carried out within five minutes the warning, and noted that Gaza has no bomb shelters or places for civilians to realistically flee. While condemning Israeli air attacks against civilian objects as war crimes, Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East director at Human Rights Watch, said, "Warning families to flee might reduce civilian casualties but they don't make illegal attacks any less illegal." Many Gazans, when asked, told journalists that they remained in their houses simply because they had nowhere else to go. OCHA's spokesman said civilians had no safe place to evacuate to in Gaza. The UN Fact Finding Mission of the 2008 war had previously condemned roof knocking as unlawful.
Israel targeted many homes in this conflict. UNWRA official Robert Turner estimated that 7,000 homes were demolished and 89,000 were damaged, some 10,000 of them severely. This has led to many members of the same family being killed. B'Tselem documented 59 incidents of bombing and shelling, in which 458 people were killed. In some cases, Israel has stated that these homes were of suspected militants and were used for military purposes. The New York Times noted that the damage in this operation was higher than in the previous two wars and stated that 60,000 people had been left homeless as a result. The destruction of homes has been condemned by B'Tselem, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International as unlawful, amounting to collective punishment and war crimes.
Israel destroyed the homes of two suspects in the case of the abduction and killing of the three teenagers. B'Tselem condemned the house demolitions as unlawful. Palestinians returning to their homes during the ceasefire reported that IDF soldiers had trashed their homes, destroyed home electronics such as TV sets, spread feces in their homes, and carved slogans such as "Burn Gaza down" and "Good Arab = dead Arab" in walls and furniture. The IDF did not respond to a request by The Guardian for comment.
On 5 November 2014, Amnesty International published a report examining eight cases where the IDF targeted homes, resulting in the deaths of 111 people, of whom 104 were civilians. Barred from access to Gaza by Israel since 2012, it conducted its research remotely, supported by two contracted Gaza-based fieldworkers who conducted multiple visits of each site to interview survivors, and consulted with military experts to evaluate photographic and video material. It concludes, in every case, that "there was a failure to take necessary precautions to avoid excessive harm to civilians and civilian property, as required by international humanitarian law" and "no prior warning was given to the civilian residents to allow them to escape." As Israel did not disclose any information regarding the incidents, the report said it was not possible for Amnesty International to be certain of what Israel was targeting; it also said that if there were no valid military objectives, international humanitarian law may have been violated, as attacks directed at civilians and civilian objects, or attacks which are otherwise disproportionate relative to the anticipated military advantage of carrying them out, constitute war crimes.
The report was dismissed by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs as "narrow", "decontextualized", and disattentive of alleged war crimes perpetrated by Hamas. Amnesty, it asserted, was serving as "a propaganda tool for Hamas and other terror groups."
There were seven shellings at UNRWA facilities in the Gaza Strip which took place between 21 July and 3 August 2014. The incidents were the result of artillery, mortar or aerial missile fire which struck on or near the UNRWA facilities being used as shelters for Palestinians, and as a result at least 44 civilians, including 10 UN staff, died. During the 2014 Israel-Gaza conflict, many Palestinians fled their homes after warnings by Israel or due to air strikes or fighting in the area. An estimated 290,000 people (15% of Gaza's population) took shelter in UNRWA schools.
On three separate occasions, on 16 July, 22 July and on 29 July, UNRWA announced that rockets had been found in their schools. UNRWA denounced the groups responsible for "flagrant violations of the neutrality of its premises". All of these schools were vacant at the time when rockets were discovered; no rockets were found in any shelters which were shelled. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated that "Hamas chooses where these battles are conducted and, despite Israel's best efforts to prevent civilian casualties, Hamas is ultimately responsible for the tragic loss of civilian life. Specifically in the case of UN facilities, it is important to note the repeated abuse of UN facilities by Hamas, namely with at least three cases of munitions storage within such facilities."
The attacks were condemned by members of the UN (UNRWA's parent organization) and other governments, such as the U.S., have expressed "extreme concern" over the safety of Palestinian civilians who "are not safe in UN-designated shelters." The Rafah shelling in particular was widely criticized, with Ban Ki-moon calling it a "moral outrage and a criminal act" and US State Department calling it "appalling" and "disgraceful". UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that both Hamas militants and Israel might have committed war crimes. A Human Rights Watch investigation into three of the incidents concluded that Israel committed war crimes because two of the shellings "did not appear to target a military objective or were otherwise indiscriminate", while the third Rafah shelling was "unlawfully disproportionate". On 27 April 2015, the United Nations released an inquiry which concluded that Israel was responsible for the deaths of at least 44 Palestinians who died in the shelling and 227 were injured.
On 23 July 12 human rights organizations in Israel released a letter to Israeli government warning that "Gaza Strip's civilian infrastructure is collapsing". They wrote that "due to Israel's ongoing control over significant aspects of life in Gaza, Israel has a legal obligation to ensure that the humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza are met and that they have access to adequate supplies of water and electricity." They note that many water and electricity systems were damaged during the conflict, which has led to a "pending humanitarian and environmental catastrophe". The Sydney Morning Herald reported that "almost every piece of critical infrastructure, from electricity to water to sewage, has been seriously compromised by either direct hits from Israeli air strikes and shelling or collateral damage."
Between five and eight of the 10 power lines that bring electricity from Israel were disabled, at least three by Hamas rocket fire. On 29 July, Israel was reported to bomb Gaza's only power plant, which was estimated to take a year to repair. Amnesty International said the crippling of the power station amounted to "collective punishment of Palestinians". Human Rights Watch has stated that "[d]amaging or destroying a power plant, even if it also served a military purpose, would be an unlawful disproportionate attack under the laws of war". Israel immediately denied damaging the power plant, stating there was "no indication that [IDF] were involved in the strike ... The area surrounding the plant was also not struck in recent days." Contradicting initial reports that it would take a year to repair, the power plant resumed operation on 27 October.
At least 16 journalists were killed in the conflict, of which five were off-duty and two, from Associated Press, were covering a bomb disposal team's efforts to defuse an unexploded Israeli artillery shell when it exploded. In several cases, the journalists were killed while having markings distinguishing them as press on their vehicles or clothing. The IDF stated that in one case it attacked a vehicle marked "TV" that was in military use, although noted in the statement that at the time of the strike the IDF could not discern the markings. Several media outlets, including the offices of Al-Jazeera, were hit. The International Federation of Journalists condemned the strikes as "appalling murders and attacks". The Israeli army said it does not target journalists, and that it contacts news media "in order to advise them which areas to avoid during the conflict". Israel has made foreign journalists sign a waiver stating that it is not responsible for their safety in Gaza, which Reporters Without Borders calls contrary to international law. The intentional targeting of journalists is a war crime.
Israel bombed Hamas's Al-Aqsa radio and TV stations because of their "propaganda dissemination capabilities used to broadcast the messages of (Hamas's) military wing." Reporters Without Borders and Al-Haq condemned the attacks, saying "an expert committee formed by the International Criminal Court's prosecutor for the former Yugoslavia, to assess the NATO bombing campaign of 1999, specified that a journalist or media organization is not a legitimate target merely because it broadcasts or disseminates propaganda."
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay accused Israel of having "defied international law by attacking civilian areas of Gaza such as schools, hospitals, homes and U.N. facilities. "None of this appears to me to be accidental," Pillay said. "They appear to be defying – deliberate defiance of – obligations that international law imposes on Israel."" The Jaffa based NGO Physicians for Human Rights stated in a report in January 2015 that the IDF had used human shields during the war. IDF criticized the report's conclusions and methodology which "cast a heavy shadow over its content and credibility". Defense for Children International-Palestine reported that 17-year-old Ahmad Abu Raida was kidnapped by Israeli soldiers who, after beating him up, used him as a human shield for five days, forcing him to walk in front of them with police dogs at gunpoint, search houses and dig in places soldiers suspected there might be tunnels. Some of the key claims could not be verified because his father said he forgot to take photographs of the alleged abuse marks and discarded all the clothing IDF soldiers provided Abu Raida when he was freed, though the IDF confirmed his detention during that time.
The IDF confirmed that the troops suspected Ahmad of being a militant based on the affiliation of his father (a senior official in Gaza's Tourism Ministry) with Hamas and so detained him during the ground operation. The IDF and Israeli authorities challenged the credibility of DCI-P noting their "scant regard for truth". The IDF Military Advocate General opened criminal investigation into the event.
In late February 2019 a United Nations Human Rights Council's independent commission found that of the 489 cases of Palestinian deaths or injuries analyzed, only two were possibly justified as responses to danger by Israeli security forces. On 18 March 2019, a three-person United Nations commission urged Israeli authorities to "step up" their investigations into Israeli troops shootings of Palestinian demonstrators during the protests. The U.N. investigators believe that the shootings "may have constituted war crimes and crimes against humanity." The commission of inquiry presented the United Nations Human Rights Council a full 250-page report.
Human Rights Watch accused Israel of conducting three airstrikes against civilian targets on 10 May 15 May, and 16 May and said there were no military targets in the vicinity at the time of the airstrike. A total of 62 Palestinian civilians were killed in these three airstrikes. Israel disputed these allegations, but IDF Spokesperson Hidai Zilberman said that Israel's actions in Gaza are "as far from pinpoint accuracy as you can get. They're making Gaza City shake." B'Tselem stated that Israel's bombing of residential high rises was a war crime, both because they were inhabited by civilians and because their destruction offered no military advantage, adding that "the message conveyed in the IDF Spokesperson's statement is that no matter how Israel responds or how horrific the results – its actions will be legitimate. This stance is unreasonable, unlawful and empties the fundamental norms of international humanitarian law, which Israel is obligated to uphold, of meaning." According to the OHCHR, 128 Palestinian civilians were killed by the IDF in the conflict, including 40 women and 63 children, with another 2000 injured, including 600 children and 400 women.
In 2021 Amnesty International which documented 'four deadly attacks by Israel launched on residential homes without prior warning', asked the International Criminal Court to immediately investigate these attacks that may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.
On August 7, five children were killed by a missle while visiting a grave at the Al-Falluja cemetery. Amnesty International’s research indicated that the explosion was likely caused by guided missile fired by a drone by the Israeli army, raising concerns about the legality of the strike under international law.
Numerous allegations of war crimes were levied against Israel for its actions against civilians during its war with Hamas. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory stated there was "already clear evidence" of war crimes and would share evidence with judicial authorities, including the International Criminal Court's authorities currently investigating war crimes committed in the Occupied Territories.
As of 8 January 2025, more than 45,000 Palestinians had been killed by Israel since 7 October, nearly 70% of whom were women and children.
Critics argue the Biden administration of the United States gave tacit approval to Israeli war crimes. In May 2024, Israel's ambassador to the UN, Gilad Erdan, called the United Nations a "terror organisation".
Several actions taken by the Israeli army were characterized as collective punishment, a war crime prohibited by treaty in both international and non-international armed conflicts, more specifically Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions and Article 6 of Additional Protocol II. Doctors Without Borders international president Christos Christou said millions of civilians in Gaza faced "collective punishment" due to Israel's blockade on fuel and medicine. A group of United Nations special rapporteurs termed Israeli airstrikes on Gaza a form of collective punishment, stating the airstrikes are "absolutely prohibited under international law and amounts to a war crime." In fact, Israel's president Isaac Herzog accused the residents of Gaza of collective responsibility for the war. In response to accusations of collective punishment, Israel Katz, the Israeli Minister of Energy, wrote, "Indeed, Madam Congresswoman. We have to draw a line... They will not receive a drop of water or a single battery until they leave the world."
On 9 October 2023, Israel's defense minister, Yoav Gallant, announced a complete siege on Gaza, which involved cutting off essential supplies such as electricity, food, water, and gas. This tactic raised concerns about violations of the laws of war, since civilians were being denied basic necessities. The United Nations warned that any siege endangering civilian lives by depriving them of essential goods was prohibited under international humanitarian law.
Tom Dannenbaum, an expert on siege law at Tufts University, described Israel's outspoken policy of total blockade and deprivation as "an abnormally clear-cut instance of starving civilians as a means of war, an unambiguous violation of human rights". The starvation of civilians, including through the denial of relief supplies, is a war crime.
As part of Israel's blockade on Gaza, all access to water was shut off. Article 51 of the Berlin Rules on Water Resources bars combatants from removing water or water infrastructure to cause death or to force the movement of a population. On 14 October, the UNRWA announced Gaza no longer had clean drinking water, and two million people were at risk of death from dehydration. On 15 October, Israel agreed to resume water supply in southern Gaza; however, aid workers and a government spokesperson reported no water was available. The EU's chief diplomat Josep Borrell described Israel's cutting off water as "not in accordance with international law."
Tom Dannenbaum wrote that Israel's initial October 2023 siege order "commands the starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, which is a violation of international humanitarian law and a war crime". On 25 October 2023, Oxfam stated Israel's use of "starvation as a method of war" was a violation of international law, and that Gaza was being "collectively punished in full view of the world". In March 2024, the European Union's top diplomat, Josep Borrell, stated Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war. Similarly, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, stated, "The extent of Israel's continued restrictions on entry of aid into Gaza, together with the manner in which it continues to conduct hostilities, may amount to the use of starvation as a method of war, which is a war crime".
Human Rights Watch stated Israel was committing a war crime by using starvation as a method of warfare. Alex de Waal stated it was the worst man-made famine in 75 years. Luis Moreno Ocampo, the former chief prosecutor for the ICC, stated, "Stopping aid in particular to destroy civilian life – with intention to destroy a historical community – is genocide."
EuroMed Monitor described the situation as a war of starvation against civilians in the Gaza Strip. EuroMed noted living conditions had reached catastrophic levels by Israel cutting off all food supplies to the Northern half, and bombing and destroying factories, bakeries, food stores, water stations, and tanks throughout the entire enclave. EuroMed additionally noted Israel deliberately focused its attacks on targeting electrical generators and solar energy units, on which commercial facilities and restaurants depend, to maintain the minimum possible level of their work. Israel also targeted the agricultural areas east of Gaza, flour stores, and fishermen's boats, as well as relief organizations' centers, including those belonging to the UNRWA. As a result, over 90% of the children in Gaza suffered from varying health issues, including malnutrition, anemia, and weakened immunity. Israeli snipers reportedly targeted people waiting for humanitarian aid.
Children were disproportionately impacted by Israel's attack on Gaza. On 13 November, UNICEF stated more than 700,000 children in Gaza were displaced. The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated displaced children were suffering, due to power outages, lack of basic essentials, and "scenes of pain and fear." Catherine M. Russell, the executive director of UNICEF, toured Gaza on 15 November, stating many children were buried under rubble and lacking medical care. Dr. Ahmed al-Fara, the head of pediatrics at Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis, stated due to the lack of clean water, he was witnessing the "most serious epidemic of gastroenteritis" among children he had ever seen. UNICEF spokesperson Toby Fricker stated, "There is no safe place for children anywhere across the strip right now." Save the Children reported serious signs of mental health issues among children in Gaza. Israel has officially been added to the UN blacklist of countries that harm children. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, as of 5 April 2024, approximately 14,500 Palestinian children had been killed the war.
On 13 October 2023, the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of 1.1 million people from North Gaza. The evacuation order was characterized as a forcible transfer by Jan Egeland, the Norwegian former diplomat involved with the Oslo Accords. A "forcible transfer" is the forced relocation of a civilian population as part of an organized offense against it and is considered a crime against humanity by the International Criminal Court. In an interview with the BBC, Egeland stated, "There are hundreds of thousands of people fleeing for their life — [that is] not something that should be called an evacuation. It is a forcible transfer of people from all of northern Gaza, which according to the Geneva convention is a war crime." UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese warned of a mass ethnic cleansing in Gaza. Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and director of the Holocaust and Genocide Studies program at Stockton University, termed it a "textbook case of genocide." According to Hamas' media office, Israeli airstrikes bombed and killed Gazans evacuating to the south.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International's Crisis Evidence Lab shared evidence that Israeli military units striking in Gaza and Lebanon employed white phosphorus artillery rounds; Israel denied the report, calling the accusation "unequivocally false", although it has since admitted to its use. On 31 October, after an investigation, Amnesty International stated that a 16 October Israeli white phosphorus attack was indiscriminate, unlawful, and "must be investigated as a war crime", due to its use on the populated Lebanese town of Dhayra, which injured at least nine civilians. On 2 November, Amnesty International stated its investigations into four incidents on 10, 11, 16 and 17 October showed Israel had used white phosphorus munitions. In Lebanon, Israel's white phosphorus bombs destroyed over 4.5 million sq m of forest in southern Lebanon with the economic loses being valued at nearly 20 million dollars. An investigation by the Washington Post uncovered that white phosphorus used in an October attack that injured 9 people in Lebanon were supplied by the US. In June 2024, Human Rights Watch verified the unlawful use of white phosphorus munitions over five populated residential municipalities. According to the Lebanese Health Ministry, at least 173 people needed medical intervention for white phosphorus exposure. In October 2024, a leaked UN report stated the Israeli military entered a Unifil base and used white phosphorus, injuring 15 peacekeepers.
The United Nations announced Israeli air operations had targeted residential towers, buildings, schools, and UNRWA premises, resulting in thousands of civilian casualties in Gaza. Human rights experts described Israel's indiscriminate airstrikes as a war crime. UNRWA called on Israel to not bomb 270,000 sheltered Palestinians, stressing that international law forbids their targeting. The IDF said it was controlling attacks to provide a safe evacuation path. IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari stated "while balancing accuracy with the scope of damage, right now we're focused on what causes maximum damage". The IDF later asserted Hagari's quote was in solely in reference to its targeting of Hamas military capabilities and had been "selectively misinterpreted and misquoted".
On 9 October, the IDF carried out an airstrike on the densely populated Al-Shati refugee camp. Palestinian media reported that this strike resulted in numerous civilian casualties and the destruction of four mosques, including the al-Gharbi mosque, Yassin mosque, and al-Sousi mosque, all of which were confirmed destroyed by satellite footage. Under the Rome Statute, it is a war crime to intentionally attack places of worship in non-international conflict. The Al-Shati camp, established in 1948 to shelter Palestinians displaced during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, is home to over 90,000 refugees and covers an area of 0.52 km. According to the Palestine News Agency, the airstrikes in the Al-Shati refugee camp were described as a "massacre" by the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Since 9 October 2023, the IDF carried out several airstrikes on the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza. The attack on 9 October resulted in the deaths of over 60 civilians and extensive damage to the market. The Jabalia market was a commercial center located in the northeastern part of Gaza City, known for its lively atmosphere. As a result of Israeli airstrikes in other Gaza areas, internally displaced individuals sought refuge in the camp, causing the market to be densely populated at the time of the airstrike. The attack targeted the al-Trans area, but the entire market, along with adjacent buildings, was severely affected.
On 31 October the camp was bombed again by Israeli fighter jets, and struck again on 1 November. IDF said the attack was meant to target Ibrahim Biari, who the IDF said was a key leader of the 7 October attacks, as well as a "vast underground tunnel complex" beneath the camp that Biari was commanding operations from according to IDF. Hamas said no commander was present that Israel used these claims as an excuse for the attack. Al Jazeera reporter Anas Al Shareef was on the scene, stating, "It's a massive massacre. It is hard to count the number of buildings that have been destroyed here." Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent, described the scene as "absolutely horrific." More than a hundred people were reported missing beneath the rubble. The Gaza Interior Ministry stated the camp had been "completely destroyed," and the following day reported 195 people were killed and 777 injured, with 120 more missing beneath the rubble. The 31 October attack was immediately condemned by the Egyptian, Saudi, Jordanian, and Qatari foreign ministries. Bolivia severed diplomatic relations with Israel, and Colombia and Chile recalled their ambassadors. Brazilian President Lula da Silva stated on X: "For the first time, we are witnessing a war in which the majority of the dead are children ... Stop! For the love of God, stop!" The UN Human Rights Office stated that the attack could amount to war crime. UN special rapporteurs stated the attacks were a "brazen violation of international law – and a war crime."
On 4 November, a UNRWA spokeswoman confirmed reports that Israel had conducted another airstrike against a UN-run school in the Jabalia refugee camp. According to the Gaza health ministry, the attack on the Al-Fakhoura school killed fifteen and wounded dozens more. According to UNRWA, at least one strike hit the schoolyard, where displaced families had set up their tents. On 23 November 2023, an Israeli airstrike bombed the Abu Hussein School in Jabalia camp, which was being used by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNRWA) as a shelter. At least 27 people were killed in the attack, with multiple injuries reported. The Israeli missile fell on Abu Hussein School in the morning when thousands of people were sheltering inside of it. The attack led to the death of at least 27 people and injuries. Among the dead were also children. The Palestinian Ministry of Health reported that about 100 other people were injured in the attack.
On 17 October the IDF carried out an airstrike on the UNRWA school in the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, killing 6 and injuring dozens. The school was sheltering 4,000 refugees. Philippe Lazzarini, the UNRWA Commissioner-General, stated the attack was "outrageous, and it again shows a flagrant disregard for the lives of civilians."
On 19 October an IDF airstrike hit part of the Church of Saint Porphyrius, a Greek Orthodox church in Gaza City, Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories, killing at least 18 Palestinian civilians who were sheltering in the church among over 450 Christians and Muslims. The airstrike caused damage to the church's exterior and led to the collapse of an adjacent building belonging to the church complex. The Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem denounced the attack as a war crime and accused the Israeli military of targeting churches and civilian shelters.
On 31 October, an Israeli airstrike hit Al-Muhandeseen Tower (the 'Engineers Tower'), a six-story apartment building in Gaza City, killing at least 106 civilians, including 34 women and 54 children. About 350 civilians were in and around the building, including 150 seeking shelter after being moved out of other parts of the city. Without warning, at about 2:30pm, four missiles struck the building within 10 seconds, completely demolishing it. At the time of the attack, children were playing soccer outside the building, and residents and sheltering civilians were charging their phones in the building's ground-floor grocery store. The watchdog Airwars reported 133 to 164 civilians were killed, including 36 women and 67 to 77 children. On 4 April 2024, following an investigation, Human Rights Watch stated they found no evidence of a military target in the vicinity at the time of the attack, making the strike "unlawfully indiscriminate under the laws of war."
On 5 November an Israeli airstrike hit a car near Ainata, Lebanon, killing three children and their grandmother, and injuring their mother. The Israeli military admitted to striking the vehicle. Human Rights Watch stated that their killings was a war crime that warranted investigation. Najib Mikati, Lebanon's caretaker prime minister, called the attack a "heinous crime" and said that Lebanon would file a complaint to the U.N. Security Council.
On 29 February 2024, at least 118 people were killed and 760 injured after Israeli forces opened fire on civilians seeking food from aid trucks near to the Al-Nabulsi Roundabout on the coastal Al-Rashid Street in Gaza City. Josep Borrell stated it was a serious violation of international humanitarian law. The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the attack a crime against humanity. The Omani Foreign Ministry called the attack a violation of international law. Amnesty International announced it was launching an investigation. The United Nations Human Rights Office also called for an investigation, stating it had "recorded at least 14 incidents involving shooting and shelling of people gathered to receive desperately needed supplies".
Subsequently, on 3 March 2024, at least 9 people were reportedly killed in an Israeli attack on an aid truck in Deir al-Balah. On the same day, "dozens of casualties" were reported in another attack on food aid at the Kuwaiti roundabout in southern Gaza City. On 14 March, Israeli troops fired on Palestinians receiving aid at the Kuwaiti roundabout, killing 21 and injuring more than 150 others. On 23 March, Israeli troops once again fired on Palestinians waiting for aid at the Kuwaiti roundabout, killing 19 and injuring 23 others in what Gaza's media office called a "massacre".
On 1 April 2024, an Israeli drone fired three consecutive missiles at three cars belonging to the World Central Kitchen (WCK), killing seven aid workers who had been distributing food in the northern Gaza Strip. According to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the strikes brought the total number of aid workers killed since 7 October to 196 people. The president of Refugees International called the killings "part of a clear pattern" and a war crime. Doctors Without Borders stated the killings were an example of how "international humanitarian law is not respected". The Polish Foreign Ministry stated, "Poland objects to the disregard for international humanitarian law". The Cyprus Foreign Ministry stated, "[International humanitarian law] principles are absolute: humanitarian aid workers must always be respected and protected." Ben Saul, a UN special rapporteur, stated, "It could well be a violation of international humanitarian law". Jose Andres, the founder of World Central Kitchen, stated Israel needed "to stop this indiscriminate killing."
On March 18, 2025, Israel bombed Gaza, further violating and ending a two-month ceasefire agreement with Hamas, and beginning a significant military operation. The Israeli airstrikes killed at least 404 Palestinians, including 183 children and 94 women, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, making them the deadliest since the conflict began in 2023. Human Rights Watch stated that Israeli military forces caused deaths and unnecessary suffering of Palestinian patients while occupying hospitals in the Gaza Strip, amounting to war crimes. They further said that Israeli forces denied water and electricity to the sick and wounded, mistreated and forcibly displaced patients and health workers, and destroyed medical facilities.
The escalation drew international condemnation. Amnesty International condemned the attacks, stating, "Israel’s genocide and its unlawful air strikes have already caused unprecedented humanitarian suffering in Gaza. Today, we are back to square one. Since 2 March, Israel has re-imposed a total siege on Gaza blocking the entry of all humanitarian aid, medicine, and commercial supplies, including fuel and food, in flagrant violation of international law. Israel has also cut off electricity to Gaza’s main operational desalination plant. And today the Israeli military has once again started issuing mass ‘evacuation’ orders displacing Palestinians." The United Nations reported that one of its staff members was killed, and five others were injured in a strike on a UN guesthouse in Gaza. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an investigation, emphasizing the protection of UN premises under international law. The Arab League condemned the attacks, labeling them as acts of genocide and ethnic cleansing, and urged the UN and the United States to take action against Israel.
Medical professionals alleged Israel broke medical neutrality, a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. Numerous reports emerged of the IDF targeting ambulances and health facilities with airstrikes. In a statement, the World Health Organization stated, "There are verified reports of deaths of health care workers and destruction of health facilities, which denies civilians the basic human right of life-saving health care and is prohibited under International Humanitarian Law." The WHO additionally condemned Israel's order to evacuate 22 hospitals in northern Gaza, stating healthcare workers faced the "impossible" choice of leaving critical patients behind; risking their own lives by staying put; or endangering patients' lives by transferring them.
On 13 October, the Palestine Ministry of Health evacuated the Al-Durrah Children's Hospital in eastern Gaza after it was hit with a white phosphorus munition. By 15 October, hospitals were nearing collapse due to the lack of electricity and supplies, and some morgues were so overwhelmed that medical staff resorted to storing corpses in ice-cream trucks or on the floor.
The IDF released videos showing weapons at the Al-Shifa Hospital, but CNN and other sources were sceptical of the claims.
The presence or use of weapons at a hospital does not negate its protected status, as this may be unavoidable for a medical facility operating in a war zone. According to the commentary on the First Geneva Convention of 1949, medical facilities may possess "small arms and ammunition taken from the wounded and sick and not yet handed to the proper service" without losing their protected status. Additionally, hospitals are permitted to use small firearms in their own defense or to protect the wounded and sick in their care without forfeiting their protection. Hospitals may also be guarded by combatants without affecting their protected status.
In October 2024, a UN inquiry accused Israel of "committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities", as well as accusing the IDF of deliberately killing and torturing medical personnel, targeting medical vehicles, and restricting patients from leaving Gaza.
On March 23, 2025, the IDF killed at least 15 medical workers, including eight from the Palestinian Red Crescent Society, six from the Palestinian Civil Defense, and an UNRWA staffer. Emergency responders were dispatched to the Tel-al-Sultan district of Rafah to retrieve wounded and help civilians evacuate. Upon arrival, they encountered hundreds of civilians fleeing under fire and were attacked by the IDF. Over several hours, as more teams arrived to search for their missing colleagues, the IDF attacked them as well. Five ambulances, a fire truck, and a marked UN vehicle were all fired on, after which contact with them was lost. Access to the area was subsequently denied for five days. After aid workers were allowed to the site, they unearthed the 15 bodies of the medical workers from a mass grave, as well as the mangled remains of the emergency vehicles, reportedly crushed by Israeli military bulldozers. Some of the aid workers' bodies were found with their hands or legs tied, with gunshot wounds to the chest and head, indicating execution.
The war marked the deadliest period for journalists in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict since 1992 and the deadliest conflict for journalists in the 21st century. As of September 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) counted 116 journalists who were killed (111 Palestinian, 2 Israeli and 3 Lebanese), and the International Federation of Journalists counted 134 journalists and media workers who were killed (127 Palestinian, 4 Israeli and 3 Lebanese) A July 2024 count by the Gaza government media office placed the number of Palestinian journalists killed at 160. On 30 January 2024, the head of the CPJ stated, "Israel's war on Gaza is more deadly to journalists than any previous war". Israeli airstrikes additionally damaged or destroyed an estimated 48 media facilities in Gaza. The targeting and killing of journalists is a war crime.
During the conflict reports emerged that the IDF were deliberately targeting journalists. On 7 October, Israeli police damaged equipment of a television crew reporting in Ashkelon. On the same day, a journalist named Omar Abu Shawish was killed in Gaza. Journalists Mohammed El Salhi, Ibrahim Mohamed Lafi, Mohamed Jarghoun, Ibrahim Qanan, Nidal Al Wahidi, and Haitham Abdelwahid also faced various forms of violence or went missing. On 10 October 2023, Israeli airstrikes bombed a residential building housing journalists' offices, killing at least three journalists along with civilians. Salam Khalil, the head of the Gaza Journalists Syndicate's Committee of Women Journalists, was also killed in an Israeli strike on the same day. On 13 October, in southern Lebanon, the IDF attacked a group of seven journalists in two strikes, killing Reuters journalist Issam Abdallah and injuring six others. Amnesty International found that the group was visibly identifiable as journalists, and called for the incident to be investigated as a war crime. In response to the killing of journalist Wael Dahdouh's family on 25 October, Robert Mardini, the Director-General of the Red Cross called the targeting of journalists a violation of international law. Aidan White, the former head of the International Federation of Journalists stated "journalists are a target" and the attack would "shock journalists all around the world".
Reporters Without Borders has said that the Israeli army intentionally targeted Palestinian and Lebanese journalists. The Guardian stated that contrary to international law, Israel had targeted Hamas-affiliated Palestinian journalists despite their non-involvement in combat. In 2023, nearly 75% of journalists killed worldwide were Palestinians who had died in Israel's war in Gaza. According to the CPJ, Israel was the second worst country in the world for allowing the murderers of journalists to go unpunished.
During the war, soldiers looted Palestinian homes in Gaza, reportedly taking "whatever is easy and accessible". On 21 February 2024, Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, the IDF's Military Advocate General, stated that some soldiers' actions — including looting and the removal of private property — had "crossed the criminal threshold". Tomer-Yerushalmi stated such cases were under investigation. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the looting a war crime and demanded the Biden administration to condemn them. The Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 explicitly prohibits the looting of civilian property during wartime. In August 2024, Yuval Green, an IDF paratrooper returning from Gaza, stated he had witnessed widespread abuses against Palestinians in Gaza, including looting and the destruction of homes.
OHCHR stated on 20 December it had received reports of Israeli soldiers summarily killing eleven unarmed men in Rimal. Al Jazeera reported that the number summarily executed was 15, killed during an apartment raid. The execution was witnessed by the families of the men. Middlesex University professor William Schabas stated, "It's not really important to demonstrate that they're civilians. Summary executions even of fighters, even of combatants is a war crime." Euro-Med Monitor told Al Jazeera they believe there is a pattern of "systematic" killing, that "In at least 13 of field executions, we corroborated that it was arbitrary on the part of the Israeli forces." On 26 December 2023, Euro-Med Monitor submitted a file to the International Criminal Court and United Nations special rapporteurs documenting dozens of cases of field executions carried out by Israeli forces and calling for an investigation. In March 2024, video of an IDF soldier bragging about killing an elderly deaf man hiding under his bed was released, leading the Council on American-Islamic Relations to condemn the killing as an execution and war crime. The Israeli military stated they would begin a probe into the incident.
Defense officials told Haaretz that the Israeli army had created kill zones in Gaza, in which any person who crossed an "invisible line" was killed.
On 10 October, the Israeli Defence Force published a video that appeared to show IDF soldiers shooting four surrendering Palestinians. Footage analysis indicated the men appeared to be surrendering, with three men getting on the ground with their arms raised, one waving a piece of white clothing. None of them appeared to be armed at the time of the shooting, while a subsequent video showed the bodies had been moved, with weapons placed near them on the ground. The analysis concluded the four men were unarmed Palestinians who left Gaza through a breach in the separation wall. An IDF spokesman said he had no comment. Killing surrendered civilians or combatants is a war crime.
In video footage dated 8 December 2023, the Israeli military is seen killing two Palestinians from the West Bank's Far'a refugee camp in what B'Tselem described as "illegal executions". One man holding a canister was shot, and was then gunned down while he laid bleeding on the ground. A second man, who was completely unarmed and hiding under a car, was shot and killed instantly. The Israeli military later said they would investigate the attacks.
Human rights groups documented multiple instances of civilians in Gaza being shot by Israeli soldiers while waving white flags. The Human Rights Watch Israel-Palestine director stated Israel had a "track record of unlawfully firing at unarmed people who pose no threat with impunity – even those waving white flags". In early January, a video surfaced dating to 12 November showing displaced Palestinians evacuating Gaza City, including a woman and her child. Despite the group clearly carrying white flags, the woman was reportedly shot and killed by an Israeli sniper.
On 24 January 2024, British network ITV released footage of an Israeli sniper shooting and killing a man carrying a white flag whom the journalist had interviewed only moments before his death. Both the Norwegian Refugee Council and Amnesty International termed it a possible war crime. An IDF senior commander later stated, "There are mistakes, it is war."
According to witnesses interviewed by Al Jazeera, the corpses of 30 people were found on 31 January 2024 inside a schoolyard in northern Gaza, with the bodies blindfolded and their legs and hands tied. The Council on American-Islamic Relations said the incident should be probed and added to South Africa's ICJ case against Israel. The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called it a "violation of all relevant international norms and laws". The Canadian-Palestinian former peace negotiator Diana Buttu stated the incident was "clearly a war crime". In February 2024, a man in Zeitoun was deliberately run over by an Israeli tank while handcuffed, according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.
Footage obtained by Al Jazeera English showed two men waving white flags being killed by Israeli forces, then buried by army bulldozers. The IDF confirmed the killing of the two men, stating they had been acting in a "suspicious manner" and didn't respond to warning shots; they buried them with bulldozers as they feared they were carrying explosives. The Palestine Red Crescent Society condemned Israel's actions as "extrajudicial killings". The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the killings a "heinous war crime".
On 15 December, the IDF released a statement announcing that they had killed three of their own hostages by friendly fire. According to the Israeli military, they "mistakenly identified three Israeli hostages as a threat" during operations in Shuja'iyya and subsequently fired at them, killing them. According to an Israeli military official on 16 December, the three hostages were shirtless and waving a white flag. The official claimed that one soldier responded to this by "open[ing] fire" and "declar[ing] that they're terrorists"; more Israeli forces fired, killing two hostages "immediately" and wounding the third hostage, who appealed for help in Hebrew. The wounded hostage was pursued into a nearby building by IDF soldiers, where he was killed despite continued pleas for help. Although he claimed that the soldiers were "under pressure" when this happened, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi also stated that "It is forbidden to shoot at someone who raises a white flag and seeks to surrender", a sentiment echoed by the former head of Mossad, Danny Yatom. Nahum Barnea wrote that the killing of the hostages, unarmed and waving a white flag, was a "war crime" and that "international law is very clear on the issue." A preliminary IDF investigation found soldiers were told to kill all fighting-age men who approached them.
In December 2023, the UN Human Rights Office said that it received numerous reports from the north of Gaza of "mass detentions, ill-treatment and enforced disappearance of possibly thousands of Palestinian men and boys, and a number of women and girls, at the hands of the Israeli Defence Forces." Most were taken while attempting to move south, or during operations conducted on their homes, places of work, including hospitals, and where sheltering. In a statement later that month, Amnesty International said it was investigating reports of mass forced disappearances, as well as the forced disappearance of two journalists, Nidal al-Waheidi and Haitham Abdelwahed, both of whom were detained on 7 October. In June 2024, Amnesty International issued a statement urging the Israeli government to disclose their whereabouts, legal grounds for arrest, provide them humane treatment and access to legal representation. Enforced disappearance is a war crime, and when practiced in a widespread or systematic manner constitutes a crime against humanity.
Video evidence surfaced of what is described as a "flagrant violation of international laws related to the protection of civilians". Israeli soldiers were shown surrounding detainees in Yatta, Hebron being dragged and assaulted by the Israeli soldiers. Many of the detainees had been stripped naked as a form of sexual humiliation, having both their arms and feet bound, and beaten with the butts of rifles and trampled. Video evidence depicting degradation towards detainees shows Israeli soldiers transporting Palestinians from Ofer prison, all of whom are blindfolded and stripped completely naked. In another video uploaded by an Israeli soldier, a blindfolded and bound Palestinian is shown kneeling on the ground. The soldier taunts him in Arabic, telling him "صباح الخير يا قحبة" (Good morning, whore) before repeatedly kicking and spitting on him.
On 19 February 2024, a group of United Nations special rapporteurs released a report stating, "Palestinian women and girls in detention have also been subjected to multiple forms of sexual assault, such as being stripped naked and searched by male Israeli army officers. At least two female Palestinian detainees were reportedly raped". In response to the report, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of State said, "Civilians and detainees must be treated humanely, and in accordance with international humanitarian law." Physicians for Human Rights-Israel also described the sexual humiliation of detainees, including sexual insults and urination on prisoners. The Palestinian Prisoner's Society stated men had been subjected to severe sexual assault, including attempted rape and violating strip searches.
In October 2024, a UN inquiry examined the detention of Palestinians in Israeli military camps and facilities, finding that thousands of child and adult detainees, many arbitrarily detained, faced widespread abuse, including physical and psychological violence, rape and other forms of sexual and gender-based violence, and conditions amounting to torture. Male detainees were subjected to rape and forced to endure humiliating acts as a means of punishment. The report highlighted that deaths resulting from such abuse or neglect constituted war crimes and violations of the right to life.
On 30 January 2024, Israeli forces entered the Ibn Sina hospital in Jenin disguised as medics and civilians while carrying concealed rifles. After entering the hospital they drew their weapons and killed three militants — one member of Hamas and two members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad — one of whom was a patient. The International Committee of the Red Cross expressed concern that the raid was a violation of international humanitarian law. Aurel Sari, a professor at the University of Exeter, stated, "By disguising themselves as civilians and as medical personnel, the Israeli forces involved in the operation appear to have resorted to perfidy in violation of the applicable rules." Killing, wounding or capturing an enemy combatant by way of perfidy is a war crime. Tom Dannenbaum, a professor of international law, stated, "Someone who is paralyzed is incapacitated in that respect, so an attack on that individual would be prohibited. Violating that prohibition would be a war crime." The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs called the shootings a crime against humanity. The Independent Commission for Human Rights called the attack "an assault on an institution protected by international law". OHCHR stated it was a "seemingly planned extrajudicial execution."
The IDF initially said the raid had been a "joint IDF, ISA, and Israel Police counterterrorism activity", and later said that none of their soldiers were physically present during the raid. A panel of human rights experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council stated the raid could constitute a war crime and recommended an investigation.
On 17 January 2024, Israeli soldiers were recorded using a Palestinian shop-owner in Dura, Hebron, West Bank, as a human shield. In an interview with Reuters, the shop-owner stated, "He (the first soldier) told me that he will use me as a human shield, that young people shouldn't hurl stones." On 9 February, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society stated that an ambulance crew in Beita, Nablus, West Bank had been detained by Israeli forces and used as human shields. A 21-year-old man from Gaza City stated to Al Jazeera that he had been used as a human shield by Israeli forces. Israeli soldiers also reported the systemic practice of sending Palestinian civilians to tunnels or buildings as a way to test if they have been rigged with explosives.
On 17 October 10 days after the start of the war, 880 scholars of international law and genocide signed a public statement saying: "As scholars and practitioners of international law, conflict studies, and genocide studies, we are compelled to sound the alarm about the possibility of the crime of genocide being perpetrated by Israeli forces against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip." The statement called on UN bodies, including the UN Office on Genocide Prevention, as well as the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court to "immediately intervene, to carry out the necessary investigations, and invoke the necessary warning procedures to protect the Palestinian population from genocide".
On 19 October 2023, amid the 2023 Hamas–Israel war, 100 civil society organizations and six genocide scholars sent a letter to Karim Khan, Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, calling on him to issue arrest warrants to Israeli officials for cases already before the prosecutor; to investigate the new crimes committed in the Palestinian territories, including incitement to genocide, since 7 October; to issue a preventive statement against war crimes; and to remind all states of their obligations under international law. The letter noted that Israeli officials, in their statements, had indicated "clear intent to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity and incitement to commit genocide, using dehumanizing language to describe Palestinians". The six specialist genocide scholars that signed the document were Raz Segal, Barry Trachtenberg, Robert McNeil, Damien Short, Taner Akçam and Victoria Sanford. The same day, lawyers at the Center for Constitutional Rights stated that Israel's tactics were "calculated to destroy the Palestinian population in Gaza", and warned the Biden administration that "U.S. officials can be held responsible for their failure to prevent Israel's unfolding genocide, as well as for their complicity, by encouraging it and materially supporting it." On 13 December, FIDH, the world's third-oldest human rights organization, stated Israel's actions in Gaza constituted an unfolding genocide.
On 28 October Craig Mokhiber stepped down as the director of the New York office of the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights over the organization's response to the war in Gaza. In his resignation letter, he described Israel's military conduct, and broader actions toward Palestinians, as "a textbook case of genocide".
In response to Israel destroying Gaza's universities, Muhannad Ayyash, a professor of sociology at Mount Royal University, charged Israel with epistemicide. Ayyash stated Israel sought to "erase Palestinian existence from history, and that includes a targeting of Palestinians as a cultural group, as a group of people that produce knowledge". Steven Thrasher, an American academic, wrote that Israel was also destroying the "possibility of building new knowledge and political realities". On 6 December 2023, Israel destroyed the municipal archives of Gaza City, leading Birzeit University to state Israel was "deliberately razing all forms of life." Israel bombed more than 200 of Gaza's most important cultural heritage sites, including the Church of Saint Porphyrius and the Great Omari Mosque. French historian Jean-Pierre Filiu stated Israel was destroying a 4,000 year-old culture in Gaza, stating, "the memory of humanity is being erased before our eyes". Israel was further accused of scholasticide, or "intentional destruction of cultural heritage". Birzeit University condemned Israel in January 2024, after the IDF bombed Israa University, stating Israel had stolen 3,000 rare artifacts and calling it "a continuation of the genocide being carried out in Gaza Strip." The Palestinian Ministry of Education and Higher Education called the bombing a "clear violation of all international laws". The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the artifact theft part of Israel's "ongoing genocide" and a "war crime of cultural theft". On 25 February 2024, the director of literature in the Palestinian Ministry of Culture accused Israel of committing cultural genocide in Gaza, stating it was "destroying cultural life and creativity" and thus "erasing Palestinian identity".
Israel was also charged with committing ecocide. The Environment Quality Authority stated Israel had destroyed "all components of biological diversity, including plants and microorganisms." The Century Foundation stated Gaza's "environmental resources are being poisoned, depleted, or otherwise destroyed, and may take generations to recover." An analysis by The Guardian found that 38–48% of tree cover and farmland had been destroyed since 7 October.
On 29 December 2023, South Africa filed the case South Africa v. Israel (Genocide Convention) against Israel at the International Court of Justice, alleging that Israel "is committing genocide in manifest violation of the Genocide Convention". South Africa asked the ICJ to issue provisional measures, including ordering Israel to halt its military campaign in Gaza.
In February 2024, Michael Fakhri, the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, accused Israel of genocide, war crimes, and using starvation as a weapon. He stated, "Intentionally depriving people of food is clearly a war crime. Israel has announced its intention to destroy the Palestinian people, in whole or in part, simply for being Palestinian. In my view as a UN human rights expert, this is now a situation of genocide. This means the state of Israel in its entirety is culpable and should be held accountable – not just individuals or this government or that person."
On 26 March 2024, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council that found Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. In her statement presenting the report, she said "there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide against Palestinians as a group in Gaza has been met. Specifically, Israel has committed three acts of genocide with the requisite intent: causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; and imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group."
On 5 December 2024, Amnesty International issued a 296-page report stating that Israel committed and was continuing to commit genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The report said that in multiple instances Israeli forces and government authorities had committed three acts prohibited under the Genocide Convention, "namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, and deliberately inflicting on Palestinians in Gaza conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction" with the "specific intent to destroy Palestinians". The report further identified a systematic pattern of conduct indicating genocidal intent, including repeated direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects, deliberately indiscriminate strikes launched at times which would result in high numbers of civilian casualties, the repeated use of weapons with wide area effects in densely populated areas, the massive and comprehensive destruction of civilian objects, including homes, shelters, healthcare facilities, water and sanitation infrastructure, agricultural land, cultural and religious sites, including through bulldozing and controlled demolition after gaining military control, repeated mass forced displacement under unsafe and inhumane conditions with no way out of Gaza, the torture and incommunicado detention of Palestinians, and the refusal to allow in adequate humanitarian aid despite international condemnation and legally binding orders from the ICJ.
On 19 December 2024, Human Rights Watch published a 178-page report stating that Israel committed acts of genocide and the crime against humanity of extermination by illegally denying Gazans sufficient access to water. The report said that Israeli policies intentionally created life-threatening conditions designed to destroy part of Gaza's civilian population, constituting mass killings as part of a state policy of systematic and widespread attacks against civilians, thereby fulfilling all elements of the crime against humanity of extermination. It further stated that Israeli authorities deliberately deprived Gazans of water, ignoring repeated warnings from the United Nations and orders from the International Court of Justice to restore access, and that these actions, alongside official statements and ongoing violations, demonstrated genocidal intent and amounted to acts of genocide under the Genocide Convention and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Since the implementation of the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas on January 19, 2025, the IDF bombed and shelled Gaza and the West Bank, and shot people in a number of incidents, violating the agreement. According to the Gaza Ministry of Health, the IDF killed over 140 people in two months during the ceasefire. The Intercept reported that Israeli forces 150 killed during this period, including civilians, journalists, and aid workers, in addition to cutting electricity and blocking the entry of food and fuel, likely constituting war crimes.
In September 2024, thousands of wireless communication devices exploded throughout Lebanon and Syria in an attack attributed to Israel, killing dozens of people, including civilians and Hezbollah militants. Lama Fakih, a director of the Human Rights Watch, said that the explosions would constitute an indiscriminate attack if the IDF had no way of accurately determining the location of the explosive devices since there would be no distinction between civilians and military targets. UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said that the attacks violated international human rights since the IDF did not have knowledge regarding the users of the devices or their location and surroundings during the explosions. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 232 Syrian refugees were killed by the IDF in Lebanon since the start of the Israel-Hamas war.
According to the Council of Europe, the intentional targeting of journalists constitutes a war crime. During the conflict, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) claimed that the Israeli army had deliberately targeted journalists. An RSF investigation said that Israel had targeted journalists in two missile strikes on 13 October 2023 that killed Reuters reporter Issam Abdallah and injured four others. These two strikes, 30 seconds apart, hit a group of seven journalists in southern Lebanon who were reporting on the border fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. In a video, the journalists are seen wearing vests and helmets identifying them as "PRESS". The marking was also present on the roof of their car, which exploded after being hit by the second missile. The Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research, which tests and analyses munitions and weapons, assisted Reuters by examining the material collected at the site of the explosion and found that a piece of metal was the fin of a 120 mm tank round fired 1.34 km away from the border from a smoothbore tank gun.
On 31 October 2023, after an investigation, Amnesty International stated that an Israeli white phosphorus attack on 16 October was indiscriminate, unlawful, and "must be investigated as a war crime", due to its use on the populated Lebanese town of Dhayra, which injured at least nine civilians. On 2 November, Amnesty International stated its investigations into four incidents on 10, 11, 16 and 17 October showed Israel had used white phosphorus munitions. The claim was confirmed by the Washington Post, which identified two white phosphorus shell casings made in the U.S. Human Rights Watch verified IDF's use of white phosphorus in at least 17 municipalities in Lebanon, including five municipalities where airburst munitions were used over residential areas, and called on the Lebanese government to file a declaration to enable investigations in the International Criminal Court.
In southern Lebanon, Israel's white phosphorus bombs destroyed over 4,500 hectares (45,000,000 m) of forest with economic loses being valued at US$20 million. The American University of Beirut estimated use of white phosphorus has led to more than 134 forest fires as of June 2024 burning 1,500 hectares (15,000,000 m) of land. As of 28 May 2024, the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health said that exposure to white phosphorus had injured at least 173 people.
The targeting of hospitals, as well as religious sites, constitutes a war crime. Lebanese health minister Firass Abiad said that 163 rescuers and health workers were killed and 273 others were injured in Lebanon since the start of Israel-Hezbollah conflict. Human Rights Watch stated that Israel's "repeated" attacks on medical workers and healthcare facilities were apparent war crimes.
The IDF shelled Meiss Ej Jabal Hospital, injuring a doctor on 10 November 2023. The missiles did not explode but caused damage to the emergency department and several cars. Lebanon's Ministry of Public Health condemned the attack, saying that "Israeli authorities were fully responsible for this unjustifiable act, which would have led to catastrophic results", and called for an investigation. Days before, four people were reportedly injured after an Israeli bombing that hit two ambulances. The Lebanese National News Agency said that an Israeli drone strike hit two ambulances belonging to the Risala Scout Association, which is affiliated with the Amal Movement.
On 26 December 2023, an anti-tank missile shot by Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon damaged a shed in a church compound in Iqrit, but not the church itself, wounding an elderly civilian. As IDF troops and medical services were working to evacuate him, they were hit by further missiles, which resulted in nine soldiers being wounded, one of them seriously.
On 11 January 2024, the IDF conducted strikes in the town of Hanine and targeted an emergency center affiliated with the Hezbollah-linked Islamic Health Authority. The attack killed two workers from the rescue force and destroyed an ambulance. Other attacks on Islamic Health Authority centers occurred in Kafr Kila, Odaisseh and Blida killed 7 paramedic and rescue workers and destroyed 17 ambulances.
On 27 March 2024, an Israeli airstrike targeted a paramedic center affiliated with the Islamic Group in Hebbariye, killing seven volunteer paramedics. The airstrike was condemned by the Lebanese Ministry of Health. Later in the day, Israeli airstrikes in Tayr Harfa killed two paramedics from the Islamic Health Society, while strikes in Naqoura killed one from the Amal Movement-affiliated Islamic Risala Scout Association. On 7 May 2024, Human Rights Watch declared the 27 March incident as an unlawful attack on civilians and said that they did not find any evidence of military targets at the site that was targeted. Investigations also showed that the IDF used an MPR 500 missile to conduct the raid.
On 27 May 2024, an Israeli airstrike near Salah Ghandour Hospital in Bint Jbeil killed three civilians. WHO in Lebanon condemned the attack and called for the protection of hospitals and healthcare workers. In October 2024, the head of Lebanon's Civil Defence in the south said Israel was specifically attacking health workers, stating, "We have had 40 ambulances which have been completely destroyed. On top of that 24 rescuing stations have been hit – just in this area." Lebanese health officials stated on 5 October 2024 that fifty health officials had been killed in the prior 72 hours. Lebanon's health minister Firas Abiad stated the attacks were war crimes and part of Israel's systematic targeting of Lebanon's healthcare system. A November 2024 investigation found Israel had struck in "lethal proximity" to nineteen different hospitals in Lebanon.
Experts warned the 2024 Lebanon pager explosions potentially violated international humanitarian law. Josep Borrell, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, questioned the legality of the pager attacks due to their high collateral damage among civilians, including the deaths of children. Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, the United Nations Special Coordinator for Lebanon, also raised concerns that the attacks were illegal. Belgian deputy prime minister Petra De Sutter went further, calling it a "terror attack." Volker Turk, the UN human rights chief, stated, "International humanitarian law prohibits the use of booby-trap devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects".
Booby traps are mostly outlawed under the Protocol on Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices ("Amended Protocol II") of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, to which Israel is a party. Article 7, paragraph 2 of Amended Protocol II prohibits the use of "booby-traps or other devices in the form of apparently harmless portable objects which are specifically designed and constructed to contain explosive material." The rules of engagement of some countries, such as the United Kingdom, also ban explosive devices disguised as harmless items. The United States Department of Defense Law of War Manual gives watches, cameras, tobacco pipes, and headphones as examples of such items, which are prohibited to "prevent the production of large quantities of dangerous objects that can be scattered around and are likely to be attractive to civilians, especially children".
Following the November 27, 2024, ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, brokered by the United States and France, both parties committed to halting hostilities and facilitating Israeli military withdrawal from southern Lebanon within 60 days. Despite this, multiple reports indicate that Israel has engaged in hundreds of actions that were considered violations of the ceasefire.
On 27 and 28 November, the IDF shot at returning civilians in Khiam and flew drones in the area, killing several and wounding more. That same day, the IDF allegedly shelled several Lebanese villages. Additionally, IDF tanks wounded 2 Lebanese civilians. On 26 and 27 January 2025, the IDF killed at least 24 persons and injured more than 130 others who were attempting to return to their homes in southern Lebanon, in villages from which the Israeli soldiers were supposed to withdraw.
In December 2024, Israel invaded Syria after the fall of Bashar al-Assad, advancing ground forces as far as 25 kilometers into Syrian territory and conducting hundreds of airstrikes. According to the IDF, the primary objective of these strikes is to target and destroy strategic weapons depots, missile systems, and military infrastructure to prevent them from falling into the hands of extremist groups amid the ensuing power vacuum.
The attack was met with international condemnation as illegal and a violation of the 1974 ceasefire agreement. UN Secretary-General António Guterres called for an immediate cessation of Israel's actions, citing violations of Syrian sovereignty and territorial integrity. UN Special Rapporteur Ben Saul described Israel's invasion as a "completely lawless" attempt to preemptively disarm the country.
In 2021 Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, launched an investigation into alleged Israeli war crimes in the Palestinian territories since 13 June 2014. On 21 November, the ICC issued arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. Pre-Trial Chamber I stated that it found reasonable grounds that from "8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024" Netanyahu and Gallant bore criminal responsibility "as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts" and "as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population."