Israeli War Crimes

War crimes are violations of the laws of war committed during armed conflict that can incur individual criminal responsibility under international law.[1] Examples include willful killing of civilians, torture, unlawful transfer or deportation, killing prisoners of war, hostage-taking, perfidy, and wanton destruction not justified by military necessity.[1] This legal framework is used to examine allegations against Israeli personnel and officials; civilian death or destruction of civilian property does not by itself establish that a war crime occurred.[7]

The laws of armed conflict include distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack.[7] Assessment of an attack requires consideration of its intended target, anticipated civilian harm, expected military advantage, and the information available to the decision-maker; civilian casualties alone do not establish unlawfulness.[7] These principles have been central to investigations of Israeli airstrikes, the use of force at the Gaza border, and attacks affecting hospitals and humanitarian personnel.[4][5][8]

War crimes are legally distinct from crimes against humanity and genocide.[1] Crimes against humanity generally involve widespread or systematic attacks against civilians, while genocide requires acts committed with intent to destroy a protected national, ethnic, racial, or religious group, in whole or in part.[1] Some investigations and proceedings concerning Israel have addressed more than one of these categories, but their legal elements are not interchangeable.[2]

The institutions examining these matters also perform different functions: UN commissions produce investigative findings, prosecutors assess whether to pursue cases, and ICC pre-trial chambers decide matters including arrest-warrant applications.[2][3][5] A commission’s conclusion, a prosecutor’s allegation, and an arrest warrant therefore do not constitute the same procedural outcome.[2][5] The proceedings described here include serious investigative conclusions and preliminary judicial findings, but the cited accounts do not report final criminal convictions of Netanyahu or Gallant.[2]

In April 2009, the UN Human Rights Council established a fact-finding mission headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone to investigate alleged violations during the December 2008–January 2009 Gaza war.[3] The operation examined by the mission ran from December 27, 2008, to January 18, 2009.[9] The mission’s September report found evidence of serious war crimes and humanitarian-law breaches by both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups, accused Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, and recommended independent investigations by Israel and the Palestinian authorities.[3]

The 575-page report examined incidents in the Samouni neighborhood, seven incidents involving civilians shot while leaving their homes, and an attack on a mosque during prayer that killed 15 people.[9] It characterized several Israeli attacks as war crimes and said a direct and intentional attack on al-Quds Hospital and an adjacent ambulance depot might constitute war crimes.[9] It also rejected the argument that Gaza’s political and administrative institutions were necessarily part of Hamas’s military infrastructure, finding no evidence that the Legislative Council building or the main prison effectively contributed to military action.[9]

The mission characterized attacks on those buildings as deliberate attacks on civilian objects and unlawful destruction unsupported by military necessity.[9] It criticized first-day attacks on police facilities on proportionality grounds and said the blockade had weakened the population’s and public services’ ability to respond to the emergency.[9] Its findings concerning Palestinian armed groups included indiscriminate rocket fire toward Israeli cities and the conclusion that firing rockets or mortars into civilian areas without an intended military target could constitute deliberate attacks on civilians and war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity.[9]

Israel refused to cooperate with the mission and rejected its conclusions, describing its mandate and evidentiary basis as biased.[3][9] Israel subsequently conducted its own investigations.[3] In 2011, Goldstone wrote that those investigations indicated civilians had not been intentionally targeted and that his report would have been different had he possessed that information when preparing it.[10] The other three mission members rejected his reassessment and continued to stand by the report’s findings.[3]

The Human Rights Council established another Gaza commission in August 2014 to investigate whether either side committed war crimes during Operation Protective Edge.[11] Its report was published on June 22, 2015, and criticized both Israeli military operations and Hamas and other armed groups.[4] The inquiry examined 15 residential-building airstrikes out of more than 6,000 Israeli airstrikes, identifying possible military objectives in nine cases and none in six.[4] It argued that insufficient information about targets could indicate indiscriminate attacks and that some attacks on identified military objectives might have been disproportionate.[4]

The investigators called on Israel to explain targeting practices associated with approximately 1,400 civilian deaths.[12] Israeli officials disputed the findings and maintained that the IDF had operated to high international standards.[12] The commission also expressed concern about indiscriminate rockets and mortars fired at Israeli civilians and condemned the killing of people suspected of collaboration.[13] On July 3, 2015, the Human Rights Council adopted the report and called for investigations into accusations against Israelis and Palestinians, with 41 votes in favor, five against, and one abstention.[11]

Demonstrations at the Gaza fence beginning March 30, 2018, became the subject of a further UN commission inquiry.[5] The commission investigated 189 deaths at demonstration sites, including 183 attributed to Israeli security forces’ live ammunition, and could not determine the organizational affiliation of 18 people killed.[14] It examined approximately 300 injury cases from an estimated 6,103 people wounded by live ammunition.[5] It found reasonable grounds to believe that, with two specified exceptions, the use of live ammunition was unlawful and that shootings violated the right to life or the humanitarian-law principle of distinction.[14]

The two exceptions involved a person who fired toward the Israeli side and a person alleged to have approached a soldier with a knife.[5] The commission characterized the demonstrations as civilian in nature, whereas Israel described violent events organized and led by Hamas within an armed conflict.[5] Israel did not cooperate, and commission members were not granted access to Gaza.[5] The commission recommended supplying information about alleged perpetrators to the ICC and national justice systems and considering criminal jurisdiction, travel bans, and asset freezes.[5] Criminal investigations were opened in five cases.[5]

In December 2019, after a five-year preliminary examination, ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda announced that there was a reasonable basis to believe war crimes had been or were being committed in Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[15] The assessment concerned alleged conduct by both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups and was not a criminal conviction.[15]

In February 2021, an ICC pre-trial chamber held that territorial jurisdiction in the Situation in Palestine extended to Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.[15][6] A formal investigation opened in March 2021, covering suspected crimes dating from June 13, 2014, without a defined end date and concerning alleged conduct by all sides.[7] Israel opposed the court’s jurisdiction and maintained that the Palestinian Authority could not delegate the territorial authority claimed by the court.[6]

A UN Commission of Inquiry report covering October 7–December 31, 2023, concluded that Israeli operations in Gaza involved war crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of international humanitarian and human-rights law.[16] Its war-crime findings included starvation as a method of warfare, willful killing, attacks directed at civilians and civilian objects, forced transfer, and sexual and gender-based violence.[16] The commission also found that Hamas’s military wing and other Palestinian armed groups committed war crimes during the October 7 attacks.[16]

The inquiry drew on interviews, submissions, satellite imagery, medical reports, and verified open-source information.[17] It concluded that the scale of casualties and destruction reflected a strategy intended to cause maximum damage while disregarding distinction, proportionality, and precautions.[17] Reported allegations also included gender-based persecution of Palestinian men and boys.[18] Israel rejected the findings, accused the commission of a political agenda, and disputed its treatment of Hamas’s use of human shields.[17][18] Israel declined to participate and barred access; the commission said the lack of cooperation obstructed its investigation.[17][18]

A separate UN human-rights-office report published in June 2024 examined six Israeli attacks causing high casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.[19] It said Israeli forces might have systematically violated distinction, proportionality, and precautions.[19] Among the examples was the October 25, 2023, strike on Taj3 Tower in Gaza City, which the report said killed 105 people, including 32 women and 47 children, and destroyed an area of 5,700 square meters.[19]

Israel’s delegation in Geneva responded that the report lacked the military intelligence and decision-making information available to commanders and relied excessively on public material and casualty figures from Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.[19] It argued that the inquiry assessed attacks by their outcomes rather than by reasonably anticipated harm and failed adequately to consider Hamas’s military use of civilian infrastructure.[19] Five of the six attacks were under review by the IDF’s fact-finding mechanism, which can refer incidents to the Military Advocate General for a decision about criminal investigation.[19]

A later commission report focused on medical facilities and personnel, citing World Health Organization figures recording 498 attacks on health-care facilities in Gaza between October 7, 2023, and July 30, 2024.[8] Those figures recorded 747 people killed directly in the attacks, 969 injured, and 110 facilities affected.[8] The commission described airstrikes, hospital sieges, restrictions on movement and supplies, raids, and evacuation orders that it found could not safely be implemented.[8] It concluded that conduct toward medical personnel and vehicles constituted willful killing and mistreatment, and that attacks on four hospitals constituted willful killing and attacks against protected objects.[8]

The hospitals examined included Nasr, Shifa’, Awdah, and Turkish-Palestinian Friendship hospitals.[8] The commission found no evidence of armed groups’ military activity at Awdah or the Turkish hospital when they were attacked.[8] It verified a tunnel and shaft on Shifa’ hospital grounds but did not establish their military use, and found no evidence of military presence in the specific departments shelled in November, including maternity and intensive care units.[8] It also concluded that both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups violated humanitarian law during March exchanges of fire at Shifa’, where civilians were present.[8]

Israeli forces’ stated justification was that Hamas used hospitals for military purposes; the commission said it could not independently verify some claims concerning Shifa’ and Nasr.[8] The commission reported sending Israel nine requests for information and seeking access without receiving a response.[8] Its methods included confidential victim and witness material, interviews, open-source evidence, cross-checking, and forensic examination.[8] It separately found that Palestinian armed groups’ attacks on medical staff, facilities, and ambulances in Israel constituted a war crime.[8]

The medical report also investigated a January 29, 2024, attack on a family of seven, including five children, in a car in Tall al-Hawa.[8] It reported that an ambulance dispatched to assist was struck by a tank shell about 50 meters from the car, killing two paramedics, and that the family’s bodies could not be recovered for 12 days.[8] Later reporting on the deaths of Hind Rajab, her relatives, and the paramedics described an Israeli decision to open a Military Police investigation into alleged failures concerning coordination of the ambulance’s movement.[20]

On May 20, 2024, ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan announced applications for warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant, and Hamas leaders.[15] Allegations against the Israeli officials included starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, murder, intentional attacks against civilians, and extermination.[15] On November 21, the pre-trial chamber issued warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant concerning alleged conduct from at least October 8, 2023, through May 20, 2024.[2]

The chamber found reasonable grounds concerning starvation as a method of warfare and crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.[2] It also found reasonable grounds concerning responsibility as civilian superiors for intentionally directing attacks against civilians.[21] The alleged deprivation involved food, water, medicine, medical supplies, fuel, and electricity, with consequences for relief operations and medical care.[21] The supporting evidence and testimony were confidential, and the decision was made at the pre-trial stage rather than after a trial.[2]

The chamber did not find that the prosecution material through May 20 established all elements of the crime against humanity of extermination, although it found reasonable grounds concerning murder in relation to the reported victims.[21] It identified two incidents concerning alleged intentional attacks on civilians.[21] Its reasoning also addressed conditions of life allegedly calculated to destroy part of Gaza’s civilian population, including reported child deaths from malnutrition and dehydration.[15] Israel denied using starvation or deliberately targeting civilians and cited its humanitarian-aid efforts and legal system.[15]

Israel submitted a jurisdictional appeal on November 27, 2024.[2] In July 2025, ICC judges rejected requests to cancel the warrants and suspend the broader investigation, leaving the warrants in force pending a separate jurisdictional decision.[22] International criticism also intensified after Israel halted humanitarian aid in March 2025, a measure the government said was intended to pressure Hamas to release hostages.[23] The measure was widely condemned as collective punishment, an allegation Israel denied.[23]

An October 26, 2026, UN-commissioned report alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the West Bank, including torture, rape, other sexual violence, and persecution.[24] It reported six Palestinians killed in West Bank airstrikes between 2008 and October 6, 2023, compared with 254 between October 7, 2023, and September 30, 2026.[24] It also alleged that operations expanded after the October 2025 ceasefire and that at least 196 Palestinians were killed in the period under discussion.[24] Israel rejected the accusations and called for the commission’s dissolution; the reporting also noted that the Associated Press could not verify the serious sexual-violence allegations.[24]

Complementarity—the question of whether national judicial processes are addressing the same matter—is relevant to disputes over the ICC’s exercise of jurisdiction.[15] Israel has emphasized that its independent legal system can examine alleged violations and that its authorities investigate misconduct.[6] Its military process includes a fact-finding mechanism that reviews unusual incidents and submits material to the Military Advocate General, who decides whether to open a criminal investigation.[20]

Reporting in 2026 said the broader mechanism had completed approximately 150 probes and submitted them for legal review.[20] In the April 2024 World Central Kitchen convoy strike, which killed seven aid workers, the military review found that officers ordered an attack on a convoy suspected of carrying a Hamas gunman despite low confidence in that assessment and contrary to army regulations.[20] Commanders faced removals or reprimands, but the military concluded that the failures did not meet the criminal threshold and did not warrant a criminal investigation.[20] These were military investigative decisions, not an independent court judgment.[20]

Different decisions followed other incidents: the military ordered a Military Police investigation into the Hind Rajab case and said the March 2025 Rafah incident in which 15 rescue workers were killed raised reasonable suspicion of an offense warranting continued criminal investigation.[20] Israeli authorities also took steps to identify and punish people accused of abuses, while human-rights groups frequently criticized investigations and disciplinary action as inadequate.[25] The military initially characterized the World Central Kitchen strike as a “tragic mistake” and announced plans to improve coordination with humanitarian organizations.[25]

A May 10, 2024, U.S. assessment of American-supplied weapons considered it reasonable to assess that such weapons might have been used in some instances inconsistently with international humanitarian law, but did not identify a specific instance establishing that conclusion.[26] Evidentiary difficulties included the absence of U.S. officials on the ground and Hamas’s use of human shields.[26] The assessment also noted active Israeli criminal investigations and hundreds of cases under administrative review.[26] Its scope concerned weapons use and evidentiary limitations, not a judicial resolution of the ICC allegations.[26]

Settlement policy forms a distinct part of the accountability debate beyond battlefield targeting.[7] In 2019, the ICC prosecutor identified the transfer of Israeli civilians into occupied territory under Article 8 of the Rome Statute as a potential war-crime issue concerning Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.[27] Israel maintained that the territory was not occupied because it had not belonged to another state before 1967.[27] The prosecutor’s position arose in the context of a jurisdictional hearing rather than a final criminal judgment.[27]

The International Court of Justice proceedings are separate from the ICC’s individual criminal proceedings.[28] The ICJ’s May 2024 order concerning Rafah arose in South Africa’s case under the Genocide Convention; at that stage it had not ruled on the main claim that Israel’s actions constituted genocide.[28] The ICC prosecutor’s warrant applications concerned alleged criminal responsibility of individual officials.[28]

Israel is not a party to the Rome Statute and has not accepted ICC jurisdiction.[6] Its objections include the position that no sovereign Palestinian state exists capable of delegating territorial jurisdiction, while the ICC’s majority accepted territorial jurisdiction for the investigation.[15][6] Netanyahu rejected the proceedings, while Israel maintained that it complies with international law and that its war against Hamas was an exercise of self-defense.[15][6]

Disagreement over investigative methods has accompanied several inquiries: Israel challenged the Goldstone mission’s impartiality, the treatment of military objectives in the 2014 inquiry, and later assessments based on publicly available evidence rather than commanders’ contemporaneous intelligence.[3][4][19] The INSS authors’ assessment of the warrants characterized them as procedurally and substantively flawed while also arguing that the absence of independent investigations weakened Israel’s response.[2] Israel’s prime minister’s office called the warrant decision antisemitic and politically biased, while Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar described it as an attack on Israel’s right to defend itself.[21]

These disputes do not eliminate the distinction between institutional findings and criminal verdicts: commissions made investigative conclusions, and the ICC warrants applied a reasonable-grounds threshold.[2][16] Goldstone’s later reassessment did not persuade the other three mission members, who continued to defend the report’s findings.[3]