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.
File:Destroyed ambulance in the CIty of Shijaiyah in the Gaza Strip.jpg|thumb|305px|Ambulance destroyed in the neighborhood of Shuja'iyya in Gaza City during the 2014 Gaza War
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 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, 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.
1948 – 1966
1948 Palestine War
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 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.
File:Tantura expulsion.jpg|thumb|June 1948 expulsion of Palestinian villagers from Tantura, following the Tantura massacre
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.
1949–1955 Interwar period
Beit Jala massacre
On January 6, 1952, Israeli forces conducted a raid at the West Bank town of Beit Jala, then under Jordanian control, and demolished three homes using explosives. This operation resulted in the deaths of seven Palestinian civilians, including a 23-year-old man and his wife, as well as a mother and her four children aged between 6 and 14. The raid was purportedly a retaliatory act for the rape and murder of an Israeli Jewish girl, Leah Feistinger, in Jerusalem a month prior. Leaflets left at the scene, written in Arabic, claimed the attack was a "penalty" for that crime, attributing responsibility to residents of Beit Jala. The United Nations Truce Supervision Organization condemned the raid as a serious breach of the 1949 Armistice Agreements, highlighting the indiscriminate nature of the attack and the targeting of civilians.Bureij camp massacre
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.Qibya massacre
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."