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Conflict monitoring group Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) says Israel is seeking to create a 'model of impunity'.
Nearly nine out of 10 Israeli military investigations into allegations of war crimes or abuses by its soldiers since the start of the Gaza war have been closed without finding any flaws or have been left unresolved, according to a conflict monitor.
The unresolved investigations include the killing of at least 112 Palestinians waiting in line for flour in Gaza City in February 2024, Action Against Armed Violence (AOAV) said, and an airstrike that killed 45 people in a fire at a tent camp in Rafah in May 2024.
Also unresolved is an investigation into the killing of 31 Palestinians who were on their way to collect food at a distribution point in Rafah on June 1. They were killed after Israeli forces opened fire, witnesses said. Shortly afterwards, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the reports were “false,” but the IDF told the Guardian that the incident was still under investigation.
Iain Overton and Lucas Tsantzouris, the team at AOAV, said the statistics suggested that Israel was seeking to create a “pattern of impunity” by failing to conclude or finding no fault in the vast majority of cases involving the most serious or public allegations of wrongdoing by its forces.
The IDF said it conducts review and investigation processes regarding extraordinary incidents that occurred during operational activity, in which there is suspicion of a violation of the law, in accordance with its obligations under Israeli and international law.
It operates internal systems to conduct examinations and prosecutions of war crimes, including criminal investigations by the military attorney general's police department and fact-finding assessments (FFA) by a special team at the general staff.
The relatively short passage of time, in investigative and legal terms, means that other unsolved cases could also result in prosecutions, although the two researchers said that the IDF's investigations had become more opaque and slow-moving as the number of civilian casualties in Gaza had increased.
AOAV said it had found reports of 52 cases in English-language media where the Israeli military said it had conducted or would conduct an investigation following allegations of civilian harm or wrongdoing by its forces in Gaza or the West Bank between October 2023 and the end of June 2025. They include the deaths of 1,303 Palestinians and the injury of 1,880 others.
One case resulted in a prison sentence for an Israeli soldier. An IDF reservist received a seven-month prison sentence in February after being convicted by a military court of serious abuse of Palestinian security detainees. He had repeatedly attacked handcuffed and blindfolded detainees with his fists, a rubber baton and his assault rifle at the Sde Teiman detention center.
Five other cases ended with violations found. In one case, an IDF colonel and major were dismissed in April 2024, and three other commanders were reprimanded days after seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an airstrike.
The IDF said it was a "serious error stemming from a serious failure due to mistaken identification," although the charity said the rapid investigation lacked credibility. Of the remaining 46 cases, representing 88% of the total, seven were closed without finding any fault, the AOAV said.
Another 39 remain under investigation or with no reported results, including four deadly incidents last month when Palestinians were killed near or at various food distribution points in the Gaza Strip.
According to the IDF: “Any report … complaint or allegation suggesting misconduct by IDF forces is subject to an initial review process, regardless of its source.”
In some cases, the evidence is such that a criminal investigation by the military police is ordered, while in others an initial investigation is conducted.
These refer to the IDF General Staff's FFA mechanism to determine "whether there is a reasonable suspicion of criminal misconduct." Critics of the system, such as the human rights group Yesh Din, say FFA investigations can take years and have led to one known prosecution after 664 investigations related to previous IDF military operations in Gaza, in 2014, 2018-19 and 2021.
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