A war monitor has found that 88 percent of Israeli military investigations into war crimes by its soldiers since the start of the war in the Gaza Strip have been closed without any charges or findings of wrongdoing.
The Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) released a report on Sunday, stating that the unresolved probes include incidents such as the killing of at least 112 Palestinians queuing for flour in Gaza City in February 2024, as well as the tragic deaths of five-year-old Hind Rajab and her family on January 29 of the same year.
The report also highlighted another unresolved case, which is an airstrike that resulted in the death of 45 individuals in a tented camp in the southern city of Rafah in May 2024.
In a case where the Israeli military admitted that its soldiers tied a Palestinian man, Mujahed Azmi, to the front of a military jeep during a raid in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin on June 23, 2024, no findings or disciplinary actions have been disclosed.
On 23 March, 15 Palestinian medics were killed when Israeli soldiers opened fire on a clearly marked ambulance, and this incident also remains unresolved despite the Israeli military admitting to “professional failures” and dismissing a deputy commander.
Another unresolved issue is the inquiry into the killing of 31 Palestinians who were on their way to pick up food at a distribution point in Rafah on 1 June.
Witnesses reported that they were killed after Israeli forces opened fire, although the Israeli military initially labeled the reports as “false.” However, the Israeli military later informed the Guardian that the incident was “still under review.”
AOAV further noted that these statistics indicate Israel’s apparent intention to create a “pattern of impunity” by not conclusively investigating the majority of cases involving “the most severe or public accusations of wrongdoing by their forces.”
Iain Overton and Lucas Tsantzouris, two researchers from AOAV, also pointed out that the Israeli military’s inquiries had become “more opaque and slow-moving” as the number of civilian casualties in Gaza has mounted.
According to AOAV, there have been reports of 52 cases in international media involving the Israeli military conducting or planning investigations after allegations of civilian harm or misconduct by its forces in Gaza or the occupied West Bank from October 2023 to the end of June 2025. These cases include the deaths of 1,303 Palestinians and the injury of 1,880 individuals.
The war monitor said that only one case resulted in a prison sentence, where the individual involved, a reservist in the Israeli military, received a seven-month jail term for mistreating detainees at the Sde Teiman detention center in February of this year.
Additionally, five other cases concluded with violations being identified. For example, in April 2024, an Israeli military colonel and a major were dismissed, and three other commanders were reprimanded after seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen were killed in an airstrike.
The Israeli military attributed this incident to a “grave mistake stemming from a serious failure due to a mistaken identification,” although the charity
The remaining 46 cases, accounting for 88% of the total, saw seven closed without any finding of fault, as reported by AOAV.
Furthermore, 39 cases are still under review or have no reported outcome, including four deadly incidents involving the killing of Palestinians near or at various food distribution points in the Gaza Strip last month.
