Israeli war crimes are the violations of international criminal law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, which the Israel Defense Forces, the military branch of the state of Israel, has been accused of committing since the founding of Israel in 1948. These have included the intentional killing of civilians, killing of prisoners of war and surrendered combatants, indiscriminate attacks, collective punishment, starvation of civilians, use of human shields, torture, forced transfer, breach of medical neutrality, targeting of journalists, unlawful airstrikes or attacks against civilian objects and protected objects, wanton destruction, and incitement to genocide.
Israel ratified the Geneva Conventions on July 6, 1951, and on January 2, 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 (OPT). Human rights experts argue that actions taken by the IDF during armed conflicts in the OPT 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 Human Rights Council has mandated several fact finding missions into violations of international law, including war crimes, in the OPT, including a permanent, ongoing inquiry since May of 2021. Since 2021, the ICC has had an active investigation into Israeli war crimes committed in the OPT. Israel has refused to cooperate with the investigations.
Six-Day War
During the Six Day War in 1967, the IDF was accused of killing captured Egyptian soldiers, fleeing soldiers, 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." Allegations that Egyptian soldiers fleeing into the desert were shot were confirmed in reports written after the war. 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".
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 to killing 49 Egyptian prisoners of war in the Sinai in interviews. 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, who had killed the surrendered unit. 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.
James Bamford, an author that has extensively chronicled the history and operations of the National Security Agency, posits that massacres of civilians and bound prisoners may have served as a casus belli for the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty. Bamford theorizes that the Israeli Defense Forces were concerned that the USS Liberty, a signals intelligence collection ship, may have collected evidence of the massacre and was thus attacked in an effort to suppress the evidence.