Israel's Silent Investigations: 254 Cases of Alleged Harm With No Public Outcome

The Israeli military has said it is investigating at least 254 incidents in which its forces were accused of killing or injuring people across Gaza, the occupied West Bank, Lebanon and Israel, yet almost three years on, no public outcome has been recorded for any of them. BBC Verify identified the cases after examining more than 60,000 news reports, using purpose-built artificial intelligence tools, and manually checking each incident in which the Israel Defense Forces faced allegations of harm since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.

Of the 300 unique incidents the military said it was looking into, only 28 had outcomes published on the IDF's own website. For a further 18, it was unclear whether the investigation had been concluded. The vast majority, therefore, remain shrouded in silence. The IDF was approached about each case on multiple occasions; it provided information on just two, both of which it said are still under review. In a statement, the military insisted it takes every allegation of conduct inconsistent with the law or its own directives with the utmost seriousness.

The International Committee of the Red Cross, which upholds the Geneva Conventions in warzones, publishes guidelines stating that investigations into potential violations of international humanitarian law should be as transparent as possible. Of the 254 incidents identified, 158 occurred in Gaza, 48 in the West Bank and 32 in Lebanon. Sixteen took place in Israel or in IDF detention. All fell between 7 October 2023 and 19 August 2026, and in more than 200 of them, at least one person was reportedly killed.

Some cases reach back to the earliest months of the war. One of the deadliest involved a strike on a school building in Gaza in August 2024, when at least 93 people were reportedly killed, among them six women and 11 children. For three years, the Israeli military has often responded to accusations of harm by stating that an incident is being investigated in some form, variously described as being looked into, reviewed, checked or examined. Frequently, that is the last that is heard of the matter.

A number of incidents have been escalated for criminal investigation, including two that drew intense public scrutiny: the killings of five-year-old Hind Rajab and of 15 Palestinian Red Crescent emergency workers, who were shot more than 100 times and allegedly targeted at close range.

The results of IDF military investigations are not routinely made public, even when they lead to criminal proceedings against soldiers. Those that have been published tend to concern hostages in Gaza allegedly killed as a result of Israeli operations. In some cases, the military has only announced it is investigating an incident after being approached by BBC Verify or other media organisations. In August, the IDF published a rare report detailing internal probes into five incidents in Gaza, including the killings of Hind Rajab and the 15 emergency workers, which it revealed had been escalated to criminal investigations. In three other cases, involving the killings of seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen in an air strike and four Médecins Sans Frontières workers in two separate attacks, the IDF said it found no basis for a criminal investigation.

The report also stated that Israel's General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism, which handles IDF investigations into exceptional operational incidents, had completed reviews of approximately 150 cases since the start of the war. These were transferred to the IDF's Military Prosecution for examination. The IDF did not outline what those 150 incidents were, nor clarify whether they overlap with the cases identified by BBC Verify. Despite multiple requests, it has not provided a transparent breakdown of the status of the 300 investigations.

In its statement, the IDF said it publishes information regarding the outcomes of investigations when possible, subject to legal and operational considerations, as well as restrictions relating to privacy and information security. It added that certain incidents are examined through command-level operational reviews intended to establish the sequence of events, identify failures and draw lessons for improving operational conduct. The military also said it has taken disciplinary action in dozens of cases against soldiers who failed to meet expected standards, including removal from combat positions and from reserve service.

Freedom of Information data obtained by Yesh Din, an Israeli human rights group, showed that between October 2023 and August 2024 at least 1,456 Gaza-related incidents were referred to the FFAM. Twelve of those reviews were completed and referred to the Military Advocate General Corps, two of which resulted in criminal investigations. Dan Owen, a researcher at Yesh Din who has monitored military investigations since 2006, said he believes the IDF often tries to prolong them. They try to stretch out these processes, he said, to the point where people forget and no longer care.

Janina Dill, a professor of international law at the University of Oxford, said that under the Geneva Conventions a party to armed conflict has a responsibility to investigate and potentially prosecute its own. That, she added, is the absolute clear bottom line. Guidelines endorsed by the ICRC emphasise promptness, thoroughness and impartiality.

Eran Shamir-Borer, director of the Center for Security and Democracy at the Israeli Democracy Institute and a former top lawyer for the IDF, said there are genuine challenges in investigating allegations in conflicts Israel is involved in, given the complex combat environments. Collecting evidence in hostile territory not always under your control could be very challenging, he said, with lots of forces on the ground executing fire. He added that investigating soldiers during a war is never a popular thing to do, a phenomenon seen in other law-abiding countries. Israel, he suggested, would only benefit from greater transparency, and he would encourage the IDF to be more forthcoming about the progress it is making.

Since the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage, the IDF has carried out extensive military operations in Gaza, which it said aimed to bring back the hostages and dismantle Hamas. More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. BBC Verify has reported on the killing of emergency workers and people trying to access aid inside Gaza, the levelling of thousands of buildings and incidents of alleged misconduct by Israeli soldiers.

Just two months into the war, two women were killed by Israeli troops in the only Catholic church in the territory in December 2023, an incident the IDF later said was under review. A mother, Nahida Anton, and her daughter, Samar Anton, were killed by sniper fire inside the grounds of the Holy Family church in Gaza, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem. When BBC Verify contacted the IDF at the time, the military said an initial review suggested troops had been operating against a Hamas threat identified in the area of the church, and that it was conducting a thorough review. In September 2025, BBC Verify asked for an update and was told the incident was still being reviewed by the FFAM. Now, almost three years since Nahida and Samar were killed, the IDF has again said the incident is under review, adding that complex incidents may require considerable time to collect, cross-check and verify relevant factual information. The IDF does not shorten or forgo examination procedures to meet external timelines, it said.

One of the deadliest incidents still under investigation is an air strike on a school building in eastern Gaza City in August 2024. The Hamas-run civil defence agency said at least 93 people, including six women and 11 children, were killed in the strike on the Tabaeen school complex and a nearby mosque. The buildings had been housing displaced Palestinians when multiple Israeli strikes hit the area at the time of dawn prayers. Videos verified by the BBC showed a cloud of dust as emergency workers picked through small fires, rubble and body parts. Photos taken in daylight showed blood-soaked floors, debris and scattered clothing. Experts told BBC Verify that munition fragments visible at the scene matched those of a GBU-39, a precision-guided bomb supplied by the US to the Israeli military. The IDF said at the time that a Hamas command and control centre had been embedded in the school building, and that its soldiers killed 31 fighters. It added that according to an initial review the casualty numbers did not align with the information held by the IDF, the precision munitions used and the accuracy of the strike. The incident, it now says, remains under review.

In the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 war and where it has built dozens of settlements illegal under international law, more than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since 11 October 2023, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. BBC Verify examined more than 50 IDF investigations into incidents in the territory, at least 26 of which involved women and children being killed or injured. One took place just outside Jenin in September 2024, when Israeli forces reportedly killed 16-year-old Lujain Musleh during an operation. Her father said she was shot in the head as she looked out of the window of her house in Kafr Dan, after soldiers had surrounded a neighbouring house. The Israeli military said at the time that armed fighters had fired on soldiers, who fired back at a suspect who observed them, and that the details were under review.

In Lebanon, BBC Verify found nearly 40 IDF investigations into incidents of harm. Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in support of Hamas following the 7 October attacks, and Israel has since launched two major invasions of Lebanon, where more than 4,000 people have been killed according to the country's health authorities. One investigation identified by BBC Verify concerns an Israeli strike on 10 November 2024 that killed 23 people, including seven children, near the city of Byblos, according to the Lebanese health ministry. Verified footage of the aftermath showed smoke rising between rubble and warped metal where buildings had been destroyed. The IDF said at the time it had targeted a site where Hezbollah had been operating and storing weapons, and that the incident was under review.

Michael Schmitt, a professor of international law at the University of Reading who has previously worked closely with the IDF, said the Israeli military's legal division is the gold standard in terms of understanding the law, and added that every allegation of a violation does not necessarily trigger a full-blown investigation. There can be a number of reasons why the IDF may be unable to reveal details publicly, he said. You do not want to reveal operational details or particular rules of engagement because enemy forces will adapt. Even if an investigation were pursued, many elements would remain confidential.

Dill, who is also co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, said that three years into this operation, some of these investigations should have been concluded. Israel, she argued, has relied heavily on the claim that it is a rule-of-law country to delegitimise attempts by the international community to investigate. If there are cases of documented abuse that either go uninvestigated or become stuck, she said, and there are reasonable grounds to believe they are kicked into the long grass, that would undermine the narrative that Israel is fully capable of providing accountability.

The findings rest on an extensive methodology. BBC Verify gathered 61,000 reports from BBC News and Reuters mentioning Gaza, the West Bank or Lebanon, published between 7 October 2023 and 19 August 2026. An AI search engine identified reports of incidents where people may have been injured or killed by Israeli forces and where the IDF said the matter was being investigated, or looked into, reviewed, checked or examined. This produced almost 5,000 reports, each manually checked by BBC Verify reporters, who excluded those that did not meet the criteria. That left 1,343 reports of incidents the IDF said it was looking into, some describing the same events. A second AI tool grouped them into unique incidents by publication date, incident date, location and numbers reported injured or killed, with manual verification leaving 300 unique incidents. For each, records were checked against the original report, and details were shared with the IDF, along with a request for comment and the latest status. The IDF did not say whether any of the investigations had concluded. Two AI-assisted web searches of the IDF's website found evidence that 28 cases were closed. For 18 more, it was unclear whether the investigation had ended. The search was not exhaustive, and more investigations may exist that were not captured.