Amnesty International Accuses Israel of War Crimes in 104 Gaza Deaths
Israel has rejected as biased and inaccurate an Amnesty International report that accuses Israel of committing war crimes during the summer’s Gaza operation.
The report issued early Wednesday details eight instances where residences in Gaza were attacked without warning, leading to the deaths of some 104 civilians.
“Israeli forces have brazenly flouted the laws of war by carrying out a series of attacks on civilian homes, displaying callous indifference to the carnage caused,” said Philip Luther, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International. “The report exposes a pattern of attacks on civilian homes by Israeli forces which have shown a shocking disregard for the lives of Palestinian civilians, who were given no warning and had no chance to flee.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement that the report accuses Israel of wrongdoing while producing no evidence. The ministry said the report also ignores documented war crimes by the terror group Hamas, which runs Gaza, including the use of human shields, and storing ammunition and firing at Israeli civilian population centers from within schools, hospitals, mosques and civilian neighborhoods in Gaza.
Also, the ministry said, the report fails to mention the terror tunnels built between Israel and Gaza.
In Israel, investigations are underway by several bodies, inside and outside the military, into over 90 incidents, including two criminal investigations. Amnesty International dismissed the measures as insufficient, according to the ministry.
In several of the cases documented in the report, possible military targets were identified by Amnesty International.
“However,” the group said, “the devastation to civilian lives and property caused in all cases was clearly disproportionate to the military advantages gained by launching the attacks.”
At least 18,000 homes in Gaza were destroyed or made uninhabitable during the operation. Some 2,200 Palestinians, more than half reportedly civilians, were killed. Sixty-six Israeli soldiers and six civilians were killed during the operation. More than 4,500 rockets were fired from Gaza at southern Israel.
Amnesty International called on the United Nations Security Council to refer the incidents to the International Criminal Court for investigation. The group said it conducted its research for the report “remotely” and that the report was prepared by what Amnesty International said are “two fieldworkers based in Gaza.”
NGO Monitor, a Jerusalem-based research institute that monitors nongovernmental organizations, said in a statement that the report lacks professional investigatory methodology and that Amnesty International holds a “documented bias against Israel.
“Amnesty’s claims had no validity when they were first made, without evidence, during the fighting, and they have no more credibility now, despite the facade of ‘research’ and ‘investigations,’ ” said Gerald Steinberg, the president of NGO Monitor.
The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.
Now more than ever, American Jews need independent news they can trust, with reporting driven by truth, not ideology. We serve you, not any ideological agenda.
At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.
This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism you rely on. Make a gift today!
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Most Popular
- 1
Opinion The dangerous Nazi legend behind Trump’s ruthless grab for power
- 2
Opinion A Holocaust perpetrator was just celebrated on US soil. I think I know why no one objected.
- 3
Culture Did this Jewish literary titan have the right idea about Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling after all?
- 4
Opinion I first met Netanyahu in 1988. Here’s how he became the most destructive leader in Israel’s history.
In Case You Missed It
-
Culture Trump wants to honor Hannah Arendt in a ‘Garden of American Heroes.’ Is this a joke?
-
Opinion Gaza and Trump have left the Jewish community at war with itself — and me with a bad case of alienation
-
Fast Forward Trump administration restores student visas, but impact on pro-Palestinian protesters is unclear
-
Fast Forward Deborah Lipstadt says Trump’s campus antisemitism crackdown has ‘gone way too far’
-
Shop the Forward Store
100% of profits support our journalism
Republish This Story
Please read before republishing
We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:
- Credit the Forward
- Retain our pixel
- Preserve our canonical link in Google search
- Add a noindex tag in Google search
See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.
To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.