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Executions and assassinations during the Gaza war
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During the Gaza war there have been a very large number of incidents of deliberate killings of people who were not actively engaged in combat. In addition to unarmed civilians, many of the soldiers and militants who were killed - and often reported simply as militants or soldiers, as if they died in combat - were not actively engaging in hostilities at their time of death. There have also been many alleged assassinations, summary executions, deaths in custody, or other extrajudicial killings, with varying amounts of evidence.
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Background
International law regarding killing unarmed military
International law tests state actors and irregular militants equally.[1] Even if an individual is a member of a military or other armed group, there are situations when killing them is a war crime. For example, if they are wounded,[2][3] if they surrender voluntarily, or if they are already a prisoner of war.[4]
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Executions of alleged informants by Palestinians
West Bank public executions
On Friday 24 November 2023, two Palestinian men were killed by other Palestinians in Tulkarm in the West Bank.[5] The Tulkarm Battalion Rapid Response group, who the Times of Israel described as a local militant group affiliated with the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, posted a cryptic statement on Telegram just after the two men were reported killed, “We did not wrong them, but they wronged themselves”.[6][5] Possibly a reference to verse 10:44 of the Qur'an, from Surah Yunus (the book of Jonah)[7] Arabic: إِنَّ ٱللَّهَ لَا يَظْلِمُ ٱلنَّاسَ شَيْـًۭٔا وَلَـٰكِنَّ ٱلنَّاسَ أَنفُسَهُمْ يَظْلِمُونَ, lit. 'Indeed, god does not wrong people in the least, but it is people who wrong themselves.'[8] The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, an Israeli think tank,[9] described the incident as "The Disintegration of Palestinian Society".[10]
This occurred shortly after six militants, including three battalion leaders, were killed in Tulkarm.[11]
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Both sides accused
Mukhtar of the Doghmush clan
The IDF claimed Fayeq Mabhouh,[a] the police officer, who was killed during the Al-Shifa Hospital siege (see below), had been appointed to intimidate local Gazan clans in order to thwart them from cooperating with Israel on guarding the distribution of humanitarian aid,[12] and accused him of "orchestrating" the execution of the leader of the Doghmush clan the week before he was killed.[13][14] The clan allegedly denied this, and claimed the leader and his family were killed by an airstrike.[15] Israel and Gaza's government were competing to win over the clans.[16] It was rumoured that a large part of the Israeli motive for killing Mabhouh was the failure of the Israeli plan to replace the police in Gaza with the clans (such as the Doghmush clan) to distribute aid and enforce the law.[17]
Killings by Israelis in the West Bank
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Assassination of a wounded militant and his companions in hospital
Israeli forces disguised as medical staff and civilian Muslim women have shot dead three Palestinians inside a hospital in the West Bank city of Jenin.[18][19] The hospital says the men were ‘assassinated’. Israel says they belonged to a ‘Hamas terrorist cell’.[20] The BBC referred to the men who were killed as "members of Palestinian armed groups".[21]
The spokesperson for the hospital, Tawfiq al-Shobaki, said there was no exchange of fire in the hospital, just the assassination of a patient.[18] He also said that all three men who died were asleep at the time of the attack.[22]
According to experts from the United Nations, the killing of three Palestinian men in a hospital in the occupied West Bank by Israeli commandos disguised as medical workers and civilians may amount to war crimes.[18][19] Unarmed members of the military are allowed to be taken prisoner but not killed.[23] Wounded combatants are further protected under the Geneva Conventions, they are not allowed to be killed or captured,[23][24] but they may be kept as prisoners of war after they recover if they are treated at enemy hospitals.[25]
Deaths for breaching the security fence
Salahuddin Suleiman Shawamra and Najmuddin Shawamra were killed while illegally crossing the Israel-West Bank security fence, which bisects land that their family owns, in February 2024. Their brother, Noureddin, was also shot and was mildly wounded.[26] Reporters from Haaretz argue that the men should have been arrested instead of killed, and that the soldiers could also have fired warnings shots to give the men a chance to escape home before resorting to lethal force.[27]
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Alleged targeted bombing of family homes
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The Israeli Air Force began a bombing campaign in the Gaza Strip at 9:45am on 7 October 2023,[28] They subsequently expanded the campaign to Southern Lebanon.[29]
In the Gaza Strip
Abu Qouta family 7 October 2023 in Rafah
One of the first homes hit was that of the Abu Qouta family, late at night on 7 October 2023. Nineteen members of the family were killed, the youngest was a baby under one year old.[30][31][32][33][34] The strike killed 19 members of the Abu Qouta family and 5 other people who were nearby.[35]
Al-Hasayna and Abu Sharia families
On 23 November the homes of the Al-Hasayna (Arabic: الحساينة) and Abu Sharia (Arabic: أبو شريعة) families were hit by an airstrike, local media named 93 Palestinian civilians in a list of martyrs from the event, 38 from the Abu Sharia family, 54 from the Al-Hasayneh family, and one person called Walid Ziara (Arabic: وليد زيارة).[36][37] Neither side acknowledged a possible target, and only civilians casualties were reported.[36][37] Neither side acknowledged a possible target, but the families are described elsewhere as relatives of the leaders and founders of the Palestinian Mujahideen Movement.[38] The Mujahudeen Movement and their armed wing, the Mujahideen Brigades, are a relatively small and insignificant faction in the conflict.[39] But they were holding three members of the Bibas family hostage. Then on 29 November, during hostage negotiations, it was announced that Shiri Bibas and her children had been killed in an Israeli air strike while in captivity, most media credited this claim to "Hamas".[40]
In the Southern Lebanon
Australian brothers in Bint Jbeil
Family homes were also hit in Southern Lebanon, in a residential area of Bint Jbeil. Killing two brothers Ali Ahmed Bazzi and Ibrahim Bazzi (27), and Ibrahim's wife Shorouq Hammond.[41] The brothers are both Australian citizens, Ali lived locally but Ibrahim was visiting from Sydney to bring his wife home to Australia.[41] Hezbollah claimed Ali as one of their fighters, and also included the civilian family members in a Hezbollah funeral.[41]
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Summary executions
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OHCHR stated on 20 December it had received allegations of Israeli soldiers summarily killing at least eleven unarmed men in Rimal.[42] Al Jazeera reported that the number summarily executed was 15, killed during an apartment raid. The execution was witnessed by the families of the men.[43] Middlesex University professor William Schabas stated, "It's not really important to demonstrate that they're civilians. Summary executions even of fighters, even of combatants is a war crime."[44] Euro-Med Monitor told Al Jazeera they believe there is a pattern of "systematic" killing, that "In at least 13 of field executions, we corroborated that it was arbitrary on the part of the Israeli forces."[45] On 26 December 2023, Euro-Med Monitor submitted a file to the International Criminal Court and United Nations special rapporteurs documenting dozens of cases of field executions carried out by Israeli forces and calling for an investigation.[46][47][48] In March 2024, video of an IDF soldier bragging about killing an elderly deaf man hiding under his bed was released, leading the Council on American-Islamic Relations to condemn the killing as an execution and war crime.[49][50] The Israeli military stated they would begin a probe into the incident.[51] Defense officials told Haaretz that the Israeli army had created kill zones in Gaza, in which any person who crossed an "invisible line" was killed.[52]
Mass graves
A mass grave with 283 bodies was uncovered in April 2024 at Khan Younis's Nasser medical complex in the southern Gaza city. 30 bodies were buried in two graves in the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.[53][54] Reportedly, bodies were found with their hands and feet tied.[55] Following the discovery of the mass graves, UN human rights chief Volker Türk called for an independent investigation on the intentional killing of civilians by the IDF and stated the "intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat is a war crime."[56][57] A spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights described the discoveries, stating, "Some of them had their hands tied, which of course indicates serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and these need to be subjected to further investigations".[58] William Schabas, a Canadian expert on international human rights law, stated mass graves have "always been an indication that war crimes have been committed".[59]
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Attacks on police in the Gaza Strip
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Alleged assassination of Faiq Mabhouh
During an IDF raid on Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, Faiq Mabhouh[b] (Arabic: فائق المبحوح, romanized: Fāy'q el-Mapħouħ, also spelled Arabic: فايق المبحوح) was killed in what sources based on reports from the IDF described as a firefight between "Hamas militants" or "terrorists" and Israeli troops.[60][61][62][63] but some Palestinian aligned sources describe as an assassination.[64][65][66][67] They mostly don't dispute that Faiq fired on the Israeli forces who approached him, but they frame the situation differently as to who was the aggressor.[68][60][69] The raid was launched at approximately 2:30 am, by troops from the IDF’s 401st Armored Brigade and other units, including special forces and the Shin Bet security agency encircling the hospital.[60] Before the IDF found Faiq (in or near the hospital) they raided his family home and kicked out his wife and children.[68][61] Faiq’s brother was captured in a neighbourhood near the hospital.[68] According to the IDF, Faiq Mabhouh refused to surrender to troops and instead continued firing at Israeli security forces until he was killed.[12] The IDF initially claimed to have killed 20 other "terrorists" alongside Fayeq.[62] The IDF claimed that by the evening of Monday 18 March, their troops had killed 20 "Hamas" gunmen inside the hospital premises and another 20 were killed in the surrounding area.[60] Some sources suggest that the gun battle happened outside the hospital.[68] The exact circumstances of his death are unverifiable. They sides disagree on the implied or explicit purpose of removing Faiq from power (and the war as a whole). Israeli-aligned sources frame it as removing a threat to Israel,[60][70][63] but there is no indication that he has had any role in attacks on Israel while working as part of Gaza's civilian administration.[71][68] Palestinian aligned sources described the goal as the destruction of Palestine,[65] by starving the people, and preventing independent Palestinian control of the Gaza Strip.[65] International sources often came closer to the Palestinian framing of the situation or present that version of events as more credible.[72][73]
The Israel Arabic account of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the X platform announced the killing of Mabhouh, describing him as, "the head of the Operations Directorate of the Internal Security Service of the Hamas terrorist organization."[17] Hamas released an extremely strongly worded statement, in which they claimed the killing of a civilian police officer was a violation of international law.[74] It read, in part, "This terrorist crime, by targeting civilian police protected under international humanitarian law, is further evidence of the Nazi enemy’s efforts to spread chaos, undermine societal peace in the Gaza Strip, and perpetuate the state of famine from which our people suffer, in implementation of the plan of a war of extermination and the displacement of our people from their land."[74][75] Arabic language social media speculated about the motives for the killing and the attack on the hospital, with comments such as, "The trucks passed over the past two days peacefully, without chaos, massacres, stampedes, wounded, or martyrs, but the criminal occupation does not like it."[17] It was rumoured that a large part of the Israeli motive was the failure of the Israeli plan to replace the police in Gaza with the clans (such as the Doghmush clan) to distribute aid and enforce the law.[17]
Israeli forces assassinated two other police officers in Al-Mowasi[76]
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Targeting of journalists
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The killing of journalists in the Gaza war, overwhelmingly Palestinian, along with other acts of violence against journalists, marks the deadliest period for journalists in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict since 1992 and the deadliest conflict for journalists in the 21st century.[77] As of September 2024, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) counted 116 journalists who were killed (111 Palestinian, 2 Israeli and 3 Lebanese),[78] and the International Federation of Journalists counted 166 journalists and media workers who were killed (152 Palestinian, 4 Israeli, 9 Lebanese and 1 Syrian).[79] A July 2024 count by the Gaza government media office placed the number of Palestinian journalists killed at 160,[80][81] and in January 2025 the Gaza Government Media Office increased it to 202.[82]
On 30 January 2024, the head of the Committee to Protect Journalists stated, "Israel's war on Gaza is more deadly to journalists than any previous war".[83][84] Israeli airstrikes additionally damaged or destroyed an estimated 48 media facilities in Gaza.[85] Reporters Without Borders has reported that the Israeli army intentionally targeted Palestinian and Lebanese journalists.[85] The Guardian stated that contrary to international law, Israel had targeted Hamas-affiliated Palestinian journalists despite their non-involvement in combat, thus disputing Israel's denial of targeting journalists.[86] In 2023, nearly 75% of journalists killed worldwide were Palestinians who had died in Israel’s war in Gaza.[87][86] According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Israel was the second worst country in the world for allowing the murderers of journalists to go unpunished.[88]
UNESCO awarded its 2024 World Press Freedom Prize to the Palestinian journalists of Gaza.[89]Journalists and their families in the Gaza Strip
Journalists killed in Lebanon
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Reactions
Following the killing of Ismail Haniyeh, Pope Francis denounced "attacks, even targeted ones, and killings", because "they do not help to walk in the path of justice, the path of peace, but generate even more hatred and revenge".[90] The foreign ministries of Qatar and Egypt stated they believed Israel's assassination of Haniyeh would impact the chances of a ceasefire deal, with the Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani writing, "Peace needs serious partners & a global stance against the disregard for human life."[91]
See also
Notes
- The spelling of Faiq Al-Mabhouh's name in English is extremely variable, including "Faiq Al-Mabhouh", "Fayek Mabhouh", and others. Many Arabic surnames start with an "Al" (Arabic: ال), this is sometimes omitted in English, but sometimes retained. The most common Romanisations of his first name are "Fayeq",[92][93] "Fayek",[94][95] and "Faiq",[96][97] but there are numerous other ways, ending in Q, K, G, e.g. "Fayeg",[98] or even CK, e.g. Faack.[61] The Hebrew spelling is less variable (Hebrew: פאיק).[99] His full name is Arabic: فائق عبد الرؤوف المبحوح, romanized: Faiq Abdel Raouf Al-Mabhouh.[68][64]
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References
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