Hundreds of IDF investigations into killings without public outcome, BBC Verify finds

Hundreds of IDF investigations into killings have no public outcome, BBC Verify finds

BBC Verify has identified 254 incidents in which the Israeli military was accused of killing or injuring people in Gaza, Lebanon, the occupied West Bank and Israel, and said it was investigating them, but for which no public outcome has been released.

Using AI tools built for the task, BBC Verify reviewed more than 60,000 news reports and examined hundreds of incidents in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) faced allegations of harm since the Gaza war began. After extensive manual verification of each case, we found 300 incidents that the military said it was examining, but only 28 of them had results published on the IDF website. In another 18 cases, it was unclear whether the investigation had finished.

BBC Verify contacted the IDF repeatedly about each case, but received details on only two incidents, which the IDF said were still under review. “The IDF takes every allegation or report raising concerns about conduct that may be inconsistent with the law or IDF directives with the utmost seriousness,” it said in a statement.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which operates in war zones to support the Geneva Conventions, says investigations into possible breaches of international humanitarian law, whether criminal or otherwise, should be as open as possible.

Of the 254 incidents identified by BBC Verify, 158 were in Gaza, 48 in the West Bank and 32 in Lebanon. Another 16 took place in Israel or in IDF detention. All occurred between 7 October 2023 and 19 August 2026, and in more than 200 of them at least one person was reportedly killed.

Some of the cases with no public outcome go back to late 2023. One of the deadliest involved a strike on a school building in Gaza in August 2024, when at least 93 people were reportedly killed, including six women and 11 children.

For three years, the Israeli military has often answered accusations of harm by saying an incident is being investigated in some way, for example that it is being “looked into”, “reviewed”, “checked” or “examined”. Frequently, that is the last the public hears about the case.

Several incidents have been referred for criminal investigation by the IDF. Two that drew intense public attention involved the killing of five-year-old Hind Rajab, and the killing of 15 Palestinian Red Crescent emergency workers who were shot more than 100 times and allegedly targeted at close range.

The findings of IDF military investigations are not routinely made public, including those that lead to criminal probes of soldiers.

Some published cases concern hostages in Gaza who were allegedly killed as a result of Israeli operations. In some instances, the military has only said it is investigating after being contacted by BBC Verify or other media outlets.

In August, the IDF released a rare report on internal investigations into five incidents in Gaza, including the killings of Hind Rajab and the 15 Palestinian emergency workers, which it said had been escalated to criminal investigations.

In the other three cases, involving the killing of seven World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid workers in an air strike and the killing of four Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) aid workers in two separate Gaza attacks, the IDF said it found no basis for, or reasonable suspicion of, opening a criminal investigation.

The report also said Israel’s General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), which handles IDF investigations into “exceptional operational incidents”, had completed reviews of about 150 cases since the war began.

According to the report, those cases have now been passed to the IDF’s Military Prosecution for review. The IDF did not say what the 150 incidents were, and when asked did not clarify whether they were separate from the cases identified by BBC Verify.

Despite repeated requests, the IDF has not given a clear breakdown of the status of the 300 investigations identified by BBC Verify.

In a statement, the IDF said it “publishes information regarding the outcomes of investigations and examinations when possible, subject to legal and operational considerations, as well as restrictions relating to privacy and information security”.

It added that some incidents are handled through command-level operational reviews, which are “intended to establish the sequence of events, identify failures and draw lessons for the purpose of improving operational conduct and taking any necessary command measures”.

The IDF also said that during the war it has taken disciplinary action in dozens of cases against soldiers who failed to meet expected standards and acted against IDF directives, including removal from combat roles and 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 sent to the Military Advocate General (MAG) Corps, and two led to criminal investigations.

Dan Owen, a researcher at Yesh Din, which has monitored military investigations since 2006, told BBC Verify he believes the IDF often tries to “prolong” investigations. “They try to stretch out these processes to the point where people forget and people don’t care about them,” he said.

Janina Dill, a professor of international law at the University of Oxford, said the Geneva Conventions require a party to armed conflict to “investigate and potentially prosecute its own”.

“That’s the absolute clear bottom line,” she said. “There are also guidelines for investigation, endorsed by the ICRC, so they have some authority. And they emphasise promptness, thoroughness, impartiality.”

Eran Shamir-Borer, director of the Center for Security and Democracy at the Israeli Democracy Institute (IDI) and a former senior IDF lawyer, said there are “genuine challenges” in investigating allegations in conflicts involving Israel because of the complexity of the battlefield.

“[In] a territory which is hostile, not always under your control, collecting evidence could be very challenging. Lots of forces on the ground, many of them executing fire,” he said.

Shamir-Borer added: “The idea of investigating soldiers in the context of a war is never a popular thing to do,” and said that is also true in other law-abiding countries.

He said Israel would benefit from greater transparency about its investigations, and he would urge the IDF to be “more forthcoming with information that they are sharing with the public on the progress they are making in investigating various allegations”.

Since the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 others were taken hostage, the IDF has carried out extensive military operations in Gaza, saying they were aimed at bringing back the hostages and dismantling Hamas.

More than 74,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli attacks since the war began, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

BBC Verify has reported on the killing of emergency workers and people trying to reach aid inside Gaza, the destruction of thousands of buildings in the strip and allegations of misconduct by Israeli soldiers over the past three years.

Just two months into the war, two women were killed by Israeli troops in the territory’s only Catholic church in December 2023, in 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 Holy Family church in Gaza, according to the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem.

BBC Verify contacted the IDF about the report at the time. The military said an initial review suggested troops had been operating against a Hamas threat they had identified “in the area of the church”. The IDF added that it was “conducting a thorough review of the incident”.

In September 2025, BBC Verify asked for an update and was told the incident was “still being reviewed by the FFAM”.

Now, nearly three years after Nahida and Samar were killed, the IDF has again said the case is under review.

After the latest request for information, the IDF said: “Complex incidents may require considerable time to collect, cross-check, and verify the relevant factual information.”

It added: “The IDF does not shorten or forgo examination or investigative procedures in order to meet external timelines.”

Palestinians inspect the destruction after the Israeli attack on the Al-Taba’een school building in August 2024

One of the deadliest incidents still under investigation by the Israeli military 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 nearby mosque.

The buildings were sheltering displaced Palestinians when multiple Israeli strikes hit the area during dawn prayers. BBC-verified videos of the aftermath showed a cloud of dust as emergency workers moved through small fires, rubble and body parts scattered on the floor. Daylight photos showed blood-soaked floors, debris and clothing strewn about.

Experts told BBC Verify that munition fragments visible at the scene matched a GBU-39, a precision-guided bomb supplied by the US to the Israeli military.

At the time, the IDF said a Hamas command and control centre had been embedded in the school building, and that IDF soldiers killed 31 fighters in the incident. It added that an “initial review” found the casualty figures did not match the information held by the IDF, the exact munitions used and the precision of the strike. The IDF told BBC Verify the incident remains under review.

BBC Verify also examined incidents the IDF said it was investigating in the West Bank. Israel has occupied the territory since the 1967 war and built dozens of settlements there, which is illegal under international law.

More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli forces since 11 October 2023, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

BBC Verify reviewed more than 50 IDF investigations into incidents in the territory, at least 26 of which involved women and children being killed or injured.

One such case occurred outside Jenin in September 2024, when Israeli forces reportedly killed 16-year-old Lujain Musleh during an Israeli operation.

Lujain’s father said she was shot in the head as she looked out of the window of her home in Kafr Dan, after soldiers had surrounded a neighbouring house.

The Israeli military said at the time that armed fighters had fired on the soldiers, who had “fired back at a suspect who observed” them, and that the details were under review.

BBC Verify also found nearly 40 IDF investigations into incidents of harm in Lebanon.

The Shia Muslim armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in support of Hamas after the 7 October attacks. 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 IDF investigation identified by BBC Verify took place on 10 November 2024.

Verified footage from the aftermath showed smoke rising among rubble and twisted metal scattered across the ground 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 that there was a violation does not necessarily trigger a full-blown investigation”.

Schmitt said there may be several reasons the IDF cannot publicly disclose the details of an investigation or a decision not to pursue one. “For example, you do not want to reveal operational details or particular rules of engagement because the enemy forces will adapt,” he said, adding: “And even if you did pursue an investigation, many elements of [it] would remain confidential.”

Dill, who is also co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC), said: “Three years into this operation, some of these investigations should have been concluded.”

She said that when it comes to investigating incidents of harm, “Israel has relied heavily on the argument that it is a rule-of-law country to delegitimatise attempts by the international community to investigate”.

“If we have cases of documented abuse that either don’t get investigated or the investigations get stuck, and we have reasonable grounds to believe that they get kicked into the long grass, then that would undermine the narrative that Israel is fully capable of taking care of providing accountability,” she added.