Category Archives: War crimes

AFP assessing allegation of Gaza war crimes committed by Australian citizen serving in IDF

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Claims against Israel Defense Forces battalion include deliberate targeting and destruction of residential buildings in 2023 and 2024 without military justification

Australian federal police investigators are assessing a brief detailing alleged war crimes committed by an Australian citizen serving in the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza.

A 61-page brief has been handed to the AFP by the Australian Centre for International Justice detailing alleged war crimes committed by an IDF battalion in Gaza across 2023 and 2024.

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Sudan’s RSF committed crimes against humanity in El Fasher, Amnesty says

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Report accuses paramilitary force of crimes including ethnic cleansing in systemic campaign against civilians

The Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing during its campaign to capture El Fasher, Amnesty International has alleged.

Many of the crimes, including murder, torture, rape, enslavement and sexual slavery, were carried out as part of a widespread and systematic attack against civilians and amounted to crimes against humanity, the human rights organisation said in a report released on Wednesday.

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UK prioritised ties with UAE over averting mass atrocities in Sudan, MPs to be told

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Foreign Office failed to act on warnings of genocide due to ‘pressure’ from emirates, Yale human rights investigator will tell a parliamentary select committee

The British government had received intelligence that Ethiopia appeared to be supporting a genocidal militia in Sudan’s civil war as far back as 2024 but did not go public with the news for fear of upsetting the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a parliamentary committee will hear.

In May 2024, officials from the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) told Nathaniel Raymond, an American human rights investigator at Yale University, that “significant private pressure” from the UAE meant the UK would not publicly divulge information linking Ethiopia and the emirates to their support for the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.

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Construction equipment multinationals may be aiding Israeli war crimes, experts say

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Images show Israeli military using six companies’ bulldozers and excavators to demolish south Lebanon villages

Human rights experts have alleged that six multinational construction equipment conglomerates may be aiding and abetting war crimes by supplying excavators and bulldozers to Israel, after photos and videos showed the Israeli military using their equipment to demolish villages in south Lebanon.

The Guardian geolocated and verified images showing the Israeli military using excavators made by six companies – Caterpillar, Volvo, Hyundai, Doosan, Hitachi and Komatsu – to destroy homes, public utilities, shops and other structures across southern Lebanon.

Israel has levelled entire villages inside the “yellow line”, a 608 sq km area occupied by Israel along the Lebanese-Israeli border. At least 46 villages in south Lebanon have suffered heavy damage, most of it caused by demolitions carried out after the 17 April Lebanon-Israel ceasefire, according to a satellite analysis by Bellingcat.

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Trump threats cause dilemma for US officers: disobey orders or commit war crimes

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Legal experts say attacking Iran’s infrastructure would constitute a war crime – but would military officers be held responsible?

Donald Trump’s threats to carry out mass bombing of civilian infrastructure in Iran present US military officers with a dilemma: disobey orders or help commit war crimes.

It is an urgent matter for the US chain of command. In an expletive-laden threat, Trump set a Tuesday 8pm Washington time deadline for the Iranian government to open the strait of Hormuz or face “Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one”.

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Special forces chief tried to cover up concerns about SAS conduct in Afghanistan, inquiry told

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Whistleblower says chain of command failed to stop extrajudicial shootings, including of children, after alarm was raised

The former director of UK special forces and other senior military officers tried to cover up concerns that SAS units were carrying out unlawful killings in Afghanistan, an inquiry has heard.

A senior special forces whistleblower said the chain of command failed to stop extrajudicial shootings, including of two small children, after the alarm was first raised in early 2011. That failure allegedly allowed them to continue until 2013.

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Israel has ‘de facto state policy’ of organised torture, says UN report

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Committee highlights allegations including dog attacks and sexual violence, raising concern about impunity for war crimes

Israel has “a de facto state policy of organised and widespread torture”, according to a UN report covering the past two years, which also raised concerns about the impunity of Israeli security forces for war crimes.

The UN committee on torture expressed “deep concern over allegations of repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, waterboarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence”.

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UK rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite warning of possible genocide

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Exclusive: British government adopted ‘least ambitious’ option months before RSF’s massacres in El Fasher

Britain rejected atrocity prevention plans for Sudan despite intelligence warnings that the city of El Fasher would fall amid a wave of ethnic cleansing and possible genocide, according to a report seen by the Guardian.

Government officials turned down the plans six months into the 18-month siege of El Fasher in favour of the “least ambitious” option of four presented.

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Sudanese militia group accused of war crimes agrees to a ceasefire

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International mediators broker three-month halt to civil war as further evidence emerges of mass civilian killings

A Sudanese paramilitary group accused of killing thousands of unarmed civilians in an ethnically motivated massacre has agreed to a truce.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which is facing mounting criticism over apparent war crimes committed by its fighters in the city of El Fasher last month, said it had agreed to a “humanitarian ceasefire” put forward by the quad countries of the US, Egypt, the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

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Sudan’s RSF accused of ‘PR stunt’ after arresting fighters behind civilian killings

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Reports of indiscriminate violence and ethnic targeting in El Fasher have led to growing global outrage

Sudan’s paramilitary Rapid Support Forces claim to have arrested several of their fighters after outrage over the extent of killing in the city of El Fasher continues to build.

But the paramilitary group’s move has been greeted with scepticism from human rights campaigners and Sudanese people, who see it as an attempt to temper criticism over the violence.

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Russian drone attacks on civilians in Ukraine are war crimes, UN report concludes

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Rights commission inquiry focused on south-east of country found drones targeted gathering points and critical infrastructure

A UN rights commission has concluded that Russia’s drone attacks on civilians in south-eastern Ukraine constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes.

In a report published this week, the commission said Russian forces, operating under a centralised command, had systematically used drones to “intentionally target civilians and civilian objects and cause harm and destruction”.

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Macron says 26 nations ready to provide postwar military backing to Ukraine

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French president says allies would either deploy ‘reassurance force’ troops to Ukraine, or be present in the area on land, sea or in the air

Twenty-six nations have pledged to provide postwar security guarantees to Ukraine, including an international force on land and sea and in the air, Emmanuel Macron said after a summit at which European leaders sought to pin down Donald Trump on the level of support he is willing to give Kyiv.

“The day the conflict stops, the security guarantees will be deployed,” the French president told a press conference at the Élysée Palace in Paris, standing alongside Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

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Israeli airstrikes on Tehran killed inmates in ‘apparent war crime’ – report

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Human Rights Watch also finds that Iran abused survivors of June attack, which killed 80 people

Israeli airstrikes on Tehran’s Evin prison in June killed scores of detainees, visitors and staff in what Human Rights Watch (HRW) has called an “apparent war crime”. Iranian authorities have since subjected survivors to abuse, enforced disappearances and inhumane detention conditions, the rights group said.

HRW’s investigation, based on satellite imagery, videos and witness accounts, found the 23 June Israeli airstrikes destroyed visitation halls, prison wards, the central kitchen, the medical clinic and administrative offices. No evident military targets were identified in the facility, which held more than 1,500 prisoners at the time, many of whom had been jailed for peaceful activism.

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Assault on Sudan’s Zamzam refugee camp may have killed more than 1,500 civilians

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Guardian investigation finds number killed in April attack by Rapid Support Forces far greater than current estimates

More than 1,500 civilians may have been massacred during an attack on Sudan’s largest displacement camp in April, in what would be the second-biggest war crime of the country’s catastrophic conflict.

A Guardian investigation into the 72-hour attack by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) on North Darfur’s Zamzam camp, the country’s largest for people displaced by the war, found repeated testimony of mass executions and large-scale abductions. Hundreds of civilians remain unaccounted for.

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Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges – report

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Conflict monitoring group Action on Armed Violence says Israel is seeking to create a ‘pattern of impunity’

Nearly nine out of 10 Israeli military investigations into allegations of war crimes or abuses by its soldiers since the start of the war in Gaza have been closed without finding fault or left without resolution, according to a conflict monitor.

Unresolved investigations include the killing of at least 112 Palestinians queueing for flour in Gaza City in February 2024, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said, and an airstrike that killed 45 in an inferno at a tented camp in Rafah in May 2024.

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Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges – report

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Conflict monitoring group Action on Armed Violence says Israel is seeking to create a ‘pattern of impunity’

Nearly nine out of 10 Israeli military investigations into allegations of war crimes or abuses by its soldiers since the start of the war in Gaza have been closed without finding fault or left without resolution, according to a conflict monitor.

Unresolved investigations include the killing of at least 112 Palestinians queueing for flour in Gaza City in February 2024, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said, and an airstrike that killed 45 in an inferno at a tented camp in Rafah in May 2024.

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Mass rape, forced pregnancy and sexual torture in Tigray amount to crimes against humanity – report

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Warning: this article contains graphic and distressing testimony and images

Research documents ‘horrific and extreme’ attacks by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces and warns that impunity has meant such atrocities are expanding to new regions

Hundreds of health workers across Tigray have documented mass rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and sexual torture of women and children by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers, in systematic attacks that amount to crimes against humanity, a new report has found.

The research, compiled by Physicians for Human Rights and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH), represents the most comprehensive documentation yet of weaponised sexual violence in Tigray. It reviewed medical records of more than 500 patients, surveys of 600 health workers, and in-depth interviews with doctors, nurses, psychiatrists and community leaders.

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Israel trying to deflect blame for widespread starvation in Gaza

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Officials and ministers either deny that Palestinians are being affected by hunger or say it is not Israel’s fault

Israel is pursuing an extensive PR effort to remove itself from blame for the starvation and killing of Palestinian civilians in Gaza in the face of overwhelming evidence that it is responsible.

As dozens of governments, UN organisations and other international figures have detailed Israel’s culpability, officials and ministers in Israel have attempted to suggest that there is no hunger in Gaza, that if hunger exists it is not Israel’s fault, or to blame Hamas or the UN and aid organisations for problems with distribution of aid.

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‘Humanitarian city’ would be concentration camp for Palestinians, says former Israeli PM

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Ehud Olmert says forcing people into camp would be ethnic cleansing, and anger at Israel over Gaza war is not all down to antisemitism

The “humanitarian city” Israel’s defence minister has proposed building on the ruins of Rafah would be a concentration camp, and forcing Palestinians inside would be ethnic cleansing, Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert has told the Guardian.

Israel was already committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, Olmert said, and construction of the camp would mark an escalation.

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IDF opens inquiry into possible war crimes after deaths near Gaza aid sites

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Israel Defense Forces to examine growing evidence of shootings of Palestinians trying to obtain food

The Israeli military has launched an investigation into possible war crimes following growing evidence that troops have deliberately fired at Palestinian civilians gathering to receive aid in Gaza.

Hundreds of people have been killed in recent weeks after being subjected to air attacks, shootings and bombardments by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) while waiting for food to be distributed or while making their way to distribution sites.

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