Hamas war crimes are the violations of international criminal law, including war crimes and

crimes against humanity Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...

, which the Islamist

Nationalist Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

organization

Hamas Hamas (, ; , ; an acronym of , "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni-Islamic fundamentalist, militant, and nationalist organization. It has a social service wing, Dawah, and a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Bri ...

and its paramilitary wing, the

al-Qassam Brigades The Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades ( ar, كتائب الشهيد عز الدين القسام, , Battalions of martyr Izz ad-Din al-Qassam; also spelt Izzedine or Ezzedeen Al-Qassam Brigades; often shortened to Al-Qassam Brigades, IQB

have been accused of committing. These have included

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

, intentional targeting of civilians, killing prisoners of war and surrendered combatants, indiscriminate attacks, the use of

human shields A human shield is a non-combatant (or a group of non-combatants) who either volunteers or is forced to shield a legitimate military target in order to deter the enemy from attacking it. The use of human shields as a resistance measure was popula ...

rape Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...

torture Torture is the deliberate infliction of severe pain or suffering on a person for reasons such as punishment, extracting a confession, interrogation for information, or intimidating third parties. Some definitions are restricted to acts c ...

and

pillage Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

Applicability of laws of war

Determining the applicability of

laws of war The law of war is the component of international law that regulates the conditions for initiating war (''jus ad bellum'') and the conduct of warring parties (''jus in bello''). Laws of war define sovereignty and nationhood, states and territor ...

to militant groups is a difficult question, as both the

Council of Europe The Council of Europe (CoE; french: Conseil de l'Europe, ) is an international organisation founded in the wake of World War II to uphold European Convention on Human Rights, human rights, democracy and the Law in Europe, rule of law in Europe. ...

and

International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC; french: Comité international de la Croix-Rouge) is a humanitarian organization which is based in Geneva, Switzerland, and it is also a three-time Nobel Prize Laureate. State parties (signato ...

note that

international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...

traditionally treats war and terrorism as separate legal categories. The Israeli, American, EU, UK, Japanese, and Canadian governments define Hamas as a

terrorist Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

group. However, many countries have disagreed with this characterization and have engaged with Hamas as a legitimate political entity. While the term "international law" conventionally pertains to states, it has also been applied to insurgent and terrorist armed forces. Accordingly, even insurgencies deemed lawful under international law that meet the criteria of "just cause" must also adhere to principles of "just means" as well. Regarding Hamas and its combatants, even if they have a presumptive right to fight against what they term as an "illegal

occupation Occupation commonly refers to: *Occupation (human activity), or job, one's role in society, often a regular activity performed for payment *Occupation (protest), political demonstration by holding public or symbolic spaces *Military occupation, th ...

," they must still abide by legal rules of "discrimination", "proportionality", and "military necessity" under international law as conventional states do. According to

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

, "international humanitarian law, through the well-established doctrine of command responsibility" also applies "to political and other leaders insofar as they have 'effective responsibility and control' over the actors in question...thus making its leadership also criminally liable."

War crimes

Targeting of civilians

According to

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...

, the "prohibition on targeting civilians is absolute in international law".

has declared that the "scale and systematic nature" of Hamas' targeting of Israeli civilians "meet the definition of a crime against humanity", and that its particular use of

suicide bombings A suicide attack is any violent attack, usually entailing the attacker detonating an explosive, where the attacker has accepted their own death as a direct result of the attacking method used. Suicide attacks have occurred throughout histor ...

taking "place in the context of violence that amounts to armed conflict...are also war crimes."

Suicide attacks

According to Amnesty International, "the campaign of suicide bombings and deliberate attacks against Israeli civilians by Hamas and other armed groups constitutes crimes against humanity. Between September 1993 and the outbreak of the

Second Intifada The Second Intifada ( ar, الانتفاضة الثانية, ; he, האינתיפאדה השנייה, ), also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada ( ar, انتفاضة الأقصى, label=none, '), was a major Palestinian uprising against Israel. ...

in September 2000, "Palestinian groups carried out fourteen suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians, mostly in 1996-97, killing more than 120 and wounding over 550. Hamas said it committed most of the attacks." In the decade between 2000 and 2010, there were 146 suicide attacks committed by Palestinian militant groups against Israelis, resulting in 516 fatalities. A 2007 Harvard University study of 135 Palestinian suicide attacks conducted between September 2000 and August 2005 determined Hamas responsible for 39.9% of such attacks during that period.Human Capital and the Productivity of Suicide Bombers pdf

Journal of Economic Perspectives The ''Journal of Economic Perspectives'' (JEP) is an economic journal published by the American Economic Association. The journal was established in 1987. It is very broad in its scope. According to its editors its purpose is: #to synthesize and ...

Volume 21, Number 3, Summer 2007. Pages 223–238

Use of human shields

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

has accused Hamas of using

human shield A human shield is a non-combatant (or a group of non-combatants) who either volunteers or is forced to shield a legitimate military target in order to deter the enemy from attacking it. The use of human shields as a resistance measure was popula ...

s in the

Gaza Strip The Gaza Strip (;The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p.761 "Gaza Strip /'gɑːzə/ a strip of territory under the control of the Palestinian National Authority and Hamas, on the SE Mediterranean coast including the town of Gaza.. ...

, saying that Hamas has purposely attempted to shield itself from Israeli attacks by storing weapons in civilian infrastructure, launching rockets from residential areas, and telling residents to ignore Israeli warnings to flee. Israel has also accused Hamas of maintaining command and control bunkers and tunnel infrastructure below hospitals. Hamas has denied using hospitals to shield any command centre, while it has previously made remarks expressing support for Palestinians refusing to flee areas Israel has targeted. The Israeli accusations have been supported by

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

, and during the

2023 Israel–Hamas war } The ongoing armed conflict between Hamas-led Palestinian militant groups and Israel military forces began on 7 October 2023, 50 years after the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Hamas's coordinated surprise offensive, codenamed "Al-Aqsa Fl ...

EU nations condemned Hamas for using hospitals as human shields, while the

UN Secretary General The secretary-general of the United Nations (UNSG or SG) is the chief administrative officer of the United Nations and head of the United Nations Secretariat, one of the United Nations System#Six principal organs, six principal organs of the Un ...

said "Hamas and other militants use civilians as human shields". In 2023, HRW stated "Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups need to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians under their control from the effects of attacks and not use civilians as 'human shields.'"

Indiscriminate attacks

Between 2000 and 2021, over 17,000 rockets were fired into Israel from Gaza. Hamas' use of indiscriminate rocket attacks on civilians has been widely condemned as a war crime. Palestinian UN Observer Ibrahim Kraishi has equally decried the attacks, stating that "every rocket and mortar fired from Gaza toward Israel is a “crime against humanity.”

Second Intifada

During the Second Intifada, the majority of Israeli casualties were civilian non-combatants, with Hamas conducting numerous attacks deliberately targeting civilians. Prominent examples include:

2014 Gaza war

Killing and injuring of Gazan civilians

According to the

Jerusalem Post ''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper w ...

, during the

2014 Gaza war The 2014 Gaza War, also known as Operation Protective Edge ( he, מִבְצָע צוּק אֵיתָן, translit=Miv'tza Tzuk Eitan, ), was a military operation launched by Israel on 8 July 2014 in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory that h ...

, 20 civilians from Shuja'iyya were killed while protesting against Hamas. A few days later, Hamas reportedly killed two Palestinians in Gaza and wounded ten after a scuffle broke out over food handouts. The IDF stated on 31 July that more than 280 Hamas rockets malfunctioned and fell inside the Gaza strip, hitting sites including Al-Shifa Hospital and the Al-Shati refugee camp, killing at least 11 and wounding dozens. Out of the Hamas denied that any of its rockets hit the Gaza Strip., but Palestinian sources said numerous rocket launches ended up falling in Gaza communities and that scores of people have been killed or injured. Israeli Military sources said the failed Hamas launches increased amid heavy Israeli air and artillery strikes throughout the Gaza Strip. They said the failed launches reflected poorly assembled rockets as well as the rush to load and fire projectiles before they were spotted by Israeli aircraft. While the Al-Shifa Hospital incident is disputed, early news reports have suggested that the strike was from an Israeli drone missile. UK based human rights group,

concluded that the explosion at the Shati refugee camp on 28 July in which 13 civilians were killed was caused by a Palestinian rocket, despite Palestinian claims it was an Israeli missile.

Killing of suspected collaborators

Shurat HaDin Shurat HaDin (aka. Israel Law Center (ILC)) is an Israeli non-governmental organization (NGO) founded in Tel Aviv in 2003. Shurat HaDin has been described by some as a civil rights organization and others as a pro-Israel lawfare-waging NG ...

filed a suit with the ICC charging

Khaled Mashaal Khaled Mashal ( ar, خالد مشعل, Khālid Mashʿal, Levantine Arabic: , born 28 May 1956) is a former leader of the Palestinian organization Hamas. After the founding of Hamas in 1987, Mashal became the leader of the Kuwaiti branch of th ...

with war crimes for the executions of 38 civilians. Hamas co-founder Ayman Taha was found dead; '' Al-Quds Al-Arabi'' reported he had been shot by Hamas for maintaining contact with the intelligence services of several Arab countries; Hamas stated he was targeted by an Israeli airstrike. On 26 May 2015, Amnesty International released a report saying that Hamas carried out extrajudicial killings, abductions and arrests of Palestinians and used the Al-Shifa Hospital to detain, interrogate and torture suspects. It details the executions of at least 23 Palestinians accused of collaborating with Israel and torture of dozens of others, many victims of torture were members of the rival Palestinian movement,

Fatah Fatah ( ar, فتح '), formerly the Palestinian National Liberation Movement, is a Palestinian nationalist social democratic political party and the largest faction of the confederated multi-party Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and ...

2023 Israel–Hamas war

Hamas gunmen shooting into civilian car on October 7 2023

On 9 October 2023

stated that Hamas's apparent targeting of civilians, indiscriminate attacks, and taking of hostages amounted to war crimes. On 10 October 2023 the OHCHR stated the taking of hostages and use of human shields were war crimes. United Nations Human Rights chief

Volker Türk Volker Türk (born 1965) is an Austrian lawyer and United Nations official. He has been the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights since 17 October 2022. Education Born in Linz, Türk received a Master of Laws from the Johannes Kep ...

noted that militant groups' "horrifying mass killings" were violations of international law.

Re'im music festival massacre

As one of the first massacres of many in the coordinated attacks on 7 October 2023, militants of the

and other Palestinian factions entered a music festival in

Re'im Re'im ( he, רֵעִים, lit. ''Friends'') is a secular kibbutz in southern Israel, and one of the Gaza Strip, Gaza vicinity villages. Located at the confluence of Besor, Besor Stream and Nahal Gerar, Gerar Stream in the north-western Negev deser ...

at local time and murdered over 360 people, as well as taking over 40 people hostage. Considering the attack on festival goers as indiscriminate in nature, along with a lack of

Israeli military The Israel Defense Forces (IDF; he, צְבָא הַהֲגָנָה לְיִשְׂרָאֵל , ), alternatively referred to by the Hebrew-language acronym (), is the national military of the State of Israel. It consists of three service branc ...

presence during the massacre, it could only be considered an intentional attack against civilians.

Be'eri massacre

At , on 7 October 2023, around 70 al-Qassam and

DFLP The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP; ar, الجبهة الديموقراطية لتحرير فلسطين, ''al-Jabha al-Dīmūqrāṭiyya li-Taḥrīr Filasṭīn'') is a secular Palestinian people, Palestinian Marxism ...

militants had entered and attacked the

kibbutz A kibbutz ( he, קִבּוּץ / , lit. "gathering, clustering"; plural: kibbutzim / ) is an intentional community in Israel that was traditionally based on agriculture. The first kibbutz, established in 1909, was Degania. Today, farming h ...

of Be'eri, taking over 130 peoples' lives, including women (such as peace activist Vivian Silver), children, toddlers, and one infant, in total claiming the lives of 10% of the farming community's residents. Dozens of homes were also burned down.

References

{{Portal bar, Palestine, Israel Palestinian war crimes War War Hamas * War crimes by perpetrator War crimes in the State of Palestine War crimes in Israel