BBC Verify: 254 IDF investigations into killings still have no public outcome

BBC Verify has identified 254 incidents in which the Israeli military has been accused of killing or injuring people in Gaza, Lebanon, the occupied West Bank and Israel that it said it was investigating, but have no public outcome. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing BBC News.

Using purpose-built AI tools, BBC Verify combed through more than 60,000 news reports and examined hundreds of incidents in which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) faced allegations of harm since the start of the Gaza war. Following extensive manual checking of each incident, we found 300 cases that the military said it was looking into, only 28 of which had outcomes published on the IDF website. For a further 18 incidents it was unclear if the investigation has been concluded.

BBC Verify approached the IDF about each case multiple times but only received information on two incidents, which the IDF said are 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 works in warzones to uphold the Geneva Conventions, publishes guidelines that state investigations into potential violations of international humanitarian law, whether criminal or otherwise, should be as transparent as possible.

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

Some of the incidents without public outcomes date back to late 2023. One of the deadliest cases 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 responded to accusations of harm by stating an incident is being investigated in some form, for example that it is being "looked into", "reviewed", "checked" or "examined". Often, that is the last that is heard about a case.

A number of incidents have been escalated for criminal investigation by the IDF. Two that came under intense public scrutiny involved the killings of five-year-old Hind Rajab, and of 15 Palestinian Red Crescent emergency workers who were shot more than 100 times and allegedly targeted at close range.

The results of IDF military investigations are not routinely made public, including those leading to criminal investigations of its soldiers.

A number that have been published relate to hostages in Gaza who were allegedly killed as a result of Israeli operations. In some cases, the military has only announced it is investigating an incident after being approached by BBC Verify or other media organisations.

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

In the three other cases, which involved the killings of seven aid workers from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) in an air strike and the killing of four Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) aid workers in two separate Gaza attacks, the IDF said it did not find a basis for or reasonable suspicion to begin a criminal investigation.

The report also stated Israel's General Staff Fact-Finding and Assessment Mechanism (FFAM), which handles IDF investigations into "exceptional operational incidents", external, had completed the review of approximately 150 cases since the start of the war.

These cases have now been transferred to the IDF's Military Prosecution for examination, according to the report. The IDF did not outline what the 150 incidents were, and did not clarify whether they were separate to the cases identified by BBC Verify when asked.

Despite multiple requests, the IDF has not provided a transparent 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 certain incidents are examined 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 the standards expected of them and acted contrary to IDF directives, including being removed from combat positions and from 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 these reviews were completed and referred to the Military Advocate General (MAG) Corps, two of which resulted in criminal investigations.

Dan Owen, a researcher at Yesh Din which has been monitoring military investigations since 2006, told BBC Verify that he believes the IDF will often try 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...