Israel - Palestine

International armed conflict between Israel and Palestine.
The IAC includes military occupation of Palestine by Israel: Israel occupies the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), as well as large portions of the Gaza Strip.
Non-international armed conflicts between Israel and Hamas, and between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Current armed conflicts in Palestine and Israel represent the culmination of longer trajectories of military confrontation dating back to the end of the first half of the twentieth century. Since the termination of the British mandate, Israel’s Declaration of Independence in May 1948, the Arab-Israeli War of 1948–1949, and the mass displacement and dispossession of Palestinians known as the Nakba, the conflicts in the various regions that made up historical Palestine have undergone parallel, yet markedly different, developments.¹

After having been initially occupied and annexed by the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan as a result of the Arab-Israeli War, the West Bank (comprising territory to the west of the Jordan River) fell under Israeli authority in the aftermath of the Six-Day War of 1967.² According to the interim 1995 Oslo II Accord, this territory (which according to estimates now includes a Palestinian population numbering 3 million individuals) was divided into three areas, administered respectively by Israel, by the newly-established Palestinian Authority, or jointly by them.³ With important constituencies in both Israel and Palestine opposing this roadmap, the Oslo Accords failed to gain political momentum: in the absence of a final treaty solidifying their results, a status quo crystallized, marked by the outbreak of the Second Intifada, the erection of a wall separating Israeli and Palestinian territories, and the continuing expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.⁴

East Jerusalem, including the Old City, which had remained under Jordanian control after the Arab-Israeli War, was captured by Israel following the Six-Day War. The original idea of a distinct entity (advocated for in the UN Partition Plan for Palestine) was quickly replaced by a status quo whereby Israel purported to annex East Jerusalem – first de facto, by extending thereto the application of Israeli law, jurisdiction, and administration, then de jure, by declaring in its Basic Law of 1980 (amended in 2000) that ‘Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel’.⁵ These measures have been the subject of widespread criticism, including by United Nations (UN) Security Council Resolutions 478 (1980) and 2334 (2016).⁶

The Gaza Strip (assigned by UN Security Council Resolution 181 in 1947 to the future Arab State) was occupied first by Egypt following the Arab-Israeli War of 1948–49, then by Israel as a result of the Six-Day War of 1967.⁷ In 2005, the unilateral disengagement of Israel from the Gaza Strip led to the withdrawal of Israeli security forces and settlements from the area.⁸ In June 2007, following a political crisis between the Palestinian parties of Fatah and Hamas, the latter (which had won the parliamentary elections the previous year) took control of the Gaza Strip.⁹ The same year, Israel imposed a series of movement and import/export restrictions on Gaza. In the past 15 years, prior to the current conflicts, hostilities between Israel and Hamas and other armed groups ebbed and flowed, with a series of particularly intense confrontations in 2008 (the three week-long Operation Cast Lead); 2012 (the week-long Operation Pillar of Defence); 2014 (the six week-long Operation Protective Edge); and 2021 (the two week-long Operation Guardian of the Walls).¹⁰

Note: for ease of reference, the major events and developments in the reporting period have been listed in two sub-sections – one devoted to the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), the other to the Gaza Strip. This reflects the specific dynamics in different parts of the relevant territorial units during the period under review. This outline should not be taken as having a bearing on the classification of the armed conflict, which is analysed in Section 4 of this entry.

The West Bank (including East Jerusalem)

In July and August 2023, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) conducted a series of operations in the West Bank, including in Bethlehem.¹¹ One of these operations involved a large-scale Israeli air and ground force assault operation in Jenin city and the Jenin Refugee Camp in early July 2023. Described by the IDF as a ‘counterterrorism strike’, the operation killed many Palestinians, inflicted considerable damage on buildings and infrastructure, and caused internal displacement within the West Bank.¹² It was also reported that, in the first six months of 2023, the Israeli government authorized a record number of 12,349 housing units for Israelis in the West Bank as well as ten outposts.¹³

The situation in the West Bank escalated after the attack on 7 October 2023 and the initiation of major military operations in the Gaza Strip. Restricted access regulations and physical obstacles imposed by Israel in the form of checkpoints, earth mounds, and road blocks prevented access to, and movement between, Palestinian towns and villages.¹⁴ In the same time period, the UN Commission of Inquiry reported ‘an increase in large-scale militarized search and arrest operations in Janin, Nablus and Tulkarm in the West Bank’, as well as ‘a surge of settler attacks on Palestinian communities’.¹⁵ The IDF intensified its operations in Jenin, where several raids were carried out in November and December 2023,¹⁶ as well as in Tubas, Hebron, ad-Dhahiriya, Bethlehem, Nablus, Ramallah, Jericho, Beita, Qaryout, Halhul, Tulkarem and El-Bireh.¹⁷

The year 2024 opened with major raids in Jenin and Tulkarem,¹⁸ and between August and September, the IDF conducted a nine-day security operation in Jenin and other cities in the northern part of the West Bank, code-named ‘Operation Summer Camps’. The operation, which targeted Palestinian armed groups, and involved cutting water and electricity services and digging up roads, killed an unknown number of civilians and damaged civilian objects.¹⁹ The year saw the highest number of Israeli settler-related incidents across the West Bank (including East Jerusalem), with the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reporting ‘[a]bout 1,400 such incidents – including physical assaults, arson attacks, raids on Palestinian communities and the destruction of fruit trees – [which] have resulted in Palestinian casualties, damage to property, or both’.²⁰ This prompted several States, including the United States, the European Union, Canada and Australia, to impose sanctions on both individual settlers and settler organizations.²¹ At the same time, Israel designated several thousand acres of land in the West Bank as ‘State land’,²² while also approving thousands of housing units and recognizing a number of illegal outposts.²³

These trends continued in the first half of 2025. In early January, the Israeli army carried out a counterterrorism operation in Jenin that lasted for several days, while access to other major Palestinian cities was restricted.²⁴ On 23 February 2025, after a series of bus explosions occurred near Tel Aviv, the IDF deployed tanks in the city of Jenin for the first time since 2002. The Israeli Minister of Defence declared that the operations in the West Bank were expanding and that ‘troops would remain in the area’s urban hotspot “for the coming year”’.²⁵ As the hostilities between Israel and Iran escalated to an international armed conflict in June 2025, Israel imposed checkpoints and roadblocks in the West Bank for several days and restricted movement in East Jerusalem, as a precautionary measure against ‘warnings about intentions by terrorist elements … to carry out attacks against Israeli civilians’.²⁶ In late May 2025, Israel approved the establishment of 22 new settlements in the West Bank, ‘including the legalisation of outposts already built without government authorization.²⁷

The Gaza Strip

On 7 October 2023, Palestinian armed groups, including the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (Hamas’s military wing) and the al-Quds Brigades (the Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s military wing), launched a coordinated attack on Israeli civilian targets and military bases in southern Israel, which combined rocket and mortar attacks and incursions by land, sea and air.²⁸ In response to the attack, the Israeli government formally declared a state of war against Hamas on 8 October 2023, urging Palestinians in Gaza to leave certain areas and carrying out airstrikes on the enclave.²⁹ On 9 October 2023, Yoav Gallant, Israel’s Minister of Defence, ordered ‘a complete siege on the Gaza Strip’, declaring that ‘no electricity, no food, no fuel’ would enter the territory.³⁰ On 13 October 2023, after calling on civilians to evacuate Gaza City and move south of the Wadi Gaza, the IDF announced that its infantry forces and tanks had carried out ‘localized raids’ into the territory.³¹

After an initial three weeks of air campaign, the Israeli government launched the second phase of the Gaza war on 28 October 2023, intensifying the airstrikes and expanding the ground operations.³² In late November 2023, Israel and Hamas agreed to a seven-day truce that temporarily halted the fighting. The agreement included the exchange of 110 Israeli hostages and 240 Palestinian prisoners, and the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip.³³ Although some hostages and Palestinian prisoners were released, on 1 December 2023, fighting resumed, with the IDF expanding its ground invasion in the south of the Gaza Strip and launching an offensive on the city of Khan Younis.³⁴

On 25 March 2024, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2728 (2024), demanding ‘an immediate ceasefire for the month of Ramadan respected by all parties leading to a lasting sustainable ceasefire’; but on 8 May 2024, despite repeated calls from the United States, the European Union, the G7, and Arab States, Israel launched an offensive on Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip.³⁵

On 10 June 2024, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2735 (2024), calling upon Hamas to accept a ‘comprehensive ceasefire deal, consisting of three phases’ that had already been accepted by Israel and urging ‘both parties to fully implement its terms without delay and without condition’.³⁶ As talks continued (with Hamas dropping its demand that Israel commit to a permanent end to the conflict and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office insisting that the IDF control the Philadelphi Corridor),³⁷ an Israeli strike on 13 July 2024 killed Mohammed Deif, Hamas’s top military commander, as well as Rafa Salama, Hamas’s Khan Younis brigade commander.³⁸ On 31 July 2024, Israel killed Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.³⁹

The IDF announced – and Hamas subsequently confirmed – that on 16 October 2024 in Rafah (in southern Gaza), it had killed Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’s chief in Gaza since 2017 and overall leader of the movement since July 2024.⁴⁰

Amid subsequent ceasefire talks, on 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court’s Pre-Trial Chamber I issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri “Deif” (the overall commander of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades, reportedly dead since July 2024, as noted above).⁴¹

On 15 January 2025, it was announced that Israel and Hamas had agreed upon a further ceasefire and hostage-exchange deal, which involved three phases.⁴² In the first phase of the deal, which began on 19 March 2025, lasted for 42 days, Hamas released 25 Israeli hostages and returned eight dead bodies, while Israel released about 1,900 Palestinian prisoners and detainees. In addition, as part of the deal, the IDF withdrew from populated areas of the Gaza Strip, displaced Palestinians were permitted to return to their homes, and humanitarian aid was allowed into the Gaza Strip.⁴³ Despite the implementation of the first phase, negotiations for the second phase, which was intended to lead to the establishment of a permanent ceasefire, the exchange of remaining living hostages for more Palestinian prisoners, and the complete withdrawal of the IDF from the Gaza Strip, failed to materialize.⁴⁴

The Israeli government announced on 2 and 9 March 2025 that the supply of, respectively, humanitarian aid and fuel to the Gaza Strip would be halted, in an effort to pressure Hamas into extending the first phase of the agreement until mid-April.⁴⁵ On 18 March, Israel resumed its military operations in the Gaza Strip, first with a series of airstrikes and then with a ground operation to re-take the Netzarim Corridor that divides Gaza City and the northern part of the enclave from the south of the Strip.⁴⁶ On 2 April 2025, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu announced the creation of a new security corridor separating Rafah from the rest of the Strip.⁴⁷ On 18 May 2025, the IDF announced the launch of Operation Gideon’s Chariots – a large-scale offensive involving ‘extensive ground operations throughout northern and southern Gaza’ and intended to ‘increase and expand [the IDF’s] operational control in Gaza’.⁴⁸

Despite indirect talks between Israel and Hamas for a ceasefire and hostage deal resumed in Doha in early July 2025,⁴⁹ the IDF continued their military operations in the Gaza Strip, as the IDF carried out airstrikes and prepared for ‘military operations [that] will escalate, intensify’ in Gaza City.⁵⁰

General remarks on classification

A number of authorities have addressed the existence and classification of the armed conflict(s) involving Israel and Palestine. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) found that the West Bank was under belligerent occupation by Israel, both in its 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and in its 2024 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem.⁵¹ In the latter opinion, the ICJ also concluded that ‘Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip [in 2005] has not entirely released it of its obligations under the law of occupation [and that] Israel’s obligations have remained commensurate with the degree of its effective control over the Gaza Strip’.⁵² The ICJ referred to the existence of an ‘ongoing conflict’ in the Gaza Strip and the applicability of international humanitarian law (IHL) in its order of 26 January 2024 indicating provisional measures in the case Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip.⁵³

The International Criminal Court has also addressed the issue on several occasions. In 2021, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I found that Gaza and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) had been occupied by Israel since 1967.⁵⁴ In its 2024 statement on the applications for arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine, the ICC Prosecutor submitted that ‘an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine, and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas [were] running in parallel’.⁵⁵ In the press release announcing the issuance of the arrest warrants against Netanyahu, Gallant and Deif, ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I established the existence of both an international armed conflict between Israel and Palestine (including the occupation by the latter of ‘at least parts of Palestine’) and a non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas.⁵⁶

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, established by the Human Rights Council, has addressed the classification of the armed conflicts in several reports. In four reports published between May 2022 and September 2023, the Commission concluded that the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Gaza, was under belligerent occupation by Israel.⁵⁷ The Commission re-affirmed these findings in reports following the 7 October 2023 attack.⁵⁸

Focusing on the Gaza Strip, in May 2024, a Panel of Experts in International Law convened by the ICC Prosecutor concluded that ‘the conflicts in Israel and Gaza comprise an international armed conflict and a non-international armed conflict running in parallel’, adding that the two armed conflicts had begun ‘at the latest on 7 October 2023’ and that ‘[t]here [wa]s a belligerent occupation by Israel of at least some Palestinian territory’.⁵⁹

International armed conflict between Israel and Palestine

In the complex setting of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the existence of a belligerent occupation (as outlined in the previous sub-section) does not necessarily entail the existence of a parallel active international armed conflict. The notion of international armed conflict encompasses ‘a resort to armed force between States’ (in the words of the ICTY in Tadic) and ‘the hostile resort to armed force involving two or more States’ (as per the ICRC).¹

When Palestine deposited its instrument of accession to the 1949 Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I in 2014, some States (including Israel) contended that Palestine did not enjoy statehood and therefore could not become a party to those conventions.² However, the Swiss Federal Council (the depositary of the 1949 Geneva Conventions and their Additional Protocols) accepted Palestine’s instrument of accession and notified the other States Parties accordingly.³ The ICJ has ruled that ‘from a legal standpoint, the Occupied Palestinian Territory constitutes a single territorial unit, the unity, contiguity and integrity of which are to be preserved and respected’.⁴

The official Israeli position on the ongoing armed conflict(s) also concedes the presence of some form of international element in the confrontation. While admitting that ‘the question whether there is a single or several ongoing armed conflicts taking place in parallel [has] been a matter of debate’, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs has conceded that ‘in practice Israel conducts its present military operations in accordance with the rules of LOAC governing both international and non-international armed conflicts [and that i]n certain respects, Israel also conforms to more stringent obligations that are applicable to IACs only.⁵

In sum, an international armed conflict continues to exist between Israel and Palestine.

Military occupation of Palestine by Israel

Introductory remarks and position of the parties

According to Art. 42 of the 1907 Hague Regulations, ‘[t]erritory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army’, and ‘[t]he occupation applies only to the territory where such authority is established, and in a position to assert itself’.⁶ Building on this provision (considered as reflective of customary law), the ICJ has added that the occupation extends only to the territory ‘where such authority has been established and can be exercised’.⁷

Immediately after taking control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip in 1967, Israel issued a military order in which it declared that the territories were occupied and accepted the application of Geneva Convention IV.⁸ However, the relevant section and all references to the Fourth Geneva Convention were removed by a subsequent military order published in October 1967.⁹ Since then, Israel has referred to the territories over which it took control in 1967 as ‘disputed territories’, ‘consistently rejecting the notion that there is a state of occupation and refuting the de jure applicability of the GCs’.¹⁰ At the same time, while maintaining that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply as a matter of law to those territories, the Israeli Government has ‘decided to act de facto, in accordance with the humanitarian provisions of the Convention’.¹¹ Israel ‘recognized the de facto customary rules of the Hague Regulations in the Occupied Territories [and] acknowledged only the humanitarian articles of the [Fourth Geneva] Convention, without, however, defining these’.¹²

The Israeli judiciary has also made important determinations on this issue. The Israeli Supreme Court, sitting as High Court of Justice, confirmed that it considers the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as ‘one territorial unit’.¹³ Concerning the West Bank, in the 2006 case of Morar v IDF Commander in Judea and Samaria, the Court found that ‘[t]he territories of Judaea and Samaria [i.e., the West Bank] are held by the State of Israel under belligerent occupation’ – a passage quoted in the 2022 judgment in Abu Aram v Minister of Defence.¹⁴

In relation to the Gaza Strip, in the 2008 case of Jaber Al-Bassiouni Ahmed and others v Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, the Court found that ‘since September 2005, Israel no longer has effective control over what happens [therein]’, and that ‘the main duties of the State of Israel relating to the residents of the Gaza Strip derive [among other things] from the degree of control exercised by the State of Israel over the border crossings between it and the Gaza Strip, as well as from the relationship that was created between Israel and the territory of the Gaza Strip after the years of Israeli military rule in the territory’.¹⁵

The State of Palestine continues to maintain that Israel is the Occupying Power of the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which comprises the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip.¹⁶

The West Bank (including East Jerusalem)

In its 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, the ICJ found that all the territories between the Green Line and the former eastern boundary of Palestine under the Mandate (ie, the West Bank and East Jerusalem) had been occupied by Israel, and that subsequent events up to 2004 had not altered the situation.¹⁷ The Court re-affirmed this finding in its 2024 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem.¹⁸ The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel has reported a number of factors that underlie the effective control exercised by Israel over the West Bank. In East Jerusalem, the Commission has mentioned: the application of Israeli domestic law, the transfer of property rights from Palestinians in the West Bank to the State of Israel, the designation of national parks, and the construction of new Israeli settlements.¹⁹ In the West Bank (outside of East Jerusalem), the Commission has noted the ‘establishment, maintenance and expansion of Israeli settlements’, the expropriation and exploitation of land and other natural resources, restrictive planning, zoning and development, and the extension of Israeli law as key elements of the control exercised by Israel.²⁰

The 1995 Oslo II Accord had provided that ‘West Bank … territory, except for issues that will be negotiated in the permanent status negotiations, [would] come under the jurisdiction of the Palestinian Council in a phased manner’.²¹ Although it was specified that Area C of the West Bank (which surrounds the urban centres located in Areas A and B) would ‘be gradually transferred to Palestinian jurisdiction’,²² the agreement ‘ha[s] never been fully implemented’.²³ As a result, Israel still exerts ‘near-exclusive’, if not altogether ‘full’, control over Area C, which ‘encompasses 60 per cent of the West Bank’.²⁴

Several policies and decisions over the past few years testify to the extent of the Israeli control over Area C. 2024 marked a high point in the declaration of State lands in this portion of the West Bank with 24,258 dunams (2,426 hectares), which amounts to approximately half of the total that has received this designation since the Oslo Accords.²⁵ The trend continued in 2025, when a further 750 dunams (75 hectares) were declared Israeli State land by June.²⁶ Concerning settlements, as of June 2025 there appeared to exist around 150 Israeli settlements and 270 outposts in Area C, hosting a population of more than 500,000 people.²⁷

In May 2025, the Israeli security cabinet had approved the establishment of a further 22 new settlements in the West Bank (some reportedly located in areas deep inside the West Bank).²⁸

As noted, in 2023 and 2024, Israel carried out several operations in major cities in the West Bank (such as those in Jenin, Ramallah and other Palestinian cities in Areas A and B), resulting in, respectively the first and second years with the highest number of Palestinian fatalities since OCHA started recording casualties in 2005.²⁹ Several UN bodies have highlighted on multiple occasions that these ‘have involved airstrikes and other war-like tactics that seem … to exceed the means of standard law enforcement’.³⁰

Even though these operations may suggest the emergence of considerable challenges to the control exerted by the IDF over Areas A and B of the West Bank, several other factors bear witness to their continued effectiveness. The presence of checkpoints and movement restrictions set up by the IDF increased following October 2023, and especially after the announcement of the ceasefire in Gaza and the beginning of operations in the northern West Bank.³¹ In May 2025, OCHA reported that, by the end of February 2025, there existed ‘849 movement obstacles that permanently or intermittently restrict the movement of 3.3 million Palestinians across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the H2 area of Hebron city’; these included checkpoints, road gates, linear closures, earth mounds and roadblocks.³²

Following the February 2025 deployment of Israeli tanks in the West Bank (the first of its kind in more than two decades), the Israeli Defence Minister declared ‘I have instructed (troops) to prepare for a prolonged presence in the cleared camps for the coming year and to prevent the return of residents and the resurgence of terrorism’.³³ In May 2025, the Israeli security cabinet also approved the plan for the construction of a security barrier along the eastern border with Jordan. The project, designed to bolster national security but also the Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, would run from Hamat Gader in northern Israel to the Samar Sands in the country’s south, thereby extending in the portion of the border that separates Jordan from the West Bank.³⁴ A few months earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated in an interview that, although the annexation of the West Bank was ‘not where we’re going’, Israel ‘intend to stay there’, and that his vision for a long-term arrangement foresaw that ‘the Palestinians … should have all the powers to govern themselves [but] the overriding security responsibility will be left in Israel’s hands’.³⁵

The Gaza Strip

The Israeli government stated in 2023 that, since it ‘does not exercise effective control over the Gaza Strip, the legal framework governing the present hostilities is not the law of belligerent occupation, but rather the rules of LOAC [i.e., the laws of armed conflict], in particular those governing the conduct of hostilities’.³⁶ According to its view, ‘Hamas has been in control of Gaza since … 2007’, whereas ‘[t]he powers exercised by Israel with respect to Gaza since its Disengagement from this territory in 2005, when its military and civilian presence was entirely removed, derive primarily from LOAC and Israel’s sovereign rights under international law more broadly, as well as Israeli-Palestinian agreements where applicable’.³⁷ This echoes the position of the Israeli government immediately after the exit of the IDF forces from the Gaza Strip in 2005, whereby ‘the full responsibility for events occurring in the Gaza Strip and for thwarting terror attacks against Israeli targets will be in the hands of the Palestinian Authority and its apparatuses’.³⁸

The 2004–05 Disengagement Plan from the Gaza Strip was also at the centre of the analysis carried out by the ICJ in its 2024 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem.³⁹ While the Court did not stipulate that the Gaza Strip remains occupied, it has found that ‘Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has not entirely released it of its obligations under the law of occupation’ and that ‘Israel’s obligations have remained commensurate with the degree of its effective control over the Gaza Strip’.⁴⁰ The Court considered that, despite the withdrawal of its military presence in 2005, ‘Israel remained capable of exercising, and continued to exercise, certain key elements of authority over the Gaza Strip, including control of the land, sea and air borders, restrictions on movement of people and goods, collection of import and export taxes, and military control over the buffer zone, despite the withdrawal of its military presence in 2005’, and that ‘[t]his is even more so since 7 October 2023’.⁴¹

The Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel has maintained in reports published before and after October 2023, that Israel occupies the Gaza Strip.⁴² In its later reports, the Commission explained that Israel had re-established its military presence and control in the Gaza Strip as of October 2023, and that it exerts ‘control over the airspace and territorial waters of Gaza, as well as the land crossings at the borders’.⁴³

Even after the withdrawal of its forces in 2005, Israel maintained tight control over essential services in the Gaza Strip; over its sea, air and land borders; and over key aspects of the civil administration (including the tax system, the telecommunication system and the population registry).⁴⁴. Israel has long enforced a ‘buffer zone’ inside Gaza along the border fence that separates the two territories, that Gazans are not allowed to approach; at times (such as in 2008), the restricted zone extended ‘as far as 1,000 and 1,500 meters from the fence, covering about 17 per cent of the total area of the Gaza Strip, and roughly 35 percent of its farmland’.⁴⁵ Following the beginning of the latest military campaign in October 2023, the elements through which Israel exerts its control over the Gaza Strip have been tightened. It is possible to discern two forms of control – one direct, the other indirect. Insofar as both forms establish an effective control by Israel over the Gaza Strip, its territory and its population, they entail for Israel the creation of obligations under the law of occupation.

According to reports, ‘physical control’ by the Israeli military over the Gaza Strip amounted to around 40 per cent of the territory in March 2025 when the ceasefire talks collapsed.⁴⁶ The extent of that control grew in the following months, especially after Operation Gideon’s Chariot began on 18 May 2025. The stated objective of this extensive ground operation, which involved both northern and southern Gaza, was to expand Israel’s operational control of the Gaza Strip.⁴⁷

A key aspect of this direct control consists of the establishment of (i) military corridors and (ii) buffer zones. Military (or security) corridors are land axes cutting through the territory of the Gaza Strip and controlled by Israel. The first such corridor, named Netzarim, separates Gaza City in the north from the rest of the Gaza Strip, and its width expanded from 2 to 4 kilometres during the armed conflict.⁴⁸ Having established the Netzarim Corridor shortly after the beginning of the ground operations in October 2023, the IDF completely withdrew from it as per the terms of the ceasefire agreement in February 2025, but carried out a limited ground operation to re-take it in March 2025, as the talks for the second phase of the ceasefire collapsed and hostilities resumed.⁴⁹ The second such corridor, named Morag, separates Khan Younis from Rafah in the south of the Gaza Strip, and its creation was announced by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu on 2 April 2025.⁵⁰ Its capture, which was completed by 12 April 2025, resulted in Rafah being completely surrounded by the IDF.⁵¹

As regards access to the Gaza Strip, already before the latest military campaign, the IDF controlled six of seven land crossings into the Gaza Strip, and only kept two of those partially open (i.e., the Erez/Beit Hanoun crossing for individual movement, and the Karem Abu Salem/Kerem Shalom commercial crossing for the entry of goods into Gaza).⁵² The two Israeli-controlled crossings remained closed in the first days of the military campaign, before being gradually re-opened under international pressure.⁵³ In early May 2024, Israel closed the Karem Abu Salem Crossing (after a rocket attack by a Palestinian armed group) and took control of the Rafah Crossing which connects the Gaza Strip with Egypt (which was previously controlled by Egypt and had remained open for specific categories of persons, including medical patients who wished to evacuate).⁵⁴ After the Rafah Crossing was briefly re-opened in February 2025 in conjunction with the ceasefire, Israel once again closed all land crossings into the Gaza Strip in March 2025.⁵⁵ On 29 May 2024, the IDF declared that it had taken ‘operational control’ of the Philadelphi Corridor (a 14-kilometre long and 100-metre wide demilitarized border zone running along Gaza’s border with Egypt), thus controlling the entirety of the Gaza Strip’s land border (except for a small section near the coast and Tel al-Sultan area in the southernmost city of Rafah).⁵⁶ Despite the ceasefire deal which had provided that the IDF would withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor by early March 2025, Israel did not comply with this obligation.⁵⁷

Before the beginning of the latest military campaign in October 2023, 85 per cent of the electricity and 10 per cent of water in the Gaza Strip came from Israel.⁵⁸ Following the attack on 7 October 2023, Israel cut off electricity supplies into the Gaza Strip; power was reconnected to a water desalination and sewage treatment facility following a government directive in July 2024, but Israel once again cut electricity in March 2025.⁵⁹ This measure had a cascading effect on the availability of water in the Gaza Strip. On 9 October 2023, the Israeli Energy Minister had halted the provision of water supply from Israel to the Gaza Strip, but the measure was partially reverted a few days later for certain parts of southern Gaza.⁶⁰ With the water pumped from the Coastal Aquifer Basin (accounting for around 90 per cent of Gaza’s consumption) not fit for drinking, and the water infrastructure impacted by conflict, the water supply heavily depended on desalination plants.⁶¹ The Israeli decision to stop the provision of both power sources in March 2025 severely impacted the access to clean water in the Gaza Strip, with ‘only 40 per cent of drinking water facilities functional and fuel shortages pushing water systems to near collapse’.⁶²

1
ICTY, The Prosecutor v Dusko Tadic, Appeals Chamber, Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, IT-94-1-AR72, 2 October 1995, para 70; ICRC, ‘How Is the Term “Armed Conflict” Defined in International Humanitarian Law?’, p 9; ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, paras 252–54
2
Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Notification aux Gouvernements des Etats parties aux Conventions de Genève du 12 août 1949 pour la protection des victimes de la guerre’, 242.512-0 – GEN 3/14, 21 May 2014
3
Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, ‘Notification to the Governments of the States parties to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 for the Protection of War Victims’, 242.512.0 – GEN 2/14, 10 April 2014
4
ICJ, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, para 78.
5
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Hamas-Israel Conflict 2023: Key Legal Aspects’, 2 November 2023, pp 7-8 (emphasis in the original)
6
Art. 42, Regulations Respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land annexed to the Fourth Hague Convention of 18 October 1907
7
ICJ, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004, para 78 [added emphasis]; ICJ, Armed Activities on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda), Judgment, 19 December 2005, para 172; ICJ, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, para 86
8
Israel, Military Order Concerning Security Regulations that is annexed to Proclamation No. 3, 7 June 1967, section 35 (quoted in International Commission of Jurists, ‘The Road to Annexation – Israel’s Maneuvers to Change the Status of the Occupied Palestinian Territory’, November 2019, p 7, footnote 28)
9
Military Order 144, October 1967 (quoted in International Commission of Jurists, ‘The Road to Annexation – Israel’s Maneuvers to Change the Status of the Occupied Palestinian Territory’, November 2019, p 7, footnote 28)
10
International Commission of Jurists, ‘The Road to Annexation – Israel’s Maneuvers to Change the Status of the Occupied Palestinian Territory’, November 2019, pp 7–8
11
M. Shamgar, ‘The Observance of International Law in the Administered Territories’, 1 Israel Yearbook on Human Rights (1971) 266; Israeli Supreme Court sitting as High Court of Justice, The Public Committee against Torture in Israel et al. v The Government of Israel et al., Judgment, HCJ 769/02, 14 December 2006, para 20
12
S. S. Jaber and I. Bantekas, ‘The Status of Gaza as Occupied Territory Under International Law’, International & Comparative Law Quarterly, Vol 72 (2023) 1077
13
Israeli Supreme Court sitting as High Court of Justice, Ajuri v the Commander of the IDF Forces in Judea and Samaria, Judgment, HCJ 7019/02, HCJ 7015/02, 3 September 2002, paras 50–51. See more generally, on the Court’s case-law, D. Kretzmer, ‘The law of belligerent occupation in the Supreme Court of Israel’, IRRC, Vol 94 (2012), 207–36
14
Israeli Supreme Court sitting as High Court of Justice, Morar v IDF Commander in Judea and Samaria, Judgment, HCJ 9593/04, 26 June 2006, para 12; Israeli Supreme Court sitting as High Court of Justice, Abu Aram v Minister of Defence, Judgment, HCJ 413/13, HCJ 1039/13, 4 May 2022, para 31. See also A. Cohen and Y. Shany, ‘Israel’s Supreme Court Issues Regressive Judgment on West Bank Deportations’, Lawfare, 19 May 2022
15
Israeli Supreme Court sitting as High Court of Justice, Jaber Al-Bassiouni Ahmed and others v Prime Minister and Minister of Defence, Judgment, HCJ 9132/07, 30 January 2008, para 12
16
Palestine Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, ‘Request for Intervention and Declaration of Intervention of the State of Palestine’, 31 May 2024, in ICJ, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), paras 18 and 35
17
ICJ, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004, para 78
18
ICJ, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, para 87
19
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/77/328, 14 September 2022, paras 14-16
20
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/77/328, 14 September 2022, paras 25–47
21
Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (a.k.a. “Oslo II”), Washington, D.C., 28 September 1995, Art. XI(2)
22
Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (a.k.a. “Oslo II”), Washington, D.C., 28 September 1995, Art. XI(3)(c)
23
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/50/21, 9 May 2022, para 31
24
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/50/21, 9 May 2022, para 31; and UN doc. A/77/328, 14 September 2022, para 24
25
PeaceNow, ‘2024 in the West Bank – The Year of Annexation and Expulsion’, February 2025, p 4; J. Sharon, ‘West Bank illegal outposts, land appropriation hit record high in 2024 — watchdog’, The Times of Israel, 6 March 2025
26
Israel National News, ‘Binyamin Region: 8,000,000 square meters declared as state lands’, 11 June 2025; PeaceNow, ‘Declaration of 750 dunams as State Land in the outpost of Malachei HaShalom’, 13 June 2025
27
PeaceNow, ‘Settlement Watch’
28
PeaceNow, ‘The Cabinet Decided on the Establishment of 22 New Settlements in the West Bank’, 29 May 2025; see also PeaceNow, ‘The Cabinet Establishes 13 Official Settlements’, 23 March 2025
29
OCHA, ‘Hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel | Flash Update #106’, 30 January 2024; OCHA, ‘Today’s top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria’, 31 December 2024
30
OCHA, ‘Today’s top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria’, 31 December 2024; see also UN, ‘UN reports “lethal tactics” by Israeli forces in West Bank’, 3 September 2024; and OCHA, ‘Humanitarian Situation Update #213 | West Bank’, 4 September 2024
31
B’Tselem, ‘Israel is drastically restricting movement in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, disrupting the lives of 2 million Palestinians’, 20 March 2024; OCHA, ‘West Bank – Movement and Access Update’, May 2025, pp 1-2
32
OCHA, ‘West Bank – Movement and Access Update’, May 2025, pp 1
33
Agence France-Presse, ‘Israel says army to stay in evacuated West Bank camps for “coming year”’, Al-Monitor, 23 February 2025; B. McKernan, ‘Israel says West Bank operation will last for a year as it sends tanks to Jenin’, The Guardian, 23 February 2025
34
S. Levaton, ‘Security cabinet approves plan for high-tech security barrier along Jordanian border’, The Times of Israel, 18 May 2025; Jerusalem Post Staff, ‘Gov’t approves NGO’s plan to secure Jordan border including reinforcing fence, IDF presence’, The Jerusalem Post, 19 May 2025
35
E. Cortellessa, ‘Read the Full Transcript of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Interview With TIME’, Time, 8 August 2024
36
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Hamas-Israel Conflict 2023: Key Legal Aspects’, 2 November 2023, p 7
37
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Hamas-Israel Conflict 2023: Key Legal Aspects’, 2 November 2023, p 7
38
Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘Exit of IDF Forces from the Gaza Strip completed’, 12 September 2005
39
ICJ, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, paras 88–94
40
ICJ, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, para 94
41
ICJ, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, para 93
42
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/50/21, 9 May 2022, paras 16–17; UN doc. A/77/328, 14 September 2022, paras 7 and 19; UN doc. A/HRC/53/22, 9 May 2023, para 5; and UN doc. A/78/198, 5 September 2023, para 5
43
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/79/232, 11 September 2024, para 4; and UN doc. A/HRC/58/CRP.6, 13 March 2025, para 11.
44
UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, John Dugard, ‘Human Rights Situation in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories’, UN doc A/HRC/7/17, 21 January 2008, para 11; United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, ‘Human Rights in Palestine and Other Occupied Arab Territories’, UN doc A/HRC/12/48, 25 September 2009, paras 277–79
45
Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, ‘Closing In – Life and Death in Gaza’s Access Restricted Areas’, August 2018, pp 5–6
46
D. Horovitz, ‘As the IDF deepens its hold in Gaza, what exactly is meant to happen next?’, The Times of Israel, 11 June 2025
47
‘What is Israel’s new major ground offensive, Operation Gideon’s Chariots?’, Al Jazeera, 19 May 2025; L. Berman and N. Freiberg, ‘Netanyahu sets implementation of Trump’s Gaza relocation plan as new condition for ending war’, The Times of Israel, 22 May 2025
48
K. Fitzpatrick, A. Parry, K. Wells, S. Kishore, K. Tyson, J. Moore and B. Carter, ‘Iran Update’, Institute for the Study of War, 2 July 2024
49
L. Jakes, N. Odenheimer and E. Livni, ‘Israeli Troops Withdraw From Key Zone Bisecting Gaza’, The New York Times, 9 February 2025; J. Burke, ‘Israel launches “limited ground operation” to retake Netzarim corridor in Gaza’, The Guardian, 19 March 2025; S. J. Frantzman, ‘Return to Netzarim: IDF heads back to strategic corridor – analysis’, The Jerusalem Post, 19 March 2025
50
W. Shurafa and I. Scharf, ‘Netanyahu says Israel will establish a new security corridor across Gaza to pressure Hamas’, Associated Press, 2 April 2025; L. Izso, M. Tawfeeq, I. Dahman and P. Lockwood, ‘Netanyahu says Israel is now dividing up Gaza. What does that mean on the ground?’, CNN, 4 April 2025
51
I. Fabian, ‘IDF says it has captured Gaza’s Morag Corridor, cutting off Rafah from Khan Younis’, The Times of Israel, 12 April 2025; Y. J. Bob, ‘What is the Morag Corridor and why is it important? – explainer’, The Jerusalem Post, 9 July 2025
52
M. Humaid, ‘The seven border crossings of Gaza’, Al Jazeera, 15 June 2022; S. Sharma, ‘Hamas Militants Sneak Into Israel: Quick Check On 7 Gaza Border Crossings’, Times Now News, 7 October 2023; ‘Israel closes in on Gaza after occupying all land borders’, Anadolu Ajansi, 30 May 2024
53
OCHA, ‘Escalation in the Gaza Strip and Israel | Flash Update #2’, 8 October 2023; ‘Israel announces “total” blockade on Gaza’, Al Jazeera, 9 October 2023; C. Vinograd, ‘Israel’s Closures of 2 Gaza Border Crossings Prompt Alarm Over Humanitarian Aid’, The New York Times, 7 May 2024
54
J. Burke and J. Borger, ‘Israeli forces say they have control of Gaza side of Rafah crossing’, The Guardian, 7 May 2025; M. Al Ragawi, ‘Gaza crossings still closed, no aid entering despite Israeli claims: Authority’, Anadolu Ajansi, 10 May 2024; P. Beaumont, ‘Israel and Egypt in growing diplomatic row over Rafah border crossing’, The Guardian, 15 May 2024; WAFA New Agency, ‘Israel continues to close border crossings with Gaza for 15 consecutive days’, 21 May 2024; Gisha – Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, ‘Rafah Crossing remains closed to the movement of people, Gaza nearly hermetically sealed’, 22 July 2024
55
P. Beaumont and E. Graham-Harrison, ‘Rafah crossing reopens for Gaza’s sick and injured children after months of closure’, The Guardian, 1 February 2025; P. Beaumont, ‘Rafah crossing reopening should not be underestimated – it hints at success for Gaza ceasefire’,The Guardian, 1 February 2025; A.R. Arnaout and B. Yilmaz, ‘Israel closes Rafah crossing amid airstrikes on Gaza despite ceasefire’, Anadolu Ajansi, 18 March 2025; D. Ostaz, ‘Gaza on the brink: Closed border crossings push population toward famine’, ABC News, 17 April 2025; see also J. Burke, ‘Israel closes the most direct route for aid to Palestinians in Gaza’, The Guardian, 26 June 2025
56
‘Israel in effective control of entire Gaza land border after taking Philadelphi Corridor in south’, The Guardian, 30 May 2024; M. Majid, ‘Israel closes in on Gaza after occupying all land borders’, Anadolu Ajansi, 30 May 2024; P. Beaumont, ‘What is the Philadelphi corridor, and why is it so important to Israel?’, The Guardian, 3 September 2024
57
P. Beaumont, ‘What is the Philadelphi corridor, and why is it so important to Israel?’, The Guardian, 3 September 2024; J. Magid, ‘Israeli official says IDF won’t withdraw from Philadelphi Corridor as ceasefire stipulates’, The Times of Israel, 27 February 2025; ‘Hamas accuses Israel of stalling withdrawal from Philadelphi Corridor under ceasefire’, Anadolu Ajansi, 10 March 2025
58
OCHA, ‘Seawater pollution raises concerns of waterborne diseases and environmental hazards in the Gaza Strip’, 9 August 2018; J. Sharon, ‘Amid concern for humanitarian situation, how much water and power does Gaza have?’, The Times of Israel, 29 October 2023; N. Hall, A. Kirschenbaum, and D. Michel, ‘The Siege of Gaza’s Water’, Center for Strategic and International Studies, 12 January 2024
59
J. Khoury, Y. Kubovich and J. Lis, ‘Israel Reconnects Gaza With Electricity for Water Desalination and Sewage Plant’, Haaretz, 2 July 2024; CGTN, ‘Work begins in Gaza to restore power to water supply facility’, 2 July 2024; WAFA News Agency, ‘Electricity line F11 reconnected to power desalination plant in Deir al-Balah’, 21 July 2024; L. Izso, N. Ebrahim, and A. Salman, ‘Israel cuts electricity to last facility in Gaza receiving Israeli power’, CNN, 10 March 2025
60
The Times of Israel, ‘Energy minister instructs authorities to cut off water to Gaza’, 9 October 2023; A. Spiro, J. Magid and agencies, ‘Israel says it is restarting water supply to southern Gaza Strip’, The Times of Israel, 15 October 2023
61
N. Jafarnia, ‘Israel Again Blocks Gaza Aid, Further Risking Lives’, Human Rights Watch, 5 March 2025; N. Yohanan, ‘Gaza’s life-saving generators face sputtering halt as fuel blockade enters fifth month’, The Times of Israel, 5 July 2025
62
‘Gaza: As last fuel supplies run out, aid teams warn of catastrophe’, UN News, 19 June 2025; OCHA, ‘Humanitarian Situation Update #300 | Gaza Strip’, 26 June 2025; N. Yohanan, ‘Gaza’s life-saving generators face sputtering halt as fuel blockade enters fifth month’, The Times of Israel, 5 July 2025

For a non-international armed conflict (NIAC) to exist, two core elements must occur: (i) the armed violence between government authorities and organized armed groups, or between such groups, must reach a certain intensity, and (ii) the actors taking part in it must exhibit a certain degree of organization.⁶⁰

Non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas

Background

Since at least October 2023, Israel has been engaged in two non-international armed conflicts, one against Hamas and a second against Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Organization

The Israeli Defence Forces

State armed forces are presumed to be organized.¹

Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades

The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) is a Palestinian armed group founded during the First intifada in December 1987. A nationalist Islamist movement, it seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007 but lost considerable traction in the West Bank following its infighting with the nationalist secular Fatah.² Hamas is organizationally split into four sectors (the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, the Palestinian diaspora, and Israeli prisons) and its civilian leadership is composed of two main organs: a Shura Council (with a consultative role) and a Political Bureau (Politburo) (which is responsible for decision-making).³ Reports indicate that ‘[d]espite its geographical spread, the Hamas’ leadership appears to be well organised and effective, capable of pursuing consistent policies and enforcing compliance with internal instructions’.⁴

Hamas’s military wing consists of the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, which were founded in 1991. In October 2023, it was reported that the al-Qassam Brigades counted between 20,000 and 30,000 members.⁵ In terms of command structure, the al-Qassam Brigades are organized ‘into echelons from the squad all the way to the brigade level just as conventional militaries do, with an order of battle at the beginning of the latest hostilities that comprised five brigades, located in each of Gaza’s five governorates (North Gaza, Gaza, Central, Khan Younis, and Rafah) and placed under the authority of a different commander.⁶

Besides a central leadership (under Mohammed Deif and Marwan Issa, then Mohammad Sinwar, and since May 2025 under Izz al-Din al-Haddad), the al-Qassam Brigades have an official spokesperson (nicknamed Abu Obeida).⁷ From an operational viewpoint, over the years, the al-Qassam Brigades have taken part in the different military campaigns against Israel; in the latest round of hostilities, the al-Qassem Brigades have been able not only to plan, coordinate and execute the attack on 7 October 2023, but also to engage the IDF over nearly two years of fighting.⁸

According to estimates, by October 2023 they had amassed an arsenal comprising about 18,000–30,000 rockets (most short-range, some medium range, and a few long range; both domestically produced and acquired from abroad), tens of thousands of light weapons, as well as anti-tank weapons, incendiary balloons, kamikaze drones and torpedoes.⁹

As regards their logistical capacity, it has been reported that the group has ‘a military academy training a range of specialisations including cyber security, and boasts a naval commando unit’, and that it has developed a know-how to produce rockets and explosive devices by using unexploded munitions and recycled material.¹⁰ Furthermore, Hamas and the al-Qassam Brigades have been able to expand the tunnel networks beneath the Gaza Strip; this infrastructure (whose length the IDF estimated at around 480 kilometres) has been used not only to smuggle weapons and other materials, but also to launch incursions into Israel.¹¹

All these elements provide conclusive evidence that the al-Qassam Brigades, representing the armed forces of Hamas, are sufficiently organized to meet the first requirement for a NIAC to exist. This conclusion continues to apply as of late 2025, despite the huge casualties that the al-Qassam Brigades have suffered in two years of military confrontations. At the end of April 2025, the estimated number of al-Qassam fighters killed ranged from 6,000–8,000 (as per Hamas figures) to 11,000–13,000 (Israeli figures), with US officials gauging somewhere in between.¹² In late June 2025, the IDF assessed that, out of the five al-Qassam Brigades active at the start of the military operations, three had been ‘decisively defeated’, and that the Gaza Brigade ‘commanded by Az al-Din Haddad – Hamas’ last senior commander in the Strip’ – was ‘the last Hamas unit still functioning in an organized fashion’.¹³

Several commanders in the al-Qassam Brigades (including Mohammed Deif, Marwan Issa, Mohammed Sinwar, Ahmed al-Ghandour and Ayman Nofal) have been killed, in addition to key figures in Hamas’s civilian wing (such as Ismail Haniyeh and Saleh al-Arouri).¹⁴ At the same time, both intelligence and media reports indicate that Hamas has recruited several thousand recruits since the beginning of the military operations, and that, although the latter lacked weapons and conventional combat skills, they had been trained in guerrilla warfare, rocket fire, and planting explosives.¹⁵ Already in mid-2024, press reports had indicated that the al-Qassam Brigades had proved capable of regrouping after significant losses, and that ‘[d]espite their degradation [they] continue[d] to draw Israeli forces into repeated cycles of fighting’.¹⁶ Although, as of March 2025, the IDF maintained that ‘Hamas was no longer an operational military force, and that only independent commands existed’, by May 2025, it was reportedly acknowledged that ‘Hamas still retains a significant part of its military structure’, including around 40,000 fighters, an arsenal of thousands of short-range rockets, and a large part of its tunnel network.¹⁷

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) is a Palestinian armed group founded in 1981 and operating in both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.¹⁸ The PIJ, led by Ziyadal-Nakhalah as Secretary General and governed by a leadership council, is opposed to political engagement with Israel and, unlike Hamas, does not provide social services to the population, focusing instead on military confrontation.¹⁹

The PIJ’s military wing, established in 1992, is called the al-Quds Brigades. Despite its ‘secretive and ostensibly disciplined cell-based structure’, this armed force is widely regarded as the second-largest armed group in Gaza after Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades.²⁰ Estimates about the number of fighters in the al-Quds Brigades that were present in Gaza by October 2023 range from 1,000 to 15,000, with up to 8,000 rockets of a dozen different types in its arsenal.²¹ In terms of organization, a ‘military council’ is reported to function as the group’s ‘decision-making body in Gaza’.²² The al-Quds Brigades are structured into staff commands: it has been reported that ‘[e]ach member within a command oversees a cell within that command’s region’, and that ‘[t]he PIJ leadership issues orders and staff commanders carry out PIJ operations and coordinate cells’. Training methods are reported to include ‘battlefield tactics against Israeli soldiers’.²³

The al-Quds Brigades have participated in several military confrontations against Israel in the past decades, including in 2009 (Cast Lead/Battle of al-Furqan), 2012 (Protective Edge/Battle of the Withered Grain), 2014 (Pillar of Defence/Operation Stones of Baked Clay) and 2021 (Unity Intifada).²⁴ Despite losing senior figures in 2022 and 2023,²⁵ PIJ participated in the attack on 7 October 2023, after which it was believed to hold more than 30 hostages.²⁶ Presently, few data are available indicating the current status of PIJ and its al-Quds Brigades after the Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip; however, it would appear that the armed group still holds hostages and releases statements on ceasefire agreements.²⁷This suggests that the al-Quds Brigades have satisfied, and continue to satisfy, the organization requirement for the purposes of classifying a NIAC with Israel.

Questions of belonging and control

Concerning the argument that either Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad constitute an organized armed group belonging to a party to an international armed conflict (namely Palestine), the required de facto relationship between the two actors would occur when (i) ‘a group is involved in combat operations alongside the State and claims to be fighting on behalf of the State’, and (ii) ‘when given a formal, public or other opportunity to deny this link, the State does not or declines to do so’.²⁸

In the days and weeks immediately following the 7 October 2023 attacks, the Palestine Liberation Organization did not explicitly disassociate themselves from the attack carried out by Hamas or the PIJ. This prompted an initial conclusion that, failing the PLO taking distance from Hamas and the PIJ, the two armed groups could arguably be considered as organized resistance movements belonging to Palestine, and that the legal framework governing the hostilities between them and Israel was provided by the law of international armed conflict.²⁹ However, the situation shifted markedly later. In December 2023, it was reported that Mahmoud Abbas (incumbent Chairman of the PLO and President of the Palestinian Authority) had repeatedly condemned Hamas for their attack on 7 October 2023 in private meetings, but had refrained from doing so publicly as long as the Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip was ongoing.³⁰ Such a public condemnation occurred in June 2025, when Abbas wrote in a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that ‘[w]hat Hamas did in October 2023 in killing and taking civilians hostage is unacceptable and condemnable and Hamas must immediately release all hostages’, and that ‘Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian Security Forces’.³¹ Therefore, it appears by now that the PLO (recognized internationally as the representative of the Palestinian people) does not consider Hamas and the other armed groups as fighting on its behalf, which results in the conflict not being internationalized and remaining a non-international one.

The armed conflict would also be international if it were proven that a State exercises overall control over an organized and hierarchically structured group, ie, if it ‘has a role in organising, coordinating or planning the military actions of the military group, in addition to financing, training and equipping or providing operational support to that group’.³² Several reports indicate that Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad receive financial support from Iran and Qatar (the latter also hosts senior Hamas figures).³³ Iran has also provided both armed groups with military assistance, including by providing weapons and training fighters.³⁴ However significant, these forms of support do not meet the requirements of ‘overall control’ such as to internationalize the conflict.

Reference has been made to the fact that the Iranian leadership was ‘angry at Sinwar for not revealing his intentions in advance’, and it was noted that ‘Iran did not directly strike Israel until months after Hamas’s attack’.³⁵

Intensity

The ongoing campaign represents the longest and deadliest ever fought around the Gaza Strip. On 7 October 2023, the coordinated attack launched by Palestinian armed groups on Israeli communities and military bases near the border with Gaza resulted in the killing of more than 1,200 people and the wounding of nearly 15,000 others, according to Israeli sources.³⁶ The UN Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel has found that ‘[a]mong those killed, at least 809 were civilians … and 314 were Israeli military personnel’.³⁷ On the same day and immediately thereafter, around 2,200 rockets and mortars were fired at Israel (5,000 according to Hamas), resulting in the killing of 18 civilians and the displacement of approximately 150,000 persons;³⁸ thousands more have been launched in the following months.³⁹

The subsequent campaign by Israel has involved aerial bombardments and ground invasions. Within one week from the beginning of military operations, the Israeli Air Force stated that they had dropped 6,000 bombs on targets in Gaza; by May 2025, the tons of explosives dropped on the Gaza Strip had reached the figure of 100,000, according to Gaza’s government media office.⁴⁰ By early July 2025, more than 85 per cent of the territory of the Gaza Strip was within the Israeli-militarized zone, under displacement orders, or where the two such zones overlap.⁴¹ By the same date, the Ministry of Health of Gaza had reported 57,680 deaths and 137,409 injured.⁴² According to UNRWA, by mid-May 2025 ‘[a]round 90% of Gaza’s 2.4 million population has been forcibly displaced’ as a result of the hostilities in the Gaza Strip.⁴³ The Israeli army reported 444 soldiers killed, and 2,781 injured since the beginning of the ground operation, with an estimated 50 hostages still remaining in the Gaza Strip.⁴⁴

According to UN data, as of April 2025, 70 percent of all structures in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed; 83 per cent of croplands, 83 per cent of agricultural water wells and 71 per cent of greenhouses have been damaged (with only less than 5 per cent of cropland area being still available for cultivation).⁴⁵ A total of 92 per cent of all housing units are also reportedly damaged or destroyed.⁴⁶ All these elements clearly warrant the conclusion that, at least since 7 October 2023 and until now, the armed violence between the IDF and the Palestinian armed groups in the Gaza Strip has reached the intensity threshold required for the existence of a NIAC.

The implementation of different ceasefires (not only the ones in November 2023 and between mid-January and mid-March 2025, but also those adopted for medical reasons, such as those agreed upon to carry out polio vaccinations in the Gaza Strip) does not challenge this conclusion. As the ICRC has noted, ‘while the existence of such agreements [as ceasefires] may be taken into account when assessing all of the facts, they are neither necessary nor sufficient on their own to bring about the termination of the application of humanitarian law’.⁴⁷ Even during the two-month long truce in early 2025, each party accused the other one of committing violations of the ceasefire;⁴⁸ the ceasefire itself did not go farther than phase one, with foundational issues (including the permanent ceasefire and the withdrawal of all Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip) not being agreed upon.⁴⁹ Therefore, such temporary pauses in fighting did not amount to the achievement of a “peaceful settlement” that would bring about the end of the corresponding NIAC.⁵⁰

1
ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, para 463
2
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Hamas’, European Council on Foreign Relations
3
Counter Extremism Project, ‘Hamas’; Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Hamas’, European Council on Foreign Relations
4
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Hamas’, European Council on Foreign Relations
5
‘What is Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades?’, Al Jazeera, 26 October 2023; D. Byman, ‘A War They Both Are Losing: Israel, Hamas and the Plight of Gaza’, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 4 June 2024
6
B. Carter and D. Mealie, ‘The Order of Battle of Hamas’ Izz al Din al Qassem Brigades, Part 1: North and Central Gaza’, Institute for the Study of War, 8 December 2023; B. Carter and D. Mealie, ‘The Order of Battle of Hamas’ Izz al Din al Qassem Brigades Part 2’, Institute for the Study of War, 22 December 2023
7
S. Ibrahim, ‘Who is “Abu Obeida”, the iconic masked spokesperson for Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades?’, The New Arab, 4 June 2024; The Times of Israel Staff, ‘Hamas’s new Gaza leader: A Hebrew-speaking “ghost” with a $750,000 price on his head’, The Times of Israel, 12 June 2025
8
P. P. Murphy, T. John, B. Swails and O. Lieberman, ‘Hamas militants trained for its deadly attack in plain sight and less than a mile from Israel’s heavily fortified border’, CNN, 12 October 2023
9
I. Chapman, A. Ash, D. A. Medina, and A. Gordon, ‘Homemade rockets and modified AK-47s: An annotated look at Hamas’ deadly arsenal’, CNN, 13 October 2023; T. O’Connor, ‘What We Know About Hamas’ Huge Rocket Arsenal’, Newsweek, 31 October 2023; I. Levy, ‘How Hamas Built an Army’, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2 January 2024; Y. Kalisky, ‘Hamas’s weapons arsenal: what did we start with and what is left?’, Institute of National Security Studies, 12 February 2024
10
B. Lendon, ‘How does Hamas get its weapons? A mix of improvisation, resourcefulness and a key overseas benefactor’, CNN, 12 October 2023; S. Nakhoul, ‘How Hamas secretly built a “mini-army” to fight Israel’, Reuters, 16 October 2023
11
P. Beaumont, ‘“A spider’s web of tunnels”: inside Gaza’s underground network being targeted by Israel’, The Guardian, 28 October 2023
12
D. Byman, ‘A War They Both Are Losing: Israel, Hamas and the Plight of Gaza’, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 4 June 2024
13
R. Ben-Yishai, ‘The Gaza campaign nears its military goals, but the decisive moment is yet to come’, Ynet News, 30 June 2025
14
Counter Extremism Project, ‘Hamas’
15
E. Banco, ‘Exclusive: Hamas has added up to 15,000 fighters since start of war, US figures show’, Reuters, 24 January 2025; N. Yohanan, Agencies and The Times of Israel Staff, ‘Hamas said to recruit 30,000 Gaza youths into its military wing’, The Times of Israel, 20 April 2025
16
T. Qiblawi, A. Goodwin, G. Mezzofiore, E. Yosef and I. Dahman, ‘Netanyahu says “victory” over Hamas is in sight. The data tells a different story’, CNN, 5 August 2024
17
J. Cabasés Vega, ‘Israel believes Hamas has 40,000 fighters in Gaza, the same number as before the October 7, 2023 attacks’, El Pais, 27 May 2025; BBC, ‘Briefing: Israel media note conflicting reports on Hamas’s fighting capability’, 10 April 2025
18
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’, European Council on Foreign Relations; Hindsight Up Front Initiative, ‘Palestinian Factions: Hamas and PIJ’, Wilson Center, 3 November 2023
19
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’, European Council on Foreign Relations; Hindsight Up Front Initiative, ‘Palestinian Factions: Hamas and PIJ’, Wilson Center, 3 November 2023
20
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Al-Quds Brigades – Islamic Jihad’, European Council on Foreign Relations
21
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’, European Council on Foreign Relations; The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, ‘The Relationship Between Iran and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’, 27 February 2020; Hindsight Up Front Initiative, ‘Palestinian Factions: Hamas and PIJ’, Wilson Center, 3 November 2023; J. P. Rathbone, ‘Military briefing: Battle for Mosul points to IDF’s “fiendish” task in Gaza’, Financial Times, 19 October 2023
22
‘Israel’s prime target: What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad?’, Al Jazeera, 11 May 2023
23
Counter Extremism Project, ‘Palestinian Islamic Jihad’
24
‘Israel and Hamas agree Gaza ceasefire after 11 days of fighting’, Al Jazeera, 20 May 2021; M. Abuamer and W. Alarabeed, ‘The Israeli War on Palestinian Islamic Jihad’, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 19 September 2022, pp 3–9
25
M. Humaid, ‘Israel hits Gaza with air attacks as tensions escalate’, Al Jazeera, 5 August 2022; Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘IDF initiates Operation Shield and Arrow, targeting senior Islamic Jihad commanders in the Gaza Strip’, 9 May 2023; ‘Israel’s prime target: What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad?’, Al Jazeera, 11 May 2023
26
Associated Press, ‘At least 130 Israelis held hostage in Gaza’, Politico, 18 August 2023; CNN, ‘Understanding who holds hostages in Gaza’, 28 November 2023
27
M. Ragawi, ‘Islamic Jihad’s military wing warns of risks to Israeli hostages amid continued bombing of Gaza’, Anadolu Ajansi, 18 January 2025; M. Majed, ‘Palestinians secured “dignified” cease-fire agreement: Islamic Jihad Movement’, Anadolu Ajansi, 16 January 2025; Reuters, ‘Islamic Jihad says fate of hostages it holds is tied to Netanyahu’s actions’, 12 February 2025
28
ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, para 1007
29
RULAC, ‘Military Occupation of Palestine by Israel’, 7 December 2023
30
J. Magid, ‘Abbas denouncing Hamas, but criticism kept private due to IDF “aggression” – top aide’, The Times of Israel, 7 December 2023
31
J. Magid, ‘In first, Palestinian Authority’s Abbas condemns Hamas October 7 attack’, The Times of Israel, 10 June 2025
32
ICTY, The Prosecutor v Dusko Tadic, Appeals Chamber, Judgement, IT-94-1-A, 15 July 1999, paras 120 and 137
33
Counter Extremism Project, ‘Hamas’; Counter Extremism Project, ‘Palestinian Islamic Jihad’; E. Skare, ‘Iran, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad: A marriage of convenience’, European Council on Foreign Relations, 18 December 2023
34
Hindsight Up Front Initiative, ‘Palestinian Factions: Hamas and PIJ’, Wilson Center, 3 November 2023
35
J. Warrick, S. Mekhennet and L. Morris, ‘Captured documents reveal Hamas’s broader ambition to wreak havoc on Israel’, The Washington Post, 12 October 2024; R. Bergman, A. Rasgon and P. Kingsley, ‘Secret Documents Show Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack’, The New York Times, 12 October 2024
36
Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, Detailed findings on attacks carried out on and after 7 October 2023 in Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/CRP.3, 10 June 2024, paras 20–21
37
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/26, 14 June 2024, para 11
38
Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, Detailed findings on attacks carried out on and after 7 October 2023 in Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/CRP.3, 10 June 2024, paras 20-29; Al Jazeera Labs, ‘Israel-Gaza war in maps and charts: Live tracker’, Al Jazeera, 17 April 2025
39
N. Gavrielov, ‘Hamas and Other Militant Groups Are Firing Rockets Into Israel Every Day’, The New York Times, 2 January 2024; Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, Detailed findings on attacks carried out on and after 7 October 2023 in Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/CRP.3, 10 June 2024, para 30; T. Hassan, ‘World Report 2025 – Israel and Palestine – Events of 2024’, Human Rights Watch
40
O. Abdel-Baqui, ‘Israeli Air Force Says It Has Dropped 6,000 Bombs on Gaza’, The Wall Street Journal, 13 October 2023; M. Sio, ‘Israel dropped 100,000 tons of explosives over Gaza, wiped out 2,200 families: Media office’, Anadolu Ajansi, 8 May 2025
41
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025; see also J. Burke and M.A. Tantesh, ‘Israel launches waves of Gaza airstrikes after new displacement orders’, The Guardian, 30 June 2025
42
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025
43
A. Asmar, ‘90% of Gaza’s population forcibly displaced by Israeli war: UN’, Anadolu Ajansi, 15 May 2025
44
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025
45
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025
46
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025
47
ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, para 524
48
N. Nedim and M. Sio, ‘FACTBOX – Top 5 Israeli violations of Gaza ceasefire, prisoner swap agreement’, Anadolu Ajansi, 11 February 2025; B. McKernan, ‘Arab mediators scramble to save Gaza ceasefire as Israel bolsters troop numbers’, The Guardian, 12 February 2025; N. Abuaisha and I. Kouachi, ‘Gaza official reports over 350 Israeli violations of ceasefire deal’, Anadolu Ajansi, 21 February 2025; I. Kershner, ‘Israel and Hamas Trade Accusations of Violating Fragile Cease-Fire’, The New York Times, 23 February 2025
49
S. A. Cook, ‘Israel and Hamas Reach Cease-Fire, but Will the War End?’, Council on Foreign Relations, 15 January 2025; M. Krever, D. Karni, I. Dahman, and T. Lister, ‘Israel says it won’t withdraw from Gaza-Egypt border as it sends team to ceasefire talks’, CNN, 27 February 2025
50
ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, paras 520–30

Non-international armed conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Background

Since at least October 2023, Israel has been engaged in two non-international armed conflicts, one against Hamas and a second against Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

Organization

The Israeli Defence Forces

State armed forces are presumed to be organized.¹

Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades

Questions of belonging and control

Intensity

1
ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, para 463
2
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Hamas’, European Council on Foreign Relations
3
Counter Extremism Project, ‘Hamas’; Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Hamas’, European Council on Foreign Relations
4
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Hamas’, European Council on Foreign Relations
5
‘What is Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades?’, Al Jazeera, 26 October 2023; D. Byman, ‘A War They Both Are Losing: Israel, Hamas and the Plight of Gaza’, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 4 June 2024
6
B. Carter and D. Mealie, ‘The Order of Battle of Hamas’ Izz al Din al Qassem Brigades, Part 1: North and Central Gaza’, Institute for the Study of War, 8 December 2023; B. Carter and D. Mealie, ‘The Order of Battle of Hamas’ Izz al Din al Qassem Brigades Part 2’, Institute for the Study of War, 22 December 2023
7
S. Ibrahim, ‘Who is “Abu Obeida”, the iconic masked spokesperson for Hamas’s Al-Qassam Brigades?’, The New Arab, 4 June 2024; The Times of Israel Staff, ‘Hamas’s new Gaza leader: A Hebrew-speaking “ghost” with a $750,000 price on his head’, The Times of Israel, 12 June 2025
8
P. P. Murphy, T. John, B. Swails and O. Lieberman, ‘Hamas militants trained for its deadly attack in plain sight and less than a mile from Israel’s heavily fortified border’, CNN, 12 October 2023
9
I. Chapman, A. Ash, D. A. Medina, and A. Gordon, ‘Homemade rockets and modified AK-47s: An annotated look at Hamas’ deadly arsenal’, CNN, 13 October 2023; T. O’Connor, ‘What We Know About Hamas’ Huge Rocket Arsenal’, Newsweek, 31 October 2023; I. Levy, ‘How Hamas Built an Army’, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2 January 2024; Y. Kalisky, ‘Hamas’s weapons arsenal: what did we start with and what is left?’, Institute of National Security Studies, 12 February 2024
10
B. Lendon, ‘How does Hamas get its weapons? A mix of improvisation, resourcefulness and a key overseas benefactor’, CNN, 12 October 2023; S. Nakhoul, ‘How Hamas secretly built a “mini-army” to fight Israel’, Reuters, 16 October 2023
11
P. Beaumont, ‘“A spider’s web of tunnels”: inside Gaza’s underground network being targeted by Israel’, The Guardian, 28 October 2023
12
D. Byman, ‘A War They Both Are Losing: Israel, Hamas and the Plight of Gaza’, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 4 June 2024
13
R. Ben-Yishai, ‘The Gaza campaign nears its military goals, but the decisive moment is yet to come’, Ynet News, 30 June 2025
14
Counter Extremism Project, ‘Hamas’
15
E. Banco, ‘Exclusive: Hamas has added up to 15,000 fighters since start of war, US figures show’, Reuters, 24 January 2025; N. Yohanan, Agencies and The Times of Israel Staff, ‘Hamas said to recruit 30,000 Gaza youths into its military wing’, The Times of Israel, 20 April 2025
16
T. Qiblawi, A. Goodwin, G. Mezzofiore, E. Yosef and I. Dahman, ‘Netanyahu says “victory” over Hamas is in sight. The data tells a different story’, CNN, 5 August 2024
17
J. Cabasés Vega, ‘Israel believes Hamas has 40,000 fighters in Gaza, the same number as before the October 7, 2023 attacks’, El Pais, 27 May 2025; BBC, ‘Briefing: Israel media note conflicting reports on Hamas’s fighting capability’, 10 April 2025
18
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’, European Council on Foreign Relations; Hindsight Up Front Initiative, ‘Palestinian Factions: Hamas and PIJ’, Wilson Center, 3 November 2023
19
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’, European Council on Foreign Relations; Hindsight Up Front Initiative, ‘Palestinian Factions: Hamas and PIJ’, Wilson Center, 3 November 2023
20
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Al-Quds Brigades – Islamic Jihad’, European Council on Foreign Relations
21
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Islamic Jihad (PIJ)’, European Council on Foreign Relations; The Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, ‘The Relationship Between Iran and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’, 27 February 2020; Hindsight Up Front Initiative, ‘Palestinian Factions: Hamas and PIJ’, Wilson Center, 3 November 2023; J. P. Rathbone, ‘Military briefing: Battle for Mosul points to IDF’s “fiendish” task in Gaza’, Financial Times, 19 October 2023
22
‘Israel’s prime target: What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad?’, Al Jazeera, 11 May 2023
23
Counter Extremism Project, ‘Palestinian Islamic Jihad’
24
‘Israel and Hamas agree Gaza ceasefire after 11 days of fighting’, Al Jazeera, 20 May 2021; M. Abuamer and W. Alarabeed, ‘The Israeli War on Palestinian Islamic Jihad’, Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, 19 September 2022, pp 3–9
25
M. Humaid, ‘Israel hits Gaza with air attacks as tensions escalate’, Al Jazeera, 5 August 2022; Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ‘IDF initiates Operation Shield and Arrow, targeting senior Islamic Jihad commanders in the Gaza Strip’, 9 May 2023; ‘Israel’s prime target: What is Palestinian Islamic Jihad?’, Al Jazeera, 11 May 2023
26
Associated Press, ‘At least 130 Israelis held hostage in Gaza’, Politico, 18 August 2023; CNN, ‘Understanding who holds hostages in Gaza’, 28 November 2023
27
M. Ragawi, ‘Islamic Jihad’s military wing warns of risks to Israeli hostages amid continued bombing of Gaza’, Anadolu Ajansi, 18 January 2025; M. Majed, ‘Palestinians secured “dignified” cease-fire agreement: Islamic Jihad Movement’, Anadolu Ajansi, 16 January 2025; Reuters, ‘Islamic Jihad says fate of hostages it holds is tied to Netanyahu’s actions’, 12 February 2025
28
ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, para 1007
29
RULAC, ‘Military Occupation of Palestine by Israel’, 7 December 2023
30
J. Magid, ‘Abbas denouncing Hamas, but criticism kept private due to IDF “aggression” – top aide’, The Times of Israel, 7 December 2023
31
J. Magid, ‘In first, Palestinian Authority’s Abbas condemns Hamas October 7 attack’, The Times of Israel, 10 June 2025
32
ICTY, The Prosecutor v Dusko Tadic, Appeals Chamber, Judgement, IT-94-1-A, 15 July 1999, paras 120 and 137
33
Counter Extremism Project, ‘Hamas’; Counter Extremism Project, ‘Palestinian Islamic Jihad’; E. Skare, ‘Iran, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad: A marriage of convenience’, European Council on Foreign Relations, 18 December 2023
34
Hindsight Up Front Initiative, ‘Palestinian Factions: Hamas and PIJ’, Wilson Center, 3 November 2023
35
J. Warrick, S. Mekhennet and L. Morris, ‘Captured documents reveal Hamas’s broader ambition to wreak havoc on Israel’, The Washington Post, 12 October 2024; R. Bergman, A. Rasgon and P. Kingsley, ‘Secret Documents Show Hamas Tried to Persuade Iran to Join Its Oct. 7 Attack’, The New York Times, 12 October 2024
36
Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, Detailed findings on attacks carried out on and after 7 October 2023 in Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/CRP.3, 10 June 2024, paras 20–21
37
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/26, 14 June 2024, para 11
38
Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, Detailed findings on attacks carried out on and after 7 October 2023 in Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/CRP.3, 10 June 2024, paras 20-29; Al Jazeera Labs, ‘Israel-Gaza war in maps and charts: Live tracker’, Al Jazeera, 17 April 2025
39
N. Gavrielov, ‘Hamas and Other Militant Groups Are Firing Rockets Into Israel Every Day’, The New York Times, 2 January 2024; Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, Detailed findings on attacks carried out on and after 7 October 2023 in Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/CRP.3, 10 June 2024, para 30; T. Hassan, ‘World Report 2025 – Israel and Palestine – Events of 2024’, Human Rights Watch
40
O. Abdel-Baqui, ‘Israeli Air Force Says It Has Dropped 6,000 Bombs on Gaza’, The Wall Street Journal, 13 October 2023; M. Sio, ‘Israel dropped 100,000 tons of explosives over Gaza, wiped out 2,200 families: Media office’, Anadolu Ajansi, 8 May 2025
41
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025; see also J. Burke and M.A. Tantesh, ‘Israel launches waves of Gaza airstrikes after new displacement orders’, The Guardian, 30 June 2025
42
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025
43
A. Asmar, ‘90% of Gaza’s population forcibly displaced by Israeli war: UN’, Anadolu Ajansi, 15 May 2025
44
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025
45
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025
46
OCHA, ‘Reported impact snapshot | Gaza Strip (9 July 2025)’, 9 July 2025
47
ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, para 524
48
N. Nedim and M. Sio, ‘FACTBOX – Top 5 Israeli violations of Gaza ceasefire, prisoner swap agreement’, Anadolu Ajansi, 11 February 2025; B. McKernan, ‘Arab mediators scramble to save Gaza ceasefire as Israel bolsters troop numbers’, The Guardian, 12 February 2025; N. Abuaisha and I. Kouachi, ‘Gaza official reports over 350 Israeli violations of ceasefire deal’, Anadolu Ajansi, 21 February 2025; I. Kershner, ‘Israel and Hamas Trade Accusations of Violating Fragile Cease-Fire’, The New York Times, 23 February 2025
49
S. A. Cook, ‘Israel and Hamas Reach Cease-Fire, but Will the War End?’, Council on Foreign Relations, 15 January 2025; M. Krever, D. Karni, I. Dahman, and T. Lister, ‘Israel says it won’t withdraw from Gaza-Egypt border as it sends team to ceasefire talks’, CNN, 27 February 2025
50
ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, paras 520–30

Other situations of concern

Over the past few months, and particularly after the attack on 7 October 2023, the situation in the refugee camps in the West Bank has also undergone a significant escalation. After several pinpoint counterterrorism operations in Jenin refugee camp in July 2023 and August 2024, Israel security forces initiated a large-scale military operation in January 2025.⁶¹ Compared to previous incursions, Operation Iron Wall had ‘no time constraints and no set end date’, and ‘soon expanded across the northern West Bank, with the refugee camps of Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams being at the centre of operations’.⁶²

The latest Israeli operation followed a six-week-long operation in Jenin refugee camp by the Palestinian Authority’s security forces (in cooperation with Israel).⁶³ These operations were reportedly directed against Palestinian armed groups, including the Jenin Battalion – an umbrella organization that is said to include Hamas’s al-Qassam Brigades, the PIJ’s al-Quds Brigades, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades.⁶⁴ Similar operations have been carried out in other areas of the West Bank, including in Nablus against members of the group called Lion’s Den.⁶⁵

These incursions have caused severe humanitarian consequences. According to UNRWA, the latest operations in Jenin by the PA and then Israel since December 2024 have resulted in the displacement of ‘over 40,000 Palestine refugees from the camps and surrounding areas’, which ranks as ‘the longest and largest displacement crisis in the West Bank since 1967’.⁶⁶ The Israeli operation Iron Wall (which involved the Israeli police, military and the Shin Bet internal intelligence agency) reportedly ‘entailed helicopter gunfire, airstrikes, ground force operations and the deployment of tanks for the first time since the early 2000s’.⁶⁷ According to UN figures, 2023 and 2024 saw the highest amount of Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank since OCHA’s records began in 2005;⁶⁸ as of early July 2025, 153 Palestinians had reportedly been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank, and demolitions of homes in Tulkarm refugee camp occurred ‘despite a 2 July [2025] Israeli Supreme Court injunction that temporarily froze demolition orders’.⁶⁹

Despite the number of casualties and the extent displacement and destruction, it would appear that the criteria are not met for a non-international armed conflict to be occurring in the West Bank.

First, the extent to which the Palestinian armed factions in the West Bank are organized is a matter of debate. Some commentators have argued that these groups have ‘organize[d] an actual military unit with a structured chain of command’ and that ‘[y]ears of limited IDF presence [in Jenin] and a complete absence of Palestinian Authority security forces enabled the [Jenin] battalion to build a sophisticated command system, controlling the camp with an iron grip’.⁷⁰ At the same time, others question the existence of any such battalion and qualify it as ‘young criminals who had found a haven in the refugee camp and had been getting a few hundred dollars to shoot at IDF forces’.⁷¹ Albeit members of the different armed groups are occasionally killed in the same attack by the IDF (which may point to at least some form of coordination between them),⁷² their organization is described in the press as being relatively ‘loose’.⁷³

Regarding the Israeli operations, the UN have repeatedly warned that ‘Israeli operations in 2023 and 2024 in the West Bank have involved airstrikes and other war-like tactics that seems to exceed the means of standard law enforcement’.⁷⁴ However, Diamond, Nohle and Schmidl have rightly noted that ‘unilateral use of force by Israel that resembles hostilities … is not sufficient to demonstrate intensity; it is rather an indication that excessive and disproportionate force is being used’.⁷⁵

On a different note, there is no information indicating that the Palestinian factions in the West Bank are belonging to, or under the overall control of, a State party to an armed conflict with Israel – a circumstance which would lead to the application of the law governing international armed conflict. The link of some of the armed groups participating in the Jenin Battalion with Fatah is disputed;⁷⁶ similarly, the reported provision of weapons by Iran to West Bank fighters would not suffice in that respect.⁷⁷

As regards the Palestinian incursion in Jenin refugee camp, the operation reportedly resulted in the killing of eight civilians, one alleged ‘terror suspect’ and six members of the Palestinian Authority security forces, and led to the arrest of ‘a handful of Jenin Battalion members’, over a period of six weeks.⁷⁸ Despite some sources reporting heavy clashes, ⁷⁹ these figures signal an excessive and disproportionate use of force during operations allegedly aimed at restoring security and stability, rather than reflecting the use of means and methods of warfare in a situation of hostilities.⁸⁰

In light of the above, it would appear that (at least for the time being) the clashes of Israeli and (a fortiori) Palestinian forces with Palestinian factions in the West Bank would not qualify as non-international armed conflict. The use of force by Israel in the West Bank must be governed by the law of law enforcement paradigm as opposed to the conduct of hostilities grounded in IHL. This conclusion is supported by the UN, Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, humanitarian organizations, as well as scholarship.⁸¹

State Parties

Israel
Palestine

Non-State Parties

Hamas’s Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades
Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s al-Quds Brigades

1
UK Colonial and Foreign Office, ‘Palestine – Termination of the Mandate’, London, 15 May 1948; Declaration of Israel’s Independence, ‘The Declaration of Independence’, Tel Aviv, 14 May 1948.
2
ICJ, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004, para 73
3
Israeli-Palestinian Interim Agreement on the West Bank and the Gaza Strip (a.k.a. “Oslo II”), Washington, D.C., 28 September 1995
4
A. D. Miller, ‘Why the Oslo Peace Process Failed’, Foreign Policy, 13 September 2023; E. Bazelon, ‘Was Peace Ever Possible?’, The New York Times Magazine, 20 November 2023.
5
ICJ, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004, para 75; Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/77/328, 14 September 2022, paras 14–16
6
UNSC Res 478, 20 August 1980; UNSC Res 2334, 23 December 2016
7
ICJ, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, para 88
8
Israel Prime Minister’s Office, ‘The Cabinet Resolution Regarding the Disengagement Plan’, 6 January 2004
9
C. Urquart, I. Black and M. Tran, ‘Hamas takes control of Gaza’, The Guardian, 15 June 2007
10
Al Jazeera, ‘Timeline: Israel’s attacks on Gaza since 2005’, 7 August 2022
11
UN OCHA, Protection of Civilians Report | 5–24 July 2023, 29 July 2023, p 3; Middle East Monitor, ‘Israel injures dozens of Palestinians in Bethlehem’, 17 July 2023 and Nablus. E. Fabian, ‘Soldiers clash with Palestinian gunmen near Nablus, destroy explosive lab’, The Times of Israel, 16 August 2023; A. Nobani, ‘Dozens injured as Israeli forces raid Nablus, blow up building’, Al Jazeera,16 August 2023
12
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/78/198, 5 September 2023, paras 31–35; UN OCHA, Israeli forces’ operation in Jenin – Situation Report #1 as of 17:00, 6 July 2023; V. Pietromarchi, ‘Jenin raid is over. Palestinians are left to cope with the trauma’, Al Jazeera, 10 July 2023; and IHL Centre, ‘Excessive Force: A Legal Analysis of Israel’s Operation in Jenin Refugee Camp’, 13 July 2023
13
Peace Now, A record number of housing units were promoted in the West Bank in only six months, 13 July 2023; Norwegian Refugee Council, Palestine: Jenin operation marks violent half-year for Israel’s government, 6 July 2023
14
UN OCHA, ‘Movement and Access in the West Bank – September 2024’, 25 September 2024; A. Nobani, ‘Palestinians in West Bank face closures, attacks amid Israeli offensive’, Al Jazeera, 28 October 2023; Norwegian Refugee Council, West Bank movement restrictions make life harder for residents and aid organisations, 26 March 2024
15
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/26, 14 June 2024, paras 62–63
16
J. Burke, ‘“Our wish is to be martyred”: defiant Hamas fighters count their losses in West Bank’, The Guardian, 10 November 2023; J. Burke, ‘Israel kills Hamas militants in Jenin raid as violence surges in West Bank’, The Guardian, 17 November 2023; C. Duhamel, ‘Three-day Israeli incursion into Jenin leads to deadly clashes’, France24, 17 December 2023)
17
‘Israeli occupation forces arrest 28 Palestinians, including a women, in West Bank’, Wafa News Agency, 10 December 2023; ‘Israeli occupation forces raid Jenin and several other West Bank cities and towns’, Wafa News Agency, 23 December 2023; Al Jazeera, ‘“Unparalleled”: Israeli army raids Ramallah, more occupied West Bank cities’, 28 December 2023
18
A. Nierenberg, ‘Recent Israeli Raids in the West Bank: A Timeline’, The New York Times, 5 September 2024
19
A. Sawafta, ‘Israeli forces pull out of Jenin leaving a trail of destruction’, Reuters, 6 September 2024; B. McKernan and S. Taha, ‘“We are all Jenin together”: West Bank city seeks normality after IDF’s deadly raids’, The Guardian, 10 September 2024
20
UN OCHA, Today’s top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria, 31 December 2024
21
Council of the European Union, ‘Extremist Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as violent activists, blocking humanitarian aid to Gaza: five individuals and three entities sanctioned under the EU Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime’, 15 July 2024; J. Butler, ‘Australia imposes sanctions on Israeli settlers and youth group over violent attacks on Palestinians’, The Guardian, 25 July 2024; Government of Canada, Canadian Sanctions Related to Extremist Settler Violence in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem (occupied Palestinian territories/oPt); and US Department of State, West Bank Sanctions
22
PeaceNow, The Government Declares 12,000 Dunams in the Jordan Valley as State Lands, 3 July 2024; J. Sharon, ‘Israel announces largest appropriation of state land in West Bank since Oslo Accords’, The Times of Israel, 3 July 2024
23
J. Magid and The Times of Israel Staff, ‘Security cabinet okays legalizing 5 outposts, sanctioning PA officials’, The Times of Israel, 28 June 2024; T. Goldenberg, J. Federman and K. Chehayeb, ‘Israel approves plans for nearly 5,300 new homes in West Bank settlements’, Associated Press, 4 July 2024
24
J. Mackenzie and A. Sawafta, ‘Israel launches “significant” military operation in West Bank, at least 9 Palestinians killed’, Reuters, 21 January 2025; N. Ebrahim, N. Bashir and K. Khadder, ‘Residents say they were forced to flee Jenin refugee camp as Israel’s West Bank military operation intensifies’, CNN, 24 January 2025
25
B. McKernan, ‘Israel says West Bank operation will last for a year as it sends tanks to Jenin’, The Guardian, 23 February 2025; and E. Fabian, ‘IDF deploys tanks in West Bank for first time since 2002, sending 3 to Jenin as it expands op’, The Times of Israel, 23 February 2025
26
F. AbdulKarim, ‘As Iran Fires at Israel, Palestinians Get Caught in the Crossfire’, The New York Times, 16 June 2025; UN OCHA, Humanitarian Situation Update #298 | West Bank, 18 June 2025; and S. Yaish, ‘With Iran war as pretext, Israel suffocates the West Bank’, +972 Magazine, 19 June 2025
27
L. Tondo, ‘Israel confirms plans to create 22 new settlements in occupied West Bank’,The Guardian, 29 May 2025
28
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/26, 14 June 2024, para 8; Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, Detailed findings on attacks carried out on and after 7 October 2023 in Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/CRP.3, 10 June 2024
29
Al Jazeera, ‘Israel army launches air attacks on Gaza’, 7 October 2023; H. Gold, S. Faqiri, H. Regan, J. Yeung and C. Hu, ‘Israel formally declares war against Hamas as it battles to push militants off its soil’, CNN, 8 October 2023
30
E. Fabian, ‘Defense minister announces “complete siege” of Gaza: No power, food or fuel’, The Times of Israel, 9 October 2023
31
IDF, ‘IDF Announcement Sent to the Civilians of Gaza City’, 13 October 2023; E. Fabian, ‘IDF: Infantry troops, tanks entered Gaza for “localized raids” to clear area of terrorists, locate hostages’, The Times of Israel, 13 October 2023
32
J. Borger, R. Carroll, P. Beaumont, and R. Tait, ‘Israel intensifies Gaza assault and severs communications across territory’, The Guardian, 28 October 2023; J. Mackenzie and M. Lubell, ‘Israel launches Gaza war’s second phase with ground operation, Netanyahu says’, Reuters, 28 October 2023
33
‘Israel-Hamas truce expires, fresh fighting reported’, Reuters, 1 December 2023; ‘The Israel-Hamas truce has ended: What we know so far’, Al Jazeera, 1 December 2023
34
‘Israel expands ground invasion in Gaza’s Khan Younis’, WAFA News Agency, 3 December 2023; H. Sherwood and J. Burke, ‘Israel extends ground offensive into southern Gaza, with mission in north “almost complete”’, The Guardian, 4 December 2023
35
M. McCluskey, ‘Saudi Arabia warns Israel of “very serious repercussions” for storming Rafah’, CNN, 10 February 2024; R. Michaelson, ‘G7 opposes full-scale military operation in Rafah amid fears for civilians’, The Guardian, 19 April 2024; Z. Miller and A. Madhani, ‘Biden warns Netanyahu against major Rafah offensive as divide between the 2 leaders grows’, AP News, 7 May 2024; A. Batrawy, I. Stern and A. Avital, ‘A timeline of events leading up to Israel’s Rafah offensive’, NPR, 8 May 2024; J. Burke, ‘Israel launches Rafah offensive it says is start of mission to “eliminate” Hamas’, The Guardian, 8 May 2024
36
UNSC Res 2735, 10 June 2024
37
‘Hamas drops key demand to accept phased US deal on ceasefire, hostages’, France 24, 6 July 2024; J. Magid, ‘Netanyahu’s office denies report Israel open to pullout from Gaza-Egypt border’, The Times of Israel, 12 July 2024; A. Rabinovitch and J. Mackenzie, ‘Netanyahu says Israel must control Philadelphi corridor in Gaza’, Reuters, 2 September 2024
38
N. Al-Mughrabi and M. Lubell, ‘Mohammed Deif: Hamas military leader and Oct 7 mastermind was killed in Gaza airstrike, Israel says’, Reuters, 1 August 2024; Reuters, ‘Israeli military says Hamas Khan Younis brigade commander killed in Gaza’, 14 July 2024; The Times of Israel staff, ‘Hamas now accepts Israel killed Muhammad Deif, has arrested 2 people, sources tell paper’, The Times of Israel, 2 November 2024 Mohammed Deif’s deputy, Marwan Issa, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike in March 2024.P. McCausland, ‘Israel Gaza: US reports death of senior Hamas military leader Marwan Issa’, BBC, 19 March 2024
39
E. Graham-Harrison, Q. Kierszenbaum, B. McKernan and W. Christou, ‘Iran vows revenge after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh killed in Tehran’, The Guardian, 31 July 2024; Staff and agencies, ‘Israel confirms it killed Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Iran in July’, The Guardian, 24 December 2024
40
B. McKernan, ‘Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar killed in surprise encounter with Israeli forces’, The Guardian, 17 October 2024; Al Jazeera, ‘Hamas confirms leader Yahya Sinwar killed in combat in Gaza by Israeli army’, 18 October 2024
41
ICC, ‘Situation in the State of Palestine: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I rejects the State of Israel’s challenges to jurisdiction and issues warrants of arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant’; and ‘Situation in the State of Palestine: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I issues warrant of arrest for Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (Deif)’, 21 November 2024
42
‘What do we know about the Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal in Gaza?’, Al Jazeera, 15 January 2025; ‘Text of the hostage-ceasefire agreement reached between Israel and Hamas’, The Times of Israel, 16 January 2025; The White House, ‘Remarks by President Biden on Reaching a Ceasefire and Hostage Deal’, 19 January 2025
43
R. Berg, ‘Is the war starting again in Gaza?’, BBC, 18 March 2025
44
R. Berg, ‘Is the war starting again in Gaza?’, BBC, 18 March 2025
45
J. Borger, ‘Israel cuts off humanitarian supplies to Gaza as it seeks to change ceasefire deal’, The Guardian, 2 March 2025; N. Jafarnia, ‘Israel Again Blocks Gaza Aid, Further Risking Lives’, Human Rights Watch, 5 March 2025; L. Berman, ‘Israel stops electricity supply to Gaza to ratchet up pressure on Hamas’, The Times of Israel, 9 March 2025; J. Burke, ‘Israel to cut off electricity in Gaza in apparent effort to force hand of Hamas’, The Guardian, 9 March 2025
46
N. Al-Mughrabi and J. Mackenzie, ‘After airstrikes, Israel says it has launched new ground operation in Gaza’, Reuters, 19 May 2025; M. Fisher and E. Nader, ‘Israel resumes ground operations in Gaza after deadly air strikes’, BBC, 19 March 2025
47
W. Shurafa and I. Scharf, ‘Netanyahu says Israel will establish a new security corridor across Gaza to pressure Hamas’, Associated Press, 2 April 2025; Israeli Defence Forces, ‘The Golani Brigade and the 188th Armored Brigade Established the Morag Corridor’, Press Release, 12 April 2025
48
E. Fabian, ‘IDF says it has begun “broad” ground operations as it expands new Gaza offensive’, The Times of Israel, 18 May 2025; J. Miller, N. El-Bawab, D. Jovanovic and C. Watson, ‘IDF announces start of “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” Gaza ground offensive’, ABC News, 19 May 2025; J. Burke and M. A. Tantesh, ‘Israeli army begins “extensive” new ground operations in Gaza’, The Guardian, 18 May 2025; ‘What is Israel’s new major ground offensive, Operation Gideon’s Chariots?’, Al Jazeera, 19 May 2025
49
J. Burke, ‘Indirect talks over Gaza ceasefire continue as Netanyahu arrives in Washington’, The Guardian, 7 July 2025
50
J. Burke, ‘Tens of thousands flee Gaza City after Israel warns of major offensive’, The Guardian, 29 June 2025; N. Al-Mughrabi, ‘Israel orders evacuations in northern Gaza as Trump calls for war to end’, Reuters, 29 June 2025; J. Burke and M. A. Tantesh, ‘Israel launches waves of Gaza airstrikes after new displacement orders’, The Guardian, 30 June 2025
51
ICJ, Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Advisory Opinion, 9 July 2004, para 78; ICJ, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, para 87
52
ICJ, Legal Consequences Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem, Advisory Opinion, 19 July 2024, para 94
53
ICJ, Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v.Israel), Provisional Measures, Order of 26 January 2024, paras 14 and 85
54
ICC, Situation in the State of Palestine, Pre-Trial Chamber I, Decision on the ‘Prosecution request pursuant to article 19(3) for a ruling on the Court’s territorial jurisdiction in Palestine’, ICC-01/18, 5 February 2021, para 118
55
ICC, ‘Statement of ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC: Applications for arrest warrants in the situation in the State of Palestine’, 20 May 2024
56
ICC, ‘Situation in the State of Palestine: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I rejects the State of Israel’s challenges to jurisdiction and issues warrants of arrest for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant’; and ‘Situation in the State of Palestine: ICC Pre-Trial Chamber I issues warrant of arrest for Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (Deif)’, 21 November 2024
57
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/50/21, 9 May 2022, paras 16–17; UN doc. A/77/328, 14 September 2022, paras 7 and 19; UN doc. A/HRC/53/22, 9 May 2023, para 5; and UN doc. A/78/198, 5 September 2023, para 5
58
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/HRC/56/26, 14 June 2024, para 7
59
ICC, ‘Report of the Panel of Experts in International Law’, 20 May 2024, paras 13–14
60
ICTY, The Prosecutor v Dusko Tadić, Appeals Chamber, Decision on the Defence Motion for Interlocutory Appeal on Jurisdiction, IT-94-1-AR72, 2 October 1995, para 70; ICTY, The Prosecutor v Dusko Tadić, Trial Chamber, Judgment, IT-94-1-T, 7 May 1997, para 562; ICRC, Commentary on the Third Geneva Convention, 2020, paras 448–71.
61
L. Tondo, ‘Israeli security forces launch operation in West Bank city of Jenin’, The Guardian, 21 January 2025; M. Nassar, ‘As Gaza ceasefire takes hold, Israeli forces turn to Jenin – a regular target seen as a center of Palestinian resistance’, The Conversation, 23 January 2025
62
R. Ben-Yishai, ‘What has the IDF accomplished in Jenin so far?’, Ynet News, 6 February 2025; OCHA, ‘Northern West Bank Humanitarian Response Update | 21 January – 30 April 2025’, 11 July 2025
63
‘Why is the PA raiding Jenin camp, fighting the Jenin Brigades?’, Al Jazeera, 15 December 2024; J. Magid, ‘PA makes deal with Jenin Battalion, ending standoff in West Bank city and camp’, The Times of Israel, 18 January 2025
64
Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades (IQB) – Hamas’, European Council on Foreign Relations; Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Al-Quds Brigades – Islamic Jihad’, European Council on Foreign Relations; Al Jazeera Staff, ‘Why is the PA raiding Jenin camp, fighting the Jenin Brigades?’, Al Jazeera, 15 December 2024
65
JNS Staff, ‘Israeli forces kill, arrest Lions’ Den terrorists in heart of Nablus’, JNS, 9 May 2025; Mapping Palestinian Politics, ‘Lions’ Den’, European Council on Foreign Relations
66
OCHA, ‘Northern West Bank Humanitarian Response Update | 21 January – 30 April 2025’, 11 July 2025
67
K. Khadder, E. Yosef, M. Krever, M. Salem and I. Kottasová, ‘As fighting in Gaza stops, Israel launches major military campaign in West Bank’, CNN, 21 January 2025; OCHA, ‘Northern West Bank Humanitarian Response Update | 21 January – 30 April 2025’, 11 July 2025
68
OCHA, ‘Today’s top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria’, 31 December 2024
69
OCHA, ‘Humanitarian Situation Update #303 | West Bank’, 9 July 2025
70
R. Ben-Yishai, ‘What has the IDF accomplished in Jenin so far?’, Ynet News, 6 February 2025
71
Y. Kubovich, ‘To Prove It’s Different This Time, IDF Rebrands Jenin’s “Armed Thugs” as Hamas Battalion’, Haaretz, 28 January 2025
72
D. Karni and K. Khadder, ‘Israeli military says it killed Hamas commander and two other fighters in occupied West Bank’, CNN, 30 August 2024
73
A. Ghanem, ‘With Gaza on backburner, Israel turns its military might on Jenin’, Al Majalla, 3 February 2025
74
OCHA, ‘Today’s top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria’, 31 December 2024
75
E. Diamond, E. Nohle, and A.-C. Schmidl, ‘The Legal Framework Regulating Israel’s Use of Force in the West Bank’, Opinio Juris, 30 January 2025
76
T. O’Connor, ‘Not Only Hamas: Eight Factions at War With Israel in Gaza’, Newsweek, 7 November 2023; S. Ibrahim, ‘With Al-Qassam and Al-Quds Brigades, four other armed Palestinian factions are fighting Israel in Gaza’, The New Arab, 22 May 2024
77
F. Fassihi, R. Bergman and E. Schmitt, ‘Iran Smuggles Arms to West Bank, Officials Say, to Foment Unrest With Israel’, The New York Times, 9 April 2024
78
J. Magid, ‘PA makes deal with Jenin Battalion, ending standoff in West Bank city and camp’, The Times of Israel, 18 January 2025
79
A. Ghanem, ‘With Gaza on backburner, Israel turns its military might on Jenin’, Al Majalla, 3 February 2025
80
The Times of Israel Staff and Agencies, ‘PA security forces kill Islamic Jihad commander, sparking clashes in Jenin’, The Times of Israel, 14 December 2024
81
Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, UN doc. A/78/198, 5 September 2023, para 5; Diakonia IHL Centre, ‘The Legal Framework Regulating the Use of Force in the West Bank, Including East Jerusalem’, 12 February 2024; Human Rights Watch, ‘Use of Force in the Occupied West Bank’, 8 May 2024; OCHA, ‘Today’s top news: Occupied Palestinian Territory, Syria’, 31 December 2024; E. Diamond, E. Nohle, and A.-C. Schmidl, ‘The Legal Framework Regulating Israel’s Use of Force in the West Bank’, Opinio Juris, 30 January 2025

Israel – Palestine

Reporting period: July 2023 - June 2025

The West Bank (including East Jerusalem)

The Gaza Strip

General remarks on classification

International armed conflict between Israel and Palestine

Military occupation of Palestine by Israel

Non-international armed conflict between Israel and Hamas

Background

Organization

Intensity

Non-international armed conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad

Background

Organization

Intensity

Other situations of concern

State Parties

Non-State Parties

Israel – Palestine

Reporting period: July 2023 - June 2025

Overview

Historical background

Key developments

The West Bank (including East Jerusalem)

The Gaza Strip

Legal Classification

General remarks on classification

International Armed Conflict

Military occupation of Palestine by Israel

Non-international Armed Conflicts

Background

Organization

Intensity

Background

Organization

Intensity

Other situations of concern

Parties to the Conflict

State Parties

Non-State Parties