Tag
Deaths and injuries to non-combatant civilians resulting from military operations, including airstrikes, bombardment, and use of indiscriminate weapons. Implicates IHL principles of distinction and proportionality.
14 incidents
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
A strike on the night of September 1 hit a wedding near the Strait of Hormuz, killing at least four people including a 4-year-old and wounding dozens. Reuters-consulted experts judged the weapon likely American; the US has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility and says it is investigating.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
The Pentagon's own Inspector General found that the Department had not fully implemented any of its civilian harm mitigation objectives, with 133 actions incomplete and civilian harm staff cut by about 90%, during an active war. Released the same day CENTCOM's commander said there was no way to corroborate reports of strikes on Iranian hospitals and schools.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
Israel launched Operation Eternal Darkness on April 8, 2026 — 100 airstrikes in 10 minutes across Lebanon using 50 jets and ~160 munitions, killing 357 and injuring 1,223. The US remained silent and continued arms supply to Israel; whether US assistance reached this operation has not been established.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
Israel's 2026 Lebanon offensive — including white phosphorus munitions used over civilian areas — has killed over 1,000 people, wounded nearly 3,000, and displaced 700,000. Continued US arms transfers despite documented violations raise state-responsibility concerns under Common Article 1; individual criminal complicity has not been established, because no US-supplied item has been linked to a documented 2026 unlawful strike. HRW and UN experts have called for suspension of military assistance.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
Precision Strike Missiles, which burst above their target and scatter about 180,000 tungsten pellets, hit a sports hall, a school and homes in Lamerd on 28 February 2026, killing at least 21 civilians. A UN fact-finding mission found reasonable grounds that the US was responsible and that the strike was an indiscriminate attack amounting to a war crime under customary law, applying a recklessness standard. The US denies responsibility.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
A Tomahawk cruise missile struck a primary school in Minab, Iran, killing at least 156 people, including 120 to 123 children, in one of the deadliest single incidents of civilian harm in the 2026 Iran war. Media investigations, a preliminary US military inquiry as reported, and the UN fact-finding mission (A/HRC/63/61) attribute the strike to the US.
Grade 5 of 5: International Crime (Rome Statute)
A 53-day US bombing campaign in Yemen produced an unprecedented civilian death toll, with Airwars documenting at least 224 civilian deaths — nearly matching the 258 it recorded over the previous 23 years of US operations in Yemen. Two incidents, the Ras Isa port strike and the Saada migrant detention centre strike, reach the war-crime threshold at the probable level.
Grade 4 of 5: Critical Rights and Rule-of-Law Concern
The Pentagon's civilian casualty prevention infrastructure was gutted in early 2025, removing institutional safeguards for complying with IHL precautions before the administration's subsequent military operations, in which serious civilian harm was documented.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
US airstrikes in Somalia escalated dramatically in 2025, with AFRICOM claiming zero civilian casualties despite independent monitors documenting dozens of civilian deaths. AFRICOM stopped publishing casualty data and has never paid compensation for civilian harm in the country.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
A US special-operations task force called in bombs on a crowd near Baghuz in 2019 that military investigators believed was mostly women and children. The strike was hidden from the public for more than two and a half years. The military later called it self-defence and justified; its count of civilian dead is far lower than its own investigators'.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
The US-led campaign to retake Raqqa from ISIS in 2017 used thousands of air strikes and some 30,000 unguided artillery rounds in a city full of trapped civilians. Amnesty and Airwars found more than 1,600 civilians reportedly killed; the coalition admits 159. Amnesty found prima facie evidence of unlawful attacks; no investigation has established individual criminal responsibility.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
Four months after the deadly Yakla raid, US special forces raided another Yemeni village. The Pentagon reported seven al-Qaeda fighters killed and no civilian casualties; villagers said five civilians were killed, including a teenager shot while running away and an elderly man who mistook the soldiers for visitors.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
A single US bomb aimed at two ISIS snipers brought down a west Mosul building full of families, killing at least 105 civilians by the Pentagon's count. The US says hidden ISIS explosives caused the collapse and that it did not know civilians were inside. Amnesty found the coalition failed to take adequate precautions in a city where residents had been told not to flee.
Grade 3 of 5: Serious Rights Violation
A US strike on a mosque complex in northern Syria during a religious lesson killed 38 people. The US said it was targeting al-Qaeda; the UN Commission of Inquiry and Human Rights Watch found no evidence of that, and the UN found the US failed to take feasible precautions. The US investigation admitted a 'preventable error' in missing the building's religious use.