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Amnesty Calls for War Crimes Probe After Israel 'Obliterated Entire Families' in Lebanon
"How many more families will have to pull the body parts of their children from the rubble before this devastating cycle of war crimes ends?"
Jul 09, 2026
Amnesty International on Thursday demanded a war crimes investigation into Israeli airstrikes in southern Lebanon, which the human rights watchdog described as "wiping out families."
The strikes in question took place in March and killed 24 civilians, including 12 children, in neighborhoods in the cities of Tyre, Saida, and Nabatieh.
Amnesty said it has gathered enough evidence to reasonably conclude that Israeli forces violated international law by failing to distinguish between civilian and military targets when conducting the campaign.
The human rights group said it reached these conclusions after conducting more than a dozen on-the-ground interviews with survivors, relatives of victims, and paramedics who were called to the scene after the strikes. Additionally, the group analyzed satellite photos along with videos of the strikes posted on social media.
One survivor, a retired Lebanese man named Hussein Saleh, said that the strike in his neighborhood in Tyre killed his wife, their two children, his sister-in-law and her five-year-old daughter, and two other relatives.
Moussa Chaalan, a paramedic who arrived on the scene after the attack, told Amnesty "there was nothing left of the house" when they got there.
"The body parts were scattered as far as 200 meters away from the impact site," Chaalan added.
Mohamad Taqi, 54, told Amnesty that Israel's strike in the Saida district killed seven family members, including his 78-year-old mother, Zeinab Nasser, and his 12-year-old daughter Zahraa.
"In the bedroom where the missile hit, I couldn’t find a trace of Zeinab and Zahraa," Taqi said. "The paramedics later found their body parts and they gathered them. When I lost hope of finding them alive, I went to the hospital. I was injured in my head, eye, and face."
Kristine Beckerle, deputy regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International, said the international community needed to impose consequences on Israel for what she described as "a callous disregard for civilian lives."
"Within the space of just a week, the Israeli military obliterated entire families, including a dozen children, in Lebanon," said Beckerle. "How many more families will have to pull the body parts of their children from the rubble before this devastating cycle of war crimes ends? The international community must act now: states must impose an immediate comprehensive arms embargo on Israel and use universal and extraterritorial jurisdiction to investigate and prosecute those responsible."
Beckerle added that the three attacks investigated by Amnesty "are part of a well-documented pattern of unlawful Israeli attacks carried out in Lebanon, amidst a total vacuum of accountability."
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Calls for Sudan 'Ceasefire Now' Grow as 300+ Children Killed, Wounded in 2026 Alone
"Children are not incidental victims; they are directly affected, facing forced recruitment, sexual violence, unlawful detention, torture, and a lack of medical care," Amnesty International USA stressed.
Jul 06, 2026
Demands for a ceasefire in Sudan's three-year civil war mounted this week amid reports that more than 300 children have been killed or injured in the northeastern African nation this year alone, mostly by drone strikes.
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Modaysu that "children across Sudan continue to bear the brunt of a war that is becoming increasingly deadly, with at least 330 children reported killed or injured during the first six months of 2026. Darfur and Kordofan states continued to record the highest levels of child casualties."
"The situation in and around al-Obeid, and more broadly across North Kordofan, is particularly alarming," UNICEF continued. "Since May 2026, drone strikes and other attacks have reportedly resulted in more than 35 child casualties in the state, including at least 18 children killed and more than 17 injured. The affected children ranged in age from just 2 months to 17 years. According to reports, drone attacks accounted for 60% of these casualties, highlighting the growing impact of this method of warfare on children and families."
"Repeated drone strikes and shelling have also damaged civilian infrastructure, including homes, schools, health facilities, water systems, and markets; disrupted supply routes; and placed essential services under increasing strain," the agency added. "With an estimated 500,000 civilians at risk in and around al-Obeid and across North Kordofan, any further deterioration could expose even more children to death, injury, displacement, and other grave protection risks."
Amnesty International USA said Monday that both the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) rebels "have committed numerous human rights violations, including deliberate attacks on civilians."
"Ethnic targeting has resulted in assaults on non-Arab communities, with women and girls subjected to sexual violence and exploitation," Amnesty added. "Children are not incidental victims; they are directly affected, facing forced recruitment, sexual violence, unlawful detention, torture, and a lack of medical care."
On Monday, the United Nations Human Rights Council approved a measure proposed by five European countries—Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom—condemning escalating RSF-led violence in and around al-Obeid.
While both the SAF adnd RSF have committed documented human rights crimes, an independent United Nations panel released a report earlier this year detailing allegedly genocidal crimes committed by RSF rebels during last October's offensive in Darfur, where thousands of people were killed and others tortured, raped, and starved during the capture of el-Fasher.
The UN experts found that “genocidal intent is the only reasonable inference that can be drawn” from RSF's actions.
The ceasefire demands from UNICEF and Amnesty follow similar calls from governments, including France and the United Arab Emirates, as well as other UN agencies.
On Friday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk warned that "another human rights catastrophe is unfolding" in al-Obeid.
"The signs from #ElObeid are clear & unmistakable: another human rights catastrophe is unfolding in #Sudan," @volker_turk told the @UN Human Rights Council.
"This is not a drill. It is a red alert that needs to land on the desks of Heads of State & Government around the world." pic.twitter.com/zH3bVIpX34
— UN Human Rights Council (@UN_HRC) July 3, 2026
“Civilians have been subjected to siege-like conditions for 18 months, battered by relentless drone attacks as the Sudanese Armed Forces and the Rapid Support Forces battle for control over areas surrounding the city," Türk noted.
“Some people are selling their belongings to finance their escape from the city," he continued. "For many, the exorbitant cost of transport and constant attacks on vehicles along exit routes, make leaving impossible."
"We have documented patterns of summary executions, abductions, torture and ill-treatment, sexual violence, and looting along the routes taken by displaced people across the Kordofan region," Türk added. "This is not a drill. It is a red alert that needs to land on the desks of heads of state and government around the world."
Since April 2023, Sudan's conflict has killed at least 59,000 people, displaced around 13 million others, and fueled famine in different parts of the country of approximately 52 million inhabitants. More than 30 million Sudanese are also in need of humanitarian assistance.
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As Lawyer Says Dr. Abu Safiya Is at Risk of Death in Israeli Prison, UN Rights Body Joins Call for Release
The panel found that the imprisoned doctor's detention is "arbitrary."
Jul 06, 2026
A United Nations rights body said Monday that the detention of Palestinian Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya by Israel was "arbitrary" and likely an indication of "a widespread or systematic practice of arbitrary detention in the country" as it demanded the physician be released immediately.
“The appropriate remedy would be to release [him] immediately and accord him an enforceable right to compensation and other reparations, in accordance with international law,” said the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, warning that Israel has violated multiple articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights by holding the doctor in detention since December 2024, when he was captured along with staff and patients at Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza.
Abu Safiya has been held without charge ever since, as Israel has accused the doctor of being a member of Hamas, pointing to Gaza's Military Medical Services records that show him listed as a "colonel" and a photo of him seated next to members of the group.
But medical and human rights groups note that there is no evidence that Abu Safiya has had a command combat role and that Hamas, which announced the dissolution of its government on Monday, has governed Gaza through its political wing, likening Abu Safiya's role to that of the US surgeon general.
The working group issued the call following Abu Safiya's recent transfer to the underground Rakefet interrogation facility at Nitzan Prison, which is known for abuse of prisoners.
The doctor recently told his lawyer, Nasser Odeh, after being transferred on June 24: "This is the last time you will see me… They brought me here to kill me. I don't see myself surviving. This is the end."
Odeah reported after visiting the prison on July 2 that Abu Safiyah was nearly unrecognizable and had suffered injuries to his "head, eyes, ears, and neck" and was having trouble breathing. He was "in a state of extreme weakness and was constantly on the verge of losing consciousness mid-conversation," according to his lawyer's account.
"I have visited Dr. Abu Safiya several times since his detention, but the individual I encountered during this latest visit was not the same person I had previously met," said Odeh in a statement. "His physical and psychological state, the severe injuries visible on his body, and his personal testimony leave no room for doubt: his life is in immediate danger. He must be transferred out of the Rakefet facility immediately and granted an urgent, independent examination."
On Monday, the American Human Rights Council (AHRC) was among those demanding Abu Safiya's immediate release, pointing to reports from his legal team that he is in "imminent danger" and potentially at risk of death if he remains in Israeli detention.
"Since his arrest on December 27, 2024, Dr. Abu Safiya has reportedly been subjected to torture, abuse, and prolonged solitary confinement," said the group. "His health continues to deteriorate, and he has been denied communication with his family and legal team. Reports indicate he was recently transferred to an isolated cell, raising further alarm about his safety and wellbeing."
AHRC noted that Abu Safiya placed "his patients’ lives above his own safety" as he continued to provide medical care and to publicly call on Israel not to target healthcare facilities during the Israeli assault on Gaza that began in October 2023.
"He refused to abandon the hospital or leave the wounded behind despite repeated Israeli demands and threats," said AHRC. "He continued his humanitarian mission under bombardment, siege, and near-total depletion of medical supplies."
Imad Hamad, executive director of the group, called on physicians' groups and international medical associations to urgently demand Abu Safiya's release, as hundreds of people in Tel Aviv also assembled in solidarity with the doctor.
"We urge everyone to take a stand and push for the good doctor's release," said Hamad. "This is not about politics; this is about medicine and human rights."
At Amnesty International, Erika Guevara Rosas, the senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns, called the details that have emerged recently about Abu Safiya's condition "truly horrifying."
"It is unconscionable that a pediatrician, who has dedicated his life to saving others in the occupied Gaza Strip, is being subjected to torture and other ill-treatment—including severe physical and psychological abuse and prolonged solitary confinement—while being detained without any justification," said Guevara Rosas.
She added that Odeh's account "must serve as an urgent wake-up call for states around the world, particularly Israel’s allies," such as the US.
"It is utterly reprehensible that a doctor who refused to abandon his patients, and who became one of the most prominent voices denouncing the devastation of Gaza’s healthcare system, remains arbitrarily and unlawfully detained under Israel’s baseless designation as an ‘unlawful combatant,'" said Guevara Rosas. "He continues to be deprived of his most fundamental rights, including the right to be protected against torture and other ill-treatment, and his rights to a fair trial and due process."
"Expressions of concern alone are little more than a cynical fig leaf for states’ inaction in the face of Israel’s crushing of Palestinians’ human rights," she added. "Amnesty, alongside other human rights organizations, is not simply calling for Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya’s immediate release. This is a call for urgent and effective intervention to save his life.”
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European Parliament to Debate Spyware After 'Brazen Targeting' of EU Lawmaker Who Probed Pegasus
Civil society groups and experts said that "the EU must act now to defend independent oversight, protect fundamental rights, and ensure that spyware abuse in Europe is met with accountability, not impunity."
Jul 06, 2026
The European Parliament narrowly voted Monday to hold a debate on spyware after recent revelations that the phone of Stelios Kouloglou, a Greek journalist and former member of the European Parliament, "was repeatedly hacked with NSO Group's Pegasus" while he sat on the body's committee investigating abuses of the technology.
The vote came amid a fresh wave of calls for action. Elina Castillo Jiménez, advocacy and policy adviser for Amnesty International's Security Lab, said in a Monday statement that "the brazen targeting of someone in his position underlines how inadequate the current system is, and is yet another wake-up call that the protections that were put in place to prevent this kind of abuse are still not being implemented in Europe."
"Three years ago, the European Parliament's PEGA Committee, on which Stelios Kouloglou sat, issued clear and detailed recommendations for how to close the gaps that allow this abuse to continue. We are still waiting for implementation. Delaying it sends the wrong message about impunity in the surveillance industry."
Castillo Jiménez argued that "European leaders must find the political will needed to protect people from spyware abuse. An independent and impartial investigation into this attack, together with a roadmap for implementing PEGA recommendations, is urgently needed. If an elected member of parliament is not safe from unlawful surveillance, then no one is."
Amnesty was also part of a Monday joint statement with individual experts and organizations including Access Now, Center for Democracy and Technology Europe, Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Without Borders, and more, calling out the European Union for failing "to deliver a meaningful, EU-wide response to the proliferation and abuse of commercial spyware."
Global calls for restrictions on surveillance technology have mounted since the Pegasus Project—an international media consortium led by the media nonprofit Forbidden Stories, with tech assistance from Amnesty—published a 2021 exposé of the Israeli firm's software that was developed to secretly infiltrate mobile phones.
Kouloglou, who left the European Parliament two years ago, was appointed to serve as a substitute member of its PEGA Committee on March 24, 2022. That October, his Apple iPhone was infected with the spyware, according to research released Friday by the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto in Canada.
The first documented hacking occurred while Kouloglou was at a hospital, where he was visited by Greek journalist Thanasis Koukakis—who, as the Citizen Lab explained, "has worked closely on mercenary spyware issues in Greece, has testified to the PEGA committee, and was himself targeted with Intellexa's Predator spyware."
The following March, as Kouloglou left Athens for Brussels, his phone was again infected with Pegasus. The lab noted that the second hacking happened as he and Koukakis were making tentative plans to meet over WhatsApp, "the PEGA Committee was engaged in intense discussions related to the final drafting process," and PEGA Rapporteur MEP Sophie in 't Veld was in Greece with another committee delegation that questioned Greek officials on the country's scandal involving other spyware.
The forensic analysis also found that "Kouloglou received multiple Apple threat notifications about targeting with mercenary spyware on three occasions: March 2, 2023, August 29, 2023, and April 10, 2024," the lab said. "It is important to note that threat notifications from Apple and other companies are not real-time alerts. They are typically sent to users in batches, often months or more after targeting takes place. Kouloglou reports to us that he did not recall receiving the Apple notifications we observed."
The Citizen Lab acknowledged that "we have no indications that this hacking was the work of the Greek government," though it does appear to be the same operator who targeted seven Russian- and Belarusian-speaking independent journalists and opposition activists based in Europe, whose experiences were detailed in its May 2024 joint report with Access Now.
Although there were some known cases of MEPs being targeted with Pegasus before the European Parliament's panel was created, the lab stressed, "this is the first time a member of the PEGA Committee has been publicly identified as a victim" of this particular spyware while serving on it.
Reuters reported that while NSO did not respond to requests for comment, Apple said the vulnerability referred to in the Citizen Lab report has been patched. The European Parliament told the news outlet that its spyware screening tools had been available to all lawmakers since 2022 and its information technology security services "constantly monitor cybersecurity threats as well as potential cyberattacks against its working environment."
However, that's not enough for critics like In 't Veld, who is also no longer an MEP and pointed out to Politico that hundreds of politicians, including European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, have been targeted by various tech.
"If attempts to target the phone of the president of the European Parliament, or members of the European Commission, does not trigger sufficient reaction, [and] is not enough to break the deadlock, then what is?" she asked
The coalition of groups and tech experts similarly said in their Monday statement: "These incidents all point to a structural failure to adequately and seriously respond to the spyware crisis in Europe. This latest revelation should be treated as a rule of law emergency, threatening the very foundations of our society."
"Europe cannot continue moving from scandal to scandal without consequence. The targeting of a member of the European Parliament involved in investigating spyware abuse should mark a turning point," the coalition said. "The EU must act now to defend independent oversight, protect fundamental rights, and ensure that spyware abuse in Europe is met with accountability, not impunity."
John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at the lab, told The Guardian last week that "this case is the ultimate irony of Europe's spyware crisis. Someone on the very committee tasked with investigating Pegasus gets infected by it. And what has happened since? The parliament looks the other way when new European spyware abuses emerge."
"I can tell you how the next chapter will go: more hacked parliamentarians," he warned. "In fact, I suspect there are members voting and attending high-level meetings with no idea that their phone has been turned into a spy in their pocket."
Scott-Railton welcomed Monday's vote to hold a debate later this week, and listed some key questions on social media:
In addition to urging investigations by European Union institutions, the Citizen Lab recommended that other members and their staff immediately seek forensic screening of their devices, exercise vigilance for state-sponsored attack warnings, and enable Lockdown mode on iPhones and Advanced Protect for Android.
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Israel Escalating Ethnic Cleansing in West Bank 'Before the Eyes of the Entire World': Amnesty
"This is not the work of rogue actors," said the human rights group's secretary general. "What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation."
Jun 10, 2026
The international community is allowing the Israeli government to carry out an explicit policy of "ethnic cleansing" against Palestinians in the West Bank that is rapidly accelerating, according to a report out Wednesday from Amnesty International.
The human rights group said the world must intervene to stop what it described as a campaign of forcible displacement, rampant state-backed violence by Israeli settlers, demolitions of Palestinian homes, and tightening restrictions on Palestinian access to land and water.
Using United Nations data, Amnesty determined that at least 117 predominantly Bedouin and herding communities faced full or partial displacement between January 2023 and April 2026, with about 45 communities totally depopulated.
Nearly 6,000 people were forced from their homes during that time, roughly 17% of the Palestinian population in the Israeli-controlled Area C's Bedouin and herding communities.
Amnesty found that Israeli authorities demolished more than 3,400 Palestinian homes and structures in Area C during that time, displacing more than 3,000 Palestinians.
The group describes this systematic displacement as explicit Israeli state policy. The government advanced plans for more than 50,000 settler housing units from 2023-25 and authorized 102 new settlements by April 2026, the largest number ever approved by an Israeli government.
This has coincided with a dramatic increase in violence by armed Israeli settlers, who have set fire to homes and farmlands, vandalized schools and agricultural equipment, cut electricity lines and dumped water tanks, and beaten and killed Palestinian residents.
The UN's Office on the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs calculated that four settler attacks have occurred per day on average in the roughly two years following October 7, 2023, and have only grown more frequent this year, particularly after Israel and the US's joint attack on Iran, which was followed by an invasion of Lebanon that has also entailed mass destruction of homes and the forced displacement of over a million residents.
In several documented cases, armed settler attackers have been escorted or accompanied by Israeli soldiers, who have at times taken part in the destruction.
“Over the past three and a half years, Israeli authorities have accelerated a state-sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, uprooting, dispossessing, and forcibly transferring Palestinian communities," said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general.
"This is not the work of rogue actors or what the international community has repeatedly labeled as extremist settlers, organizations or one or two ministers," she said. "What we are witnessing is deliberate, state-led annexation, in complete violation of international law unfolding before the eyes of the entire world."
The report comes just a day after a group of Western nations—including the UK, Canada, France, Australia, New Zealand, and Norway—announced coordinated sanctions against Israeli individuals and organizations accused of financing and enabling settler violence in the West Bank.
However, Amnesty argued that these measures were too narrow.
"These limited measures are woefully insufficient to address the state campaign of ethnic cleansing and the systemic violations that have been rapidly increasing before the eyes of the international community,” Callamard said.
She said states, "particularly those with influence over Israel," including the US, the UK, Germany, Italy, and other European Union and Arab States, needed to "ban all trade, investment, and any form of cooperation or financial assistance that contribute to Israel’s unlawful occupation, system of apartheid, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians."
Callamard added that states "must impose targeted sanctions, including travel bans and asset freezes, against Israeli officials directly implicated in these acts." She included Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and far-right settler politicians like Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, as well as settlers who have allegedly committed acts of murder, like Yinon Levi, who was filmed last year shooting and killing human rights activist Awda al-Hathaleen and was released from custody after a day.
Callamard said, "Without accountability, Palestinian communities across the West Bank will vanish before our eyes."
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'These Extrajudicial Killings Are Becoming Normalized,' Amnesty Warns After More Boat Bombings
"Not only are these killings illegal, they are immoral. People of good conscience cannot allow this to continue."
May 28, 2026
The Trump administration on Wednesday killed two more people in the eastern Pacific by bombing a vessel accused—without evidence—of trafficking drugs, bringing the death toll from the US military's illegal campaign of boat attacks in international waters closer to 200.
Amnesty International, which has spoken out forcefully against the boat strikes since they began in September 2025, warned in a statement Wednesday that "these extrajudicial killings are becoming normalized" as they fade from the headlines and lawmakers do nothing to stop the administration.
“Not only are these killings illegal, they are immoral," said Amanda Klasing, Amnesty's national director for government relations. "People of good conscience cannot allow this to continue, yet Congress has so far failed to halt, or even slow down, this lethal and unlawful campaign.”
The US Southern Command announced strikes in the eastern Pacific Ocean on Tuesday and Wednesday, attacks that killed three people total.
SOUTHCOM called the victims "narco-terrorists" without any evidence. According to a tracker maintained by The Intercept's Nick Turse, the Trump administration's boat bombing campaign has killed 197 people since September 2025.
On May 27, at the direction of #SOUTHCOM commander Gen. Francis L. Donovan, Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations. Intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking… pic.twitter.com/qKvSjxpk3P
— U.S. Southern Command (@Southcom) May 28, 2026
“Numbers alone cannot capture the unimaginable human toll of this horrific campaign of murder at sea," Klasing said Wednesday. "Every single person that the U.S. has killed at sea was arbitrarily deprived of their right to life, and they and their families have a right to justice. Lawmakers must do everything in their power to halt this campaign and hold everyone responsible accountable for their role in these extrajudicial killings."
“We are witnessing the height of lawlessness—a government taking military action to kill people who it unilaterally deems ‘criminals’ or ‘terrorists’ and then bragging about it on social media and stonewalling members of Congress demanding explanations," Klasing added. "Regardless of whether the victims committed crimes or not, killing them is completely illegal under both US and international law. Alleged criminal suspects should be dealt with by law enforcement who are bound by international human rights law, which prohibits using lethal force unless absolutely necessary based on an imminent threat to life."
Few of the nearly 200 victims of the US military's assault on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have been publicly identified. Earlier this year, family members of two Trinidadian men—Chad Joseph and Rishi Samaroo—killed by a US strike in October filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the Trump administration.
"Rishi was a hardworking man who paid his debt to society and was just trying to get back on his feet again and to make a decent living in Venezuela to help provide for his family," said Sallycar Korasingh, Samaroo's sister. "If the US government believed Rishi had done anything wrong, it should have arrested, charged, and detained him, not murdered him. They must be held accountable."
Ana Piquer, Amnesty's Americas director, called for urgent action from the international community to rein in the lawless Trump administration.
“Beyond US authorities, we need to see leadership from other governments in the region, as well as the Organization of American States,” said Piquer. "The international community must speak out firmly against these murders, which constitute a serious threat to human rights and respect for international law. Governments must immediately suspend intelligence sharing that may contribute to these operations. They further should suspend export licenses to any defense material that could be used to perpetuate these murders."
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Death Penalty Nearly Doubled in US as Global Figure Hits 44-Year High
“This alarming spike in the use of the death penalty is due to a small, isolated group of states willing to carry out executions at all costs, despite the continued global trend towards abolition," said Amnesty International's secretary general Agnès Callamard.
May 18, 2026
With its number of state-sponsored executions nearly doubling in 2025, the United States joined an ignominious handful of nations around the globe that helped bring death penalty punishments worldwide last year to their highest level in nearly half a century.
Amnesty International released its annual review of the death penalty on Monday, showing that the "staggering" overall increase of executions—up from 1,518 in 2024 to at least 2,707 people—was due "to a handful of governments determined to rule by fear."
While 17 nations carried out at least one death sentence in 2025, it was significant increases in five of those countries—the United States, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, and Singapore—that account for the historic spike. With rates in those countries doubling or even tripling compared to the 2024 figures, Amnesty found, executions overall rose by 78% worldwide in 2025.
As the human rights group notes:
Iranian authorities, the main drivers behind the spike, executed at least 2,159 people, more than double its 2024 figure. Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia raised its execution tally to at least 356, using the death penalty extensively for drug-related offenses. Executions in Kuwait almost tripled (from 6 to 17), while they near doubled in Egypt (from 13 to 23), Singapore (from 9 to 17), and the United States of America (from 25 to 47).
Notably, the 2025 total put forth by Amnesty does not include thousands of executions the human rights group believes were carried out in China, which it says likely carries out thousands each year.
“This alarming spike in the use of the death penalty is due to a small, isolated group of states willing to carry out executions at all costs, despite the continued global trend towards abolition," said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general. "From China, Iran, North Korea and Saudi Arabia to Yemen, Kuwait, Singapore and the USA, this shameless minority are weaponizing the death penalty to instill fear, crush dissent and show the strength state institutions have over disadvantaged people and marginalized communities."
Under President Donald Trump, who has championed the return of the federal death penalty during both his first and second terms in office, the 47 executions took place across 11 states, with the highest number being carried out in Florida, where 19 people were killed.
(Source: Amnesty International)
Despite the surge in countries like the US and Iran, Amnesty highlighted that "progress was made elsewhere around the world, proving hope is stronger than fear."
The report notes that no "executions or death sentences were recorded in Europe and Central Asia" and that, for the 17th consecutive year, the US remained the "only country in the Americas to execute people, with close to half of all US executions carried out in Florida."
The group celebrated legislative progress in countries like Nigeria and Lebanon, where bills were introduced in the last year to abolish the death penalty once and for all.
“With human rights under threat around the world, millions of people continue to fight against the death penalty each year in a powerful demonstration of our shared humanity,” said Callamard in her statement. “Total abolition is possible if we all stand strong against the isolated few. We must keep the flame of abolition burning bright until the world is entirely free from the shadows of the gallows."
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'War Crimes of Wanton Destruction': Amnesty Condemns Israeli Attacks on Gaza High-Rise Buildings
"Israeli officials who ordered unlawful destruction, collective punishment, or acts of genocide must be held accountable."
May 12, 2026
Amnesty International released a report Tuesday detailing the Israeli military's leveling of more than a dozen high-rise residential and commercial buildings in the Gaza Strip late last year, attacks that the leading human rights organization said must be investigated as "war crimes of wanton destruction and collective punishment."
The new report cites "celebratory and gleeful" comments from Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz as evidence that there was no plausible military objective for Israel's destruction of at least 13 multistory residential and commercial buildings in Gaza City between September and October 2025. In one mid-September social media post, Katz boasted that Israeli bombs sent one Gaza university "soaring to the heavens."
Amnesty, which has called Israel's assault on Gaza a genocide, notes that the Fourth Geneva Convention bars occupying powers from engaging in collective punishment and property destruction "except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations."
“In the month preceding the so-called ceasefire in October 2025, Israel expanded and escalated its relentless assault on Gaza City, causing one of the worst waves of mass displacement during the genocide," said Erika Guevara Rosas, Amnesty's senior director for research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns. "A key pattern of this assault was the deliberate destruction, through aerial bombardment, of multi-story civilian buildings, leveling the homes of thousands of civilians, and destroying makeshift camps in their vicinity."
"All the available evidence indicates that Israel’s destruction of these 13 high-rise buildings was not ‘rendered absolutely necessary by military operations’ and as such must be investigated as war crimes," she added.
""Our children are sick from the rain and cold. It is especially difficult to raise a baby in such disastrous conditions. We lack everything."
Amnesty said that satellite imagery, interviews with residents displaced by Israel's large-scale destruction of Gaza buildings, and verified video footage revealed "a chilling pattern of deliberate destruction of the civilian structures by Israeli forces without requisite military necessity." A 32-year-old IT engineer told the group that his family, including three children, is now living in a tent in southern Gaza after Israel bombed the 10-story Al-Najm building in Gaza City.
"Our children are sick from the rain and cold," the man said. "It is especially difficult to raise a baby in such disastrous conditions. We lack everything. My other children, a six-year-old girl and a seven-year-old boy, are traumatized; we had to run away from home and they saw it bombed into rubble in front of their eyes. They don’t understand and I can’t explain it to them."
The United Nations has estimated that Israeli attacks have damaged or destroyed more than 80% of structures in the Gaza Strip since October 2023, when Israel's assault began in response to a deadly Hamas-led attack.
“The widespread destruction of life-sustaining infrastructure, including homes, either through bombardment or demolitions with explosives, combined with Israel’s ongoing restrictions on the entry of shelter material into Gaza and the prohibition on the return to the areas east of the yellow line, have inflicted catastrophic suffering on Gaza’s population," said Guevara Rosas. "Israel must allow immediate, unfettered access to indispensable aid and goods, including shelter material."
"Israeli officials who ordered unlawful destruction, collective punishment, or acts of genocide must be held accountable," she added.
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Demanding End to Unlawful US-Israeli Attacks, Amnesty Says 'International Community Must Now Draw a Red Line'
"Civilians cannot afford another partial, selective, or short-lived pause that leaves them living in fear and bracing for a repetition of the atrocities they have suffered," said the human rights group's leader.
Apr 29, 2026
A week after blasting US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for carrying out "their conquests for economic and political domination through destruction, suppression, and violence on a massive scale," Amnesty International on Wednesday demanded "an enduring, sustained, and comprehensive regional ceasefire" in the Middle East.
Trump and Netanyahu launched their war on Iran on February 28, with attacks that violated the United Nations Charter's "prohibition on the use of force," noted Amnesty International secretary general Agnès Callamard, "and they triggered unlawful acts by Iranian authorities in retaliation."
"Since then, more than 5,000 people have been killed," she continued, "and millions of civilians across the Middle East have had their lives upended as interrelated conflicts have escalated across the region and civilians and civilian infrastructure have come under attack."
"We are witnessing a continued dangerous erosion of the global international legal order and of respect for international humanitarian law," Callamard warned. She declared that "the international community must now draw a red line: There must be a durable and genuine ceasefire; this requires a full halt in armed hostilities by all parties, across all affected countries."
Amnesty's leader further called for investigations of all crimes and ensuring that "states and individuals are held accountable."
On the first day of the war, the United States' bombings across Iran included an "egregious" strike on a school in Minab that killed at least 155 people, mostly children. As Amnesty pointed out, subsequent US-Israeli attacks have "caused extensive destruction and damage to civilian infrastructure, including power plants, bridges, universities, schools, residential buildings, medical centers, steel factories and petrochemical facilities, endangering the lives and livelihoods of millions and harming the environment."
The strikes on Iran killed at least 3,375 people, and injured another 25,000, while Israel's renewed targeting of Hezbollah in Lebanon killed more than 2,200 and wounded over 7,500. Retaliation from Iran and Hezbollah killed at least 21 civilians in Israel, four Palestinians in the illegally occupied West Bank, and 29 people across the Gulf, including 13 US service members.
"All parties, including the USA, Israel, Iran, and Hezbollah, have launched unlawful attacks displaying a chilling disregard for human life," Callamard said, "while the US president has issued brazen threats to commit war crimes and even genocide, threatening to wipe out 'a whole civilization' in Iran."
Just hours after Trump's genocidal threat against Iran on April 7, the involved parties reached a ceasefire agreement regarding Iran, which has since been extended. Despite Pakistani negotiators' claims that the initial deal was supposed to include Lebanon, Israel ramped up its attacks on that country, killing and wounding over 1,400 people on April 8 alone.
An existing truce was also ultimately reached for Lebanon. However, like a November 2024 deal related to Hezbollah's support for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip suffering a genocidal Israeli assault, and an October 2025 agreement with Hamas in Gaza, Israel has repeatedly violated it.
"The so-called ceasefire agreements reached in Gaza in 2025 and Lebanon in 2024 demonstrably failed to stop Israeli attacks on civilians, with as many as 765 Palestinians killed since then, and near-daily airstrikes and extensive destruction of civilian property in southern Lebanon," said Callamard. Overall, Israel has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023.
"In a region long scarred by conflict, amidst long-standing impunity for crimes under international law, and the constant threat of renewed violence, civilians cannot afford another partial, selective, or short-lived pause that leaves them living in fear and bracing for a repetition of the atrocities they have suffered," she stressed.
Amnesty described the current ceasefire agreements in the region as "fragile, temporary, and in danger of collapse at any moment."
US-Iran talks are "stalled," and Trump has both maintained a naval blockade over Iranian restrictions on ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz and signaled that he's willing to resume the war. Just after 4:00 am ET on Wednesday, Trump posted on his Truth Social platform an image created with artificial intelligence that shows him holding a gun, as bombs fall on what appears to be Iran, and wrote: "Iran can't get their act together. They don't know how to sign a nonnuclear deal. They better get smart soon!"
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said last week that his country is "prepared to resume the war" and is "awaiting a green light from the United States." He pledged a "far more lethal" assault that would "push Iran back into a dark age."
Callamard said that "a ceasefire that is not accompanied by long-term solutions that safeguard human rights and address root causes is little more than a temporary patch over a deep wound. This is particularly true in Iran, where the population remains at risk of further atrocities at the hands of the Islamic Republic authorities, and in Lebanon, where civilians face the prospect of renewed conflict, indefinite displacement of civilians, and destruction of their homes."
Alongside her remarks, Amnesty on Wednesday released a brief detailing how "people in Iran are trapped between unlawful US and Israeli attacks and deadly domestic repression." The publication emphasizes the need for not only a ceasefire, but also "international engagement to actively support Iranian civil society calls for a rights-respecting constitution-making process."
As Callamard summarized: "In a country reeling from the combined impact of devastating US and Israeli bombings and state-orchestrated massacres, the risks of atrocity crimes by the Iranian authorities against the people in Iran remain significant. They face the threat of renewed airstrikes and mass killings if the truce collapses and the prospect of a deadly repression and another severe wave of killings by 'trigger-ready' security forces targeting protesters and dissidents they label as 'enemies.'"
"The international community must recognize that Iran's human rights and impunity crisis, now compounded by the US-Israel[i] unlawful attacks and vast suffering of civilians, requires a dual, people-centered diplomatic response," she said. "This means combining efforts to investigate the UN Charter violations, protect civilians, and uphold international humanitarian law with action to prevent atrocity crimes by the Iranian authorities, and support Iranian civil society's calls for a rights-respecting constitution. It also means establishing pathways for international justice, including the UN Security Council's referral of Iran's situation to the International Criminal Court."
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Sharing 'Grim' Survivor Stories, Amnesty Renews Call for War Crimes Probe of US Strike in Yemen
"I have nothing left that keeps me going," said a survivor who lost a leg. "I want them to provide any type of reparation that will help with our life in any way possible. Something that will revive my hope."
Apr 28, 2026
A week after Democratic senators launched an investigation into US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's assault on federal efforts to mitigate civilian harm, Amnesty International on Tuesday renewed its call for a war crimes probe of the American airstrike on a migrant detention center in Yemen that killed dozens of people last April.
While the United States has been bombing Yemen since 2002 as part of the so-called War on Terror, the Trump administration stepped up attacks last spring, in response to Houthi rebels' resistance to Israel's genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
"The Trump administration's approach to its airstrikes in Yemen from March to May 2025 should have set off alarm bells in the USA and around the world, clearly signaling an urgent need to strengthen measures to protect civilians," Amnesty International USA director Nadia Daar said in a statement exactly one year after the bombing in Saada.
"Instead, the US administration has systematically weakened safeguards, shrinking offices aimed at reducing civilian harm, while simultaneously displaying a dangerous disregard for the lives of civilians endangered by armed conflicts," she continued. "Against that backdrop, attacks such as the US attack on a school in Minab in Iran, which killed [155] people, including 120 children, were a tragically foreseeable consequence of a failure to implement robust civilian-harm mitigation efforts."
Amnesty concluded last month that the US bombing of the Iranian school "packed full of children" on February 28 was "a serious breach of international humanitarian law" and those responsible "must be held accountable."
Erika Guevara Rosas—Amnesty International's senior director of research, advocacy, policy, and campaigns—stressed at the time that "the US authorities could, and should, have known it was a school building. Targeting a protected civilian object, such as a school, is strictly prohibited under international humanitarian law."
In a potential preview of what Iranian families impacted by that strike will face, Guevara Rosas noted Tuesday that one year after the attack in Yemen, "US officials have failed to hold anyone accountable or even to clarify the status or outcome of the investigations they had announced a year earlier."
"Families of those killed in the attack on the detention center in Yemen are still being denied basic information about what happened, [and] remain without justice for their loved ones," she explained. "Survivors continue to struggle, lacking the means to secure a decent living or even receive adequate medical treatment."
Amnesty interviewed over a dozen survivors identified by pseudonyms, including Araya, a 22-year-old Ethiopian man, who sustained a serious arm injury and said: "If I don't take a painkiller, I feel hopeless and wish to die. I think about how, at such a young age, I can't even support myself and still rely on help from others. The metal rod inside me is very painful and uncomfortable. It drives you insane."
Jirata, a 30-year-old Ethiopian man, has a metal rod in one of his legs, and lost the other in the attack. He told Amnesty that "I have lost hope and I have nothing left that keeps me going. I came here [to Yemen] to work like everyone else to help my family and change mine and their life for the better... Now people carry me to the toilet."
"The US government caused all this and as a result [of the airstrike], I can no longer work and support myself," he detailed. "I want them to provide any type of reparation that will help with our life in any way possible. Something that will revive my hope."
Another Ethiopian man, 32-year-old Abay, similarly said that "I went to Yemen to change my family's life, but now I made my family's life even harder than it was before," due to his leg and hand injuries.
"I feel broken whenever I see their faces," said Abay, who returned to Ethiopia. "You can see the sadness on their faces. I hoped for a better life, to work and change our lives, but everything turned upside down."
Guevara Rosas said that "the story of these migrants is grim and heartbreaking. Traveling to Yemen in search of better opportunities, they were detained by the Houthis, denied their freedom, then attacked in a US airstrike. Those who survived have been left in limbo, with no justice or reparation in sight, nor an explanation for why this happened to them, an acknowledgment of the wrong done to them, or any support offered to help them carry on with their lives."
She argued that "they must receive full, effective, and prompt reparation, including restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction, and guarantees of nonrepetition, through an effective and accessible mechanism."
According to Airwars, US forces have killed 443-642 people in Yemen since 2009. The official government estimate for civilian deaths in that time is just 13. The deadline for the Pentagon's next annual report on civilian casualties is May 1.
Guevara Rosas declared that "in order to stop this deadly spiral, the USA must ensure prompt, transparent, impartial, independent, and effective investigations into attacks that have resulted in civilian casualties, including those in Yemen and Iran."
"The US Congress must also urgently step up its oversight role and demand answers, including a public accounting of these strikes and the adequate and prompt provision of reparation to the civilians that have been harmed, and ensure it is not appropriating funds that may contribute to breaches of international law," she added.
So far, both Republican-controlled chambers of Congress have declined to pass a war powers resolution reining in President Donald Trump's illegal war on Iran, invasion of Venezuela, or bombings of boats allegedly transporting drugs on the high seas. Still, Democratic Sens. Ruben Gallego (Ariz.), Tim Kaine (Va.), and Adam Schiff (Calif.) intend to force a Tuesday vote on a measure aimed at blocking the president's use of US forces in unauthorized hostilities against Cuba.
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