Attack canines: how Europe provides Israel with brutal dog guns

It used to be best seconds after infantrymen entered the Hashash circle of relatives’s house within the Balata refugee camp within the West Bank that the canine assault started. As army raids rolled out throughout her neighbourhood one morning in February 2023, Amani Hashash says she took her 4 youngsters right into a bed room. When she heard Israeli army getting into their house she referred to as out that they had been inside of and posed no risk.

Moments later the bed room door used to be opened and a big, unmuzzled canine introduced itself into the room, plunging its enamel into her three-year-old son, Ibrahim, who used to be asleep in her lap.

Hashash fought to get the animal away because it mauled and shook her screaming son and began to pull him out of the room. “But it was such a big dog, not like any other dog I have seen,” she says. “It kept biting and pulling my son away from me. I screamed and hit it, but it kept pulling at him.”

She says she begged the warriors to name off the assault however they couldn’t keep watch over the animal. By the time they controlled to pull the canine away, Ibrahim used to be subconscious and bleeding closely. The infantrymen injected Ibrahim with sedatives and referred to as an ambulance, which took him to sanatorium the place he used to be rushed into surgical operation.

“When I saw his wounds I was distraught because they were so extensive,” says Hashash. “The doctors said his condition was critical. One wound was six and a half centimetres, another was four centimetres. There were so many wounds the dog had caused, it hadn’t left any of Ibrahim’s back untouched.”

Ibrahim wanted 42 stitches for inside and exterior accidents and 21 injections to regard an an infection shrunk from the bites. Photoraphs of the wounds sustained within the assault observed by way of the Guardian and ARIJ display intensive wounding and chew marks.

More than a 12 months later, Hashash says Ibrahim nonetheless has nightmares and his wounds have now not healed. “They did this to terrorise us,” she says. Hashash says one of the most Israeli commanders had informed herthat the canine were educated to assault the primary individual it noticed. “He’s just a child,” she says. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.”

The IDF refused to remark at the case.

The canine that attacked Ibrahim is prone to were a Belgian malinois, which Hashash known from footage of various canines utilized by the army. Originally used to herd sheep, the breed is now broadly utilized by Oketz, Israel’s specialist dog unit, feted in Israel and broadly feared around the Palestinian territories.

According to an investigation by way of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ) and the Guardian, additionally it is most likely that the animal used used to be despatched to Israel from Europe, the place a gentle drift of canines are traded from specialist running shoes into the ranks of the Israeli army.

Last 12 months, commanders within the Oketz unit informed US city war researcher John Spencer, who has embedded with the IDF on a couple of operations, that 99% of the roughly 70 army canines it buys annually had been sourced from corporations in Europe, a determine that the IDF didn’t dispute when requested to verify.

Oketz insists it best deploys assault canines in anti-terrorism operations, human rights organisations inside of Gaza and the West Bank say the usage of the animals to assault, terrorise and humiliate Palestinian civilians has greater for the reason that starting of the warfare in Gaza, resulting in a couple of accidents and a few fatalities.

One organisation, Euro Med Human Rights Monitor, says it has documented 146 circumstances of assault canines being usedagainst civilians by way of the Israeli military since October 2023.

In one incident, in July 2024, an IDF canine attacked Muhammed Bhar, a tender guy with Down’s syndrome and autism, at his house in Shejaiya in Gaza City. In the aftermath of the assault, IDF infantrymen compelled his circle of relatives out in their house, leaving Bhar to die on my own of his wounds.

A video revealed in June 2024 that perceived to display an Israeli army canine attacking Dawlat Al Tanani, a 68-year-old lady, in her house within the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza, leaving her with accidents.

Animal welfare professionals have criticised the weaponising of canines by way of coaching them to assault civilians, calling the method “a moral violation”. Dogs reportedly go through intensive coaching with Oketz when they arrive in Israel sooner than being deployed in operations.

Charities have additionally raised fear in regards to the top numbers of canines death in army operations. In January, Israeli army stories mentioned the Oketz unit had misplaced 42 army canines, for the reason that starting of the warfare on Gaza, despite the fact that on-line references to the choice of Oketz canines who’ve died have not too long ago been got rid of.

“It is unethical to turn dogs, which are naturally social creatures, into instruments of aggression to be used in wars that are solely caused by humans,” says animal behaviour professional Dr Jonathan Balcombe. “Dogs don’t choose to fight, they are made victims in conflicts they don’t understand.”

Tahrir Husni used to be pregnant when she says Israeli infantrymen stormed her space in Khan Younis in 2023 and set a canine on her, which then mauled her in an assault that lasted greater than 10 mins.

“It was so big, it was impossible to push or kick it away,” she says. “When it was attacking me, I lost all feeling in my leg. When it was over, I sat down on the couch and then I could see my blood and flesh all over the floor.”

Husni says hours later she miscarried. “I lost the child I’d waited six years for,” she says. “My leg is so disfigured I can’t bear to look at it. I can’t walk, and the pain is always there.”

In the West Bank, the Palestinian human rights organisation Al-Haq has additionally documented 18 circumstances of army canine assaults on civilians since October 2023, together with youngsters.

The UN says that the usage of army canines towards Palestinian prisoners in Israeli detention right through the warfare constitutes a contravention of global human rights regulation. According to testimonies from former detainees reported by way of Physicians for Human Rights, canines were ordered to chew and maul prisoners and urinated and defecated on them.

Amnesty International says that the usage of dogsagainst civilians must be urgently recognised in felony tools and regulations regulating the use and sale of standard guns.

“They should be part of international treaties regulating the use [of weapons], to stop them being used in violation of human rights,” says Patrick Wilcken, a professional on army and safety problems at Amnesty.

“There is a clear risk that these exports help to promote practices that violate international and human rights law, so companies and states should seriously consider whether their activities are linked to unlawful acts committed by Israel.”

Richard Falk, a former UN particular rapporteur at the Palestinian territories, says European corporations will have to forestall exporting army canines to Israel, including that proceeding to take action makes them complicit in human rights abuses.

“From the perspective of general international law, I have no doubt whatsoever that companies exporting these dogs are complicit, because they know exactly how they are used,” says Falk.

The investigation discovered that a lot of army and police canines were despatched to Israel by way of corporations in Germany and the Netherlands for the reason that warfare in Gaza started.

The Animal and Plant Health Agency has showed 294 canines had been exported from the United Kingdom to Israel as pets between February 2022 and December 2024, however says it does now not observe their breed or goal. Other nations corresponding to Belgium and the Czech Republic that export canines to Israel additionally say they don’t have main points on what breeds had been despatched or whether or not they had been educated as army animals.

Under present EU laws, such canines aren’t categorized as strategic or managed dual-use pieces or guns and due to this fact don’t require export licences, and governments should not have to stay data of numbers exported and for what functions.

According to paperwork received by way of the Dutch Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations thinktank (Somo) , the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) issued 110 veterinary certificate between October 2023 and February 2025. These are the paperwork required for the export of canines to Israel by way of Dutch corporations specialising in army and police canine.

Of those certificate 100 had been granted to the corporate Four Winds K9, a police canine coaching centre within the Dutch village of Geffen. Four Winds K9 and the NVWA declined to remark at the export of educated canines to Israel.

The German corporate Diensthunde.euconfirmed it exported Belgian malinois and German shepherd canines to Israel between 2020 and 2024. The corporate denies they had been used for “protection or offensive purposes”, announcing they had been for explosives and narcotics detection best, and that the corporate excluded any coaching or sale of canines for defense or offensive functions in complete compliance with German regulation.

ARIJ approached the European Commission for info on EU exports of army canines to Israel but it surely says it does now not have this data.

In a observation, the Israeli army mentioned, “The IDF, including the Oketz unit, employs all necessary operational tools required to address threats in the field – this is conducted in accordance with binding orders, operational ethics, and international law. The IDF does not use dogs for punitive purposes or to harm civilians. All use of dogs is based solely on clear operational necessity, under close supervision, and following comprehensive training for both fighters and dogs alike.”

The IDF mentioned that it puts “great importance on the wellbeing of the operational dogs – who are an integral part of the combat apparatus – and the unit continues to operate with constant efforts to minimise harm to all components of the force, including its dogs.”

Additional reporting by way of Aziza Nofal, Zarifa Hassan and Tom Levitt