The RCMP says it’s investigating potential war crimes related to the Israel-Hamas conflict, the police service confirmed to the Star.
Very few details of the RCMP’s probe into what the agency called the “Israel-Hamas armed conflict” are known, with the police refusing to answer questions about its scope.
The RCMP launched the investigation quietly in early 2024. The lack of announcement stands in stark contrast to the agency’s probe into alleged war crimes in Ukraine, which has involved a hotline and dedicated webpage, media interviews, online advertising, signs erected at airports and questionnaires distributed in an attempt to collect witness testimony from fleeing Ukrainians.
The RCMP calls these types of probes “structural investigations,” which fall under Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Program (CAHWCP), a joint effort by the RCMP, Department of Justice, Canada Border Services Agency, and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.
According to its mandate, “the War Crimes Program supports Canada’s commitment towards international justice and the fight against impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.”
The program is intended to deny safe haven to war criminals and seek accountability for alleged atrocities either by sharing evidence with other authorities or trying individuals in Canadian courts, the justice department said. It’s exceedingly rare, however, for cases to end up in Canadian court.
Structural investigations, according to experts interviewed by the Star, are broad, fact-finding missions surrounding a particular conflict or alleged crimes committed against specific groups during a conflict.
An RCMP investigator working on the Ukraine probe said the aim for the first year was, according to a CBC News report, “to preserve evidence, including physical and digital evidence, and gather victims’ stories.”
“As a neutral law enforcement body, the RCMP considers allegations from all parties involved with impartiality,” the Crown agency said over email Monday in response to a series of questions. “To uphold the integrity of this ongoing investigation, the RCMP provides this as its final response on the matter.”
The RCMP did not comment on what triggered its investigation in “early 2024.”
Months prior, the Hamas-led massacre on Oct. 7, 2023 left about 1,200 people in Israel dead, most of them civilians. Around 250 people were also taken hostage by Hamas.
Over the past 19 months of war, Israel’s military campaign has killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not say how many of the dead were civilians or combatants. The ministry is led by medical professionals but reports to the Hamas-run government. Its toll is seen as generally reliable by U.N. agencies and independent experts, though Israel has challenged its numbers. Other analyses indicate the total number is far greater.
The RCMP’s work continues amid rising tension between Canada and Israel.
In a joint statement in May, Canada, the U.K. and France denounced an “expansion of Israel’s military operations in Gaza,” with a threat to impose “targeted sanctions” on the country. The statement also called on Hamas to release its remaining hostages. Last week, Canada urged Israel to abandon plans to authorize 22 Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, noting it would be illegal.
The United Nations, meanwhile, recently warned Israel’s blockade of aid to Gaza risks “mass starvation” of Palestinians.
According to a statement the Department of Justice provided to the Star last week, the RCMP may launch a structural investigation “when there is evidence that war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide have occurred or are occurring anywhere in the world, and where there is a specific immigration community in Canada — either on a temporary residence or permanent residence basis — which is sufficiently large so that the RCMP may gather the necessary evidence.”
Multiple reports released by an independent UN commission focused on Israel-Palestine allege both Hamas and Israel have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity since October 2023.
The decision to launch an investigation rests with the RCMP, the justice department said.
While the department answered several questions about the ongoing Ukraine probe, it declined to discuss others, saying the War Crimes Program “does not comment on active investigations.” (Besides promoting its Ukraine investigation, the RCMP has acknowledged other active probes in the past, such as an investigation into crimes committed against the Yazidi population in Iraq and Syria.)
Over email, the RCMP later said “every investigation, including … the investigation into the Israel-Hamas conflict, needs a tailored approach and investigative techniques that cannot be applied universally.”
In the spring of 2022, roughly six weeks after Russia’s invasion, the RCMP announced its investigation into the war in Ukraine. Around the same time, the national police force also sent a contingent of investigators to assist the International Criminal Court’s weeks-old investigation into the conflict.
“As we see human casualties pile up and the scale and size of this humanitarian crisis grow alarmingly, it is important that we hold those who are committing the atrocities responsible,” then-public safety minister Marco Mendicino told the Globe and Mail at the time.
“It is essential that we preserve the record of what happened and what is happening in Ukraine in real time,” added Mendicino, who has been serving on a temporary basis as Prime Minister Mark Carney’s chief of staff.
Mendicino, along with current Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree, did not respond to a question about why the government had yet to announce similar investigative efforts related to the war in Gaza.
