The Netherlands' complicity in Israeli crimes by sending military dogs

Human rights organizations say that the Dutch government, due to its continued direct and indirect support for the Zionist regime’s war machine, bears direct legal responsibility for complicity in the regime’s crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories, especially in the Gaza Strip.

According to reports, the Netherlands has continued to export military dogs to the Zionist regime’s army. This is while these dogs are being used as a tool of torture and systematic terror against Palestinians.

These dogs are being used as part of a wider system of crimes by the Zionist regime, which aims to destroy the Palestinian people and erase their presence.

According to the Center for Research on Multinational Enterprises (SOMO), Dutch companies obtained veterinary certificates for the export of 110 dogs to Israel between October 2023 and February 2025.

Of these, 100 dogs were allocated to Four Winds K9, a dog training center based in the Dutch village of Geffen. The company has a long history of exporting dogs to the occupied territories.

A Dutch lawyer reportedly filed a legal complaint against Four Winds K9 in 2017.

The leaked documents show that the Israeli Ministry of War intervened to defend the company and supported it through Dutch law firms to protect it from being held accountable for aiding and abetting the crimes of the occupation regime.

This close coordination between Zionist institutions, Dutch legal institutions, and Four Winds K9 demonstrates a network of deliberate complicity that actively fuels the Zionist regime’s machine of killing and repression. It ensures the continued supply of military dogs to units that are directly involved in serious violations of international law.

Field research by human rights watchdog Euro-Med Monitor has documented numerous cases in which Israeli forces have used military dogs to attack Palestinian civilians, including children, the elderly and the sick. These reports document incidents of dogs being used to torture individuals, terrorize families and torture prisoners.

These serious violations call for an immediate freeze on all military exports, a full investigation into the Netherlands’ role in supporting these crimes, and the prosecution of entities complicit in the Israeli regime’s ongoing violations of international law.

Israeli forces have systematically used large military dogs during their attacks on the Gaza Strip, particularly in attacks on homes, hospitals and shelters, as well as in operations in the West Bank.

These dogs are used against civilians in a variety of ways, including being fitted with surveillance cameras to identify buildings before Israeli soldiers can attack them.

More worryingly, these dogs are released to attack civilians. According to documented evidence, Israeli soldiers routinely remain passive during these attacks, and in many cases directly order the dogs to attack Palestinian civilians.

The Euro-Med Monitor field team has documented the use of attack dogs by the Israeli regime against men, women and children, particularly during the ground offensive on Gaza City, the northern Gaza Strip and Khan Yunis.

This practice is part of a systematic policy aimed at spreading fear and terror among the civilian population in the Strip.

According to the field team’s documentation, the most egregious use of military dogs has been against Palestinian prisoners. The documented abuses include reports of dogs being used to commit brutal acts of violence against prisoners, carried out in the presence of other prisoners and prison guards. These crimes are part of a deliberate pattern of violence intended to inflict physical and psychological suffering.

One of the most harrowing cases involves Dawlat al-Tanani, a 60-year-old woman from the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. She was attacked by an Israeli military dog ​​inside her home on 14 May 2024.

Al-Tanani said: "I was sleeping in my house, which I had refused to leave despite the Israeli army's invasion of Jabalia. I woke up to the sound of Israeli forces entering my house. After a few moments, a dog with a camera mounted on its back attacked me, biting my shoulder and sinking its teeth into my bone."

She added: "The soldiers were laughing and did not help me. Until one of my relatives who was in the house pushed the dog with his stick and the attack stopped. I was bleeding profusely; my relatives managed to close the door of the room and shouted for help from the soldiers, but they did not pay attention."

The Palestinian woman was taken to the hospital the next day with serious injuries.

Euro-Med Monitor has also received testimonies confirming that the Israeli military has used military dogs during attacks on hospitals; these dogs have reportedly attacked displaced civilians and even corpses in hospital courtyards. These violations occurred in late 2023 and the attack on the Al-Shifa Medical Complex in March 2024.

All states are obliged to prevent any acts that constitute serious human rights violations or constitute international crimes, wherever they occur. States must refrain from any participation (direct or indirect) in international crimes, in particular genocide. This includes the transfer or export of arms or equipment that could potentially be used to commit such crimes or to facilitate violations of international humanitarian law.

Customary and codified international law, in particular the peremptory norms on genocide and the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, oblige States such as the Netherlands to take all necessary measures to prevent genocide. Therefore, the Netherlands’ continued granting of permits to export military dogs to the occupied territories, despite clear evidence of their use in crimes against Palestinians, constitutes a clear failure to comply with its international legal obligations. This failure places the Netherlands in a position of complicity in crimes committed against the Palestinian people.