Before the war, Palestinians had a humane and positive outlook towards animals. Animals were part of daily life in society, whether used in agriculture and transportation or kept as pets. There was an obvious love and care for the animals, echoing the Palestinian culture of respect for nature and creatures. Rural families considered farm animals such as cows, goats, and chickens as essential sources of livelihood and treated them with great care. Pets such as cats and dogs were considered part of domestic life. Children grew attached to them and were responsible for tending to them.

But attitudes towards some animals have begun to change as the brutal occupation of the West Bank and the war against Gaza continues. The conditions of siege and bombing have created environmental and psychological deterioration that has damaged the relationship between humans and animals. The Israel Occupation Forces use military dogs in raids, which has made people particularly afraid of dogs. Dogs have become associated with danger and violence instead of friendship and familiarity.

Moreover, in Gaza, the extenuation of the siege has made it difficult to provide food and care for animals. Stray animals have been left to their fate, reinforcing fears about diseases or attacks. Some have even been seen feeding off corpses.

Dogs have been transformed into the tools of the enemy and the damage to Palestinians of all ages haunts every household. For anyone involved in a dog attack, the emotional and physical scars are irreversible.

The dog attack on Ibrahim

On the morning of February 4, 2024, in the Balata camp in the West Bank, a woman known as Um Muhammad woke up to prepare her children for school. Suddenly 200 soldiers from the Israeli occupation stormed into her building. With them were large, unmuzzled, ferocious-looking police dogs who pulled at their leashes as the soldiers barged into her house.

Three-year-old Ibrahim, Um Muhammad’s son, was sound asleep. Um Muhammad’s instincts told her to run to him and shield him, lest the occupation terrorize him. As she held the frightened Ibrahim in her arms, one of the dogs attacked her, pouncing on her with the weight of its body, pushing her down with its paws and sinking its jaws into Ibrahim’s little body from behind. Um Muhammad started hitting the dog to stop him from mauling her son, but the more she hit him, the more the dog’s teeth dug into the child. After a few minutes, the dog yanked Ibrahim from his mother’s hands and took him up the stairs as his mother watched in horror.

Just as cats carry their litter, the dog strode away with Ibrahim between his jaws, but with none of the maternal affection such an act typically conjures. Um Muhammad screamed and wept hysterically as the scene unfolded before her eyes. One soldier, irritated by her, struck her in the chest with a rifle, and grabbed her 11-year-old daughter, pushing her too to the ground.

After five minutes, which felt like an eternity for Um Muhammad, the soldiers followed the dog and brought back Ibrahim covered in tinfoil. Um Muhammad frantically grabbed her son and yelled his name, but he was unresponsive. By then, the soldiers had left the house and moved to the next home to replicate their crimes.

Um Muhammad rushed her son  to the ambulance standing outside and started screaming at the top of her lungs: “The boy is dead, the boy is dead, come and take the boy from me.” But Ibrahim survived. He required a three-and-a-half hour operation and 42 stitches in various parts of his body.

He remained in the hospital for 22 days, needing over 21 injections against rabies, as the dog was not vaccinated.

To this day, Um Muhammad continues to follow up on her child’s treatment. He has become depressed and withdrawn. He now regularly visits the health clinic and urinates on himself involuntarily.

In the West Bank, data indicate a clear increase in the use of highly trained police dogs for arrest operations and home raids, according to Wafa, the Palestinian News Agency. Dozens of photos and video clips document how soldiers unleash their dogs on citizens, specifically children, to lacerate their flesh and disable them before arresting them.

The mauling of Muhummad Bahar

The weaponization of dogs as a tool to intimidate, scare, and even kill Palestinian civilians is commonplace in Gaza, too. One such horrific incident involved the brutal attack by a police dog on a 24-year-old Palestinian man, Muhammad Bahar, who suffered from Down Syndrome, during the occupation’s invasion of the Al-Shuja’iya neighborhood, east of Gaza City, on July 4, 2024.

The young man’s mother described how the dogs attacked them in their home. One dog leapt without warning on Muhammad, who was sitting on the sofa. The dog bit him in the chest and hand. The lacerations were so deep that they ultimately led to massive bleeding and the young man’s martyrdom.

The dog-involved torture of Dr. Al-Khair

Dr. Hamid Abu Al-Khair, arrested by the Israeli army during his shift at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, has another traumatic story.

In his case, teams of soldiers rotated through, inflicting their torture routines on him and the other prisoners. The suppression squad, as it is known, came twice a week to violently humiliate and abuse them. They would throw sound bombs at and around the prisoners and order them to sleep on their stomachs while raising their hands up with their hands open.

They were tortured, sometimes in order and sometimes randomly. The dogs were set loose on the prisoners to be mauled and injured. All the while, the soldiers intentionally waited to hear the sound of bones breaking as they assaulted them with iron rods and beat them. A large number of detainees suffered from suffocation and broken rib cages.

The dog assault on Dawlat Al-Tanani

Even the old have not been spared. A 60-year-old woman named Al-Tanani, whose interview clip went viral on social media, was attacked by an Israeli army dog ​​in her home on May 14, 2024, in the Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip. She was sleeping when the soldiers raided her house, having refused to leave after the Israeli army entered the camp.

Waking up to the sound of Israeli forces, she was assaulted by a dog carrying a camera on its back. The dog dug its fangs through her skin into her bones with such force that it could pull her dead weight outside. As she screamed, the soldiers laughed and ignored her pleas, declining to call the dog off or offer treatment.

The dog continued to rip into her arm as though she were a piece of meat and as she screamed. Finally, one of her relatives inside the house intervened and pushed the dog away with his cane, closing the door to the room. The relative pleaded for help from the soldiers but to no avail. Al Tanani bled profusely and all the relative could do was wrap her arm with a head covering. The next day she was transferred to Al-Yemen Al-Saed Hospital and from there to Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda Hospitals, but health services were scarce and inadequate. They made her a splint and she still suffers from this injury to this day.

Abuse of  international law

Dogs as a tool of war for intimidation, torture, and violence by Israeli forces against Palestinians constitutes a disturbing pattern of inhumane treatment and an abuse of international law. They amount to government-sanctioned terrorism against a civilian population.

Such practices not only dehumanize the victims but also reflect a wider culture of impunity that continues to fuel the conflict. Accountability, justice, and the protection of human rights is critical in addressing these abuses and moving toward a peaceful resolution. The soldiers and military perpetrating these atrocities must be held to account. Inaction on the part of the international community is complicity.