"Unleashing terror: Dutch dogs in Israel’s war crimes", 10 April 2025

[...]

From Gaza to the West Bank, from Palestinian homes to Israeli detention centres, Palestinians have shared horrifying testimonies of dog attacks by the Israeli military. These testimonies demonstrate the Israeli military’s systematic use of dogs to brutalise Palestinians, including children, elderly people, and medical staff – sometimes with fatal consequences...

SOMO discovered that police dog companies in the Netherlands obtained the required veterinary certificates for the export of at least 110 dogs to Israel between October 2023 and February 2025. One hundred of these certificates were granted to the company Four Winds K9, a police dog training centre in the southern Dutch village of Geffen...

Four Winds K9 has a decades-long history of exporting dogs to Israel. This history is tainted by unlawful dog attacks perpetrated by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians. SOMO obtained leaked documents relating to a past lawsuit against Four Winds K9. They show how the Israeli government went to great lengths to protect its supplier...

Reports from human rights organisations, media, and the United Nations show that the attack suffered by Hazmeh in 2014 is just one example of a systematic pattern of abuse, whereby the Israeli army, police, and prison services frequently use dogs to threaten and attack civilians, including toddlers, the elderly, and persons with disabilities. Dogs are also used to torture imprisoned Palestinians, including, according to media reports, through rape.

SOMO received sixteen victim and witness testimonies collected by Palestinian human rights organisations Al-Haq and Al Mezan, describing different types of dog attacks by the Israeli army since October 2023. These testimonies paint a gruesome picture of the ways in which dogs are used to brutalise Palestinian civilians...

The export of military dogs is largely unregulated and falls under the same administrative procedures as the exporting or moving abroad of domesticated household pets.

The 2014 attack against Hamzeh brought national media attention to Four Winds K9 and led several Dutch parliamentarians to call for an immediate halt to the export of dogs to the Israeli army. This prompted the Dutch government to explore a dual-use export license regime applicable to dogs set for export to Israel. Under such a system, goods and animals that can be used for both civilian and military purposes would require an export license, with the state assessing the human rights risks of such exports before granting a license. Despite the clear human rights risks, the Dutch government decided not to introduce such a licensing regime. Even today...the Dutch government remains reluctant to address the risk of Dutch dogs being used in unlawful attacks by Israeli forces...

SOMO asked the Dutch customs authority for an aggregated, anonymised breakdown of export figures of dogs exported to Israel, specifically the Israeli Ministry of Defence, by private actors and – if applicable – the Dutch Ministry of Defence. The customs authority responded to SOMO in an email on 17 February 2025, saying that it could not share this information...due to “privacy regulations”.

However, SOMO was able to obtain information from the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority (NVWA) showing that, between October 2023 and February 2025, the NVWA issued 110 veterinary certificates 14 required for the export of dogs by Dutch military/police dog companies to Israel. Of these 110 certificates, 100 were issued to Four Winds K9. Another four certificates were issued to Police Dogs Centre Holland, and six were issued to K10 Working Dogs.

On 17 March 2025, SOMO approached Four Winds K9, Police Dogs Centre Holland, and K10 Working Dogs for information about (i) the identity of their Israeli purchasers, (ii) the usage of dogs by these purchasers, (iii) how they ensure their dogs are not used in international law violations, and (iv) whether they ever received information from the Dutch government – before or after 7 October 2023 – about the legal risks of supplying police dogs to Israel. To date, none of the companies have responded to SOMO’s inquiries.

Under Dutch law, companies and corporate leaders exporting dogs to the Israeli army can be held criminally liable when their supply of dogs enables and/or exacerbates war crimes or acts of genocide committed by the Israeli army.

But there are also clear legal obligations for the Dutch State to prevent that dogs exported from the Netherlands are used in violations of international law by Israel...