Update

Airwars’ documentation and investigations into civilian harm in Gaza won a prestigious Overseas Press Club of America award on Thursday. The Kim Wall Award recognised the “best story or series of stories in any medium on international affairs using creative and dynamic digital storytelling techniques.” In a statement the judges, chaired by Mary Rajkumar, Pulitzer-winning […]

Civilian Protection Monitor offers new framework to assess how states protect civilians from their military actions

Interactive map documents Syrian earthquake rescue operations alongside emergency airstrike response

Recognition for project tracking Russian Shahed drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians

Case brought to contest Ministry of Defence's lack of transparency on civilian harm processes

Airwars запускає інтерактивну базу даних про цивільні жертви в битві за Харків, виявляючи 275-438 загиблих від вибухової зброї (лют-трав 2022)

Interactive database documenting civilian harm in the Battle of Kharkiv

Freedom of Information case step towards accountability for victims' families

قضت الحروب الجوية و الجارديان العام الماضي في التحقيق في الغارات الجوية البريطانية في العراق وسوريا ، بين عامي 2014 و 2020. ووجدنا أدلة على ما لا يقل عن ست غارات جوية وقعت في الموصل ، يُرجح أنها كانت هجمات بريطانية ، قتلت وألحقت الأذى بالمدنيين في المدينة.

In eight years of war, the UK only admitted killing one civilian. The Guardian and Airwars went in search of the forgotten victims

Civilian harm dropped across most of the major conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa in 2021, Airwars’ annual report has found. The number of allegations of civilians killed by nearly all belligerents monitored by Airwars fell in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Somalia and Yemen, though there was an escalation in the Israel-Palestinian conflict which […]

Airwars and The Guardian have won a prestigious Amnesty Media Award for their joint investigation into Israel’s striking of residential towers in Gaza. The article, Countdown to the Airstrike, won in the Best Use of Digital Media category. The article tells the story of the destruction a single tower in Gaza through their memories of […]

Emily Tripp will be the next Director of Airwars, the organisation’s Executive Board announced today, and will succeed the present head of the organisation Chris Woods in the summer. Emily is presently Airwars’ Research Manager, where she has strongly led on recent projects including the team’s monitoring of the conflict between Israel and Gaza in […]

Elizabeth Minor, the longstanding voluntary Chair of Airwars, has sadly stepped down due to ill health, the organisation’s Board has announced. Since joining the Airwars Board in summer 2016, Elizabeth has been a critical driver of the organisation’s many successes. A leading conflict casualty recording expert, Elizabeth was a key contributor to Every Casualty Counts’ […]

Libya’s rival political factions agreed to form a transitional government on February 5th, further cementing a June ceasefire meant to end the country’s civil war. After a lengthy UN-mediated process, the 73 delegates of the Libyan Political Dialogue Forum (LPDF) voted for Mohammad Menfi as head of the Presidency Council; Abdul Hamid Dbeibah as Prime […]

In it latest data project, Airwars has published comprehensive mapping of more than 5,400 air and artillery strikes in Libya since 2012. The new data covers all known locally-reported strikes to date, conducted by all parties to an on-and-off civil war that is currently on pause, after last year’s UN-brokered ceasefire deal. A team of […]

The Belgian parliament is considering adopting a resolution to help protect civilians from the use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas. The resolution calls for Belgium’s active participation in ongoing diplomatic negotiations among nations on an international political declaration to avoid the use of explosive weapons in populated areas, to help reduce […]

The two most important parties to the conflict in Libya, the Government of National Accord (GNA) and the Libyan National Army (LNA), agreed on October 23rd to an immediate and permanent ceasefire in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations. The landmark deal – which took many Libya analysts by surprise – could possibly […]

In 1996, the US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was asked by reporter Lesley Stahl about sanctions against Saddam Hussein’s Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Stahl asked. The Secretary of State responded: […]

On the fateful evening of August 7th 2014, then-US President Barack Obama gave a live address to the nation announcing the beginning of military actions in Iraq against so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS and Daesh), ushering in a new era of US involvement. The following day, US Navy F-18 Hornet fighters launched the […]

The US assassination of Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in Baghdad in January 2020, was unlawful on several counts, according to a new report submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council by its expert on extrajudicial killings. Dr Agnes Callamard, the current UN Special Rapporteur on Extra-Judicial Executions, […]

Civilians are continuing to benefit from a months-long ceasefire in northern Syria, which has seen casualty numbers sharply fall to levels last seen in the early months of the civil war. Experts remain divided however, on how long this pause in fighting will last – and what it means for Syria and its divided people. […]

In an extraordinary reversal, the opposition Libyan National Army (LNA) – believed until recently to be the dominant military power in Libya today – has been routed from much of its western territory in just a few weeks. Retreating LNA forces abandoned tanks, attack helicopters and other advanced weaponry as they fled the Government of […]

Airwars and design partners Rectangle are commemorating those civilians killed and injured in conflicts, by livestreaming over 24 hours the names of 8,337 civilian casualties the international monitor has documented in Syria, Iraq, Libya and Somalia in recent years. The digital event marks the occasion of the UN’s 2020 Protection of Civilians Week. Every name […]

Newly declassified documents released by the Dutch Ministries of Defence and Foreign Affairs, and the Netherlands Public Prosecutor’s Office, have revealed a number of disturbing facts about Dutch airstrikes on Hawijah and Mosul in 2015 which killed dozens of civilians. The previously secret documents show, for example, that the Dutch military official with a potential […]

Privacy Policy for Our Chrome Extension Effective Date: 28 February 2025 1. Introduction This Privacy Policy explains how our Chrome extension (the “Extension”) handles user data. Our Extension allows users to copy information from web pages and securely transmit it to a server for further processing. It enables seamless content extraction with minimal user interaction […]

Eleven weeks on from the October 9th launch of a Turkish-led offensive against Kurds in northern Syria, known as ‘Operation Peace Spring’, fighting continues to rage with civilians still encountering significant violence. Since the beginning of the latest clashes, Airwars researchers have overall monitored between 244 and 312 reported civilian deaths resulting from air, artillery […]

The Netherlands Ministry of Defence (Defensie) has provided an inaccurate statement to both MPs and the media, Airwars analysis indicates – on the eve of a critical parliamentary debate on the deaths of scores of civilians in Iraq which had resulted from a Dutch airstrike in 2015. Credible reports at the time had indicated that […]