The Islamic Republic of Iran targeted civilian populations as a matter of military strategy during the round of conflict stretching from late February through early April of this year, Adv. Uri Morad, an international law attorney and director of international law and public diplomacy at the Jerusalem Institute of Justice (JIJ), told The Jerusalem Post last week.
“What the Jerusalem Institute of Justice legal team found is that Iran’s breach of international humanitarian law, and mainly customary international law, throughout the latest round was systematic,” Morad said. “It came from the senior commanders of the IRGC targeting civilians in densely populated areas. And that was a tactic of war, not accidental.”
Morad spoke to the Post weeks after JIJ published a report titled “Indiscriminate fire: The legal case against Iran’s 2026 missile campaign,” of which he was a lead author.
According to Morad and the report, Tehran’s missile and drone campaign relied on a strategy of exhausting Israel’s air defenses.
“Israel's air defense system is one of the most advanced air defense systems in the world, but it's not perfect,” he said. “They understood that if they're using a certain amount of missiles, and out of the 2,300 missiles that they shot through all of that latest campaign, most of them at Israel, they understood perfectly well that when they do that, they're going to harass Israel's air defense system. And approximately 15 to 20% of the missiles will fall within densely populated areas. And that's what they did.”
The weaponry Iran used, Morad continued, matched the tactic. He pointed to the systematic use of cluster munitions, missiles that carry dozens of submunitions which, after the warhead opens, can scatter over an area as large as ten kilometers.
The bomblets dispersed by missiles carrying cluster munitions often weigh from one to one-and-a-half kilograms and can cause damage or injury in varying ways. They can either explode in the air or on impact or function as a landmine, detonating if someone steps on it.
“The nature of cluster munitions, as the IRGC used them during the latest round, does not allow you to target specifically areas that are clear of civilians,” he said. “And that leads us to one of the core principles of international humanitarian law, and that is the principle of distinction. That is basically that you make a dichotomic separation between combatants and non-combatants, between civilian infrastructure and military infrastructure.”
In its reliance on cluster munitions, Morad said, the IRGC leadership knew that collateral damage would be extensive.
“That is forbidden according to international law, and that is forbidden according to international customary law.”
Documentation of Iranian int'l law violations aimed to move toward accountability
Morad said the JIJ report could help “mobilize” the discussion away from politics and toward accountability, and pressure international bodies and Western states toward legal action against Iran.
According to Morad, that legal action could move along two tracks: the International Criminal Court and the use of universal jurisdiction, mainly by Western states.
Although Iran is not a party to the Rome Statute, Morad said the ICC could still have a pathway to act because some of the alleged crimes occurred on Cypriot and Jordanian territory, both of which are parties to the court.
“Jordan and Cyprus, by the way, both of them are state parties to the ICC,” he said, adding that the court could assert jurisdiction if alleged war crimes or crimes against humanity were committed on the soil of a member state.
Morad noted that the ICC acts against individuals rather than states, saying that legal proceedings could therefore focus on senior Iranian and IRGC figures.
“What we expect is that there will be an issuance of arrest warrants against Khamenei and other state leaders from the IRGC,” he said.
He acknowledged, however, that expectations for immediate action should be limited.
“We have to lower our expectations,” Morad said, adding that the purpose of the report is also to build pressure on states and international institutions to take operative steps, from condemnations and resolutions at the UN Security Council and Human Rights Council to possible legal proceedings.
JIJ has already sent the report to 40 diplomatic missions, Morad said, as well as to UN mandate holders, including special rapporteurs and officials who report directly to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“What we expect from them is to address that within the next report that they are publishing,” he said.
For Morad, the immediate goal is not only prosecution, but creating what he called a “dynamic of pressure” on states and international bodies to act.