Palestinian war crimes are the violations of international criminal law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, which Palestinian militants, primarily the Islamist Nationalist organization Hamas and its paramilitary wing, the al-Qassam Brigades, have committed or been accused of committing. These have included murder, intentional targeting of civilians, killing prisoners of war and surrendered combatants, indiscriminate attacks, the use of human shields, rape, torture and pillage.

Determining the applicability of laws of war to militant groups is a difficult question, as both the Council of Europe and International Committee of the Red Cross note that international law traditionally treats war and terrorism as separate legal categories. The Israeli, American, EU, UK, Japanese, and Canadian governments define Hamas as a terrorist group. However, many countries have disagreed with this characterization and have engaged with Hamas as a legitimate political entity. While the term "international law" conventionally pertains to states, it has also been applied to insurgent and terrorist armed forces. Accordingly, even insurgencies deemed lawful under international law that meet the criteria of "just cause" must also adhere to principles of "just means" as well. Regarding Hamas and its combatants, even if they have a presumptive right to fight against what they term as an "illegal occupation," they must still abide by legal rules of "discrimination", "proportionality", and "military necessity" under international law as conventional states do.

According to Human Rights Watch, "international humanitarian law, through the well-established doctrine of command responsibility" also applies "to political and other leaders insofar as they have 'effective responsibility and control' over the actors in question...thus making its leadership also criminally liable."

According to Amnesty International, the "prohibition on targeting civilians is absolute in international law".

Human Rights Watch has declared that the "scale and systematic nature" of Hamas' targeting of Israeli civilians "meet the definition of a crime against humanity", and that its particular use of suicide bombings taking "place in the context of violence that amounts to armed conflict...are also war crimes."

According to Amnesty International, "the campaign of suicide bombings and deliberate attacks against Israeli civilians by Hamas and other armed groups constitutes crimes against humanity.

Between September 1993 and the outbreak of the Second Intifada in September 2000, "Palestinian groups carried out fourteen suicide bombing attacks against Israeli civilians, mostly in 1996-97, killing more than 120 and wounding over 550. Hamas said it committed most of the attacks."

In the decade between 2000 and 2010, there were 146 suicide attacks committed by Palestinian militant groups against Israelis, resulting in 516 fatalities. A 2007 Harvard University study of 135 Palestinian suicide attacks conducted between September 2000 and August 2005 determined Hamas responsible for 39.9% of such attacks during that period.