An Israeli military officer was detained in the U.K. a few weeks ago on war crimes charges, according to reports in the Israeli media. The officer, who was not identified but fought in Israel’s 2014 war in Gaza, was only briefly held before the Israeli government helped secure his release and procured an apology from British authorities.

Pro-Palestinian organizations have submitted lists of Israeli military officers and soldiers to numerous countries worldwide, noting these fighters have been allegedly involved in war crimes against Palestinians.

The detainment comes on the heels of a controversy earlier this year, in which more than 100,000 people signed a petition calling on the British government to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upon arrival in the country for war crimes. The U.K. Petitions Committee officially responded to the request, which it denied, stating that it was not within its authority to do so.

Israeli media reports and the Israeli government have consistently downplayed the accusations of war crimes made against the Israel Defense Forces. Such denials contradict the vast majority of independent international investigations into the war.

Numerous human rights organizations, including leading rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have accused the Israel Defense Forces of committing war crimes in its summer 2014 Operation Protective Edge.

“Israeli forces committed war crimes and human rights violations during a 50-day military offensive in the Gaza Strip that killed over 1,500 civilians, including 539 children, wounded thousands more civilians, and caused massive civilian displacement and destruction of property and vital services,” Amnesty wrote in its most recent Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories report.

Human Rights Watch investigations into Israel’s bombing of U.N.-run schools housing displaced Palestinians and other civilian areas concluded that such attacks were “indiscriminate” and that the Israeli military committed war crimes.

More than 2,250 Palestinians, including at least 550 children, were killed in the Israeli offensive, according to U.N. figures. On the other side, 66 Israeli soldiers and seven civilians were killed.

Approximately two-thirds of the people killed by Israel were civilians, whereas roughly 10 percent of those killed by Palestinian militants were civilians, according to the U.N.

The Palestinian health ministry reported that 145 families in Gaza lost three or more members in a single strike. Scores of families were removed from Palestinian civil records, meaning all of the members were killed.

In August 2014, in response to preliminary investigations by independent rights groups, the Israeli government barred Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch from entering the Gaza Strip, over which it maintains effective political control, in contravention of international law

Even in times when no official war is being waged, Amnesty stresses that Israel continues to maintain “its air, sea, and land blockade of Gaza, imposing collective punishment on its approximately 1.8 million inhabitants and stoking the humanitarian crisis.” The U.N. has for years insisted that Israel’s blockade of Gaza is illegal.

Numerous other reports on Operation Protective Edge corroborated the findings of Amnesty and Human Rights Watch.

An independent investigation by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, in conjunction with several other human rights and medical organizations, found that the Israeli military deliberately targeted civilians in Gaza. It also found that the IDF used civilians as human shields, shot civilians dead at close range, left mortally wounded children on the ground to die, conducted “double tap” consecutive strikes on locations in order to kill injured survivors and those attempting to rescue them, attacked civilians who were fleeing areas on under fire, and “deliberately” shelled hospitals, ambulances, and medical workers.