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Rights groups have slammed United States Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for saying that “no quarter” will be shown to Iran, as the US and Israel continue their military campaign against the country.

“We will keep pressing. We will keep pushing, keep advancing. No quarter, no mercy for our enemies,” Hegseth told reporters on Friday.

Under the Hague Convention and other international treaties, it is illegal to threaten that no quarter will be given.

Domestic laws, such as the 1996 War Crimes Act, also prohibit such policies. US military manuals likewise warn that threats of “no quarter” are illegal.

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said Hegseth’s comments appear to run afoul of those standards.

“These comments are very striking,” Finucane told Al Jazeera over a phone call. “It raises questions about whether this belligerent, lawless rhetoric is being translated into how the war is being conducted on the battlefield.”

But Hegseth has publicly dismissed concerns about international law, claiming he would abide no “stupid rules of engagement” and no “politically correct wars”.

His rhetoric has provoked concern among some experts that measures designed to prevent civilian harm are being ignored in favour of a campaign of “maximum lethality”.

Hegseth’s remarks also come after a US strike on a girls’ school in southern Iran that killed more than 170 people, most of them children. The war has left at least 1,444 Iranians dead and millions more displaced.

‘Inhumane and counterproductive’

Prohibitions against declaring “no quarter” go back more than a century, part of an effort to impose restraints on conduct during war.

The Nuremberg trials after World War II upheld that legal standard, as Nazi officials were prosecuted, in some cases, for denying quarter to enemy forces.

“The basic idea is that it’s both inhumane and counterproductive to execute people who have laid down their arms,” said Finucane.

He added that the “mere announcement” of “no quarter” from a government official can itself be a war crime.

The US and Israel have already faced allegations of violating international law during their war against Iran. Experts have condemned their initial strike on February 28 as “unprovoked”, deeming the conflict an illegal war of aggression.

Iranian officials also protested after a US submarine sank a military vessel, the IRIS Dena, off the coast of Sri Lanka, as it returned from a ceremonial naval exercise in India. That attack killed at least 84 people.

While warships are considered legal military targets, Iran has said that the ship was not fully armed, raising questions about whether it could have been interdicted rather than sunk.

US forces also purportedly declined to help rescue sailors from the Dena, even though the Geneva Convention largely requires aid to the shipwrecked. The Sri Lankan navy ultimately helped collect survivors from the wreckage.

Responding to the attack, Hegseth described the sinking of the ship as a “quiet death”. He also told reporters, “We are fighting to win.”

US President Donald Trump himself remarked that he asked why the ship had been sunk, not captured.

“One of my generals said, ‘Sir, it’s a lot more fun doing it this way,’” Trump said.

‘Serious red flag’

The US military has faced criticism for killing civilians in military operations for decades.

That includes during the so-called “global war on terror”, when airstrikes resulted in thousands of civilian deaths, including a 2008 attack on a wedding party in Afghanistan.

Even before the war with Iran, the Trump administration had faced accusations that it violated international law by attacking alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

At least 157 people have been killed in those attacks since they started on September 2.

The Trump administration, however, has never identified the victims nor presented evidence against them. Scholars have condemned the attacks as a campaign of extrajudicial killings.

Analysts say that the Pentagon’s policies of emphasising lethality at the expense of human rights concerns has carried over into its war against Iran.

“Death and destruction from the sky all day long. We’re playing for keeps. Our warfighters have maximum authorities granted personally by the president and yours truly,” Hegseth said during a briefing on March 4.

“Our rules of engagement are bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it.”

Sarah Yager, the Washington director at Human Rights Watch, called such rhetoric alarming.

“I’ve been engaging with the US military for two decades, and I’m shocked by this language. Rhetoric from senior leaders matters because it helps shape the command environment in which US forces operate,” Yager said.

“From an atrocity-prevention perspective, language that dismisses legal restraints is a serious red flag.”

While the impact of Hegseth’s rhetoric on combat operations is not certain, a recent report from the watchdog group Airwars found that the pace of the US and Israeli assault on Iran has far outstripped other military operations in modern history.

Reports indicate that the US dropped nearly $5.6bn worth of munitions in the first two days of the war alone. Airwars says the US and Israel hit more targets in the first 100 hours of the Iran war than in the first six months of the US campaign against ISIL (ISIS).

Following Hegseth’s remarks on Friday, Senator Jeff Merkley condemned the Pentagon chief as a “dangerous amateur”. He cited the attack on the Iranian girls’ school as an example of the consequences.

“His ‘no hesitation’ engagement rules set the stage for failing to distinguish a civilian school from a military target,” Merkley wrote in a social media post.

In a fiery, 27-page decision, a United States judge has granted a motion to quash two subpoenas related to an investigation into Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, the country’s central bank.

On Friday, Judge James Boasberg of the US court for the District of Columbia concluded that the subpoenas has been issued for an “improper purpose”: to harass Powell into compliance.

Powell, Boasberg explained, had been the target of a months-long campaign under President Donald Trump to force the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates rapidly and dramatically.

Trump has repeatedly called for Powell to step down as part of that campaign. Powell’s tenure as head of the Federal Reserve Board is set to expire in May.

“A mountain of evidence suggests that the Government served these subpoenas on the Board to pressure its Chair into voting for lower interest rates or resigning,” Boasberg wrote, in a decision that cites numerous public statements from the president.

Boasberg added that the government’s justifications for the subpoenas seem hollow.

“The Government has produced essentially zero evidence to suspect Chair Powell of a crime,” he wrote.

“Indeed, its justifications are so thin and unsubstantiated that the Court can only conclude that they are pretextual.”

As part of his decision, Boasberg ordered the unsealing of the two subpoenas, though they do remain redacted in part.

His ruling was quickly rebutted by the US attorney overseeing the case, Trump appointee Jeanine Pirro, who held a combative but brief news conference on Friday morning.

She accused Boasberg of “inserting himself” into a grand jury proceeding and offering Powell immunity from prosecution. She also brushed aside Boasberg’s decision as being “without legal authority”, adding that it would be appealed swiftly.

“One of the age-old tools that all prosecutors have to investigate any crime, including cost overruns, is a grand jury subpoena,” Pirro said.

“Today, however, in Washington, an activist judge has taken that tool away from us.”

When faced with reporter questions, Pirro denied that the subpoena had been sought for political aims.

“ We are focused on the law. We’re focused on the people of the district. We are not focused on politics,” she said.

But Boasberg’s decision suggests otherwise, claiming that the Trump administration has led a campaign to investigate and prosecute political rivals.

Boasberg pointed to examples including posts from Trump calling on Attorney General Pam Bondi to file criminal charges against three of his critics: New York Attorney General Letitia James, US Senator Adam Schiff and former FBI director James Comey.

James and Comey subsequently faced indictments, while Schiff was placed under investigation.

Trump has also taken aim at another member of the Federal Reserve Board, Democratic nominee Lisa Cook, accusing her of alleged mortgage fraud. Her case is currently before the Supreme Court.

“Being perceived as the President’s adversary has become risky in recent years,” Boasberg wrote. “In his second term, Trump has urged the Department of Justice to prosecute such people, and the Department’s prosecutors have listened.”

As the body in charge of monetary policy in the US, the Federal Reserve is considered independent from the US political system, to avoid its decisions being wielded for political aims.

But the Trump administration has embarked on a historic effort to bring different parts of government — even those deemed independent — under executive control.

Powell was nominated to head the Federal Reserve’s seven-member board during Trump’s first term as president, in 2017.

But since Trump’s return to the presidency in January 2025, he has pushed Powell to slash interest rates.

Doing so would make loans cheaper and would thereby flush the economy with money, as well as accelerate businesses that require large-money loans for projects and expansion.

Chopping the interest rates fast comes with a downside, though. Economists warn that, while the stock market might see a temporary bump, flooding the economy with money could undermine the value of the dollar, leading to a long-term weakening of the economy.

Interest rates were lifted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic to tackle inflation, and they have been steadily decreasing in the years since.

But Trump argued that the Federal Reserve Board has been too slow to lower interest rates, giving its chair the nickname “Too Late Powell”.

The president has also suggested he might remove Powell forcibly, though he has not publicly indicated how. “If I want him out, he’ll be out of there real fast, believe me,” Trump said in the Oval Office last year.

On January 11, the feud between Trump and Powell came to a head with a rare public message from the Federal Reserve Board, which posted a video of its chair announcing he was under investigation.

In the video, Powell explained that the Department of Justice, under Trump, had successfully sought two grand jury subpoenas about his testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June 2025.

He said the investigation related to cost overruns as renovations proceed at the Federal Reserve’s historic headquarters in Washington, DC.

“No one — certainly not the chair of the Federal Reserve — is above the law,” Powell said. “But this unprecedented action should be seen in the broader context of the administration’s threats and ongoing pressure.”

The Federal Reserve Board subsequently filed a motion in federal court to have the subpoenas thrown out. Boasberg’s decision comes in response to that request.

Boasberg explained that federal courts may quash such subpoenas if they are deemed to force compliance that would be “unreasonable or oppressive”.

“The case thus asks: Did prosecutors issue those subpoenas for a proper purpose? The Court finds that they did not,” Boasberg wrote.

“There is abundant evidence that the subpoenas’ dominant (if not sole) purpose is to harass and pressure Powell either to yield to the President or to resign.”

The Trump administration has repeatedly come under fire for allegedly leveraging the legal system for political aims, and the president’s attack on Powell even earned backlash from some members of the Republican Party.

Most notably, Senator Thom Tillis, who is not running for re-election in the 2026 midterms, has refused to approve Trump’s nominee to replace Powell until the investigation is closed.

On Friday, Tillis applauded Boasberg for his decision to quash the subpoenas.

The Republican also warned that, if the Trump administration did appeal, he would continue to withhold his vote for Trump’s pick to succeed Powell, Kevin Warsh.

“This ruling confirms just how weak and frivolous the criminal investigation of Chairman Powell is,” he wrote on social media. “It is nothing more than a failed attack on Fed independence.”

Muslim worshippers prayed in the streets outside Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa compound as Israeli authorities kept holy sites closed amid the Israel–Iran conflict. Restrictions during Ramadan have left the mosque largely empty, drawing condemnation from Arab and Islamic countries.

Video shows the moment an Israeli missile struck a building in south Lebanon. A bridge crossing the Litani river was also destroyed, as Israel warned Lebanon could face the type of destruction seen in Gaza. Israeli attacks since early March have killed 773 people in Lebanon.