Israeli officials fear their soldiers will be arrested following fighting in Gaza after a soldier fled Brazil to avoid questioning about alleged war crimes he committed in Gaza and filmed for social media.
The Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) is the driving force behind this international accountability effort.
Founded just five months ago, HRF has brought together lawyers and activists from around the world to prepare cases, largely based on social media content shared by Israeli soldiers themselves.
Israeli reservist Yuval Vagdani was among the first of what HRF founder and chairman Dyab Abou Jahjah said were many soldiers accused of war crimes.
Vagdani spoke to Israeli media on Wednesday after he was “forced” to cut short his “dream trip” to Brazil, saying that it felt “a bit like a… that he was the subject of an investigation for war crimes abroad, after he filmed himself blowing up people’s houses in Gaza.” Bullet in the heart.”
According to local media, the Israeli Foreign Ministry played a crucial role in helping Vagdani avoid investigation and possible prosecution for war crimes, first arranging for him to be smuggled into Argentina and from there to the United States before finally being smuggled left for Israel.
Israeli authorities and media have issued guidelines for soldiers on how to avoid arrest abroad and conceal their identities while deployed.
No response was received when Al Jazeera asked whether these additional measures would include training reservists on possible war crimes.
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Providing the evidence against them
After 15 months of Israeli soldiers proudly sharing videos of themselves committing potential war crimes in Gaza, HRF had ample evidence to use in pursuing their prosecution under international and domestic law.
The videos and still images show soldiers forcing Palestinian men to parade in their underwear, abusing prisoners, looting and destroying homes, and even dressing in women’s clothing they looted.
“This is about being accountable to the law,” Abou Jahjah said. “If individual soldiers feel that they have not committed a war crime, that is fine. Let’s listen to her case. It is in everyone’s interest to do this.”
Hind Rajab is the name of a five-year-old girl who was killed in a car in Gaza by Israel as she pleaded for help on the phone for three hours, surrounded by members of her dead family and within sight of Palestinian medics who were also killed trying to reach them.
To date, the foundation named after her has filed more than 1,000 lawsuits with the International Court of Justice.
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HRF lawyers and online activists are combing through mountains of images and videos submitted to them online to verify and geolocate each one, review its metadata and check its chain of custody, from the soldier who filmed it to HRF explained Abou Jahjah.
If the perpetrator has dual nationality, HRF seeks prosecution under the second country’s current war crimes laws and, in the case of sole Israeli citizens, compiles legal files that are then submitted as evidence to the International Criminal Court (ICC).
As expected, HRF’s work in Israel was met with strong criticism. Some claimed these legal procedures amounted to “doxxing” (the unauthorized publication of individual identities) of soldiers who filmed themselves.
Abou Jahjah was also personally threatened by Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli, who told him to “watch his pager,” alluding to the attacks on Hezbollah members’ communications systems in September 2024.
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“I don’t really care,” Abou Jahjah said. “I’ve been here for many years, and if you compare it to what’s happening in Gaza, the threats against me don’t really matter.”
HRF also maintains a catalog of “perpetrators, accomplices and instigators” against whom it seeks to investigate war crimes.
Impunity and persecution
“They are proud of these actions,” Milena Ansari of Jerusalem-based Human Rights Watch said of the potential war crimes spread by soldiers on social media.
“Putting it online not only contributes to the dehumanization of Palestinians, but is also cause for celebration,” she told Al Jazeera.
“The feeling of impunity is absolute… It has always been there, particularly with regard to Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank, but since October 2023 (when Israel’s war on Gaza began) it has increased significantly.”
Many in Israel view the lawsuits against reservists as unfair and a continuation of centuries of anti-Semitism, sentiments that the Israeli state has claimed and weaponized, said Tel Aviv political scientist Ori Goldberg.
“The situation in Israel is deteriorating,” Goldberg said. “You can’t engage in genocide for 15 months and then expect something different. Israel has changed fundamentally.
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“People today don’t even think of Palestinians as human beings, if they ever really did. For most people, Palestinians aren’t even vermin. Vermin must be killed. There are fewer Palestinians,” he said.
In this context, it is understandable to many in Israel that a few soldiers would “let off steam” during a war for which no one feels responsible and in which the only victims were Palestinians, Goldberg said
“They are spreading the word against Israel,” Goldberg said of the government and media response to the numerous investigations and prosecutions believed to be underway.
“It’s the persecution of the Jews again,” he said.
“Most people don’t even feel like Gaza has anything to do with them,” Goldberg continued. “On the one hand, we continue to bomb it, but on the other hand, we feel that we are not responsible for what is going on there.”