Introduction
During the first 9 months or so of Israel’s destruction of Gaza, Israel’s government and people seemed convinced they couldn’t be prosecuted for carrying out war crimes and crimes against humanity. The blanket support given to Israel by (world power) America and by its UK and other allies appears central to that sense of impunity. It was shaken only to a limited extent firstly by the International Court of Justice’s ruling that there was a plausible case of genocide against Israel; and secondly by the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and the then Defence Minister.
That belief in Israel’s impunity from prosecution has now disappeared amongst Israeli private citizens, IDF soldiers, airmen, ministers and state officials - largely due to the work done by the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF).
HRF's approach and achievements
HRF was founded in September 2024. In a few short months, HRF has achieved a public profile internationally that matches and might exceed that of the ICC. It’s successfully filed more than 1,000 cases for consideration by the ICC. It’s sought arrest warrants and prosecutions of more than 50 IDF soldiers in law courts around the world – for example, France, Sweden, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Ecuador and the United Arab Emirates.
On occasions, HRF pursues alleged offenders when they abscond from one national legal jurisdiction (eg Brazil) to another (eg Argentina). It recently achieved an internationally important legal precedent when it persuaded a Brazilian court to issue an arrest warrant against an IDF soldier. Sadly the police’s delay in executing the warrant and (legally dubious?) help given by Israeli officials gave the IDF soldier enough time to flee.
Because the HRF works internationally but within national court jurisdictions it has more opportunity to restrict the ability of the USA, its allies and Israel to interfere with, prevent or delay prosecutions of IDF soldiers. The Western world doesn’t have the same knowledge of - or extensive links with - the global south, Middle East and Asia as it has with countries it considers more important. Also, many of the legal jurisdictions HRF now works with have no warm feelings about the past and present behaviours of the world’s dominant trading and ex-colonial powers.
Because the HRF uses lawyers and activists from around the world to prepare cases that are primarily based on social media content produced and shared by Israeli soldiers themselves, they are working with information it is extremely difficult for the IDF to control, disguise or delete. Israel and the IDF are doing as much as they can to stop soldiers generating new material but similar attempts elsewhere suggest they are unlikely to succeed.
Millions of images, videos and messages on which good legal cases can be built are already available. They are being verified, geolocated, metadata checked and chain of custody checked from the soldier generating them through to the courtroom trying him or her.
The HRF intends prosecuting soldiers against whom good legal cases can be made, regardless of their rank. Logically, the bulk of the IDF could well feel they’re at risk of prosecution. Israeli rules of engagement issued by their officers and government are notably lax (or else widely disregarded). IDF management and operation of their Lavender and Where’s Daddy? AI systems probably breach international law.
There are no legal limits on the timeframe for prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity (e.g. there have been two cases recently in which defendants working in Nazi death camps have been successfully prosecuted in their nineties). This means that soldiers now in their twenties could spend the rest of their lives too afraid of prosecution to go outside Israel (eg for work trips, family reunions and holidays).
The Israeli response: confusion and anger
Israel has only just woken up to the horrendous prosecution risks their armed forces, government and state may now face.
HRF cases have been widely reported in the Israeli media - especially the Brazilian case. That prompted the leader of Israel’s opposition party (Yair Lapid) to say:
The fact that an Israeli reserve soldier had to flee Brazil in the middle of the night to avoid being arrested for fighting in Gaza is a monumental political failure of a government that is simply incapable of functioning.
HRF’s founder was also personally threatened by Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs (Amichai Chikli) who told him to watch your pager (Israel booby-trapped pagers in an attack on Hezbollah).
Moms Up, a group of Israeli soldiers’ mothers, has written to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF Chief of Staff saying: We see you as the sole responsible party for removing the legal risk facing our children. The group sounded furiously angry but unclear what response it wanted from these individuals, stating that the Israeli military had been forced to operate within a political vacuum and under pressure from extremist groups, without the vital legal protection that would safeguard its soldiers from malicious actors worldwide.
The IDF set new rules for media coverage of soldiers to protect them from possible prosecution while overseas. Now, all those serving under the rank of colonel will not be allowed to show their faces or full names or be linked to the specific combat event they participated in.
It may be too early …. but sadly I’ve seen nothing in the international press so far that suggests the Israeli government and IDF have begun to lower the risk to soldiers of prosecution by ensuring they comply better with international law.
Linda Whittern is to be congratulated for her work seeking the truth and following it to wherever and who ever to bring Israelis to Justice for their heinous crimes against humanity. The cabal of Western institutions should be ashamed for not upholding international law wherever and whenever it occurs.
Informative article which, in these otherwise bleak times, offers some hope that justice will be done. That over time, perpetrators of cruel and illegal actions may well be called to account. Sadly, though, cruelties continue.
Thanks for the article.
This was sent to ScottishFriends of Palestine, who then sent out to their contacts another piece about theHRF. The problem is that people on the networks receiving the information and we hope keeping up to date with the work going on are already 'on side' with justice for Palestinians.How to tackle the issue of mainstream media and its lack of harsh truth about western complicity.
Between having to comply with some form of international law and becoming a parahia state, Israel has chosen the latter, while using the banner of antisemitism to try to cover its genocidal policies.