Many Israeli soldiers have themselves released images and videos showing them committing crimes in Gaza. A Palestinian foundation wants them to be prosecuted for this – when they set foot outside Israel.
The Brussels-based foundation has been in the news for a specific mission – it wants to prosecute Israeli soldiers suspected of war crimes while they are traveling abroad.
The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), named after a five-year-old Palestinian girl killed by Israeli soldiers a year ago in the Gaza Strip, has been in the news after its most successful attempt to prosecute an Israeli soldier to date.
A judge in Brazil ordered federal police to investigate Yuval Vagdani, 21, who was vacationing there. Wagdani previously posted videos and pictures of himself destroying civilian buildings in Gaza, HRF said.
Then this HRF filed a complaint against General Ghassan Aliyan, an Israeli government official who is the head of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories. He is known for comments he made three days after a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed around 1.200 people and kidnapped more than 250.
"Human animals must be treated as such. There will be no electricity or water. There will only be destruction. You wanted hell, you will get hell," Aliyan said in a message to the residents of Gaza.
His statement is often cited by human rights organizations as evidence of Israel's alleged genocidal intent against the Palestinians. Since October 7, 2023, more than 45.000 people have been killed in Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip.
Last week, HRF announced that Alijan was in Rome on a "secret visit" and asked Italian authorities to arrest him.
International campaign
Founded as a non-profit organization in September 2024, HRF has launched similar applications in countries around the world, including Ecuador, the Emirates, Sri Lanka, France, Cyprus, and Thailand.
Israeli officials regularly claim that HRF is run by anti-Semitic or anti-Israel extremists, which HRF's founders deny.
In a recent interview, HRF President Diab Abu Yahya talked about how the organization works.
Over the past year, he said, Israeli soldiers have posted thousands of videos and pictures on social media from their time in Gaza. That, he said, includes footage of soldiers saying they are "holy" and evidence of looting, burning houses, posing next to lifeless bodies and openly talking about the torture and extermination of Palestinians.
The Israeli army, according to him, has told soldiers not to make or publish such videos.
In early December, the American newspaper Washington Post reviewed around 120 videos and found that some of them "successfully capture evidence of possible violations of international humanitarian law." HRF also uses such media reports.
Not all Israeli soldiers are targeted, but only those who commit possible violations, he said. Potential cases, he said, are prepared when evidence comes to light, but are only used if and when the alleged perpetrator travels abroad.
Volunteer lawyers in other countries then initiate cases against them, he added.
Could the same thing happen in Germany?
The HRF has not yet initiated any cases in Germany against Israeli soldiers, a spokesperson for the organization told DW.
But the law in Germany would allow the prosecution of war crimes committed abroad by those who are not German citizens, says lawyer Alexander Schwarz of the Berlin-based European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.
Since 2002, Germany has included international crimes in its own legal system.
Of the different types of international crimes, "war crimes" could be the easiest to prosecute, Schwartz explained. "For example, a soldier unlawfully killed a civilian in Gaza," he continued.
"But when we talk about 'crimes against humanity,' it's much harder to prosecute because the threshold for proving it is much higher," says Schwartz.
An organization like HRF could file a report in Germany, but when it comes to crimes involving non-German citizens, the German prosecutor has “discretionary power” to prosecute them or not.
The German judiciary, however, has an obligation to conduct an investigation when Germans are victims abroad, Schwarz pointed out.
This was not done in the case of the death of the six-member German-Palestinian Abujadallah family in October 2024, nor in the case of the German woman Shani Luk, who was killed in a Hamas attack on October 7.
"That's why we, like other lawyers and law professors in Germany, claim that the federal prosecutor is not doing his job properly," Schwarz asserted.
It also means German prosecutors are less likely to investigate a case involving Israeli soldiers traveling to Germany, he added.
Kaj Ambos, professor of international criminal law at the University of Göttingen, largely agrees. "We have universal jurisdiction, and the German state prosecutor would normally act if the suspect is present in Germany," Ambos told DW.
"But the Israeli case is very sensitive and there would certainly be political opposition that could affect investigations against Israeli citizens," he says.
No judgments
The HRF's evidence has not yet been tested in court. According to a recent story in the American magazine The New Yorker, several cases are taking place in the Netherlands, Belgium and France, but nothing has yet come before a judge.
In the Brazilian case, an Israeli soldier deleted his social media posts and fled the country with the help of the Israeli government.
However, as a form of "lawfare" - an action defined as "the use of legal action to cause trouble for an adversary" - HRF has had success.
The New York Times recently reported that Israeli officials downplayed the significance of the HRF's complaints, commenting that none had reached the courts.
However, all HRF's moves have caused a storm in the Israeli media, and recently soldiers were warned to return home immediately from some countries, for fear of arrest.
Late last week, the Israeli military also tightened rules for media reporting on soldiers, to protect them from possible criminal prosecution while abroad.
Now, anyone serving with the rank of colonel will not be allowed to show their faces or full names, and the media may not associate them with a specific combat event in which they participated.
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