Feeling of impunity ‘absolute’: NGO calls Israeli soldiers to account | News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Israeli officials are concerned about arresting their soldiers after fighting in Gaza after one soldier fled Brazil to avoid questioning about alleged war crimes he committed in Gaza and filmed for social media.

Based in Belgium Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) is the force behind this international accountability effort.

Founded just five months ago, HRF brought together lawyers and activists from around the world to prepare cases, primarily based on social media content shared by Israeli soldiers themselves.

Israeli reservist Yuval Vagdani was among the first that HRF founder and president Dyab Abou Jahjah says will be many soldiers accused of war crimes.

Speaking to Israeli media on Wednesday after being “forced” to cut short his “dream trip” to Brazil, Vagdani said he found himself the subject of a foreign war crimes investigation after he filmed himself blowing up people’s homes in Gaza “a bit like a bullet in the heart”.

According to local media, Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs played a key role in helping Vagdani avoid investigation and potential prosecution for war crimes, first by arranging his smuggling to Argentina and from there to the United States, before finally going to Israel.

The Israeli authorities and the media issued guidelines to the soldiers avoiding arrest abroad and camouflaging your identity while on deployment.

There was no response to Al Jazeera’s inquiry as to whether these additional measures include training reservists in what could constitute a war crime.

Providing evidence against them

After 15 months of Israeli soldiers proudly sharing videos of themselves committing potential war crimes in Gaza, HRF had plenty of evidence to use when seeking their prosecution under international and domestic law.

The recordings and photographs show the forcing of soldiers Palestinian men parade in their underwearabuse of prisoners, looting and destruction of homes and even dressing in women’s clothes that they robbed.

“This is about accountability before the law,” said Abou Jahjah. “If some soldiers believe that they did not commit a war crime, that’s fine. Let’s hear their case. It is in everyone’s interest.”

Hind Rajab is the name of the five-year-old girl who was killed by Israel in a car in Gaza as she pleaded for help for three hours, surrounded by members of her dead family and in front of Palestinian paramedics who were also killed trying to reach her.

The foundation that bears her name has so far submitted more than 1,000 cases to the international court.

HRF lawyers and online activists are combing through the mountains of images and videos provided to them online to verify and geolocate each one, verify its metadata and verify its chain of custody, from the soldier filming them to HRF, Abou explained. Jahjah.

If the perpetrator is a dual citizen, HRF seeks prosecution under the other country’s existing war crimes laws, and in the case of sole Israeli citizens, compares legal records, which are then submitted as evidence to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

As expected, HRF’s work has been met with fierce criticism in Israel, with some claiming that these legal procedures are “doxxing” (unauthorized publication of individual identities) of the soldiers who filmed themselves.

Abou Jahjah was also personally threatened by the Israeli Minister of Diaspora, Amichai Chikli, who – alluding to attacks on the communication systems of Hezbollah members in September 2024 – told him to “watch the pager”.

“I don’t really care,” said Abou Jahjah, “I’ve been at this for many years and, when you compare it to what’s happening in Gaza, the threats don’t really mean much to me.”

HRF also maintains a catalog of what it describes as “perpetrators, accomplices and instigators” against whom it seeks war crimes investigations.

Impunity and persecution

“They are proud of these acts,” said Milena Ansari of Jerusalem-based Human Rights Watch about the potential war crimes that soldiers broadcast on social media.

“Putting it online contributes to the dehumanization of the Palestinians, but it also gives cause for real celebration,” she told Al Jazeera.

“The feeling of impunity is absolute… It has always been there, especially in relation to Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank, but it has increased significantly since October 2023. [when Israel’s war on Gaza began].”

Many in Israel view the cases against the reservists as unjust and a continuation of centuries of anti-Semitism, a sentiment claimed and weaponized by the Israeli state, said political scientist Ori Goldberg of Tel Aviv.

“Things are getting worse inside Israel,” Goldberg said. “You cannot deal with genocide for 15 months and expect anything else. Israel has fundamentally changed.

“People don’t consider Palestinians people at all now, if they ever really did. To most people, the Palestinians aren’t even vermin. The vermin must be killed. Palestinians are less than that,” he said.

In that context, the few soldiers who “discharged” during a war for which no one felt responsible, where the only victims were Palestinians, was understandable to many in Israel, Goldberg said.

“They’re spinning this as the world against Israel,” Goldberg said of the government and media response to the numerous investigations and prosecutions believed to be underway.

“It is the persecution of the Jews, all over again,” he said.

“Most people don’t even feel that Gaza has anything to do with them,” Goldberg continued.