Israel has made a rod for its own back
FEBRUARY 4, 2025
Linda Whittern reports on the work of the Hind Rajab Foundation.
During the first nine 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 super-power America and its UK and other allies appears central to their sense of impunity. While Israel’s government seethed over the International Court of Justice’s ruling of a plausible case of genocide against Israel and the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants for the Israeli Prime Minister and the then Defence Minister, it didn’t change course.
Israel’s belief in its impunity from prosecution for war crimes is now shattered. That’s largely due to the work of the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF). Have you seen anything about HRF in the UK media? I haven’t – and I’m a news junkie.
HRF’s impact
HRF came into being in September 2024. In a few short months, HRF has earned an international public profile 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 – France, Sweden, Cyprus, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Ecuador, the United Arab Emirates… HRF also pursues alleged offenders when they abscond from one legal jurisdiction (for example, Brazil), to another (for example, Argentina).
HRF recently won an internationally important legal precedent by convincing a Brazilian court to issue an arrest warrant for an IDF soldier. He fled before the warrant could be served – escaping thanks to police delays and the aid given by Israeli embassy officials.
Because the HRF works internationally but within national court jurisdictions it has a better chance to block attempts by Israel, the USA or its allies to stop individual cases. The Western world’s relationships with countries in the Global South, Middle East and Asia are often weaker and less comfortable than those it has with longstanding allies.
HRF uses lawyers and activists from around the world to prepare these prosecutions and relies heavily on “open source” material, such as Israeli soldiers’ videos and messages about their alleged war crimes. This is information the IDF can’t manipulate or delete. Israel and the IDF are doing as much as they can to stop soldiers generating new material. They’ll fail – such attempts usually do.
Millions of images, videos and messages are already available on which good legal cases can be built. These forms of evidence are verified, geo-located, metadata-checked and chain of custody-checked from the soldier generating them through to the courtroom trying him or her.
HRF intends prosecuting soldiers of whatever rank against whom there is strong evidence. Hundreds of IDF soldiers could well feel they’re at risk of prosecution. Israeli “rules of engagement” issued by their officers and government are notably lax (or else ignored).
There are no legal limits on the timeframe for prosecuting war crimes and crimes against humanity. The 99-year old secretary at a World War Two concentration camp was found guilty last August of being an accessory to mass murder. Another concentration camp employee of similar age is waiting for the court to decide his mental competence to stand trial.
Some IDF soldiers who are now in their twenties could spend the rest of their lives too afraid of prosecution to go outside Israel for work trips, family reunions and holidays.
These soldiers’ long-term career prospects may also suffer. Israeli companies trading with international customers and suppliers worry about the ‘reputational’ consequences of Israel’s actions in Gaza. One of the easiest ways to protect their own commercial interests is to not hire job applicants and contractors who fail a full check on their social media posts or against whom legal action is pending.
Israel’s response to HRF pressure: anger, confusion, concealment and snail’s pace investigations into alleged IDF crimes
Israel has only just woken up to the prosecution risks faced by their armed forces, government and state.
HRF’s activities and progress are now widely reported in the Israeli media. The Brazilian case riled opposition party leader Yair Lapid into saying: “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.” Israeli Minister of Diaspora Affairs Amichai Chikli was stung into allegedly threatening HRF’s Chairman. Chikli’s words “Watch your pager” seemingly referenced Israel’s pager attacks that last September killed at least twelve Lebanese civilians and injured thousands more.
“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 mothers’ group sounds angry but unsure about what they want or how to get it. They complain the IDF is “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 has set new media coverage rules to reduce soldiers’ potential risks of being arrested should they travel outside Israel. Now soldiers below the rank of colonel must not have their faces filmed, give their names or say where they are deployed. Such a scheme only works ifthe soldiers always remember IDF rules when they talk to the media and if journalists always identify themselves as such when they talk to soldiers. How likely is that?
Israel ignores the biggest problem of all. Young soldiers and ex-soldiers chatting with friends and loved ones on social media will continue to give HRF – and similar organisations – all the leads they need for prosecuting war crimes.
The obvious steps Israel should take to remove the threat of HRF prosecutions are to ensure its armed forces understand and carry out their obligations under international law. All properly run armies should do just that. If Israel’s army followed their examples then HRF would shut up shop for lack of cases. IDF soldiers on holiday wouldn’t have to skip over the nearest border at dead of night fearing arrest.
Instead, Israel’s dragging its feet.
Ukraine investigated the thoughtless gunning down of a 62-year old civilian by a Russian tank commander and put him on trial within three months of the murder. That soldier got 12 years jail. By contrast, Israel has had up to five times as long to investigate the alleged war crimes of easily recognisable, easily identifiable IDF soldiers deployed in locations known to the army.
Given the strength of the pre-trial evidence against them and the simple nature of the ghastly misdeeds, why hasn’t Israel already tried, convicted and imprisoned at least some of the alleged offenders?
Why are there still 85 criminal and 220 disciplinary cases awaiting IDF decision-making, as theJerusalem Post recently reported?
Why is it taking until July 2025, up to 20 months after the IDF’s attacks on two Gazan bakeries, for Israel to decide whether to prosecute the soldiers responsible?
Israel’s failure to thoroughly, fairly and promptly investigate and punish whatever war crimes its armed forces and government commit lays the groundwork for the continuing growth and successes of the Hind Rajab Foundation. It’s key to HRF’s global support from lawyers, human rights workers and small donors. It’s the brutality of Israel’s attacks on the Palestinians and Lebanese that called HRF into existence and made the rod for Israel’s own back.
Now retired, Linda Whittern spent most of her working life as the Director of a small careers counselling consultancy. She is also a Quaker. Labour Hub welcomes articles covering international solidarity initiatives, the publication of which does not imply political support for any particular organisation.
Image: Palestinians inspect the damage following an Israeli airstrike on the El-Remal aera in Gaza City on October 9, 2023. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Damage_in_Gaza_Strip_during_the_October_2023_-_26.jpg Source: Correspondence with Wiki Palestine (Q117834684) Author: WAFA (Q2915969) in contract with a local company (APAimages), licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Attribution: Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contract with APAimages

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