After a Brazilian court ordered an inquiry into whether an Israeli reservist committed war crimes in Gaza, the reservist departed Brazil quickly this week.
After the order was made public, Israeli consular officers assisted Yuval Vagdani, the soldier, in leaving the country on Sunday. The Hind Rajab Foundation, a non-profit organization with headquarters in Belgium that “focuses on offensive legal action against perpetrators, accomplices, and inciters of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine,” filed the criminal complaint that sparked it.
The Israeli military declared on Wednesday that it will stop using troops’ names in the media because it was “fearing the arrest of soldiers abroad.”
The Hind Rajab Foundation complaint claims that Mr. Vagdani uploaded images and videos from Gaza on social media, demonstrating his destruction of civilian residences and other structures. According to the organization, the acts violated international law and were part of a deliberate endeavor to force intolerable living circumstances on the civilian populace.
A Brazilian court submitted the case to the federal police after ruling that the accusations needed to be looked into. In recent months, a number of such criminal accusations have been made against Israeli troops on holiday in Argentina, Chile, Sri Lanka, and Cyprus.
He admitted sharing the footage of a building being blown up in an interview with Israel’s state channel, Kan. “They wanted to look into me because of what they saw,” he stated.
Additionally, Mr. Vagdani informed Kan that he managed to avoid the slaughter at the Oct. 7, 2023, Nova music festival near the Gaza border.
Noting that no arrests had resulted from any of the criminal accusations, Israeli officials played down the gravity of the instances. Israeli military spokesman Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani stated, “We recognize that pro-Palestinian activists are responsible for a portion of this phenomenon, which is based on open source intelligence.”
Pro-Palestinian organizations are now utilizing social media posts—the open source techniques in question—as proof to ask for criminal charges against the troops when they travel overseas.
