The Belgium-based Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint last week against an IDF soldier vacationing in Brazil, accusing him of “participating in massive demolitions of civilian homes in Gaza during a systematic campaign of destruction.”
Subsequently, the Brazilian Federal Court ordered an investigation be opened into the soldier on account of the “war crimes” he allegedly committed.
HRF is one of the anti-Israel organizations that has recently targeted IDF soldiers with doxxing and legal campaigns, basing its allegations on footage published by the soldiers on their social media accounts.
According to its website, it “focuses on offensive legal action against perpetrators, accomplices, and inciters of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine.” It also claims to prioritize “awareness campaigns to challenge Israeli impunity.”
Most recently, the foundation targeted soldiers vacationing in the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates.
In November, the foundation requested the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants against approximately 1,000 IDF soldiers listed in a document filed to the court.
The HRF claimed it had collected 8,000 pieces of evidence of the participation of a blockade in Gaza, the destruction of infrastructure, the occupation of civilian homes, looting, and the targeting of civilians.
According to NGO Monitor, the foundation, named after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old girl killed in Gaza City in January of last year, was formed in September.
According to the HRF website, it is a branch of the March 30 Movement, a larger anti-Israel organization, which is committed to the recognition of “genocide in Gaza.”
Dyab Abou Jahjah
According to NGO Monitor, the founder of HRF, the Lebanese-born Dyab Abou Jahjah, has a long history of anti-Israel activism. He has backed Hezbollah and claimed in the past to have received “military training” from the terror group.
Following the elimination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in September, Jhajah eulogized him in a post on X/Twitter, adding he had met him in 2001.
In October, following the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Jhajah posted on X, “You can kill resistance leaders; Their death is a testimony against you. For history will write: They stood up, they said no, they showed the way. Millions will follow their path, hundreds of millions. Your power will fade, your dominion will end, and so will you. It is fated.”
On October 7, 2023, he further posted regarding the massacre perpetrated by Hamas in southern Israel, “These Palestinian resistance fighters entering these settlements are all refugees whose parents were ethnically cleansed from these villages in 1948/1967. Anyone neglecting this fact is not seriously engaging in a conversation but is spreading Israeli propaganda, whether willfully or not.”
Jahajah has also termed 9/11 as “sweet revenge” and has voiced Holocaust denial claims, NGO Monitor reported.
Kareim Hassoun
According to NGO Monitor, the secretary of the HRF is Belgian-born Kareim Hassoun, who, while serving as chairman of the Arab European League, claimed “the chance that the AEL recognizes Israel as a state is as big as the chance that Osama Bin Laden becomes president of the United States. I think that is clear enough. We will never recognize a racist, colonial state.”
One day after the October 7 massacre, he said Palestinians had not invaded the Jewish state but were returning home.
Michael Starr and Keshet Neev contributed to this report.