The war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers have not gone unnoticed by the rest of the world. After over a year of proudly displaying their dirty deeds on social media, these war criminals are now facing arrest in nations around the world. Capturing these war criminals is an important step in a process of international accountability.
Originally published in Ramzy Baroud.
A dramatic escape was cited by Israeli media as the reason that Yuval Vagdani, a soldier in the Israeli army, managed to escape justice in Brazil.
Vagdani was accused by a Palestinian advocacy legal group, the Hind Rajab Foundation, of carrying out well-documented crimes in Gaza. He is not the only Israeli soldier being pursued for similar crimes.
According to the Israeli Broadcasting Corporation (KAN), more than 50 Israeli soldiers are being pursued in countries ranging from South Africa to Sri Lanka to Sweden.
In one case, the Hind Rajab Foundation filed a complaint in a Swedish court against Boaz Ben David, an Israeli sniper from the 932 Battalion of the Israeli Nahal Brigade. He is also accused of committing war crimes in Gaza.
The Nahal Brigade has been at the heart of numerous war crimes in Gaza. Established in 1982, the brigade is notorious for its unhinged violence against occupied Palestinians. Their role in the latest genocidal atrocities in the Strip has far exceeded their own dark legacy.
Even if these 50 individuals are apprehended and sentenced, the price exacted from the Israeli army pales in comparison to the crimes carried out.
Numbers, though helpful, are rarely enough to convey collective pain. The medical journal Lancet’s latest report is still worthy of reflection. Using a new data-collecting method called ‘capture–recapture analysis’, the report indicates that by the first nine months of the war, between October 2023 and June 2024, 64,260 Palestinians have been killed.
Still, capturing and trying Israeli war criminals is not just about the fate of these individuals. It is about accountability—an absent term in the history of Israeli human rights violations, war crimes, and recurring genocides against Palestinians.
The Israeli government understands that the issue now goes beyond individuals. It is about the loss of Israel’s historic status as a country that stands above the law.
As a result, the Israeli army announced that it decided not to publicly reveal the names of soldiers involved in the Gaza war and genocide, fearing prosecution in international courts.
However, this step is unlikely to make much difference for two reasons. First, numerous pieces of evidence against individual soldiers, whose identities are publicly known, have already been gathered or are available for future investigation. Second, much of the documentation of war crimes has been unwittingly produced by Israeli soldiers themselves.
Reassured about the lack of accountability, Israeli soldiers have taken countless pieces of footage showing the abuse and torture of Palestinians in Gaza. This self-indictment will likely serve as a major body of evidence in future trials.
All of this cannot be viewed separately from the ongoing investigation into the Israeli genocide in Gaza by the International Court of Justice (ICJ). Additionally, arrest warrants have been issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against top Israeli leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Though these cases have moved slowly, they have set a precedent that even Israel is not immune to some measure of international accountability and justice.
Moreover, these cases have granted countries that are signatories to the ICC and ICJ the authority to investigate individual war crimes cases filed by human rights and legal advocacy groups.
Though the Hind Rajab Foundation is not the only group pursuing Israeli war criminals globally, the group’s name derives from a five-year-old Palestinian girl from Gaza who was murdered by the Israeli army in January 2024, along with her family. This tragedy is a reminder that the innocent blood of Palestinians will not go in vain.
Though justice may be delayed, as long as there are pursuers, it will someday be attained.
Pursuing alleged Israeli war criminals in international and national courts is just the start of a process of accountability that will last many years. With every case, Israel will learn that the decades-long US vetoes and blind Western protection and support will no longer suffice.
It was the West’s shameless shielding of Israel throughout the years that allowed Israeli leaders to behave as they saw fit for Israel’s so-called national security—even if it meant the very extermination of the Palestinian people, as is the case today in Gaza.
Still, Western governments, including the US and Britain, continue to treat wanted Israelis as sanctified heroes—not war criminals. This goes beyond accusations of double standards. It is the highest immorality and disregard for international law.
Things need to change; in fact, they are already changing.
Since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, Tel Aviv has already learned many difficult lessons. For example, its army is no longer “invincible”, its economy is relatively small and highly dependent, and its political system is fragile. In times of crisis, it is barely operable.
It is time for Israel to learn yet another lesson: that the age of accountability has begun. Dancing around the corpses of dead Palestinians in Gaza is no longer an amusing social media post, as Israeli soldiers once thought.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak Out. Dr. Baroud is a non-resident senior research fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.
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