War Crimes Complaint Filed in UK Against Israeli Soldier Visiting Country

The Hind Rajab Foundation has submitted a criminal complaint in the United Kingdom against Lidor Dafna, an Israeli reservist reportedly visiting the UK. The complaint alleges war crimes committed during Israel’s ongoing military operations in Gaza. Dafna, who served in the 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion, is accused of involvement in the demolition of a flour-producing facility in May 2025, a time when Gaza faced severe starvation due to Israel's blockade. According to the foundation, footage shared by Dafna on social media depicts an Israeli military bulldozer destroying wheat silos in southern Gaza. This action by the Brussels-based foundation, named after five-year-old Hind Rajab who was killed with her relatives in Gaza City in January 2024 when Israeli forces fired on their vehicle, aims to leverage legal systems in other countries to hold Israeli soldiers accountable. Natacha Bracq, head of litigation at the foundation, emphasized the urgency of the UK filing to Al Jazeera, stating, “If the authorities let him leave, he [Dafna] will go back and commit more crimes. When a state waves a suspect through its airport, knowing what is documented, it is breaching its obligations to prevent and punish genocide.” Al Jazeera has sought comment from the UK’s Metropolitan Police but has not yet received a response. For victims' families in Gaza, pursuing justice internationally is a recourse due to the perceived failure of internal Israeli accountability mechanisms. Speaking from Gaza, Hind Rajab’s grandmother, who shares her name with the foundation's namesake, dismissed Israeli military investigations, saying, “The occupation [Israel] claims that it opens criminal justice or an investigation for their soldiers, [but] we are certainly not very interested in this topic. They just justify their positions to the world, … but actually on the ground, I don’t think anything happens.” The foundation's broader objective aligns with families seeking justice for children lost during the conflict. “Hind is not the first child in Gaza. Hind means surely there are many crimes like hers and more,” her grandmother added. “We support anyone who speaks in the name of childhood [and always supports] the Palestinian child.”

The Hind Rajab Foundation's strategy involves transforming self-published digital content into evidence for criminal complaints. “Our starting point is simple: Israeli soldiers documented their own crimes. They’ve posted tens of thousands of photos and videos from Gaza and Lebanon on TikTok, Instagram, X and Telegram, often with their faces and names attached,” Bracq explained. This digital material is processed rigorously to meet legal standards, adhering to the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations. “Our collection and analysis follow the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations. Then the real work starts: verification. We geolocate every frame against satellite imagery, matching buildings, roads, water towers, destruction patterns,” Bracq stated, noting that investigators cross-reference military sources to link suspects to documented actions. The Berkeley Protocol, established by the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, outlines standards for digital evidence. Khaled al-Shouli, an international lawyer representing Palestinian victims at the International Criminal Court (ICC), affirmed the potential value of social media evidence, stating, “Its value does not decrease simply because it is a post on the internet, nor does it become decisive simply because it has spread.” However, he stressed the importance of verifying the source, time, and place of such material. “The crucial difference is the transition from proving the occurrence of the crime to proving the responsibility of a specific person for it as the appearance of a soldier in a place does not alone prove his commission of the crime,” he added.

The foundation's complaints have led authorities in several nations to question Israeli military personnel. Bracq highlighted a significant development in Belgium, where a complaint resulted in the detention and questioning of two Israeli soldiers by federal police, who were later released. “That arrest matters beyond the two individuals involved. It demonstrated that universal jurisdiction is not a theoretical instrument but one that puts suspects in a police station within hours, and the Belgian federal prosecutor has since referred the case onward to the International Criminal Court,” she noted. Similar actions have impacted Israeli travel in North America; in Canada, former combat soldier Guy Hochman was detained and questioned for six hours at Toronto Pearson Airport following a war crimes complaint. He later reported his Canadian visa revocation. “These are ruptures in a system of impunity: the moment Israelis calculate that travelling abroad carries a real legal risk,” Bracq asserted. Al-Shouli clarified the legal framework, differentiating between national courts and the ICC, and noted, “The Palestinian case relies on a set of matters that fall under the category of territorial jurisdiction over crimes committed in the Palestinian territories and not on absolute universal jurisdiction. This distinction is important because the multiplicity of paths expands the opportunities for accountability and does not leave it hostage to one institution.”

A complaint filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation in Brazil illustrated both the possibilities and constraints of pursuing legal action against Israelis in foreign courts. In January 2025, Brazilian authorities issued an urgent arrest and investigation order for an Israeli soldier accused of planting explosives and systematically demolishing civilian neighborhoods in Gaza. Despite international attention, al-Shouli cautioned against overemphasizing the case's impact, noting that the Israeli soldier departed Brazil with Israeli authorities' assistance before detention or questioning, despite a judge ordering an investigation. This case, he explained, revealed “the gap between opening an investigation and the ability to secure the suspect’s attendance to the justice of the court in practice.” Political climates significantly influence these legal avenues. Bracq acknowledged that “political will does determine whether a warrant is executed” but countered that “international crimes carry no statute of limitations,” and that continuous documentation ensures “no future window of opportunity finds the evidence missing.” Al-Shouli suggested that government changes can create opportunities for accountability through improved judicial cooperation, describing these as “windows to activate the law, not as loopholes in it.”

The foundation is broadening its legal targets to include companies and individuals involved in supplying weapons to Israel. “Our focus has already expanded well beyond front-line soldiers because the strategy must evolve with the genocide itself and with our evidence,” Bracq stated. “We now target the suppliers of the tools of the crime, including companies involved in producing weapons for Israel.” She mentioned a recent criminal complaint in Poland against a state-owned TNT producer. “No one gets impunity, from the trigger-puller to the decision-maker to the supplier,” she declared. Al-Shouli emphasized the importance of managing victim expectations, stating, “My professional responsibility begins with not selling false hopes and fake hopes to the victims. It is not permissible for me to tell a family that lost its children that depositing a file has restored its right. What we ask for is not sympathy alone but rights that can be proven, claimed and accounted for, and justice will be done.” Bracq concluded, “Universal jurisdiction is our instrument, not our objective. Our objective is justice and accountability. The generation that posted their own atrocities online now has to live with the knowledge that those posts are forever evidence and that a complaint may be waiting in the next country whose border they cross.”