Meet the NGO behind the investigation against the Israeli military

An investigation launched in Brazil against an Israeli soldier on vacation in the country at the end of last year has been the target of criticism and questioning in recent days, after a non-profit organization filed a complaint against the soldier, accusing him of “genocide” and other war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

The Brazilian court then ordered the Federal Police (PF) to investigate the alleged allegations. During that time, the soldier managed to leave the country.

He had the help of the Israeli embassy in Brasília to get to Argentina and also with expressions of support from former president Jair Bolsonaro and other Brazilian politicians.

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), a pro-Palestinian NGO based in Belgium, was the organization behind the complaint.

The entity was created not long ago, well after the start of the war in the Middle East, between Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian terrorist group that started the conflict after killing thousands of Israelis in a surprise invasion from the Gaza Strip, on 7 of October. According to the NGO Monitor, the foundation was formed in September last year.

Since then, the HRF has mobilized to denounce thousands of Israeli soldiers for alleged war crimes in different countries. Among the most recent cases are action against an Israeli military attaché in Brussels and a soldier traveling in Sri Lanka. In addition to these episodes, the foundation also targeted soldiers on vacation in the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates.

In November, the NGO asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to issue arrest warrants for approximately one thousand Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers.

HRF claimed, at the time, to have collected around eight thousand pieces of evidence of the participation of those accused in war crimes in Gaza, such as destruction of civil infrastructure, occupation of houses, looting and attacks against the enclave’s inhabitants.

On its website, the Hind Rajab Foundation says it aims to “break the cycle of Israeli impunity and honor the memory of Hind Rajab and all those who perished in the Gaza genocide.” The name of the NGO refers to a five-year-old Palestinian child, whose death was attributed to Israel, but investigations in this regard were never concluded.

Furthermore, the organization says it “invests” in awareness campaigns to “challenge Israeli impunity and honor the memory of the victims.”

The HRF is led by two figures with a history of supporting anti-Israel militias in the Middle East.

One of them is the entity’s president, Dyab Abou Jahjah, a former member of Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist group that is in conflict with Tel Aviv, although the clashes have drastically reduced after the recent announcement of a truce.

Jahjah admitted in a 2003 interview with The New York Times having joined Hezbollah as a young man.

According to information from the Internet Archive, a non-profit organization based in California, the American newspaper’s article says that the HRF president joined the “Hezbollah resistance” against Israel and said he had undergone “some military training” and was “very proud from that”.

The newspaper Jerusalem Post also pointed out that press releases in the past indicated that the Lebanese activist would be returning to the country to fight in the 2006 war against Israel.

The activist declared that, at the age of 19, he decided to leave the militia to study abroad. At the same time, he said he had a “conflict” with leaders of the Lebanese terrorist organization to obtain political asylum documents in Belgium, where the HRF is based. “It was just a political trick to get my documents,” he said.

According to the Israeli newspaper, the media outlet Al-Akhbar, affiliated with Hezbollah, presented an author profile of Jahjah, but the record was deleted.

The HRF president also praised former Hezbollah leader Nassan Nasrallah, killed in an Israeli operation last year. He declared that he met the terrorist leader in 2001.

In October last year, following the elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, Jahjah wrote in X: “You can kill the 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 your path, hundreds of millions. His power will disappear, his dominion will end.”

The HRF was not the first entity created by Jahjah. In 2001, he had already founded the European Arab League (AEL), a pan-Arabist organization whose objective was “to promote Arab nationalism, Nasserism and anti-Zionism”, according to the Jerusalem Post.

On Sunday (5), amid investigations against the Israeli soldier on vacation in Brazil, the Ministry of Israeli Diaspora Affairs and Combating Anti-Semitism also confirmed the HRF president’s ties with Hezbollah, even stating that he had previously led ” militia travels in Europe”.

The NGO’s co-founder, Karim Hassoun, who holds the position of secretary at the HRF, is also identified as an anti-Israel activist for his statements in favor of extremist acts on the internet.

In a publication on X, Hassoun rejected calling the Hamas massacre on Israeli territory an “invasion”, but, according to him, it meant “the return of Palestinians to their homelands”.

On October 8, 2023, the day after the massacre carried out by Hamas, Hassoun wrote in important, I would say.”

According to the newspaper Jerusalem Postin 2009, the two founders of the NGO signed a petition to remove Hamas and other Palestinian groups from the classification of terrorist groups.

The soldier targeted by the NGO, who initiated the investigation in Brazil, was one of the survivors of the Hamas massacre on October 7, 2023, at the Supernova music festival, near the Re’im community, in Israel.