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IDF lawyer is ‘war criminal, apartheid engineer,’ Arab NGO tells Int’l Court

An example of the “war crimes” allegedly approved by Toledano included home demolitions, in which the houses of terrorists who murdered Israeli citizens were destroyed.

By World Israel News Staff

The Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) must investigate a high-ranking IDF attorney on charges that he acted as an “engineer of apartheid” and is complicit in “war crimes and crimes against humanity,” according to a complaint filed by an NGO.

The Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN) organization, founded by slain Saudi Arabian journalist Jamal Khashoggi, states on its website that its mission is to promote human rights in the Middle East and North Africa.

In a statement on its site, DAWN said that for several years it hasd been investigating Col. Eyal Toledano, who served as the IDF’s highest-ranking legal official in Judea and Samaria between 2016 and 2020.

“Documentary evidence establishes that Toledano planned, approved, or oversaw acts and policies that constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and human rights violations, including: hundreds of home demolitions causing forced displacement; collective punishment though punitive home demolitions; arbitrary restrictions on movement; facilitating the transfer of settlers to the occupied territory, advancing de facto illegal annexation; and maintaining a system of apartheid,” the statement charged.

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Notably, an example of the “war crimes” allegedly approved by Toledano included home demolitions, in which the houses of terrorists who murdered Israeli citizens were destroyed.

The statement also accuses Toledano of complicity in crimes against humanity for helping in planning to relocate residents of the illegal Khan al-Ahmar Bedouin community.

Khan al-Ahmar is located within an IDF closed military zone, and the residents of the community have been engaged in a legal battle for nearly two decades. Israel’s Supreme Court recently ruled that the residents do not have the right to remain in the area.

DAWN also acknowledged that all of Toledano’s activities were legal under Israeli law, and said that international bodies such as the ICC are the only entities which could hold him responsible for his alleged “crimes.”

In 2021, the ICC declared that it has jurisdictional over Israel for a potential investigation into war crimes.