Peru opens war crimes probe against IDF soldier

The Hind Rajab Foundation celebrated its instigation of a supposed “landmark development for international justice.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

An anti-Israel group said on Friday that Peru has opened a war crimes inquiry against an IDF soldier over his participation in demolishing buildings in the Gaza Strip during Israel’s ongoing war against the Hamas terrorist rulers of the coastal enclave.

The Hind Rajab Foundation celebrated its supposed “landmark development for international justice” that occurred due to a complaint filed on their behalf by its legal counsel, Julio César Arbizu González, a local human rights lawyer and former congressional candidate on the left-wing “Together for Peru” party slate.

“This investigation,” said Chairman Dyab Abou Jahjah, “marks a decisive step in the dismantling of Israeli impunity.”

The soldier is a member of the Combat Engineers division, which is tasked with leveling areas of actual and potential danger to the troops.

This is a normal and legal military procedure, especially considering that Hamas uses civilian homes, hospitals, mosques and schools as hiding places, lookout posts, attack points, arms caches, command and control centers, and launching pads for their rockets at civilian centers in Israel.

The foundation calls such actions “war crimes.”

It had video evidence, it said, of the man’s “direct role in the methodical and systematic destruction of civilian neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip during the 2023–2024 military offensive,” allegedly taken from a clip he posted to social media.

Soldiers involved in blowing up terror tunnels and buildings that can be or have been used against them have often posted video clips of themselves applauding their successful missions over the course of the war.

These clips are being used by Israel’s foes in their lawfare against the Jewish state, with Hind Rajab alone filing dozens of complaints in several countries against specific officers, reservists, and ordinary soldiers.

The barely-year-old group has also submitted what it considers damaging evidence of war crimes against over 1,000 soldiers to the International Criminal Court.

The IDF has tried to crack down on the phenomenon of soldiers posting clips of themselves to social media.

This is not only due to the legal difficulties it may cause individual troops, but also because its investigations into the reasons for the Hamas success in its October 7, 2023 invasion revealed how much critical information the terrorists garnered about the army’s border bases just from examining pictures that soldiers put up on the internet of themselves in those sites.

The foundation did not confirm that the soldier under investigation is actually in Peru at this time, saying it does not want to risk that the Israeli government would intercede on his behalf with Lima.

In January, a soldier traveling in Brazil following his mandatory service as an army engineer was in danger of being arrested after Hind Rajab had brought a similar complaint against him, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry assisted him to leave the country immediately.