The Hind Rajab Foundation recently filed a criminal complaint to Czech authorities against an Israeli soldier who is visiting the country, the group announced Friday, accusing the soldier of war crimes allegedly committed in Gaza.
The foundation, a pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel legal group based in Belgium and named for a 6-year-old Gazan girl killed in January 2024, has filed dozens of criminal complaints against Israeli soldiers and officials who are visiting or stationed in European countries over the past two years.
According to the group, the IDF soldier in question is currently a tourist in Prague.
The group’s complaint alleges that the soldier, as a member of the Givati Brigade, took part in “genocide, war crimes, and persecution of civilians committed during Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.”
Givati has been deployed extensively during the war in Gaza, which began when the Hamas terror group attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
Israel vehemently denies it has committed war crimes or genocide in Gaza, and says it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities, stressing that that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
IDF troops of the Givati Brigade are seen in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun, July 30, 2025. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
Since the soldier is currently in the Czech Republic, the group claims that Prague must prosecute the soldier due to its “obligations under international and domestic law”
“These crimes fall under universal jurisdiction. Where a suspect is present on Czech territory, prosecutors are not merely empowered to act — they are legally obliged to do so,” the complaint alleges.
There was no immediate response from Czech authorities.
According to the group, the soldier was deployed in Gaza between December 2023 and November 2025, “including during the siege and destruction” of the al-Shifa hospital complex in Gaza City.
Over the course of the war, the IDF carried out several operations in and around the Shifa complex, where it said was the site of a major Hamas command center and weapons depot. Despite overwhelming evidence, Hamas has denied operating from Shifa and other health facilities.
The complaint claims the soldier took part in “operations connected to an attack on a protected medical facility, the siege of civilians, patients, and medical staff, mass detention and mistreatment of Palestinian civilians, practices involving blindfolding, restraint, and humiliation during arrest and transfer operations.”
“The Hind Rajab Foundation is more determined than ever to ensure that 2026 becomes a year of justice for the victims of the Gaza genocide — not another year of impunity for Israeli perpetrators,” said Dyab Abou Jahjah, the group’s general director of HRF.
Troops of the IDF’s Givati Brigade operate in the Yabna camp of southern Gaza’s Rafah, June 18, 2024. (Emanuel Fabian/Times of Israel)
Beginning in 2024, the Hind Rajab Foundation has used social media posts by Israeli soldiers, officers, and reservists to locate them in an attempt to have them arrested for alleged war crimes when they travel abroad. The group has sparked alarm within Israel, prompting the IDF to create new rules to better protect troops’ privacy and keep them from being victims of doxxing — the practice of publishing someone’s personal information online to expose them.
While the group has spurred European authorities to detain a number of IDF soldiers and forced a soldier visiting Brazil to flee back to Israel fearing arrest, it has been unsuccessful in court, and no soldier targeted by the group has been prosecuted for war crimes or any other alleged offenses committed in Gaza.
