Belgium's Arrest of IDF Soldiers Could Be a Watershed Moment
19 comments
·August 4, 2025dlachausse
e12e
As I understand it, a non-profit submitted a specific complaint, and the prosecutor started an investigation:
> The Hind Rajab Foundation’s strategy focuses on targeting individual soldiers, especially dual nationals or those traveling to countries with universal jurisdiction provisions. Since its establishment in September 2024, the foundation has worked with legal partners to gather documentation — including videos and images taken during the soldiers’ service in Gaza — and file cases in multiple countries, including France, the Netherlands, Brazil, and the UK.
I don't think it would be surprising for such evidence to be enough to warrant investigation and questioning - but perhaps not enough for holding in custody until a trial.
Jtsummers
The article is clear about it, the group who reported them to Belgian authorities have what they believe is evidence of war crimes by the individuals they report. Whether it's sufficient evidence or clear evidence is another matter, of course.
> In October 2024, the Hind Rajab Foundation submitted a report to the International Criminal Court (ICC) identifying 1,000 Israeli soldiers, backed by over 8,000 pieces of evidence — mostly from social media — implicating individuals in attacks on civilians and the destruction of Palestinian homes.
hn_throwaway_99
I don't think the article is clear about it, contrary to your comment and a sibling. I read it as:
1. The soldiers were displaying IDF military flags at a music festival. This was not allowed by festival organizers and obviously pissed some people off.
2. These soldiers were then taken in for questioning.
It's not clear to me that these 2 were some of the specific 1,000 soldiers from that Hind Rajab Foundation report - that sounded like an associated piece of information given in the article.
mrow84
> The case emerged on July 20, when both organizations filed a complaint with the Belgian federal prosecutor against two members of the Israeli army’s Givati Brigade who were attending the Tomorrowland music festival with their military flags.
> The complaint accused them of direct involvement in war crimes and acts potentially constituting genocide in Gaza — specifically, indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, torture, and forced displacement.
Seems pretty clear?
e12e
I think it's pretty clear that the criminal complaint is over genocide, not flying flags at a festival.
But flying a flag makes identification easier?
GordonS
The article could have been clearer, but it does mention the Hind Rajab Foundation is involved, an NGO dedicated to building war crimes cases against individuals for illegal actions in Gaza and the West Bank. An incredible number of such vile individuals have recorded and published videos and publicly boasted about themselves and their companions undertaking war crimes.
mindslight
Arresting and questioning people associated with criminal enterprises has long been a staple of police work. And tangentially it's the kind of thing we need more of rather than the easy answer of pervasive surveillance.
uoaei
> The complaint accused them of direct involvement in war crimes and acts potentially constituting genocide in Gaza — specifically, indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, torture, and forced displacement.
TFA
mdhb
It’s genuinely hard to overstate the sheer magnitude of long term reputational damage this Israeli government has done to the nation of Israel itself.
I saw a video[1] today where I think there was essentially every living ex leader of Israel’s various intelligence agencies stating that Netanyahu and his allies have essentially taken the country hostage and they see it very much as an existential threat from which they might not survive.
Honestly it’s kind of hard to disagree with that analysis at this point from what I am seeing.
[1] https://bsky.app/profile/newseye.bsky.social/post/3lvl4ynf32...
dariosalvi78
it's not just reputational damage, that's the damage now. They are basically creating the conditions for justifying any sort of action from (former) allies and enemies.
edm0nd
>It’s genuinely hard to overstate the sheer magnitude of long term reputational damage this Israeli government has done to the nation of Israel itself.
Hard to see how that could ever be possible given that the have the full support of the US and all its politicians for the past several decades. We give them way too much military support and aide/funding.
Only way I can see their down fall is if we decide to support and prop up another country in the middle east area instead of them.
mdhb
If you stop to look at this issue from any other angle than US politics for even a moment you will see very quickly that the US is really the odd one out here and also on their own special path towards international pariah status.
edm0nd
totally agree.
GordonS
Unfortunately that's not the case - Israel also has the full backing of the UK, France, Germany, and the EU apparatus.
josefritzishere
Considering the genocidal scale of the war crimes it's amazing how long it took for this to happen. This specific segment of the war on Gaza started in October of 2023!
surume
[flagged]
The article isn’t very clear about this, did they have any reason to suspect that these 2 Soldiers had personally committed war crimes or were they arrested only on the basis of them being IDF? If it’s the former, then good on them. If it’s the latter, which I suspect since they were questioned and then released, then this sets a terrible precedent.