A pro-Palestinian conference in Denmark has withdrawn the participation of an organization dedicated to prosecuting Israeli soldiers abroad, seemingly due to its founder’s past Hezbollah membership.
The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) blamed “false information circulated by the Israeli press” for the withdrawal of Haroon Raza, an attorney for the group, from a panel at the European Palestinian Network Conference held in Copenhagen on Saturday.
It is unclear what reports HRF, named after a six-year-old Palestinian girl allegedly killed by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza last year, was referring to.
A 2003 New York Times profile of Dyab Abou Jahjah, who went on to found HRF, quotes the Lebanese-Belgian activist as saying he’d joined the Hezbollah terror group before immigrating to Belgium at age 19. ”I had some military training, I’m still very proud of that,” he said.
Hezbollah is dedicated to Israel’s destruction and joined the war against Israel after October 7, 2023, in support of Hamas. A ceasefire in Lebanon was brokered last month after Israel led a crushing two-month campaign against the terror group.
HRF said the conference withdrew its invitation after some invitees refused to sit on a panel with Raza because of the reports “falsely linking us to resistance movements in Lebanon and Palestine.”
???? ???? HRF Speaker Canceled by Pro Palestine Conference in Denmark.
The European Palestinian Network Conference, taking place in Denmark, had invited the #HindRajabFoundation to participate in one of its panels today. Mr. Haroon Raza traveled to Copenhagen to represent the HRF,… pic.twitter.com/DVUPHNqNPw
— The Hind Rajab Foundation (@HindRFoundation) January 11, 2025
It added that it would no longer participate in congresses and networking events going forward.
Conference organizers did not provide an official statement on the cancellation.
HRF identifies IDF soldiers via social media content they post from their operations in Gaza, and then alerts local law enforcement when they travel abroad, in an attempt to get them arrested and prosecuted for war crimes.
Its feed on X is full of soldiers it has identified by name and photo and the locations to which they have traveled.
The Belgium-based group said it had filed evidence of alleged war crimes with the International Criminal Court against 1,000 Israelis, including video and audio reports, forensic reports and other documentation. The ICC confirmed it had received a filing and said it would “analyze the materials submitted, as appropriate.”
Dyab Abou Jahjah (Wikimedia Commons/Han Soete, CC BY-SA)
Brazilian authorities recently began investigating one IDF soldier vacationing in the country for war crimes, after the HRF filed a complaint against him. The soldier was forced to flee Brazil.
According to Kan news, none of the HRF’s accusations have resulted in any arrests so far, although its actions are of concern to Israel’s Foreign Ministry, as well as to the IDF, which has implemented new regulations to conceal the identities of combat soldiers in news reports.
Under the IDF’s new guidelines for the media, any interview with officers under the rank of brigadier general will be held with their face blurred or from the back, and their full name hidden, similar to the current conduct when interviewing members of special forces and pilots.
These guidelines, however, are not expected to significantly mitigate the risk faced by IDF soldiers traveling abroad, as organizations like HRF generally identify soldiers via social media content that they post of themselves.
The Israeli military has done little to stop soldiers from sharing unauthorized content from operations online, with the phenomenon remaining widespread in the 15th month of the war.
The war broke out on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 46,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 18,000 combatants in battle as of November and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools and mosques.
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