International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) — a Belgium-based advocacy organization — is hunting IDF soldiers and government officials all over the world, attempting to manipulate the international legal system to arrest and prosecute Israelis for alleged crimes.

Today, the HRF is primarily targeting Israelis, but it is also establishing a dangerous precedent, whereby organizations with a radical agenda could use the same legal playbook to persecute US and NATO troops in the future.  

In July, HRF submitted its most recent complaint to the International Criminal Court (ICC), after the IDF targeted Al Jazeera reporter Anas al Sharif — who Israel says was moonlighting as a Hamas operative.

The complaint accuses IDF members allegedly involved in Sharif’s death of war crimes and genocide. The complaint goes on to urge the ICC to issue arrest warrants for the IDF members.

Since its founding in 2024, HRF has filed several complaints against Israelis with the ICC, including a sweeping complaint in October 2024 that identified 1,000 IDF soldiers purportedly involved in the war in Gaza.

According to HRF, the organization submitted 8,000 pieces of “verifiable evidence … including videos, audio recordings, forensic reports, and social media documentation” that allegedly document the guilt of the named soldiers. Included in the list were 12 unwitting American dual nationals.

While framed as the pursuit of justice under international law, HRF’s campaign is grounded in hatred. The group’s founder, Dyab Abou Jahjah, has been open and on the record for more than two decades regarding his affinity for terrorists, as well as his antisemitic, anti-American, and anti-Israeli beliefs.

Abou Jahjah admitted to joining Hezbollah as a young man, where he claims to have received military training. He has used social media to amplify messages from former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Shortly after 9/11, Abou Jahjah voiced his animosity towards the United States, saying that the attacks elicited feelings of “sweet revenge.” The following year, Belgian authorities arrested Abou Jahjah for his involvement in riots.

In 2005, Abou Jahjah agreed with former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that wiping Israel off the map was the “only possible moral position.” He has repeatedly glorified armed resistance, and was eventually fired in 2017 from his position with a Belgian newspaper for praising the slaying of four Israeli soldiers. In addition to its efforts at the ICC, HRF has attempted to spur the prosecution of Israelis in more than 20 countries.

HRF’s methodology for building cases against IDF soldiers is to comb through the targets’ social media accounts, collecting data to use in complaints. Meanwhile, the group monitors the soldiers’ movements, filing cases in foreign jurisdictions, as the IDF soldiers travel abroad. The organization’s efforts have also included an attempt to extradite Israelis from Nepal, and a request to Interpol to flag an Israeli citizen for apprehension.

This approach has generated some results: authorities in Lima, Peru, opened a criminal case against an IDF soldier, and Belgian authorities questioned two Israeli citizens at a music festival near Antwerp. However, none of HRF’s cases have resulted in a successful prosecution — yet.

HRF’s attempts to trigger a prosecution at the ICC should be of special concern to the United States, which — like Israel — decided not to join the ICC when it was formed, fearing that it would become a venue for lawfare. The US Congress was so concerned with the threat of ICC judicial overreach that in 2001 it passed a law authorizing the president to “use all means necessary” to liberate Americans held by the ICC.

Meanwhile, the ICC has shown it is determined to find ways to prosecute troops from countries that are not parties to the court’s founding treaty.

In 2017, the ICC announced that it would proceed with an investigation of US troops that it said committed war crimes in Afghanistan. The court argued that since Afghanistan was part of the ICC, Americans in Afghanistan were subject to its jurisdiction.

The ICC has extended that argument to Israel, claiming that because the unrecognized “State of Palestine” is an ICC member, IDF troops in Gaza are subject to the court’s jurisdiction. HRF seeks to turn that theory into reality by serving up defendants for the ICC to prosecute.

The Trump administration commendably fought back against the ICC’s overreach with Executive Orders in its first and second administrations, authorizing a series of sanctions against members of the court, with four additional ICC officials sanctioned in August.

Now, the administration should turn its attention to HRF. First, there are grounds to investigate the ties to Hezbollah of HRF and its founder Abou Jahjah, with an eye to imposing sanctions under Executive Order 13224 (as amended), which authorizes sanctions on terrorists and their material supporters, agents, and trainees. Second, HRF could be subject to sanctions if it meets the criteria laid out in Executive Order 14203, which applies to those who have “directly engaged in” or “materially assisted” the ICC pursuit of targets from countries that are not members of the court.

By standing on principle today, when the court is targeting Israelis, the US government can ensure that Americans do not become the court’s targets tomorrow.

Enia Krivine is the senior director of the Israel Program and the National Security Network at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow her on X @EKrivine.