Last week in Brazil an Israeli military reservist was threatened with arrest on human rights charges over his service in Gaza during the Iron Swords War against Hamas terrorists. The Israeli, identified only as ‘Y,’ was forced to leave the country. Now Israel’s Channel 12 News is reporting that the country’s Foreign Ministry said that there have been 12 such incidents against Israelis traveling in different countries around the world since October 7, 2023.
The countries in which Israeli soldiers who served in either Gaza or Lebanon were threatened with criminal charges were Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Belgium, the Netherlands, Serbia, Ireland and Cyprus.
On the Brazil incident, Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar slammed the Brazilian government saying that the need for ‘Y’ to “flee Brazil in the dead of night to avoid being arrested for fighting in Gaza is a huge political failure by an irresponsible government that simply doesn’t know how to work.”
“How did we get to the point where the Palestinians are better than the Israeli government in the international arena?” asked Gideon Sa’ar. “A state commission of inquiry that would legally protect us on the one hand, and an effective and coordinated information system on the other, would have prevented such phenomena. It is impossible for IDF soldiers – both regular and reserve – to be afraid to go on a trip abroad for fear of being arrested.”
The Brazilian court ordered an investigation into Y., a reserve soldier who visited the country. In Israel, it is recognized that this incident brought them closer to a diplomatic crisis than ever before
“The Foreign Ministry draws the attention of Israelis to posts on social media about their military service, and to the fact that anti-Israeli elements may exploit these posts to initiate futile legal proceedings against them,” Israel’s Foreign Ministry stated.
“The State of Israel is dealing today with an organized campaign by pro-Palestinian organizations that are trying to gather materials that soldiers have posted over the course of the war, and to use them to try to have those soldiers arrested,” Israel’s Ambassador to Brazil Daniel Zonshine to Channel 12 on Sunday.
A senior Israeli official commented on Y’s attempted arrest to Channel 12 News and emphasized that “Although there are not many cases so far, the trend is clear: we are on a new front that does not yet understand the scope of the potential.”
Y’s father told N12 reporter Or Ravid, “Yesterday at 5:00 PM my son called that Y received a message from the consulate that an international arrest warrant had been issued against him. At that moment I asked him to take the things and fly as far away from there as possible.”
