Dozens of Israeli soldiers identified in ICC complaint on killing of Hind Rajab

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF)  announced on Tuesday that it has identified another two dozen Israeli soldiers whom it is referring to the International Criminal Court (ICC) for their role in Hind Rajab's death.

The HRF is named after Rajab, the five-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed in a barrage of Israeli bullets in Gaza last year during Israel's genocide against the Palestinian people. 

Among those identified are three top commanders that the foundation is naming publicly: Colonel Beni Aharon, the commander of the 401st Armoured Brigade, who is already the subject of an ICC criminal complaint; Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Ella, commander of the 52nd Armoured Battalion; and Major Sean Glass, commander of the Vampire Empire Company. 

Ella and Glass are believed to be directly responsible for the killings in the field.

Twenty-two other soldiers operating in the Vampire Empire Company will be named "progressively, as national-level complaints are filed in different jurisdictions", the HRF said in a statement. 

On the heels of an hour-long documentary that aired on Al Jazeera Arabic's Ma Khafiya Aatham (What Is Hidden Is Greater) in partnership with the foundation, HRF said it has submitted a 120-page Article 15 filing, referring these soldiers to the ICC.

Article 15 of the Rome Statute, which founded the ICC, stipulates that the prosecutor "may initiate investigations... on the basis of information on crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court", and "shall analyse the seriousness of the information received".

The filing "includes comprehensive digital, satellite, and forensic evidence confirming that Merkava IV tanks of the Vampire Empire Company repeatedly fired on the black Kia Picanto in which Hind and her family were trapped, and later targeted the ambulance sent to rescue her", HRF said. 

"The attacks were carried out with full knowledge of the victims’ civilian and protected status, following prior coordination between the Palestinian Red Crescent and Israeli authorities," it added. 

"The Foundation’s legal team concludes that these acts amount to war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, under Articles 6, 7, and 8 of the Rome Statute". 

The HRF already has one pending criminal case in Argentina against Itay Cukierkopf, a tank crew member named in its ICC complaint. 

'Justice Machine'

For two years, Israeli soldiers have taken to TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and other social media platforms to boast of their operations in Gaza.

HRF has used that very evidence to pursue war crimes charges against them across the globe.

“You can’t massacre people, film yourself doing it, broadcast it to the world, confess to your actions, and then simply go about your life, sitting next to me at a cafe in Brussels,” Dyab Abou Jahjah, HRF's president, previously told Middle East Eye. 

“We are going after war criminals wherever they go."  

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By early 2025, the foundation had gathered more than 8,000 pieces of evidence related to alleged war crimes by Israeli soldiers in Gaza, Abou Jahjah revealed. 

“The evidence is there," he said. "The challenge is to turn it into a legal case." 

HRF's work focuses on offensive litigation and a two-pronged accountability strategy, targeting two categories of soldiers: Israelis who hold the nationality of a country where a court case can be initiated, and travelling soldiers who are not nationals of their countries of destination.

"We do not see ourselves as an NGO. We see ourselves as a justice machine," Abou Jahjah told MEE. 

The Hind Rajab Foundation is named in honour of the six-year-old Palestinian girl whose death at the hands of Israeli soldiers on 29 January 2024 has become symbolic of the widespread violations of international humanitarian law committed by Israeli forces. 

An investigation in June 2024 revealed that Rajab and five of her family members were targeted with 335 Israeli army bullets as they attempted to flee northern Gaza in their car.

For three hours, Hind was the sole survivor, trapped alongside her slain relatives. Desperate for help, she called Palestinian Red Crescent paramedics, but Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun were both killed by Israeli forces before they could rescue her.

A harrowing recording of Hind’s final phone call, released after the incident, captured her chilling pleas: "I'm scared of the dark, come get me." 

A feature film about her plight is now expected to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film next year. 

Over 67,000 Palestinians have died in the war on Gaza.