Belgian NGO urges India to arrest Israeli reservist over alleged war crimes

A Belgium-based NGO has called on Indian authorities to arrest an Israeli army reservist on holiday in northern India over his alleged role in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) filed a complaint Saturday with India’s Police Service, foreign affairs ministry and Bureau of Immigration of India to demand “the immediate arrest” of Eitan Gilboa, an Israeli citizen currently holidaying in Himachal Pradesh, according to an article published Tuesday on the NGO’s website.

“HRF has submitted a detailed investigative report proving that Gilboa, a reservist in the Israeli army, personally carried out and celebrated the systematic demolition of entire residential blocks in Gaza as acts of revenge, constituting war crimes under the Geneva Conventions Act, 1960,” read the website.

The evidence, HRF says, constitutes geolocated videos, social media posts, and chain-of-command documentation.

The NGO gets its name from a five-year-old girl who was killed in a car in Gaza by Israel in January 2024 as she pleaded on the phone for three hours for help, while surrounded by her dead family members and in sight of Palestinian paramedics who were also killed while they tried to reach her.

Formed just months after this incident which shocked the world, the HRF has gathered lawyers and activists from around the world to prepare cases like the one against Gilboa.

The NGO has filed more than 1,000 such cases to the International Criminal Court, primarily based on social media content shared by Israeli soldiers themselves, to seek prosecution under international and domestic law for Israeli soldiers committing potential war crimes in Gaza.

Born in Gaza, Gilboa and his family left the enclave after Israel’s withdrawal in September 2005.