In a major development in international justice, Peru has officially launched a criminal investigation into an Israeli military officer accused of participating in genocide in Gaza, following a legal complaint filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF). According to the Hind Rajab Foundation website, Peru launched a criminal investigation into the matter after receiving a complaint from the foundation against an Israeli military officer. The complaint was filed by a prominent Peruvian human rights lawyer and legal advisor to the foundation.
The individual under investigation served as a combat engineer soldier in the Israeli military and played a direct role in the systematic and methodical destruction of civilian neighborhoods in the Gaza Strip during the 2023-2024 military offensive. The complaint, supported by audio-visual documents and open-source information, accuses the soldier of committing acts that constitute war crimes, crimes against humanity and acts of genocide.
According to the Hind Rajab Foundation, this action by Peruvian authorities is of great importance in the global pursuit of justice, as it not only confirms Peru’s adherence to the principles of international humanitarian and criminal law, but also firmly recognizes that when individuals responsible for international crimes are found on the territory of a state, universal jurisdiction must be exercised – not merely acknowledged.
The case highlights the pivotal role of the IDF’s Combat Engineering Battalion in carrying out the Israeli regime’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian population of Gaza. Rather than being a support unit, the engineering battalion has acted as a major operational arm of destruction, systematically reducing civilian areas to rubble, wiping out entire communities and rendering large parts of Gaza uninhabitable; through its actions, it has become one of the main mechanisms of the genocidal machine.
The Hind Rajab Foundation calls on all countries, especially those that are parties to the Geneva Conventions and the Rome Statute, to follow the example of Peru and prosecute those involved in the Gaza genocide who may fall within their jurisdiction. Justice is not optional, but necessary, said the president of the Hind Rajab Foundation; these investigations are a decisive step in dismantling Israel’s immunity. The Indian Rajab Human Rights Foundation (HRF) was founded in September 2024 (September of this year) in Brussels, the capital of Belgium, in the midst of the Zionist regime’s war on Gaza.
The foundation is named after a five-year-old Palestinian girl who was killed by the Israeli regime in Gaza in 2024 despite repeated pleas from the Palestine Red Crescent Society to save her life. The foundation focuses its activities on researching, documenting and collecting evidence about war crimes and violations of Palestinian human rights; the founders and activists of the foundation emphasize that they are actively pursuing legal action against all those involved in the massacre in Gaza or inciting violence against Palestinians. The human rights foundation says that it strives to hold the instigators, perpetrators and commanders of crimes against Palestinians accountable in international and national courts and challenges the culture of impunity as a reason for the continuation of such crimes. The Hend Rajab Foundation describes its goal in establishing the center as “ending Israel’s cycle of impunity by honoring the name and memory of Hend Rajab and all those who died in the Gaza genocide.”
