It’s a hallowed Israeli tradition: after completing military service, backpack through South America or hitchhike across Asia. But global outrage at the Gaza war, threats of arrest and the ubiquity of social media are causing some soldiers and reservists to reconsider their plans.
“It’s scary that my friends may have uploaded a photo with me, or sent it to someone who then uploaded it, and suddenly on the border of some country, they can accuse me of a crime against humanity, which I didn’t do,” said Asher, 34, a combat reservist who asked that his family name not be published out of fear of being targeted.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over the conduct of the war. Now though, rank-and-file troops are facing the possibility of arrest because of photos and videos posted from the field.
This has led to new military regulations barring their pictures from appearing in the media and advice to reservists and soldiers to scrub their accounts.
Attorney Shlomit Metz-Poolat said she doesn’t want her daughter, a reservist, to travel anywhere besides the U.S. While she didn’t serve in Gaza or Lebanon, her photo in uniform was used in a calendar distributed by Canadian supporters of Israel.
“The fear is that by using AI or facial recognition she could be identified,” said Metz-Poolat. “They are clearly trolling and trying to find our children. It’s very nerve-wracking.” Her daughter has cancelled plans to travel in South America this summer.
The new threat “is driven by anti-Israel activists who connect the dots between soldiers posting about themselves in Gaza and then soldiers posting about themselves in other countries,” said Israel Defense Forces spokesman Nadav Shoshani.
That’s what happened to Yuval Vagdani, a 23-year-old Israeli reservist who was vacationing with friends in Brazil. He fled the country in early January on the advice of the Israeli consulate after a Brazilian court ordered a police investigation against him.
A survivor of the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, in which 1,200 people were killed and 250 taken hostage, Vagdani was drafted to reserves shortly after the invasion and served as a combat soldier in Gaza.
While there, he posted on Instagram, including a photo of himself in uniform as well as a video of a home demolition. When he travelled to Brazil, he posted on social media there as well, revealing his location.
That triggered a request by the pro-Palestinian Hind Rajab Foundation for an arrest warrant against him. According to the organization, Vagdani was suspected of having participated in “massive demolitions of civilian homes in Gaza” and that the acts were “part of a broader effort to impose unbearable living conditions on Palestinian civilians.”
The Belgium-based organization, according to its website, has filed similar complaints against Israelis travelling in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Argentina, Sweden and Spain.
The complaints are based on the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows states to prosecute individuals for war crimes even if they aren’t citizens of the state and didn’t commit the crimes in that country.
Israel’s foreign ministry dismisses the threat, calling it “strong PR activity” with zero results. No warrants have been issued in any of the cases, it said.
Still, some Israeli groups are taking the threats seriously. El Hadegel, a grass-roots organization of Israeli reserve officers, has set up a legal assistance package for soldiers and reservists in cooperation with Herzog Fox & Neeman, one of the nation’s leading law firms. The package includes a pre-flight legal status check for each individual soldier or reservist, general preparation for travel abroad, and local legal representation in the event of arrest.
The group is also advancing a legal counterattack on the organizations that are targeting the soldiers. El Hadegel has written to U.S. President Donald Trump, asking him to sanction the organizations and hold cooperating countries accountable.
Shurat Hadin – Israel Law Center, a nonprofit organization, is advising soldiers and reservists, before they leave the country, to delete from social media any photos showing them in IDF uniforms, in Gaza or otherwise, and to keep the phone number of the local Israeli consulate at hand. If arrested, they shouldn’t provide information to investigators, said Shurat Hadin President Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.
All of this advice will soon be housed on a dedicated website and in pamphlets and notices in places abroad that young Israelis congregate, she said.
The concern has even prompted Israel’s Harel Insurance Co. to offer a new add-on to its regular travel insurance that would pay as much as $2,000 for an initial consultation in the event of legal action against a soldier or reservist due to their service in the war.
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