The Hind Rajab Foundation has filed a criminal complaint in the United Kingdom against Lidor Dafna, an Israeli reservist believed to be visiting the country, over alleged war crimes committed during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. Dafna, who served in the 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion, is accused of participating in the demolition of a flour-producing facility in May 2025 at a time when Israel’s blockade of Gaza was leading to widespread starvation. The foundation said footage posted by Dafna on social media shows an Israeli military bulldozer demolishing wheat silos in southern Gaza.
The filing is the latest move by the Brussels-based organisation, named after Hind Rajab, a five-year-old girl killed alongside her relatives when Israeli forces fired on their vehicle in Gaza City in January 2024. By transforming self-published digital content into evidence for criminal complaints, the foundation is testing whether legal systems in other countries may be used to hold Israeli soldiers accountable for alleged crimes. Natacha Bracq, head of litigation at the foundation, explained the urgency of the UK filing to Al Jazeera.
When a state waves a suspect through its airport, knowing what is documented, it is breaching its obligations to prevent and punish genocide.” Al Jazeera has reached out to the UK’s Metropolitan Police for comment on the case but has yet to receive a response. For the families of victims in Gaza, the pursuit of justice through international channels is a response to the failure of internal Israeli accountability mechanisms. Speaking from Gaza, the 45-year-old grandmother and namesake of Hind dismissed internal Israeli military investigations.
Hind means surely there are many crimes like hers and more,” her grandmother added. They’ve posted tens of thousands of photos and videos from Gaza and Lebanon on TikTok, Instagram, X and Telegram, often with their faces and names attached,” Bracq said. This digital footprint requires rigorous processing to become potentially admissible in legal cases.
Then the real work starts: verification. We geolocate every frame against satellite imagery, matching buildings, roads, water towers, destruction patterns,” Bracq said, noting that investigators then cross-reference military sources to tie a suspect to a documented act. The Berkeley Protocol, developed by the Human Rights Center at the University of California in Berkeley and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, sets out standards for collecting, verifying, analysing and preserving digital material.
Khaled al-Shouli, an international lawyer registered with the Jordanian Bar Association who represents Palestinian victims before the International Criminal Court (ICC), said social media material could be valuable evidence. He stressed, however, that answering fundamental questions about the source, time and place is essential. The foundation’s complaints have prompted authorities in several countries to question Israeli military personnel.
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