Led by terror supporters: This is the group hounding IDF soldiers with lawsuits worldwide

Over the past months, the “Hind Rajab Foundation” has been hounding Israeli soldiers traveling abroad with lawsuits claiming they took part in the Israeli “genocide” in the Gaza Strip and “war crimes” committed by the IDF.

Its latest attempt to sue an Israeli soldier vacationing in Brazil, forcing him to flee to Argentina to evade a possible arrest, caused several news outlets to take a second look at the organization leading the worldwide efforts of lawfare against Israeli soldiers.

The Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) is based in Brussels and was registered in Belgium in September 2024. It is named after a 6-year-old Palestinian girl, Hind Rajab, who was killed in Gaza in January.

The death had caused some controversy between the U.S. and Israel, as the state department requested more information about her death despite the IDF stating that its forces were not in firing range of the car in which Rajab was found dead.

The foundation named after Rajab describes itself as “devoted to breaking the cycle of Israeli impunity and honoring the memory of Hind Rajab and all those who have perished in the Gaza genocide.”

The group is “seeking to hold perpetrators accountable” by focusing “on offensive legal action.”

The HRF has been scouring the web for social media profiles of Israeli soldiers to mine them for information. This is then used to create alleged evidence of war crimes tied to specific soldiers, and once they leave Israel, the HRF moves into action.

The group works with anti-Israeli lawyers in several countries to sue and file complaints against the soldiers, trying to have them arrested. Israeli media reported that 12 such complaints were filed so far in Brazil, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Belgium, the Netherlands, Serbia, Ireland, Cyprus, France and South Africa.

However, despite its high-minded language, the HRF is “far away from being a human rights organization,” according to Israel’s Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli.

The group is led by professional anti-Israel activists Dyab Abou Jahjah and Karim Hassoun, who are the group’s chair and secretary, respectively. They have deep ties to terror groups and share a long past of anti-Israel activism and public support of Hezbollah, Hamas and others.

According to the Jerusalem Post, a leaked Diaspora Ministry profile even said the Beirut-born Abou Jahjah is a “former Hezbollah operative.”

Responding to Chikli on X, Abou Jahjah denied having been a Hezbollah member, but said “I am honored by your accusation of me being Hezbollah. I respect them for fighting against your invasion hordes in Lebanon, but I am simply not of that ideology. Accusing me of being part of their resistance is an honor I do not claim. I was part of a much smaller leftist group in Lebanon when I was 16 and yes I am proud of that. As everyone defending their homeland should be.”

However, an old New York Times profile of Abou Jahjah from 2003 confirms his ties to the terror group: “He said, he joined the Hezbollah resistance against Israel,” the Jerusalem Post quoted from a since-deleted link to the interview posted by the Arab European League.

This group was also co-founded by Abou Jahjah and Hassoun and was later disbanded due a conviction by a Dutch court for publishing a Holocaust-denying cartoon.

“I had some military training, I’m still very proud of that,” Abou Jahjah told the NYT, before admitting he lied to receive asylum in Belgium several years later.

“Most asylum seekers invent a story, and I said I had had a conflict with the Hezbollah leaders,” he said. “It was just a low political trick to get my papers.”

According to Jewish Insider (JI) he “joined Hezbollah in the summer of 1988 in order to fight against the Israeli occupier of South Lebanon … He took part in military operations on Saturdays and Sundays, including commando actions in occupied territory.” This was quoted by JI from his application for political asylum in Belgium, which he evidently received.

Since then, Abou Jahjah continued his fight against Israel through public activism. After an Israeli airstrike killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, he wrote on X that Nasrallah “liberated Lebanon … and allowed us to live in freedom and pride,” adding he “had the privilege of meeting Sayed Nasrallah once, in 2001.”

He has also praised Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for several terror attacks against Israel, as well as the Sept. 11 attacks, which he called “sweet revenge,” according to a dossier on Abou Jahjah compiled by the NGO Monitor. 

One day after the Hamas massacre on Oct. 7, Abou Jahjah went on Belgian National TV and said: “I do not condemn this operation; I fully understand it.”

Hassoun was born in southern Lebanon and became chairman of the Arab European League in 2005. During his chairmanship, the group published the Holocaust-denying cartoon.

Four years later, Abou Jahjah and Hassoun both signed an appeal to remove Hamas and other Palestinian groups from the European list of proscribed terrorist organizations.

According to Chikli, Hassoun wrote on Dec. 9, 2023: “I condemn Hamas for taking only 100 hostages instead of 500 or 1,000.”

“Hassoun was pictured wearing a Hezbollah cap, with evidence presented of his support for the Lebanese terror group, including praise for Samir Kuntar, who murdered the Haran family in Nahariya in 1979,” Chikli added.

According to JI, Hassoun is currently running for city council in Willebroek, Belgium. In October, he reportedly brought a coffin representing a dead Hezbollah terrorist to the Holocaust memorial at the site of the Nazi transit camp Mechelen.

“Due to his support for terrorism and antisemitism, local Belgian politicians called for his exclusion from any coalition,” Chikli said.

Following the latest attempt by the HRF to convict an Israeli soldier of war crimes in Brazil, Chikli said he “reached out to my friend, Member of the Chamber of Deputies of Brazil [Eduardo] Bolsonaro, requesting that he expose this vile organization masquerading as a human rights group while in reality harboring Hezbollah activists and Hamas supporters.”