IDF soldier who survived Nova massacre escapes war crimes investigation in Brazil
Court orders probe following complaint submitted by Hind Rajab Foundation, which tracks Israeli servicemembers traveling abroad; Foreign Ministry decries ‘anti-Israeli elements’
An Israel Defense Forces soldier who survived Hamas’s attack at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, hurriedly ended his vacation in Brazil on Sunday morning after the country’s Federal Court ordered police to open a war crimes investigation on him, according to Brazilian media.
Hours before he left the South American country, the unnamed soldier’s family told the Kan public broadcaster that he had not been arrested and that he was getting the help he needed to leave.
The Foreign Ministry said on Sunday that Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar had ordered the ministry’s Consular Section and the embassy in Brazil to contact the man and his family, who “accompanied him throughout the event until his swift and safe departure from Brazil.”
“The Foreign Ministry draws the attention of Israelis to posts on social media about their military service, and to the fact that anti-Israeli elements may exploit these posts to initiate futile legal proceedings against them,” the Foreign Ministry added.
The soldier’s father told Channel 12 news on Sunday that a friend who was traveling with his son had received a message from an Israeli diplomatic office telling him an arrest warrant had been issued for him.
“I asked them to escape immediately and not stay even a moment longer,” the father said, adding that he received a message from his son at 5 a.m. on Sunday saying they had crossed the border but that they hadn’t had cell reception since.
“I believe they’ll find their way home safely, but we need to make sure they know the truth about the soldier. He’s not a suspect; he’s a soldier who’s been through hell,” the father said.
The unnamed soldier was a survivor of the Hamas attack on the Nova festival in 2023, part of the terror organization’s massive onslaught on the south in which terrorists killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 hostages, starting the ongoing war in Gaza.
More than 360 of the victims were murdered at the music festival.
The soldier survived the attack by running for many kilometers until he reached safety, narrowly dodging Hamas gunfire multiple times on the way.
He is now being investigated in Brazil under suspicion that he was involved “in the destruction of a residential building in the Gaza Strip while using explosives outside of combat” in November, the Brazilian Metrópoles news outlet reported.
Neither the Foreign Ministry nor the Israeli Embassy in Brazil commented specifically on the investigation into the soldier.
Opposition leader Yair Lapid, however, blamed the Israeli government for the incident.
In a statement on Sunday, he said the fact that the soldier “was forced to flee Brazil in the dead of night to avoid being arrested for fighting in Gaza is a huge political failure by an irresponsible government that simply doesn’t know how to work,” and argued that a state-commissioned inquiry into October 7 would have protected him from such accusations.
“It cannot be that IDF soldiers — both regular service and reservists — are afraid to go on a trip abroad for fear of being arrested,” Lapid said.
The complaint to the Brazilian court was reportedly submitted by the Hind Rajab Foundation, which is named after six-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed in Gaza in January. Her death was blamed on the IDF, but an initial probe conducted by the army said that there were no troops in the area at the time.
The organization proclaims that it is “devoted to ending Israeli impunity and achieving justice for Hind Rajab and all the victims of the Gaza Genocide.”
It claims the building allegedly destroyed with the soldier’s involvement was being used as a shelter for Palestinians who had been displaced by the war and that its complaint consisted of more than 500 pages of evidence that the soldier was complicit in war crimes.
In a post on X on Saturday night, the organization urged Brazilian authorities to arrest the soldier, claiming that it had information that the Israeli government was helping the soldier escape the country, and that “there are also indications that evidence is being destroyed.”
The organization identifies IDF soldiers via social media content they post from their operations in Gaza and then alerts local law enforcement when they travel abroad in an attempt to get them arrested and prosecuted for war crimes.
Its feed on X is full of soldiers it has identified by name and photo and the locations they have traveled to.
According to Kan, none of the Hind Rajab Foundation’s accusations have resulted in any arrests, although its actions are of concern to the Foreign Ministry.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.
