Amid prosecution attempts abroad, IDF says identities of all combat soldiers to now be concealed

Amid efforts by pro-Palestinian organizations to get IDF soldiers who travel abroad to be arrested and prosecuted for war crimes, the Israeli military has decided to conceal the identities of all troops who participate in combat.

Under the IDF’s new guidelines for the media, any interview with an officer under the rank of brigadier general will be held with their face blurred or from the back, and their full name hidden, similar to the current conduct when interviewing members of special forces and pilots.

The guidelines will apply to all soldiers, especially those with foreign citizenship.

Soldiers being interviewed are also not allowed to be “linked” to a specific incident of combat under the new guidelines.

Senior officers above the rank of brigadier general, or officers whose names are already public, will be allowed to show their face and full name in interviews.

Before any interview with the media, members of the Military Advocate General’s Department of International Law will brief officers, and the footage will need to be approved by the Military Censor and Information Security Department.

It is unclear if these guidelines will have any effect on the efforts to get IDF soldiers tried for war crimes, as the organizations behind the attempts identify troops via social media content that they post from their operations in Gaza, and rarely content from the news media. The IDF has done little to stop soldiers from posting unauthorized content from operations online.