Israeli reservist faces UK war crimes complaint over Gaza flour facility demolition

The complaint names Lidor Dafna, who served in the Israeli military's 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion and is believed to be visiting the UK. The foundation said Dafna 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. It said footage Dafna posted on social media shows an Israeli military bulldozer demolishing wheat silos in southern Gaza.

Natacha Bracq, the foundation's head of litigation, told Al Jazeera that the urgency of the UK filing was driven by the risk that Dafna would leave. “If the authorities let him leave, he [Dafna] will go back and commit more crimes. When a state waves a suspect through its airport, knowing what is documented, it is breaching its obligations to prevent and punish genocide,” she said. Al Jazeera said it had sought comment from the Metropolitan Police and had not yet received a response.

The foundation's approach relies on material Israeli soldiers have posted to platforms including TikTok, Instagram, X and Telegram. Bracq said the collection and analysis follow the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations, with every frame geolocated against satellite imagery and cross-referenced with military sources to tie a suspect to a documented act.

Khaled al-Shouli, an international lawyer who represents Palestinian victims before the International Criminal Court, said social media material could be valuable evidence, but “the crucial difference is the transition from proving the occurrence of the crime to proving the responsibility of a specific person for it as the appearance of a soldier in a place does not alone prove his commission of the crime.”

The foundation pointed to earlier cases. In Belgium, a complaint led federal police to detain and question two Israeli soldiers, who were later released, and Bracq said the Belgian federal prosecutor has since referred the case to the International Criminal Court. In Canada, former combat soldier Guy Hochman was detained and interrogated for six hours at Toronto Pearson Airport after a complaint accused him of war crimes and incitement to genocide; he later said his Canadian visa had been revoked. In Brazil in January 2025, authorities issued an urgent order to arrest and investigate an Israeli soldier accused of planting explosives and demolishing civilian neighbourhoods, but al-Shouli said the soldier left the country with Israeli assistance before he could be detained, highlighting “the gap between opening an investigation and the ability to secure the suspect's attendance to the justice of the court in practice.”

Bracq acknowledged that political will determines whether a warrant is executed, but said international crimes carry no statute of limitations, and that relentless documentation ensures “no future window of opportunity finds the evidence missing.” The foundation is actively expanding its legal efforts beyond individual soldiers to companies and individuals involved in supplying weapons to Israel.

Hind Rajab's grandmother, speaking from Gaza, dismissed Israeli military investigations. “The occupation [Israel] claims that it opens criminal justice or an investigation for their soldiers, [but] we are certainly not very interested in this topic,” she said. “They just justify their positions to the world, … but actually on the ground, I don't think anything happens.” She added that the family supports anyone who speaks in the name of childhood and always supports the Palestinian child.