Several IDF reserve soldiers have become the subject of a war crimes complaint submitted in the Netherlands against the background of the genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), after they traveled to The Hague to draw international attention to the crimes carried out by Hamas on October 7, a report said Sunday.
According to Channel 12, the reservists, who were released from fighting in Gaza in order to attend Friday’s ruling on South Africa’s case against Israel, gave a series of interviews to international media outlets in defense of the war against the Hamas terror group, as part of an effort by the DiploAct public diplomacy group.
After a social media post from one of the reservists came to light, in which he referenced the Amalekites — the biblical enemy of the ancient Israelites — in relation to Hamas, a complaint was lodged by a pro-Palestinian group with Dutch prosecutors for the reservists to be investigated, the report said.
“We will blot the memory of Amalek from under the skies, and we won’t forget,” he reportedly wrote, alongside a photo of himself in a destroyed building in Gaza.
A quote from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the Amalekites was cited by the South African legal team in its genocide allegations against Israel two weeks ago.
There are several accounts of, and references to, the Amalekites in the Bible, including an attack by the Amalekites on the Israelites in Exodus; a commandment to “Remember what Amalek did to you” in Deuteronomy; another commandment in Deuteronomy to “blot out the memory of Amalek,” interpreted to mean destroy the Amalekites; and the account of King Saul’s attack on and destruction of the Amalekites in Samuel I.
In response, the Prime Minister’s Office said that when Netanyahu used the biblical quotation “Remember what Amalek did to you,” he was using it as a way of describing the savage Hamas attack of October 7, and certainly not as a call for wanton killings. The PMO pointed out that the same phrase appears in a permanent exhibit at the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum, as well as at a memorial in The Hague itself for Dutch Jews murdered in the Holocaust.
“Obviously neither reference is an incitement to genocide of the German people,” the PMO said.
The reservists were reportedly advised to lie low following the incident and have since returned to Israel, the report said.
In a statement, the IDF’s spokesperson’s unit said the reservists were “given standard instructions for this type of incident,” and added that they “returned on a pre-scheduled flight.”
The Foreign Ministry said it had updated the group about the complaint being filed, “as well as about the low probability of arrest,” adding that “there was no recommendation to bring forward their return to the country.”
On Friday, the ICJ decided 15-2 that there was “plausibility” to South Africa’s claims that Palestinians require protection from genocide. It alleged that numerous and highly inflammatory comments made by some senior Israeli officials could be interpreted as an endorsement of deliberately harming civilians, giving plausibility to South Africa’s allegations that Israel has “genocidal intent” against Palestinians in Gaza in the current conflict.
However, the court did not order Israel to call for an immediate unilateral ceasefire, which would have indicated that the court believes genocide is actively taking place.
The order repeated on several occasions that the decision was not a determination on the merits of South Africa’s allegations of genocide — that decision is expected to take years.