


An activist group that seeks to have Israeli veterans prosecuted for war crimes called on the Belgian government Saturday to arrest two people it said were Israel Defense Forces soldiers attending the Tomorrowland music festival.
“Two individuals responsible for grave international crimes — including war crimes and genocide committed in the Gaza Strip — are currently on Belgian soil,” the organization said in a statement.
The two individuals “are directly implicated in some of the most egregious crimes committed during Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza,” the organization said.
Among those crimes, it said, were indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, the use of torture and human shields, arbitrary detention, and violations of the Genocide Convention — all charges that Israel denies.
Israel says that the IDF never targets civilians and that all its fighting is consistent with the laws of war; it points to, among other things, measures taken to avoid civilian casualties and to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Additionally, the activist group said a group of young Israeli men were seen at the festival waving the flag of the IDF’s Givati Brigade.
Givati has been deployed extensively amid the ongoing war in Gaza, which began when the Hamas terror group attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
The unit has been “extensively documented for its role in the systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza and for carrying out mass atrocities against the Palestinian population,” the group claimed.
“The Givati flag, publicly displayed in the heart of Belgium, is not just a military symbol. It has become, for millions, a symbol of impunity, destruction, and ethnic cleansing,” it said.
The statement added that last week, “a Palestinian flag was forcibly torn down from a private residence by a group of young Israeli men of military age.”
“The symbolism is stark: while war crimes suspects display their military insignia freely, the symbols of their victims are attacked,” the group said.
Tomorrowland, an electronic music festival held in the Belgian town of Boom, attracts some 400,000 people a year, according to The New York Times.
Launched in September, the Hind Rajab Foundation has used social media posts by Israeli soldiers, officers, and reservists in an attempt to have them arrested for alleged war crimes when they travel abroad.
Though the group has been largely unsuccessful in court, it has managed to win widespread media exposure, allegedly caused an Israeli cabinet minister to rethink a trip abroad, and even prompted the IDF to create new rules to better protect troops’ privacy and keep them from being victims of doxxing — the practice of publishing someone’s personal information online to expose them.