Israel\u2019s military has announced new media engagement rules for its members after a Brazilian court ordered an investigation into war crime allegations against a soldier visiting the country. <\/p>\n
The guidelines, announced Wednesday, require the names and faces of most of its soldiers \u2013 both active duty and reserve \u2013 to be obscured. <\/p>\n
The decision comes after a former Israeli soldier fled Brazil last week after a court in the South American country ordered an investigation into allegations by a pro-Palestinian NGO that the soldier was involved in war crimes in Gaza. <\/p>\n
Israeli military spokesperson Nadav Shoshani referenced the case in a briefing on the measures, which he said were to make sure Israeli personnel were \u201csafe from these types of incidents\u201d involving \u201canti-Israel activists around the world.\u201d <\/p>\n
Those at the rank of colonel and below can be filmed only from behind, with their face obscured, and only the first initial of their name can be used, according to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). <\/p>\n
Military personnel with foreign citizenships \u2013 in combat and non-combat roles \u2013 need to have their faces obscured and cannot disclose their full names in interviews. <\/p>\n
The new protocols apply to all combat zones, and soldiers being interviewed cannot be linked to a specific combat operation, the IDF said. <\/p>\n
He said activists were now going after ordinary soldiers, not just high-ranking officers and politicians. <\/p>\n
\u201cI got up in the morning, opened the phone and suddenly saw eight calls \u2013 the ministry of foreign affairs, my brothers, my mother, consuls,\u201d he said in the interview, adding that it was during the call with the ministry that \u201cwe began to understand that there was a situation and something unusual.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cThey wrote that I murdered thousands of children and turned it into a 500-page document,\u201d the soldier said of the case against him. \u201cAll that was there was a picture of me in uniform in Gaza.\u201d <\/p>\n
He also said that following the attention his case had gained he now hoped to \u201cget off the radar and continue my life.\u201d <\/p>\n
The case against him followed a complaint brought by the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) \u2013 a group that has tracked the activities of Israeli soldiers serving in Gaza and has brought a series of other lawsuits. <\/p>\n
A Brazilian judge then ordered police to investigate the soldier based on HRF\u2019s complaint, which accused him of taking part in \u201cdemolitions of civilian homes in Gaza during a systematic campaign of destruction.\u201d <\/p>\n
The group, named after a five-year-old girl killed by Israeli tank fire in Gaza last year, is a pro-Palestinian NGO that says it is dedicated \u201cto breaking the cycle of Israeli impunity and honoring the memory of Hind Rajab and all those who have perished in the Gaza genocide.\u201d <\/p>\n
The case prompted a public outcry, from opposition leaders like Yair Lapid \u2013 who called it a result of \u201cmonumental political failure\u201d of the government \u2013 to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar \u2013 who called the case part of a \u201csystematic and anti-Semitic campaign aimed at denying Israel\u2019s right to self-defense.\u201d <\/p>\n
A group of Israeli soldiers\u2019 mothers wrote to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli\u2019s military leadership saying they would hold them to account for any legal risks their children faced from \u201cmalicious actors worldwide.\u201d <\/p>\n
HRF has also sought the apprehension of Israeli soldiers visiting Thailand, Sri Lanka, Chile and other countries, according to its website. <\/p>\n
Dana Karni and Tim Lister contributed to this report.<\/em> <\/p>\n<\/p>\n Israel\u2019s military has announced new media engagement rules for its members after a Brazilian court ordered an investigation into war crime allegations against a soldier visiting the country. The guidelines, announced Wednesday, require the names and faces of most of its soldiers \u2013 both active duty and reserve \u2013 to be obscured. The decision comes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7495,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7494","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/investingsstrategist.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}