AhlulBayt News Agency: A Brussels-based legal advocacy organization says it has filed an urgent complaint with Indian authorities calling for the immediate arrest of an Israeli reservist over self-documented war crimes committed in Gaza.
On Friday, the Hind Rajab Foundation reported that the complaint had been submitted on June 2 to the Indian police, the ministry of home affairs, and the bureau of immigration of India regarding the trooper named as Eitan Gilboa.
The HRF said Gilboa, who is currently vacationing in India, was directly involved in the systematic demolition of residential blocks in Gaza as part of his time in the 271st combat engineering battalion.
The organization said he "carried out and celebrated the systematic demolition" of civilian areas, describing the atrocities as a violation of the Geneva Conventions Act.
According to the complaint, evidence submitted to Indian authorities includes videos and social media posts in which Gilboa documented the destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza while celebrating the explosions.
The report also detailed several other incidents, including Gilboa's staging photographs recreating scenes from his youth by posing against the ruins of Palestinian playgrounds and children's toys found in the rubble.
The complaint further noted that in January 2024, he took part in a detonation operation in the city of Khan Yunis in southern Gaza, during which his unit commander publicly vowed to leave behind only "ash and dust."
It also stated that in June 2024, Gilboa ordered the destruction of multiple buildings in Rafah, also in southern Gaza, as a "dedication to a fallen colonel."
Dyab Abou Jahjah, general director of the HRF, called on Indian authorities to take action against the reservist.
"Eitan Gilboa is not a tourist. He is a war criminal currently enjoying the hospitality of India while fleeing the consequences of his crimes," he said.
"India must act immediately to arrest him. It must not allow Indian soil to become a safe haven for those who celebrate the destruction of civilian lives."
Natacha Bracq, head of litigation at the HRF, said the aggression meets the legal definition of war crimes under Indian law.
Bracq argued that the atrocities constitute "grave breaches" of the Fourth Geneva Convention and said India is legally obligated to search for and prosecute individuals perpetrating such crimes.
She also said "these extended trips" that the Israeli forces take "cannot become a route for impunity. If India fails to act, it becomes complicit in the cycle of atrocities and impunity."
Indian activist Shrishti Khanna told the Middle East Eye news and analysis website that thousands of Israeli forces have vacationed in India since the 1980s and said the country's "long-standing complicity" has intensified under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
According to Khanna, political and ideological alignments with the Israeli regime have led India to treat members of an occupying army as "harmless guests" instead of subjecting them to scrutiny and accountability.
The HRF is named after five-year-old Hind Rajab, who was killed with six relatives when Israeli forces shelled a car they had taken refuge in southwest of Gaza City on January 29, 2024.
The bloodletting took place as part of the regime's war of genocide on Gaza that had begun on October 7, 2023. The genocide went on to claim the lives of tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children.
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