M was on the plane back home to South Africa when the foreign minister in Pretoria, Naledi Pandor, escalated her already hostile rhetoric vis-à-vis Israel: she said that South African nationals who fought for the IDF in the Gaza Strip would be arrested on their return to the country. Three months ago, South Africa took Israel to the International Court of Justice in The Hague over its war against Hamas, and this was also not the first time that the Foreign Ministry made such threats. When M landed and turned on his cellphone, he was inundated with worried messages. “I got a lot of texts from friends in Israel asking if everything was okay and whether I had been arrested,” he tells Shomrim. M’s brother, who is also serving in Gaza, says that he did not want to add to the anxiety and refrained from sending a message. “I wanted him to get through passport control without any worries and full of self-confidence,” the brother explains.

M got through the airport without any untoward incidents and is now spending time with relatives he has not seen for many months, in part because of the extended military service he was called up for in the aftermath of the October 7 attack. He remains concerned, however. “It’s entirely possible that I will be arrested,” he says, “because the South African elections are coming up and they could do it to win votes. I have to lie to most people about where I have been for the past six months because I don’t want to get arrested. I have hardly told anyone that I was in Israel, that I fought in the war and all that. I have told my closest friends, who know that they cannot tell anyone else. I really hope no one says anything – but I have to think about it every day.”

Although officials from the IDF told M that this would not be a suitable time to travel to South Africa, he wanted to see his family after completing his tour of duty in Gaza. “In war, you don’t know what will happen tomorrow, so I decided to take a risk,” he says. In contrast, his friends, who also have dual Israeli-South African citizenship, prefer not to return home at this time. “They want to come and see their families, so they ask me whether it’s safe for them to come now or not and whether the authorities here are doing anything.”

Adding to the already considerable pressure, a pro-Palestinian group has resorted to scouring social media platforms to pinpoint IDF soldiers—a deeply invasive practice known as doxing, as revealed by Shomrim in March. One of the videos circulated by this organization features South African nationals donning IDF uniforms, accompanied by statements from Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor and, chillingly, a menacing declaration: "We are prepared. Upon your return, expect to be arrested."

The photographs of the soldiers appear with their names and with their identities exposed. They face the risk of arrest if and when they return to South Africa. To reduce the risk of that happening, M deleted all the photographs from his Facebook account and blocked several hundred followers on Instagram about whom he had doubts. Some of his friends, however, appear in the pro-Palestinian organization’s video, which has now gone viral, making them targets for arrest should they ever return to South Africa.

“Under the current circumstances, you do not want to be perceived as Israeli in South Africa,” says M’s brother. Experts in international law who spoke to Shomrim agree, adding that soldiers in the same position as M Should refrain from visiting the countries of their birth for the time being. This is not a trivial matter: many of them are lone soldiers who came to Israel at the age of 18 specifically in order to serve in the IDF. They did not necessarily plan on immigrating to Israel and leaving their countries and their families.

One of the videos circulated by this organization features South African nationals donning IDF uniforms, accompanied by statements from Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor and, chillingly, a menacing declaration: "We are prepared. Upon your return, expect to be arrested."

South Africa’s ‘Anti-Mercenary’ Law

South Africa’s interest in its nationals who also hold Israeli citizenship did not start on October 7, as David Benjamin – an expert in international law who has served as a senior legal advisor in the IDF – explains to Shomrim. According to Benjamin, legal cases against senior Israeli officials and military officers is nothing new: even before the October 7 terror attack, South Africa drew up a list of 73 Israeli soldiers with dual nationality, including Benjamin himself, and Pretoria even considered launching official legal proceedings against them. These soldiers are not alone: elected officials and senior officers have encountered similar incidents across the globe, including former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, against whom an arrest warrant was issued in the United Kingdom some 15 years ago, and Doron Almog, the former head of the IDF’s Southern Command, who also faced a British arrest warrant as well as the threat of being charged with war crimes over his involvement in previous military operations in the Gaza Strip.

As mentioned, the tone of South Africa’s rhetoric has become even more belligerent. The soldiers, for their part, are indirectly “helping to incriminate themselves” by posting videos that could be used as evidence against themselves to TikTok, Instagram and other social media platforms. “It absolutely does not help,” Benjamin points out. “There are organizations which scour the internet in an effort to identify who among them is a soldier and who is not.”

Prof. Yuval Shany, the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in Public International Law at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, adds that one of the developments to have occurred during the current conflict is that “there is increased interest in low-ranking soldiers who posted things on social media networks. The use of these online platforms allows these organizations to link specific soldiers with certain incidents and to identify dual citizens, in an effort to take legal steps against them.”

However, experts are doubtful whether there is a solid legal basis for South Africa’s statements, in part because the country’s laws do not forbid its nationals from serving in foreign armies. In light of this, and even though there are some activists who say that South Africa should use its law against mercenary activities when it comes to IDF soldiers, Benjamin points out that, in recent years, around 1.7 million people with South African citizenship have served in foreign armies, so any implementation of the law against IDF soldiers alone would be perceived as “highly selective.”

Shany adds that, “the idea that just serving in a foreign army is a crime according to local law is highly problematic, given international law on human rights – especially in the case of a country like Israel, where military service is mandatory. It seems that the South African approach does not square with international law in the context of human rights.” Asked about the videos that soldiers post on social media platforms, Shany says that while they may be tasteless, they do not necessarily cross the line that would justify a charge of war crimes.

Does all of this mean that the South Africans will not find a victim to charge with war crimes, even for media consumption? The answer is that it is not inconceivable that, in the near future, Pretoria will file charges against Israeli soldiers. Even if only a handful of soldiers are charged, that may well be enough to satisfy the pro-Palestinian activists who have been pushing for such a move.

“I believe that the organizations involved want at least a few cases opened,” says Shany. “All it takes is for charges to be brought in a single case to stir up public debate and create some kind of deterrence.” Benjamin argues that, even if an IDF is arrested in South Africa, it is far from clear whether any prosecution would be successful – but it would be enough to send a very clear message to IDF soldiers with dual nationality: Do not return home.

One of the most prominent people in the anti-Israel struggle is Thomas Portes, a member of the far-left La France Insoumise party, who has been behind efforts to prosecute Israelis with French citizenship.

The French Politician Demanding Charges

South Africa may be in the vanguard of diplomatic action against Israel since the brutal Hamas terror attack on October 7, but it is far from being alone. France – which recently played a central role in intercepting the barrage of Iranian missiles fired at Israel – has another hat, with none other than French Foreign Minister Stéphane Séjourné stating recently that the French legal system is prepared to take measures “over crimes committed by French nationals abroad, including in the context of the current conflict [between Israel and Hamas].” When one takes into account the estimate that there are some 4,000 French nationals currently serving in the IDF – the largest number of foreign citizens in the Israeli army apart from Americans – the French statement is not a trivial matter.

One of the most prominent people in the anti-Israel struggle is Thomas Portes, a member of the far-left La France Insoumise party, who has been behind efforts to prosecute Israelis with French citizenship. In a conversation with Shomrim, he says that “we need determined investigations in order to determine what exactly was the involvement of these soldiers and to prosecute them if they are guilty.” Portes also wants to annul the agreement between Paris and Jerusalem, whereby French nationals are allowed to join the IDF, pointing out that the French attorney general has received requests to investigate French Israeli soldiers and that these requests have been relayed to the office of the special terrorism prosecutor, who is responsible for launching such investigations.

Although legal proceedings are likely to take a considerable time, Portes insists that, during the course of the war in the Gaza Strip, the French government has changed its stance on the issue: the original position of the French Foreign Ministry was not to investigate IDF soldiers with dual Israeli-French nationality, but, as Portes points out, it does have the authority to look into their activities in Gaza. At the same time, the moves carried out by Portes to initiate legal proceedings have also highlighted the limitations of opening an investigation based solely on posts taken from social media platforms, in light of serious errors that were found in some cases.

For example, after a video surfaced of a French-speaking Israeli soldier allegedly bragging about the torture of Hamas terrorists by IDF soldiers, Portes used false information about the identity of the soldier and named a Jewish citizen of France who has no connection whatsoever to the IDF. The erroneously named citizen was subjected to a barrage of online abuse, was subjected to death threats and even needed police protection after Portes published his name to his hundreds of thousands of followers on social media. After realizing that he had misidentified the soldier in the video, Portes finally found the person in question and asked the French prosecutor general to open an investigation against him. This incident highlights the potential damage from a single social media post, which can include prosecution.

“We arrived in the Netherlands on Friday and on Saturday morning we got a call from the Israeli embassy, telling us to stay in our hotel rooms because a police complaint had been filed against us in the Netherlands.”

The Hezbollah Member and the Netherlands Organization

Among the other countries where Israelis with dual nationality have fallen victim to complaints and threats of prosecution are the Netherlands and Belgium – and in both cases the impetus has come from pro-Palestinian organizations that are pushing for IDF soldiers to be prosecuted. One of these organizations, known as the March 30 Movement, has been particularly active and now claims that it has submitted to Dutch authorities official requests to open investigations into more than 17 IDF soldiers with Dutch citizenship on suspicion of participating in what the organization calls “acts of genocide.” The organization is headed by Dyab Abou Jahjah, who was born in Lebanon and who says that he “proudly” fought alongside Hezbollah. He has also called for Israeli soldiers to be arrested and their passports revoked. One of the complaints filed by the March 30 Movement was against Jonathan Ben Hamou, a captain in the Engineering Corps who has dual Israeli-Dutch citizenship and who lost a leg in the fighting in Gaza.

Another complaint was filed against Captain Meir Rapaport, a dual U.S.-Israeli citizen who immigrated to Israel at the age of 19 – more than a decade ago. Rapaport traveled to The Netherlands along with several other soldiers in response to the prosecution initiated by South Africa against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where he spoke about his experiences as a soldier in the Gaza Strip. In response, the March 30 Movement called for his immediate arrest and for legal proceedings to be launched against him.

As far as Rapaport himself is concerned, it all started with a social media post. “At the start of the war, I uploaded a photograph of myself in Gaza and I wrote that we have to destroy Amalek, which is how I see Hamas – not all the Palestinians. But this organization took that photo to the International Court of Justice and tried to have me arrested,” he tells Shomrim. “We arrived in the Netherlands on Friday and on Saturday morning we got a call from the Israeli embassy, telling us to stay in our hotel rooms because a police complaint had been filed against us in the Netherlands.” Shortly thereafter, Rapaport and his friends left the Netherlands but “the proceedings there are going ahead. I don’t know what speed they are progressing because I am not there – but from what I understand they are going ahead.” How Rapaport is unable to visit the country at all.

Rapaport is yet to receive any legal advice from Israeli officials but, as far as the Justice Ministry is concerned, the scenario in which pro-Palestinian organizations are pushing for legal proceedings against Israeli officials and soldiers in several countries at the same time is nothing short of a nightmare. In recent years, this is exactly the scenario that has kept jurists from the Justice Ministry awake at night to such an extent that they initiated a study into the risk of a wide scale legal offensive by various different countries against senior Israeli officials and IDF soldiers, both past and present. The ministry even hired foreign legal experts to assess the risks that soldiers with dual nationality could be exposed to in several countries, including Switzerland and Austria.

The immediate future does not look bright for Israelis with dual citizenship: IDF soldiers who came from France, South Africa and the Netherlands are already worried about returning home. “I do not want to be the one who is arrested,” says M, who is forced to live in the country of birth like someone with a contract on his head.