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Nova Massacre Survivor Flees Brazil Amid War Crimes Probe
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva reacts after meeting with Brazilian citizens, who were repatriated from the Gaza Strip, upon arrival at the Air Force base of Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 13, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
JNS.org – An Israeli tourist has fled Brazil after a federal court for the first time authorized a criminal investigation into his actions as a soldier in the Gaza Strip, Israeli and Brazilian media reported Sunday.
Judge Raquel Soares Charelli authorized the probe on Dec. 30, news site Metrópoles reported. The reports in Brazilian media did not name the Israeli, who according to Israeli media reports has fled the country. He was wanted for actions allegedly taken during his military service in the Israel Defense Forces.
Israel, the United States and other countries have roundly rejected allegations that Israel has committed war crimes in Gaza.
Yuli Edelstein, chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said in response to the Brazilian move that he would convene a classified discussion into the prosecution of Israelis abroad. “I am embarrassed for Brazil and its government, who surrendered to the pro-Palestinian legal terrorism,” the statement continued.
The former Israeli soldier, identified by Israel’s Channel 12 News only as Y., 21, traveled to Brazil as a tourist for the Chanukah holiday period together with three friends. He and his friends all left the country after receiving a warning from Israeli foreign ministry employees, according to Channel 12.
The man, who recently completed his mandatory service in the Israel Defense Forces’ Givati infantry brigade, survived the Nova music festival, where Hamas terrorists murdered more than 300 people on Oct. 7, 2023, including his girlfriend, according to Channel 12.
The allegations against him concern his actions as a soldier in a residential area of Gaza in November 2024.
Another complaint has been filed against an Israeli visiting Chile, Ynet reported on Sunday, though officials have not yet identified the man as a suspect or announced a criminal investigation in Chile.
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has publicly compared Israel’s actions to those of Nazi Germany, and accuses it of committing genocide in Gaza.
Da Silva, who in May recalled Brazil’s ambassador from Israel, is persona non-grata in the Jewish state, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said in February.
The complaint in Brazil was filed by an anti-Israel group called the Hind Rajab Foundation. According to the Jerusalem-based watchdog NGO Monitor, the organization was founded by Dyab Abou Jahjah, a longtime advocate of terrorism and purveyor of antisemitic hatred based in Belgium.
In 2015, Abou Jahjah called Antwerp’s mayor “a Zionist c***sucker” on X. He founded a Muslim European group, the Arab European League, that published on its website a picture of Anne Frank in bed with Adolf Hitler, as well as a caricature suggesting that Jews invented the Holocaust.
The Jewish Chronicle of London has described Abou Jahjah, who famously posed for a picture while holding an AK-47 assault rifle in his native Lebanon, as a former Hezbollah combatant.
After the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Abou Jahjah spoke of his “feeling of victory.” He has called Antwerp, which has a large community of Orthodox Jews, the “international capital of the Zionist lobby,” according to the Dutch NRC newspaper.
The post Nova Massacre Survivor Flees Brazil Amid War Crimes Probe first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Says It Would Reduce Troops in Lebanon if Beirut Takes Steps to Disarm Hezbollah
An Israeli tank is positioned on the Israeli side of the Israel-Lebanon border, March 18, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Avi Ohayon
Israel on Monday signaled it would scale back its military presence in southern Lebanon if the Lebanese armed forces took action to disarm Iran-backed Shi’ite terrorist group Hezbollah.
The announcement from the Israeli prime minister’s office came a day after Benjamin Netanyahu met with US envoy Tom Barrack, who has been heavily involved in a plan that would disarm Hezbollah and withdraw Israeli forces from Lebanon.
“If the Lebanese Armed Forces take the necessary steps to implement the disarmament of Hezbollah, Israel will engage in reciprocal measures, including a phased reduction” by the Israeli military, the Israeli prime minister’s office said.
The statement did not explicitly say if Israeli forces would fully withdraw from the five positions they hold in Lebanon.
The Israeli military has maintained a presence in southern Lebanon near the border since agreeing to a United States-backed ceasefire with Hezbollah in November.
Israel was to withdraw its forces within two months and Lebanon‘s armed forces were to take control of the country’s south, territory that has long been a stronghold for Hezbollah.
This month, Lebanon‘s cabinet tasked the army with drawing up a plan to establish state control over arms by December, a challenge to Hezbollah, which has rejected calls to disarm.
The prime minister’s office described the Lebanese cabinet’s decision to back the move as a momentous decision. Israel stood “ready to support Lebanon in its efforts to disarm Hezbollah,” the statement said without saying what support it could provide.
Barrack, the US ambassador to Turkey and special envoy for Syria, has said Israel should comply with the plan for Hezbollah disarmament, which would mean the withdrawal of Israeli forces.
The Israeli military continues to carry out periodic air strikes in Lebanon that it said targeted Hezbollah terrorists and facilities used by the Islamist group to store weapons.
Palestinian factions in Lebanon surrendered some weapons to the armed forces last week as part of the disarmament plan.
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Syria Says Israel Takes Some Territory Around Mount Hermon Despite Talks
Israeli forces operate at a location given as Mount Hermon region, Syria, in this handout image released Dec. 9, 2024. Photo: Israel Defense Forces/Handout via REUTERS
Syria said on Monday that Israel had sent 60 soldiers to take control of an area inside the Syrian border around Mount Hermon, saying the operation violated its sovereignty and posed a further threat to regional security.
Israel did not immediately comment on the accusation by Syria‘s foreign ministry, which comes as the two countries engage in US-mediated talks on de-escalating their conflict in southern Syria. Damascus hopes to reach a security arrangement that could eventually pave the way for broader political talks.
Monday’s incident took place near a strategic hilltop that overlooks Beit Jinn, an area of southern Syria close to the border with Lebanon, the ministry said. Israel also arrested six Syrians there, according to residents in the area.
The area is known for arms smuggling by Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah terrorist group and by Palestinian jihadist factions. Previous Israeli incursions have mostly been in the southern Quneitra governorate.
The Israeli military on Sunday shared footage of what it said were troops locating weapons storage facilities last week in southern Syria.
“This dangerous escalation is considered a direct threat to regional peace and security,” the Syrian foreign ministry said in a statement.
Israel has cited its own security concerns for its military interventions inside Syria since the fall of Bashar al-Assad last December, including what it sees as its obligation to protect members of the Druze minority in southern Syria.
Hundreds of people were reported killed in clashes last month in the southern province of Sweida between Druze fighters, Sunni Bedouin tribes and government forces. Israel intervened with airstrikes to prevent what it said was mass killings of Druze by the Syrian government forces.
In January, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israeli troops would remain on the summit of Mount Hermon indefinitely.
Israel has since then formed a de facto security zone, where it regularly patrols, sets up checkpoints, and carries out searches and raids in villages.
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Widespread Anti-Israel Protests Held in Australia
Demonstrators hold a placard as they take part in the ‘Nationwide March for Palestine’ protest in Sydney, Australia, Aug. 24, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Hollie Adams
Thousands of Australians joined anti-Israel rallies on Sunday, organizers said, amid strained relations between Israel and Australia following the center-left government’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state.
More than 40 protests took place across Australia on Sunday, Palestine Action Group said, including large turnouts in state capitals Sydney, Brisbane, and Melbourne. The group said around 350,000 attended the rallies nationwide, including around 50,000 in Brisbane, though police estimated the numbers there at closer to 10,000. Police did not have estimates for crowd sizes in Sydney and Melbourne.
In Sydney, organizer Josh Lees said Australians were out in force to “demand an end to this genocide in Gaza and to demand that our government sanction Israel” as rallygoers, many with Palestinian flags, chanted “free, free Palestine.”
Alex Ryvchin, co-CEO of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry, an umbrella group for more than 200 Jewish organizations, told Sky News television that the rallies created “an unsafe environment and shouldn’t be happening.”
The protests follow Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week stepping up his personal attacks on his Australian counterpart Anthony Albanese over his government’s decision this month to recognize a Palestinian state.
Diplomatic ties between Australia and Israel soured after Albanese’s Labor government said it would conditionally recognize Palestinian statehood, following similar moves by France, Britain, and Canada.
The Aug. 11 announcement came days after tens of thousands of people marched across Sydney’s iconic Harbour Bridge, calling for peace and aid deliveries to Gaza, where Israel began an offensive nearly two years ago after the Hamas terrorist group launched a deadly cross-border attack.