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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.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Trump Is Lying When He Speaks of Peace
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with government officials in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Donald Trump on Saturday of lying when the US president said during his Gulf tour this week that he wanted peace in the region.
On the contrary, said Khamenei, the United States uses its power to give “10-ton bombs to the Zionist (Israeli) regime to drop on the heads of Gaza’s children.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after departing the United Arab Emirates on Friday that Iran had to move quickly on a US proposal for its nuclear program or “something bad’s going to happen.”
His remarks, said Khamenei, “aren’t even worth responding to.” They are an “embarrassment to the speaker and the American people,” Khamenei added.
“Undoubtedly, the source of corruption, war, and conflict in this region is the Zionist regime — a dangerous, deadly cancerous tumor that must be uprooted; it will be uprooted,” he said at an event at a religious center in Tehran, according to state media.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Trump speaks about peace while simultaneously making threats.
“Which should we believe?” Pezeshkian said at a naval event in Tehran. “On the one hand, he speaks of peace and on the other, he threatens with the most advanced tools of mass killing.”
Tehran would continue Iran-US nuclear talks but is not afraid of threats. “We are not seeking war,” Pezeshkian said.
While Trump said on Friday that Iran had a US proposal about its nuclear program, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in a post on X said Tehran had not received any such proposal. “There is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to (uranium) enrichment for peaceful purposes…” he said.
Araqchi warned on Saturday that Washington’s constant change of stance prolongs nuclear talks, state TV reported.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that America repeatedly defines a new framework for negotiations that prolongs the process,” the broadcast quoted Araqchi as saying.
Pezeshkian said Iran would not “back down from our legitimate rights”.
“Because we refuse to bow to bullying, they say we are source of instability in the region,” he said.
A fourth round of Iran-U.S. talks ended in Oman last Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet.
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Hamas Confirms New Gaza Ceasefire Talks with Israel in Qatar on Saturday
Doha, Qatar. Photo: StellarD via Wikimedia Commons.
A new round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel is underway in Qatar’s Doha, Hamas official Taher al-Nono told Reuters on Saturday.
He said the two sides were discussing all issues without “pre-conditions.”
Nono said Hamas was “keen to exert all the effort needed” to help mediators make the negotiations a success, adding there was “no certain offer on the table.”
The negotiations come despite Israel preparing to expand operations in the Gaza Strip as they seek “operational control” in some areas of the war-torn enclave.
The return to negotiations also comes after US President Donald Trump ended a Middle East tour on Friday with no apparent progress towards a new ceasefire, although he acknowledged Gaza’s growing hunger crisis and the need for aid deliveries.
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Report: ICC’s Khan Goes on Administrative Leave Amid Sexual Misconduct Probe
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
i24 News – Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan has stepped down temporarily as an investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct by United Nations investigators is nearing its final phase, Reuters reported on Friday citing sources from the international court.
Khan allegedly forced sexual intercourse upon a member of staff on multiple occasions, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, linking the allegations to Khan’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.
A statement is expected later today announcing that Khan is going on administrative leave, according to a source in the prosecutor’s office.
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