The IDF is getting ready to face international legal battles as it completes its preparations to allow foreign media and human rights organizations to enter the Gaza Strip after the ongoing war against Hamas.
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As part of the preparations, the military has recruited dozens of legal advisors for the IDF Military Prosecution, and its international law department has grown into a division.
In the past two weeks, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, at an explicit and unusual U.S. request, conveyed Israel's commitment to the Pentagon to use the arms provided by the U.S. according to international law. This marks early moves by security officials to deal with the legal front against the IDF and Israel, which will expand with the end of the war in Gaza.
Military officials are concerned that the enormous legal implications of the fighting may endanger officers and soldiers abroad as well as restrict the IDF's future operational freedom, which relies, among other things, on international legitimacy and recognition of Israel's right to defend itself.
"The international legal pressure against Israel started gradually, even before the war, when the International Court of Justice (ICJ) supported launching an investigation against Israel as early as 2019, and declared they had the authority to do so in 2021," according to the IDF.
"Now the pressure placed by many countries to pursue legal actions against the IDF and Israel is growing, with more countries involved than only South Africa. Just this month, the ICJ issued arrest warrants for two Russian generals on charges of hitting a Ukrainian power plant and harming civilians without justification."
The head of the international law department in the Military Prosecution, Col. Roni Katzir, and his subordinates have become among the busiest branches of the military in recent months.
Recently, the chief military advocate, Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, promoted Katzir to the rank of colonel, aiming to expand the international law department and turn it into a division headed by an officer of the same rank, with dozens of military advocates who are currently being recruited to the IDF. Katzir is already dealing with burning issues among his counterparts worldwide, including in the U.S. and UK, who hold equivalent senior ranks.
Representatives of the Military Prosecution have been accompanying every IDF action and operation in the Strip since the first day of the war, preparing confidential files with damning evidence justifying the actions, primarily against terrorist strongholds in buildings including mosques, schools and clinics.
The military has already begun responding to specific accusations made against attacks on specific targets in Gaza, but a larger legal battle is expected to come later, when foreign journalists and human rights organizations' representatives are able to enter the Strip.
In this situation, the IDF estimates that the UN's Goldston Fact-Finding Mission, which was established after Operation Cast Lead in 2009 and caused an uproar, will be a "walk in the park" in comparison, according to an IDF assessment, which notes that "We'll face a thousand Goldstones, not only from UN bodies, and we'll fight and contend with them all. The recent moves in the past weeks are just the tip of the iceberg."
During the Gaza war, the IDF destroyed or damaged tens of thousands of buildings and houses in the Gaza Strip, confiscated hundreds of dunams of Palestinian land for the establishment of the future buffer zone on the Gazan side of the border fence, and torched Gazan homes where terrorists or weapons were located, after running out of explosives, despite U.S. objections. For each such case, the IDF may have to explain and justify its actions after the war or risk being accused of committing war crimes.
In such a situation, should the ICJ receive evidence that civilian buildings were destroyed without operational justification, international arrest warrants against IDF soldiers and officers as well as Israeli officials may be issued.