In the span of just ten days, the Brussels-based Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) has moved aggressively on three separate legal fronts — against a European Union financial institution, an Israeli extremist currently on EU soil, and a former Israeli prime minister. Together, these actions mark one of the most comprehensive attempts yet by a civil society organisation to apply international law to alleged crimes committed in Gaza, as well as to the European structures accused of enabling them.
Founded earlier this year and named after a young Palestinian girl killed in Gaza, the Hind Rajab Foundation has rapidly positioned itself as a central hub for universal-jurisdiction litigation. Its latest filings — in Luxembourg, Brussels, and Karlsruhe — represent a coordinated push to hold not only individual perpetrators accountable, but also the institutions and governments that underpin Israeli military and settlement activity.
A European Public Bank Faces Unprecedented Scrutiny
The most structurally significant case came on 4 November, when the European Investment Bank (EIB) formally accepted an HRF complaint accusing it of financing Israeli institutions implicated in violations of international law.
According to the foundation, more than €1 billion of EIB funding has flowed to Israeli banks and companies that appear in the United Nations’ 2020 database of corporate actors involved in settlement construction and land appropriation in the occupied West Bank. These companies include major financial institutions such as Bank Leumi and industrial conglomerates such as Electra Group.
By deeming the complaint “admissible” and opening a formal assessment, the EIB’s internal Complaints Mechanism has entered uncharted territory. It is the first time an EU institution must publicly evaluate whether its financing activities may have supported what HRF calls “a system of apartheid and illegal colonisation.”
HRF argues that such financing is not neutral development support, but rather a mechanism that “strengthens institutions directly involved in settlement expansion, forced evictions, land seizures and systematic violence against Palestinians.”
The case could have sweeping implications. The EIB is the world’s largest multilateral lender, and its funding practices often set standards for other European and international development banks. If its complaint mechanism finds that the EIB violated its own human-rights policies or EU law, it could force changes in the institution’s approach to Israel and potentially trigger similar reviews in other European bodies.
German Prosecutors Asked to Act Against Israeli Extremist in Berlin
Just days before the EIB decision, on 31 October, the Hind Rajab Foundation filed a criminal complaint in Germany against Elkana Federman, an Israeli national affiliated with the extremist settler group Tsav 9 and the Kfir Brigade’s Battalion 94.
The complaint, filed with the Federal Public Prosecutor in Karlsruhe, accuses Federman of war crimes and crimes against humanity under Germany’s Code of Crimes Against International Law (VStGB) — one of the world’s strongest universal-jurisdiction statutes.
HRF alleges that Federman:
- participated in, and publicly glorified, the torture of Palestinian detainees at the Sde Teiman detention centre,
- used his dog as a tool of abuse, boasting in interviews that it “dealt with Palestinian prisoners,”
- and took part in orchestrated blockades of humanitarian aid convoys, contributing to the starvation of civilians in Gaza.
Crucially, HRF says Federman was physically present in Germany, attending a public event in Berlin on 30 October. Under universal-jurisdiction law, German authorities are legally permitted — and, in some cases, obliged — to arrest suspects on German soil if credible allegations of international crimes exist.
The foundation has called for Federman’s immediate detention, citing a high risk of flight.
Whether Germany will act remains uncertain. But HRF’s move follows a pattern: European prosecutors have faced mounting pressure to enforce universal-jurisdiction obligations in cases related to the Gaza war, and legal advocates say Berlin’s response will serve as a test of Europe’s commitment to the international legal order.
Complaint Targets Olmert for Gaza War Atrocities
The most politically explosive of HRF’s recent filings targets Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister during Operation Cast Lead — the 2008–2009 military offensive in Gaza that killed more than 1,300 Palestinians and levelled entire neighbourhoods.
HRF has urged German authorities to investigate Olmert for command responsibility, arguing that as Israel’s head of government he held ultimate authority over decisions that resulted in widespread civilian deaths, the destruction of residential districts, and the bombardment of schools, hospitals and UN facilities.
Olmert was reportedly in Germany to attend the Haaretz Democracy Conference, prompting HRF to call for authorities to prevent his departure and issue an arrest warrant.
Legal experts note that while prosecutions of former heads of government remain rare, Germany has previously exercised universal jurisdiction in high-profile cases — including against Syrian officials — and faces no legal barrier to investigating a former Israeli premier.
If the complaint is taken up, it would mark one of the most significant universal-jurisdiction inquiries into Israel’s military actions since the International Criminal Court began its own Palestine investigation.
A New Phase in Transnational Accountability Efforts
Taken together, the three cases illuminate HRF’s multi-tiered strategy:
- Institutional accountability: forcing European bodies such as the EIB to confront their role in financing Israeli operations.
- Mid-level perpetrator accountability: targeting individuals like Federman, who are not shielded by political office.
- High-level political accountability: challenging the impunity of senior Israeli leaders for past and present military campaigns.
While each case faces hurdles — political sensitivities, evidentiary demands, and the need for cooperation from European authorities — the momentum is unmistakable. HRF has filed more than 60 legal complaints across Europe in just over six months, a pace unmatched by any comparable organisation.
The foundation argues that Europe is entering “a decisive moment,” in which legal mechanisms that were long dismissed as symbolic — universal jurisdiction, human-rights conditionality, the UN business and human-rights framework — are becoming central tools for challenging Israel’s conduct and Europe’s complicity.
Whether these efforts will ultimately result in arrests, indictments or policy changes remains to be seen. But the Hind Rajab Foundation’s escalating legal campaign is already reshaping the conversation about accountability for the war in Gaza — and widening the scope of who may be implicated.
