An obscure Belgian nonprofit that has single-handedly filed more than 1,000 complaints against Israeli soldiers at the International Criminal Court (ICC) bills itself as a neutral legal entity crusading against “war crimes and human rights violations perpetrated by the Israeli state.” According to a new watchdog report, though, one of its co-founders has openly identified himself as a former Hezbollah terrorist, and the organization itself is entrenched within Hezbollah’s financing network across multiple continents.
Lebanese-Belgian activist Dyab Abou Jahjah, who co-founded the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) in late 2024, described himself in a 2003 New York Times profile as a “very proud” former Hezbollah member. He was arrested by Belgian authorities in 2002 for inciting Arab riots in Antwerp, and has repeatedly pledged his allegiance to Hezbollah and Hamas on social media. One of Europe’s leading anti-Israel activists, Abou Jahjah allegedly remains “linked to organizations associated with U.S.-designated terrorist groups” like Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the report states.
The HRF does not publicly disclose its funding structure, but the watchdog report identifies it as “part of Hezbollah’s extensive business networks tied to families and local diaspora connections across Europe, Latin America, and Africa.” These networks, the report states, “are known to support front companies, informal trade, and layered laundering operations” through “used car exports, counterfeit goods, and commodity trades, facilitated through relatives or friendly businessmen.”
The report’s findings shed new light on a sophisticated global lawfare campaign meant to spur the arrest of Israeli soldiers on trumped-up war crime charges. The ICC is investigating cases brought against the Jewish state, and last month it rejected an appeal against the arrest warrants it issued for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant. For the report’s authors, the HRF’s ties to terror raise “serious questions about the legality and legitimacy of its campaign” and of the ICC more broadly, given how active the HRF has been.
The report contends that Abou Jahjah is linked through his brother “to the complex financial web of Soafrimex,” a Lebanese-Belgian trading company raided by Belgian authorities in 2003 over money laundering and tax fraud. The United States subsequently designated Soafrimex owner Kassim Tajideen an “important financial contributor to Hezbollah.”
Abou Jahjah has several other shady business dealings, according to the report. He “is said to co-own a real estate company in Lebanon, called Sales Force, together with Saleem Sleem, a Lebanese lawyer whose firms have been sanctioned by the U.S. for being Hezbollah-affiliated.”
Israeli security sources, meanwhile, allege that Abou Jahjah maintains “numerous family and business ties to Hezbollah’s financing network.”
Two senior Trump administration officials confirmed to the Washington Free Beacon they are aware of the report’s findings and will not hesitate to enforce the president’s February executive order authorizing broad sanctions on the ICC and its enablers.
The administration sanctioned two ICC judges and two deputy prosecutors in August over the organization’s “abuse of power, disregard for our national sovereignty, and illegitimate judicial overreach,” calling it a “national security threat that has been an instrument for lawfare against the United States and our close ally Israel.” The State Department also sanctioned two NGOs in September for similar activities to the HRF’s campaign.
“We need to go after every pro-terrorist organization hiding behind the guise of so-called NGOs,” one of the senior officials told the Free Beacon. “HRF has established ties to terror groups and needs to be completely delegitimized.”
The HRF is an offshoot of the anti-Israel March 30 Movement, which began in Brussels under Abou Jahjah’s leadership. Both organizations have since worked together to publish the personal information of Israeli soldiers and prosecute them at the ICC and other European courts.
Once the foundation identifies IDF members through open-source intelligence and social media, it “activates a network of sympathetic lawyers worldwide to pursue litigation under universal jurisdiction laws,” the report explains.
Numerous “Hamas-affiliated outlets and individuals” amplify the HRF’s work, the report states, suggesting the foundation “is deeply enmeshed in and legitimized by terrorist organizations and their affiliated propaganda arms.” Hamas’s Al Resalah TV network, for instance, celebrated the HRF in May, and pro-Hamas influencers have touted the group’s work online.
Abou Jahjah, who portrays himself and his group as independent legal authorities, has consistently defended Hezbollah in social media posts. He maintained “Hezbollah is not a terrorist organisation” and that “Western ‘terrorism lists’ are ridiculous” in one post on X from September 2024, around the time the HRF began its operations.
“I have openly expressed my respect for Hezbollah and its legitimate right to resist occupation under international law,” he wrote in November 2024. “[Y]our attempt … to use this as a weapon to label me a ‘terrorist’ is not only false but also slanderous.”
Hamas, Abou Jahjah said in November 2023, “is a resistance movement” fighting a justified battle “against the occupying force, its population, and collaborators.”
No, they are not, @piersmorgan. This is my response for Jeremy. Hamas is a resistance movement. While one might disagree with their ideology—I certainly do—they still fit the definition of a resistance group. It’s true that resistance groups, like armies, can commit war crimes,… https://t.co/uAmLnaubMm
— Dyab Abou Jahjah (@Aboujahjah) November 14, 2023
Abou Jahjah’s partner at the HRF, Karim Hassoun, has expressed similar rhetoric online. His support for terrorism went so far that the Belgian city of Willebroek expelled him from a local government body in January, the report states.
“I condemn Hamas for not taking 500 or 1000 hostages, instead of just 200,” Hassoun wrote on social media when asked to condemn the terror group’s Oct. 7 attacks.
He has also called for Israel to be eliminated “BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY,” and said Israelis “possess no morality nor humanity whatsoever.”
No country or a people lacks a moral compass more than #Israël & Zionists…
They possess no morality nor humanity whatsoever. #Zionism is equal to death & theft & the only way to stop it is to fight it & remove it root & stem – always & everywhere – BY ANY MEANS NECESSARY…— Karim Hassoun ~ كريم حسون (@KarimHassoun_79) April 11, 2024
An HRF spokesman denied any affiliations with Hezbollah and described the watchdog report as “false, defamatory, and politically motivated.”
“We have no ties—financial, operational, or organizational—to Hezbollah, Hamas, or any other group designated as a terrorist organization,” the organization said. “HRF operates transparently under Belgian and EU law, and is entirely funded by small public donations.”
The sole specific piece of information the HRF spokesman disputed in an email exchange with the Free Beacon was the report’s characterization of Hassoun as “Lebanese-Belgian,” stating that “both parents of Mr Hassoun Morrocan-Belgians [sic].” Though the spokesman said the report had misrepresented Hassoun’s origins, both Israeli news outlet Ynet and the Anti-Defamation League have also described Hassoun as Lebanese-Belgian.
The Trump administration may disagree with the spokesman’s claims. A second senior U.S. official tracking the matter told the Free Beacon the watchdog group’s findings “are another example of the dangerous precedent being set by the ICC. We’ve been clear that the United States will actively oppose actions that threaten our national interests and infringe on our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
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