Gunfire cuts through the air as three Ukrainians stand in cover away from fierce fighting in the streets. Apartment buildings are pockmarked with bullets and torn open by explosions. One filming with a body camera groans and curses in pain as another tends to him, laughing after a close call. The soldiers are not in Russia nor Ukraine but in Gaza embroiled in bitter fighting with Hamas, the Palestinian Islamists responsible for attacking Israel on October 7th.
They are three of an estimated 30,000 foreign-born soldiers, the majority from the United States, who are reportedly fighting for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) from at least 30 countries after Hamas's assault left nearly 1,200 Israelis dead. According to the IDF, US citizens have accounted for at least 10 percent of the war dead with dozens of other foreign-born soldiers also perishing.
Foreign fighters have always played a vital if not understated role in the IDF. Before the IDF was officially formed, operating as the Haganah militia during the civil war in Mandatory Palestine, nearly 5,000 foreign fighters from 58 countries served across the fledgling army in 1947. Largely composed of Second World War veterans, they were prized assets in the war to establish the Jewish state and tipped the balance of the conflict in the First Arab-Israel conflict. The non-Israeli volunteers who fought were affectionately named ‘mahal’, an acronym for the Hebrew words ‘Mitnadvei Chutz L’Aretz’, which translates to ‘volunteers from outside the land’.
Since then, thousands of foreigners have fought in the IDF in its multiple wars and helped enforce the occupation of Palestinian territories. Recruitment has become more streamlined in the now institutionalised MAHAL programme. "The indoctrination of foreign members is a process that consists of several stages," said Dr Ali Bakir from the Ibn Khaldon Center for Humanities and Social Sciences at Qatar University. "It is primarily a proactive process, involving various organisations ranging from tourism initiatives to Israel, educational and counter-terrorism programs and donor campaigns."
The MAHAL programme bypasses the bureaucratic maze of immigration to Israel, offering young Jewish volunteers a chance to fight in the IDF for a short period ranging from 4 to 18 months. After receiving their mahal visa, they are enlisted with many who lack the means to support themselves being coined as “lone soldiers”. The MAHAL programme has conditions for eligibility: candidates must be exclusively Jewish and their family cannot live in Israel.
While many have celebrated the new generation of mahal, they have also faced condemnation. This criticism is not new but a few things have shifted. Discipline has broken down in an increasingly radicalised IDF and much like their native-born comrades, many foreign soldiers have openly reveled in Gaza's destruction. Others have mocked Palestinian prisoners and been involved in looting homes while many spew the same dehumanising language against Palestinians now widespread in Israeli society.
Many have documented themselves perpetrating or being involved in alleged war crimes including levelling Palestinian homes and abusing and allegedly torturing detainees, sharing their acts on Instagram and TikTok. "The amount of publicly available information on Gaza has soared. People are showing their faces and this involves forms of accountability," Brian Finucane, Senior Adviser for the U.S. Programme at International Crisis Group told Byline Times. "With the footage we've seen coming out of Gaza and the West Bank, dual-national IDF soldiers could be implicated."
There have already been consequences for foreign fighters involved. Many soldiers returning home, as well as their families, have faced lawsuits, harassment, and calls for their arrest from campaigners and states. "There is growing public awareness of this issue," said Mr Bakir. "Pressure is growing on governments to take action against these individuals, similar to the treatment of others who have joined conflicts elsewhere." However, tracking down alleged war criminals has always been arduous but Gaza has generated its own technical challenges. "It’s a case of different legal regimes," said Finucane. "There is a big difference between joining a terrorist group and a foreign military. States treat them differently." Open-source content shared by soldiers also has limitations as evidence for prosecuting war crimes.
With Gaza blockaded, its healthcare system obliterated and Palestinian journalists, human rights activists, and medical personnel being systemically harassed, arrested, disappeared, and killed by the IDF, traditional forms of investigation and information have been difficult to access. This undermines open-source evidence. "It is unlikely a person can be convicted on a single video shared to social media," said Nick Waters, head of the Justice and Accountability Unit at Bellingcat, a Netherlands-based investigative group. "The content needs to go through rigorous verification and be backed up by witness statements, medical records, and other traditional forms of evidence."
Compounding these obstacles is the external pressure that Israel and its allies would apply if an IDF veteran were arrested. There has already been severe pushback against the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice for investigating alleged atrocities committed in Gaza and even IDF lawmakers have faced threats from the Israeli government and its far-right base for investigating personnel involved in abuses against Palestinians.
But this does not mean the IDF is immune. The laws of war impose baselines on everyone no matter who the party to the conflict is and people committing war crimes can still be judged independently regardless of the organisation they fought for. There has also been a significant expansion of the universal jurisdiction of courts in Europe and the United States on war crimes committed abroad with human rights groups and national prosecutors often uniting to hold perpetrators of atrocities in the Syrian war accountable.
Most foreigners committing atrocities in Gaza will likely escape prosecution or find loopholes to evade sanctions or arrest. However, as the moves by the ICC and ICJ against the Israeli government have demonstrated, a handful of arrest warrants would be a watershed moment in the conflict. For Israel's latest generation of mahal, many stained by their actions inside Gaza, the future is uncertain. But for those who committed war crimes, the battle to avoid accountability may only just be beginning.