Imran Mulla
Middle East Eye / December 3, 2024
Colonel Moshe Tetro has been accused of ‘orchestrating starvation and targeting healthcare facilities’.
Israel’s new military attaché in Belgium has been accused of war crimes by the Hind Rajab Foundation, a Brussels-based non-profit organisation.
Colonel Moshe Tetro served as head of the Israeli military unit responsible for coordinating aid into the besieged Gaza Strip earlier this year.
The Hind Rajab Foundation’s chair, Dyab Abou Jahjah, described Moshe as a “key figure in the implementation of Israeli policy towards hospitals and the strategy of famine and thirst as a weapon of war”.
The foundation said it has filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against Tetro, highlighting his “role in orchestrating starvation and targeting healthcare facilities”.
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and its former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, are subjects of ICC arrest warrants for alleged war crimes – including using starvation as a weapon of war.
Earlier this month, UN special rapporteur on Palestine Francesca Albanese told Middle East Eye that the ICC should seek warrants for more Israeli leaders.
‘War criminals have no place in our institutions’
The Hind Rajab Foundation announced on Tuesday that it has sent a letter to Belgium’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs urging it to refuse accreditation to Tetro as a military attaché.
“Allowing Moshe Tetro to serve in Belgium would be an endorsement of his crimes,” Abou Jahjah asserted.
“Belgium must uphold its commitment to justice and send a clear message that war criminals have no place in our institutions or our society.”
The foundation said on Tuesday that Tetro’s role in “directing attacks on hospitals, including Naser Hospital in Khan Yunis and al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, represents a blatant violation of international humanitarian law”.
Evidence submitted to the ICC reportedly includes records of his “direct communication with hospital directors before orchestrating attacks that led to mass casualties”, according to the foundation.
Israeli forces withdrew from al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex, in early April, after a two-week siege that left the entire complex destroyed and piles of bodies in its wake. Three mass graves were found in the hospital’s ruins.
Gaza’s government media office said 400 people were killed by Israeli forces in al-Shifa, including “wounded, sick, and displaced people”.
Similarly, in southern Gaza’s Nasser hospital, three mass graves were uncovered after an Israeli attack. At least 200 bodies were retrieved from the hospital’s ruins in late April.
Israel’s ambassador to Belgium, Idit Rosenzweig-Abu, told De Morgen that Israel rejects the Hind Rajab Foundation’s accusations against Tetro, saying: “Israel acts according to international law.”
She added: “There was no objection to his appointment and he received full diplomatic accreditation.”
The European Union has called for an independent probe into mass graves at Nasser and Al-Shifa hospitals.
Imran Mulla is a journalist at Middle East Eye
