AFP urged to investigate IDF soldiers in Australia

Australia risks becoming "safe haven" for war criminals, human rights groups warn

Human rights organisations have warned that Australia may become “a safe haven for persons alleged to have committed the most serious international crimes” unless the federal government investigates Australian-Israeli dual nationals who may have committed war crimes in Gaza.

In a submission to Australian Federal Police (AFP) Commissioner Krissy Barrett and Attorney-General Michelle Rowland on Wednesday, Amnesty International Australia, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) and the Australia Muslim Advocacy Network (AMAN) urged the government to investigate “any Australian dual nationals alleged to have participated in hostilities in Gaza or related conduct potentially giving rise to offences under Australian law”.

In a media release, Amnesty International Australia Occupied Palestinian Territory spokesperson Mohamed Duar said that “any Australian who has committed war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide must be held to account and face justice”.

“The international rules-based order must be respected and upheld, and the Australian government must honour its obligations to bring accountability for perpetrators of these grave crimes,” Duar said. “The impunity must come to an end.”

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IDF soldiers free to enter, leave Australia

While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) do not publish information on the number of foreigners or dual nationals in its ranks, stories of Australians who travelled to Israel to fight in the IDF after October 7 have been published in The Australian, the Herald Sun and the Sydney Morning Herald.

Authorities in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, France and Sri Lanka have ordered investigations into allegations of war crimes in Gaza by their citizens or Israeli soldiers on their soil, but Australia has allowed IDF soldiers of varying nationalities to enter and leave the country unchecked. In January the government ignored a request from the Hind Rajab Foundation and domestic bodies to prepare an arrest warrant for Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who toured Australia at the government’s invitation in early February. Last year, a UN Commission of Inquiry found Herzog incited genocide when he blamed “an entire nation” for the October 7 attack.

A tour of Australian universities by IDF reservists in 2025 prompted campus protests, while home affairs minister Tony Burke was heavily criticised in March for granting visas to a troupe of female IDF soldiers taking a “recovery trip” to Melbourne. In May 2025, an Australian-Samoan dual national flew from Melbourne to Tel Aviv to volunteer with the IDF’s 512th ‘Paran’ Brigade in southern Israel, extensively documenting her service “near the Gaza/Egypt border”.

Evidence of genocide ‘deeply disturbing’

The organisations also urged Australian authorities to investigate numerous Israeli political and military figures under the legal principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows courts and governments to prosecute serious crimes regardless of where, or by whom, they were committed. Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity are also outlawed in Australia under the 1995 Commonwealth Criminal Code Act.

The submission includes a 140-page dossier prepared by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians, a legal support organisation based in the United Kingdom and Canada, outlining extensive allegations of genocide and war crimes against Israeli government and military figures including prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, finance minister Bezalel Smotrich, former defense minister Yoav Gallant and former IDF chief of staff Herzi Halevi.

Legal advice prepared alongside the submission outlines numerous precedents where governments in Europe, the United States and New Zealand prosecuted the perpetrators of international crimes committed in Iraq, Syria, Ukraine, Afghanistan and several African nations.

APAN Executive Officer Katie Shammas called the dossier’s evidence “extensive, deeply disturbing and impossible to ignore”.

“What will it take for Australian authorities to engage with that evidence seriously and independently and act in a way that is required of them under international law?” Shammas asked.

The organisations also called on the AFP to reach out to “Palestinian victims and survivor communities in Australia”, warning of “growing concern from Palestinian, Arab and Muslim communities that Australian institutions are applying fundamentally different standards of scrutiny, accountability and protection when Palestinians are the victims”.

“Palestinian victims and survivors deserve the same access to justice afforded to victims of atrocities anywhere else in the world,” Shammas said.

“There cannot be one standard for some conflicts and another for a genocide in Gaza.”

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