Travelers arriving at Heathrow Airport in London. The British authorities recently detained an Israeli landing in the UK on business for his part in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. Photo: Wikipedia.

Travelers arriving at Heathrow Airport in London. The British authorities recently detained an Israeli landing in the UK on business for his part in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza. Photo: Wikipedia.

British authorities apologized to the Israeli government for “mistakenly” detaining an IDF reserve officer a few weeks ago, Israeli news site Ynet reported on Sunday.

The officer, who had participated in Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in the summer of 2014, was detained for several hours of questioning as a “war criminal” when he landed in the UK for a recent business trip. After intervention on the part of the Israeli Foreign Ministry and the IDF’s operations directorate and international law division, the man was released.

The incident was the result of complaints filed by anti-Israel organizations in Europe, who are conducting a campaign to punish Israel for alleged war crimes committed against the Palestinians in Gaza. The name of the man in question, it is believed, got onto one of the “blacklists” of these organizations, and when it was established that it was a case of mistaken identity, he was let go.

This is among the reasons that “A,” an IDF infantry platoon sergeant in the reserves who fought in the Gaza war – and works for an Israeli high-tech firm – said he never dared share his photos from that operation on Facebook, even ones that were not sensitive from a security point of view.

“It was pretty clear to most of us that we should keep a low profile during and after the war, and not have our faces recognized on social media,” he told The Algemeiner on Monday. “We didn’t want our names and faces to be circulating, with the idea that we might want to take a trip abroad. Furthermore, we began to sense a change in the international atmosphere. High-ranking officers like colonels and above have always had to be especially cautious when traveling. What has changed is the rank of the soldiers who now have to worry. Though we were instructed by our commanders not to expose any details of our military service, this was always explained as part of a security measure; it was never spelled out to us that it was to keep us from being arrested as war criminals abroad.”

International law expert Avi Bell explained the phenomenon of a foreign government with which Israel has diplomatic relations — like the UK — detaining an Israeli traveler at the airport.

“International law generally forbids states from arresting citizens of another country to stand trial for acts that took place in another part of the world,” Bell told The Algemeiner. “However, there is an exception to this general rule called universal jurisdiction. Universal jurisdiction allows the arresting and trying of foreigners for foreign acts when the arrest and trial concern the alleged commission of very serious crimes, such as war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Still, said Bell, professor of law at the University of San Diego and Bar Ilan University in Israel, “It is very rare …read more

Source:: The Algemeiner

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