No More Redacted Files

Naming the IOF's Western Citizens

Jul 29, 2026

In a room packed with veteran war journalists, I sat with crossed arms listening to European and American colleagues list their struggles, from the burnout, the fatigue, the language barriers, to the “backward” culture issues, the mental stigma, and finally the aftermath. I am no stranger to the unconscious bias of these spaces, where the victims of the very wars we cover don’t even make the top ten on that list.

It was just another training on how to tell the story of my people’s annihilation better. I never thought the issue was how we framed it, or the lack of footage. It was the audience. It’s always the audience.

My brown skin doesn’t always alert my colleagues that I’m not an outsider. Not even my foreign accent or my inability to get grammar right all the time. My identity, as a whole, sometimes goes unnoticed among the parachuting journalists so they feel comfortable vomiting the most insensitive things. While I understand the sacrifices they make to report from the outside, I know how egoistic some of them (some of us) can be. I’m familiar with why journalists love their practice, regardless of whether they are indigenous to the land they report on. It’s absolutely not the pay, not even close. It’s the unseen reward to our inflated sense of self, mixed with wanting to be a fancier kind of activist, changing the course of history with the words and footage we document. But between old-school journalism and the current era, the truth has been twisted. The honorable bias to human rights was replaced with “neutrality” to protect war crimes.

I listen to one more colleague repeating the word “neutral” and I feel myself shut down. I am tired. Not just from the physical exhaustion of the job, but from a deep bone level burnout of watching my colleagues beautify my family’s murder.

You spend years documenting the slaughter, watching the world scroll past your trauma, and eventually, the grief just rots you from the inside. Being a Palestinian journalist means you don’t get to clock out. The ability to dissociate from the people I’m telling stories about is impossible. It is a luxury I will never experience, no matter how much money I have, no matter how smooth my accent, or how assimilated I become in exile. Dissociation is only possible if you don’t live the story, don’t belong to it, and surely don’t suffer its consequences. That will never be the case for Palestinian journalists.

We see the world clearly, too clearly, which makes life for those of us in exile the closest it can be to a life sentence. I learned this in Washington DC, after rounds and rounds on Capitol Hill, where I saw why Israel, as a settler colonial entity, hasn’t been dismantled yet. It wasn’t just the funding for the genocide. It was the profound indifference fed to the people by the media and government alike. We will always have the open genocidal maniacs who want the planet to burn. But we don’t lose because of them. We lose because of the far larger number of people who simply do not care. They watch our freedom disappear and treat it as someone else’s problem, never realizing the same will come for them once it is done with us.

That indifference is what allows war criminals to move freely through our cities and burnout cannot be an excuse to stop resisting. The presence of these people should not be normalized. They should not be in our restaurants, our parks, or on the bus next to children’s strollers. They shouldn’t be walking their dogs next to ours. I do not want an IOF soldier anywhere near the air I breathe. And to get them out of our spaces, we need to identify them.

And if I had a penny for every time Western journalists published reports without naming the perpetrators, I would be a multi billionaire by now. This is why we have to expose the passive voice and the concealed records. Hiding behind redacted files is no different than the Epstein documents, released by the very same ruling class that created the monsters in the first place, just to manage public outrage.

Today, I am publishing the verified names, units, and documented crimes of dual citizens and Israeli settlers who willingly joined the Israeli occupation forces to participate in the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

This is not the full list. The Zionist state of Israel deliberately withholds the identities of the 50,632 dual citizens serving in its occupation forces. But Palestinian-led accountability campaigns like the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF) have recently expanded their legal filings to name these perpetrators and hold them accountable.

Dual Citizens Fighting for the IOF

1. Jake Burkons

Origin: United States / Israel

Unit: Company D, 603rd Combat Engineering Battalion, 7th Armoured Brigade

Accused of: Systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza. Enlisted post-October 7, 2023.

Where: Reported to the U.S. DOJ and Sri Lankan authorities by the Hind Rajab Foundation.

2. Shimon Avi (Avichai) Zuckerman

Origin: Germany / Israel

Unit: Combat Engineer, 8219th Battalion, 551st Brigade

Accused of: Filming and boasting about bombing and erasing residential areas in Gaza.

Where: War crimes complaint filed in Germany by the Hind Rajab Foundation.

3. Rom (Ron) Kovtun

Origin: Ukraine / Israel

Unit: Sniper, 424th “Shaked” Battalion

Accused of: War crimes and genocide as a sniper in Gaza.

Where: Criminal complaint filed in Chile by the Hind Rajab Foundation; Chilean courts have recognized authority to investigate.

4. Alon ben Sira

Origin: Belgium / Israel

Unit: Sniper, 9th Sniper Platoon (“Ghost Unit” / Refaim), Auxiliary Company, 202nd Paratroopers Battalion

Accused of: War crimes involving sniper operations, including alleged targeting of civilians and support for controlled demolitions (Gaza City, Khan Younis, Nasser Hospital area).

Where: Criminal complaint filed in Belgium by HRF (builds on earlier Association belgo-palestinienne filing). HRF notes hundreds of Belgian-Israeli dual nationals have served.

5. Barel Kriel

Origin: Germany / Israel

Unit: Tank commander

Accused of: War crimes (including alleged bombing of a civilian vehicle and related terrorist acts).

Where: Criminal complaint filed in Germany by HRF.

6. Almog Harari

Origin: (Netherlands resident- Israel)

Unit: 432nd Battalion (Tzabar), Givati Brigade

Accused of: War crimes, crimes against humanity, and acts of genocide (participation in forcible transfer and destruction of civilian infrastructure / school complex under the so called “Generals’ Plan”).

Where: Criminal complaint filed in the Netherlands by HRF.

7. Sean Gor

Origin: (Lithuanian links reported)

Unit: IOF soldier

Accused of: War crimes in Gaza.

Where: HRF petitioned Lithuania’s Constitutional Court after prosecutors declined to investigate.

8. Roei Haimatan

Origin: Israeli (complaint filed in Czech Republic)

Unit: Givati Brigade

Accused of: Involvement in genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

Where: Criminal complaint filed with Prague Municipal Public Prosecutor’s Office (universal jurisdiction basis).

9. Yair Ohana

Origin: Israeli

Unit: Officer

Accused of: War crimes and genocide.

Where: Preliminary investigation opened in Greece after HRF complaint; HRF has submitted additional evidence.

10. Itay Cukierkopf

Origin: (Argentine links)

Unit: Tank crew member (linked to 52nd Armoured Battalion / Vampire Empire Company in Hind Rajab-related filing)

Accused of: Involvement in the killing of Hind Rajab, family members, and paramedics

Where: Case filed in Argentina and also referenced in HRF’s ICC Article 15 filing.

Israeli Settlers

11. Yuval Vagdani