Israel helps former soldier leave Brazil over investigation into alleged war crimes in Gaza

JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel has helped a former soldier leave Brazil after legal action was initiated against him by a group accusing Israelis of war crimes in the Gaza Strip based in part on soldiers' social media posts.

Israel’s Foreign Ministry on Sunday said it had helped the former soldier safely leave Brazil on a commercial flight after what it described as “anti-Israel elements” sought an investigation last week. It warned Israelis against posting on social media about their military service.

The Hind Rajab Foundation, named for a 5-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza, said Brazilian authorities had launched an investigation into the soldier after it filed a complaint based on video footage, geolocation data and photographs showing him taking part in the demolition of civilian homes.

The foundation described the move as a “pivotal step toward accountability for crimes committed in Gaza" during nearly 15 months of war.

There was no immediate comment from Brazilian authorities. Brazilian media reported Saturday that the investigation was ordered by an on-call federal judge in Brazil’s Federal District. The decision was issued on Dec. 30 but first reported over the weekend.

Israel has faced heavy international criticism over its war against Hamas in Gaza, with the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defense minister. The International Court of Justice is separately investigating genocide allegations.

The Brazil case raised the prospect that rank-and-file Israeli troops could also face prosecution while abroad.

Israel rejects the international allegations, saying its forces in Gaza are acting in accordance with international law and that any violations are punished within its judicial systems. It blames Hamas for civilian deaths, saying the militant group conceals tunnels and other infrastructure in residential buildings, necessitating their demolition.

Throughout the war, Israeli soldiers have posted numerous videos from Gaza that appear to show them rummaging through homes and blowing up or burning residential buildings. In some, they chant racist slogans or boast about destroying the Palestinian territory.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting around 250. Some 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third believed to be dead.

Israel’s offensive has killed over 45,800 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local health officials. They say women and children make up over half the dead but do not distinguish between civilians and militants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

Israeli airstrikes on Sunday killed five people in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, four in the southern city of Khan Younis and three in Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza, according to health workers. Gaza's Health Ministry said at least 88 people had been killed in the past 24 hours.

Israel's military in a statement said it struck a Hamas command center in Khan Younis and an Islamic Jihad militant in Deir al-Balah.

The war has caused widespread destruction in Gaza and displaced around 90% of the population of 2.3 million people, with many forced to flee multiple times.

In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli forces killed a member of the Palestinian security services, calling him a wanted militant.

Israel's paramilitary Border Police said Sunday they carried out an operation in Meithaloun village overnight to arrest Hassan Rabaiya. They said he was killed in a shootout while trying to escape. Israeli authorities released helmet-cam footage that showed police blowing up what they called an explosives lab in his home.

The Palestinian security services identified Rabaiya as a first lieutenant in its Preventive Security force, saying he was killed while “performing his national duty.”

Meithaloun is near the West Bank city of Jenin, an epicenter of Israeli-Palestinian violence. The Palestinian Authority has been waging a rare crackdown on militants in Jenin, angering many Palestinians.

Separately on Sunday, the Palestinian Health Ministry in the West Bank said a 17-year-old boy was killed by Israeli gunfire in the urban Askar refugee camp in Nablus. The military said individuals hurled explosives at soldiers operating in the area, who then opened fire and hit one of them.

The internationally recognized Palestinian Authority exercises limited autonomy in parts of the West Bank and cooperates with Israel on security matters. But Israel has long accused it of inciting violence and turning a blind eye to militants, while Palestinian critics view it as a corrupt and ineffective body that aids the occupation.

The West Bank has seen a surge of violence during the war in Gaza. Israel captured both Gaza and the West Bank, as well as east Jerusalem, in the 1967 Mideast war, and the Palestinians want all three territories for their future state.

Shurafa reported from Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip. Associated Press writer Mauricio Savarese in Rio de Janeiro contributed.

Follow AP’s war coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/israel-hamas-war

Israeli demonstrators outside the prime minister's office in Jerusalem hold photos of Liri Albag and other hostages during a protest calling for their release from being held in the Gaza Strip by the Hamas militant group, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Ohad Zwigenberg)

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Relatives of Mohammed Al Mabhouh,15, who was killed by the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, mourn over his body at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A tent camp for displaced Palestinians is set up amid destroyed buildings in the Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A tent camp for displaced Palestinians is set up amid destroyed buildings in the Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A tent camp for displaced Palestinians is set up amid destroyed buildings in the Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

A tent camp for displaced Palestinians is set up amid destroyed buildings in the Khan Younis refugee camp, southern Gaza Strip, Saturday, Jan. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Mourners carry the bodies of their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, during their funerl at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Palestinians mourn their relatives killed in the Israeli bombardment of the Gaza Strip, at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, Sunday, Jan. 5, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

ROME (AP) — Pope Francis on Monday named the first woman to head a major Vatican office, appointing an Italian nun, Sister Simona Brambilla, to become prefect of the department responsible for all the Catholic Church's religious orders.

The appointment marks a major step in Francis’ aim to give women more leadership roles in governing the church. While women have been named to No. 2 spots in some Vatican offices, never before has a woman been named prefect of a dicastery or congregation of the Holy See Curia, the central governing organ of the Catholic Church.

The historic nature of Brambilla’s appointment was confirmed by Vatican Media, which headlined its report “Sister Simona Brambilla is the first woman prefect in the Vatican.”

The office is one of the most important in the Vatican. Known officially as the Dicastery for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, it is responsible for every religious order, from the Jesuits and Franciscans to the Mercy nuns and smaller newer movements.

The appointment means that a woman is now responsible for the women who do much of the church's work — the world's 600,000 Catholic nuns — as well as the 129,000 Catholic priests who belong to religious orders.

“It should be a woman. Long ago it should have been, but thank God,” said Thomas Groome, a senior professor of theology and religious education at Boston College who has long called for the ordination of women priests. "It’s a small step along the way but symbolically, it shows an openness and a new horizon or possibility.”

Groome noted that nothing theologically would now prevent Francis from naming Brambilla a cardinal, since cardinals don't technically have to be ordained priests.

Naming as a cardinal “would be automatic for the head of a dicastery if she was a man,” he said.

But in an indication of the novelty of the appointment and that perhaps Francis was not ready to go that far, the pope simultaneously named as a co-leader, or “pro-prefect,” a cardinal: Ángel Fernández Artime, a Salesian.

The appointment, announced in the Vatican daily bulletin, lists Brambilla first as “prefect” and Fernández second as her co-leader. Theologically, it appears Francis believed the second appointment was necessary since the head of the office must be able to celebrate Mass and perform other sacramental functions that currently can only be done by men.

Natalia Imperatori-Lee, chair of the religion and philosophy department at Manhattan University, was initially excited by Brambilla’s appointment, only to learn that Francis had named a male co-prefect.

“One day, I pray, the church will see women for the capable leaders they already are,” she said. “It’s ridiculous to think she needs help running a Vatican dicastery. Moreover, for as long as men have been in charge of this division of Vatican governance, they have governed men’s and women’s religious communities.”

Brambilla, 59, is a member of the Consolata Missionaries religious order and had served as the No. 2 in the religious orders department since 2023. She takes over from the retiring Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, 77.

Francis made Brambilla’s appointment possible with his 2022 reform of the Holy See’s founding constitution, which allowed laypeople, including women, to head a dicastery and become prefects.

Brambilla, a nurse, worked as a missionary in Mozambique and led her Consolata order as superior from 2011-2023, when Francis made her secretary of the religious orders department.

One major challenge she will face is the plummeting number of nuns worldwide. It has fallen by around 10,000 a year for the past several years, from around 750,000 in 2010 to 600,000 last year, according to Vatican statistics.

Brambilla's appointment is the latest move by Francis to show by example how women can take leadership roles within the Catholic hierarchy, albeit without allowing them to be ordained as priests.

Catholic women have long complained of second-class status in an institution that reserves the priesthood for men.

Francis has upheld the ban on female priests and tamped down hopes that women could be ordained as deacons.

But there has been a marked increase in the percentage of women working in the Vatican during his papacy, including in leadership positions, from 19.3% in 2013 to 23.4% today, according to statistics reported by Vatican News. In the Curia alone, the percentage of women is 26%.

Among the women holding leadership positions are Sister Raffaella Petrini, the first-ever female secretary general of the Vatican City State, responsible for the territory’s health care system, police force and main source of revenue, the Vatican Museums, which are led by a laywoman, Barbara Jatta.

Another nun, Sister Alessandra Smerilli, is the No. 2 in the Vatican development office while several women have been appointed to under-secretary positions, including the French nun, Sister Nathalie Becquart, in the synod of bishops' office.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

Pope Francis kisses the baby Jesus as he presides over an Epiphany mass in St.Peter's Basilica, at the Vatican, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Pope Francis waves during the Angelus noon prayer on the occasion of the Epiphany day from the window of his studio overlooking St.Peter's Square, at the Vatican, Monday, Jan. 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)