The ex-Hezbollah terrorist behind Hind Rajab Foundation, doxxing IDF soldiers

A leaked Israeli Diaspora Ministry profile on Abou Jahjah described him as a "former Hezbollah operative."

By MICHAEL STARR JANUARY 6, 2025 11:30 Updated: JANUARY 6, 2025 11:34

Dyab Abou Jahjah. (photo credit: SCREENSHOT/X)

Dyab Abou Jahjah, the man behind the Hind Rajab Foundation, which has been doxing Israeli soldiers and seeking legal action against them in foreign states, admitted to joining Hezbollah as a youth and implied that he was returning to Lebanon to fight in the 2006 war, according to press releases by his previous organization and an old New York Times interview.

The Arab European League (AEL), founded by Abou Jahjah, according to the Internet Archive shared on its website a 2003 New York Times profile piece in which the activist admitted to his Hezbollah affiliation. The New York Times related that "he said, he joined the Hezbollah resistance against Israel."

"I had some military training, I'm still very proud of that," Abou Jahjah told NYT in 2003.

Abou Jahjah also admitted that he had lied about a falling out with Hezbollah leadership when he was seeking asylum in Belgium.

"Most asylum seekers invent a story, and I said I had had a conflict with the Hezbollah leaders," Abou Jahjah said. "It was just a low political trick to get my papers."

Dyab Abou Jahjah in Brussels. April 6, 2015. (credit: REUTERS/FRANCOIS LENOIR)

The day after the 2006 Second Lebanon War started, Abou Jahjah announced that he was returning to Lebanon, and may die in some sort of fight against Zionists.

"I don’t want to write anymore, I don’t want to talk anymore,  Palestine is bleeding, Lebanon is bleeding, The whole Arab Nation is bleeding. No words are worth being said, all I am thinking of is to find a way to get into the Homeland, to be there among my people and I will find that way," Abou Jahjah wrote in an archived version of a July 13, 2006 AEL article. "This might be the last text I will write before going home on a trip that might be my last."

Abou Jahjah continued "I lived my life for this Nation, and not a hair in me will hesitate in laying it down for this Nation too. The fight for Arab Unity, Liberation, Freedom and Socialism is the essence of Justice in the Homeland and beyond. Some people call it a fight for god, some people call it a fight for mankind, in essence it is one and the same fight for freedom and justice."

"From within the darkness and the orgy of blood, a sword will shine, and the brave will murmur: 'What a beautiful day to die,'" said Abou Jahjah.

In a follow-up article in which only the first paragraph was included in website snapshots, Abou Jahjah confirmed that he was in Lebanon, claiming victory.

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Hezbollah affiliated news outlet Al-Akhbar used to have an author profile for Abou Jahjah, but it has been deleted.

NGO Monitor in October published a photograph that it claimed captured Abou Jahjah holding a Kalachnikov rifle and wearing a combat harness. In a 2015 blog post, Abou Jahjah claimed that he was defending his home from the possible threat of an armed Salafist neighbor when his wife photographed him because she "found it a sexy sight." He said that others had used it as proof that he was a terrorist.

A leaked Israeli Diaspora Ministry profile on Abou Jahjah described him as a "former Hezbollah operative."

Diaspora Minister Amichai Chikli said on Sunday night that Abou Jahjah had previously declared ties to Hezbollah, and claimed that he had led "Hezbollah tours in Europe."

According to NYT, Flemish Nationalist party member Filip Dewinter described Abou Jahjah as "a foreign agent, directed and paid from abroad."

AEL, which its founder described in a 2005 letter as "an Arab Nationalist organization that upholds Islam as a source of inspiration" routinely published statements from Hezbollah on its website, articles praising the group, and appeared to have published a 2007 interview with current Hezbollah secretary-general Naim Qassem. When Hezbollah second-in-command Imad Mughniyah was killed in 2008, Abou Jahjah warned that the terrorist group may respond with "an era of total confrontation with no boundaries and no taboos."

On the first anniversary of the 200 war, the group described "divine victory"  achieved by "the Arab resistance led by Hezbollah."

Abou Jahjah has a long history of support for terrorist organizations besides Hezbollah, issuing support for the October 7 terrorist attacks.

"These Palestinian resistance fighters entering these settlements are all refugees whose parents were ethnically cleansed from these villages in 1948/1967," Abou Jahjah wrote on X on October 7.  "Anyone neglecting this fact is not seriously engaging in a conversation but is spreading Israeli propaganda, whether willfully or not."

In 2002 Abou Jahjah led rallies praising the Second Intifada, according to the AEL. At the rally Abou Jahjah called for “unconditional support for the Palestinian resistance of the occupier by any means necessary and without any complexes.” In 2003 the AEL commemorated the anniversary of the first Intifada, assuring that it would remain "loyal to the Intifada and the Palestinian resistance. The AEL is confident that the peoples resistance in all her forms, is the way that shall lead to victory."

While Abou Jahjah has stated that he does not agree with Hamas ideologically, he explained that he supported it because of its role in the "resistance" movement.

"It is also a glorious day because the choice for resistance and for the total liberation of Palestine from the sea to the river Jordan, all of historical Palestine prevailed," Abou Jahjah said in 2006 in response to a Hamas electoral victory.

AEL condemned the assassination of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin in 2004, saying that it was "deeply grieved with his loss," and asserted that he was "a role model for a lot of us."

In 2005, AEL issued a tribute to Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Factions terrorist Georges Abdallah, who was involved in the murder of an Israeli diplomat and US military officer.

Abou Jahjah had previously supported the killing of American, British and Dutch soldiers for their involvement in the war in Iraq. Flemish newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws reported that he had said that “I consider every death of an American, British or Dutch soldier as a victory."

Abou Jahjah claimed that he had been misrepresented in a 2015 blog post, explaining that he did not rejoice in any death, but "Rejoicing the victory of people's resistance against occupation, is another matter."

"Every soldier taking part in an illegal occupation is a legitimate target for resistance," said Abou Jahjah.

The AEL condemned American forces for their battle in Falujah in 2004, and saluted the "Iraqi resistance."

The Guardian reported in 2015 that while he called the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks criminals, Abou Jahjah said that the terrorist attack left him with a “sweet revenge feeling."

“It was very difficult for us to realise that we are able of experiencing a feeling of satisfaction after such atrocity,” he continued, according to the Guardian.

Abou Jahjah in 2005 issued support for the removal of Israelis from Israel to move them to Germany, as suggested by then-Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

"Those responsible for solving a problem are those who created it," said Abou Jahjah.

Abou Jahjah and Lebanon-born Hind Rajab Foundation co-founder Karim Hassoun both signed a 2009 appeal calling for the removal of Hamas and other Palestinian groups from  the European list of proscribed terrorist organizations. This call echoed 2002 AEL statements demanding "all Palestinian resistance groups would be taken off the terrorist list."

"The decision of Europe to extend its so-called terrorist list to include Palestinian resistance organizations is totally unfair and unacceptable. It is unfair because it is criminalizing the struggle of a people that is under siege and under attack by one of the mightiest armies on earth, a people fighting for its freedom with the limited possibilities it has. If you want the Palestinian people to stop using suicide-bombings give it the possibility to destroy the tanks that are blowing Palestinian children into pieces," said AEL. "AEL will keep on supporting the legitimate resistance of the Palestinian people until the total defeat of Zionism and the total liberation of Palestine , and the establishing of a democratic Palestinian state with Jerusalem (Al Quds) as its capital and the return of all Palestinian refugees to their homes."

Chikli also noted on Sunday that Hassoun was also a supporter of Hezbollah, having been photographed wearing a Hezbollah and issuing praise of Samir Kuntar, who led the murders of members of an Israeli family in 1979.

"During his tenure as head of the AEL, the organization was convicted in a Dutch court for disseminating Holocaust denial content," said Chikli.

Holocaust denial 

Reuters reported in 2010 that AEL published a Holocaust denial cartoons, including one in which characters counted non-Jewish Auschwitz corpses so that they could reach a figure of six million Jewish Holocaust victims. A Dutch court fined the AEL 2,500 euros.

Abou Jahjah asserted in a 2015 blog that the cartoon was made in response to Dutch cartoons that mocked the Prophet Mohammed, in an effort to expose double standards in freedom of speech.

Hassoun asserted on Facebook on October 8 that Palestinians did not invade Israel on October 7, but were "simply returning home and reclaiming their properties" and said on December 9 that Hamas should have taken more hostages.

"I condemn them for not having taken 500 or a 1000 hostages instead of just 200," said Hassoun. "These hostages could have been treated so well and returned safe and sound to their families, all while trading them for Palestinian hostages, freeing them from Zionist Israeli dungeons."