Café in Athens Bans IDF Soldiers, Cites Gaza "War Crimes"

A café in Athens, Greece, has stirred a hornet’s nest by slapping up a sign that calls out IDF soldiers, branding them perpetrators of “genocidal crimes” against Palestinians.

Written in English and Hebrew, the sign flat-out tells IDF soldiers to steer clear of the cafe, pitching itself as a bold stand for Palestine.

This isn’t just a one-off in Athens. The city’s got a pulse of pro-Palestinian feeling, with protests slamming Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank popping up regularly.

X posts flag other local spots, like another café waving a sign for “Palestinian resistance.” But let’s not paint the whole town with one brush—there’s no proof Athens is a hotbed of Jew-hatred. Greece keeps ties with Israel, and while some fringe groups, like those claiming 2025 bomb attacks for Palestine’s cause, make noise, they don’t speak for everyone.

Fans of the sign call it "gutsy", tying it to global pushes like Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) to pressure Israel. Critics, though, slam it for targeting soldiers without mentioning Hamas’s bloodbath, arguing it stokes division.

Zooming out, the heat on IDF soldiers isn’t just signs in Greece. Since October 2023, at least 12 complaints have been lodged against IDF soldiers in countries like Brazil, Sri Lanka, and the Netherlands for alleged war crimes in Gaza, per a January 2025 Channel 12 report.

The Hind Rajab Foundation, a Belgium-based group, has been leading the charge, filing cases based on soldiers’ own social media posts—think videos of home demolitions or looting. Take Yuval Vagdani, a 21-year-old reservist and Nova survivor, who faced a war crimes probe in Brazil in 2025 over posts showing him in Gaza. He bolted to Argentina, then the U.S., with Israel’s help.

Israel’s fighting back, setting up a task force to shield soldiers from legal traps abroad and tightening social media rules to keep troops’ posts from fueling complaints.

The IDF’s internal probes rarely lead to convictions, but Israel has called out these overseas cases for what they are: antisemitic ploys to undermine its defense.