Grandmother files war crimes case in Paris over Gaza deaths
PARIS - A grandmother has filed a criminal case in Paris, accusing Israeli authorities of killing her two French grandchildren in Gaza in October 2023, her lawyer told AFP on Friday.
The case, lodged with the Paris tribunal's war crimes and crimes against humanity unit by lawyer Arie Alimi, calls for the appointment of a judge to open a formal probe.
The Human Rights League, a French civil liberties group, intends to join the case.
The victims' French nationality could give French courts jurisdiction over the genocide accusations, claims Israel has dismissed as "scandalous".
So far, such legal attempts in France have not succeeded.
The case involves the deaths of siblings Janna and Abderrahim Abudaher, aged six and nine, in a northern Gaza home struck by two Israeli F-16 missiles on 24 October 2023 - 17 days after Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel.
Filed by siblings' maternal grandmother, Jacqueline Rivault, the 48-page complaint accuses Israeli officials of murder, genocide and crimes against humanity.
The family fled their apartment on 22 October due to intense Israeli air strikes, seeking shelter first in another home, then in a school, the complaint says.
They were eventually struck by two missiles in a new house "in northern Gaza, between Al-Faluja and Beit Lahia", one entering "through the roof and the second directly into the room where the family was".
Abderrahim died instantly, and Janna soon after reaching the hospital, the complaint says. Their brother Omar was seriously wounded but survives in Gaza with their mother, Yasmine Z.
Yasmine Z. was convicted in absentia in Paris in 2019 for financing terrorism, accused of sending funds to Islamic Jihad and Hamas in 2012–2013. An arrest warrant remains in effect.
France's anti-terror prosecutor last told AFP in late 2024 that no investigation had been opened into the children's deaths.
The genocide claim stems from allegations that the strike was part of a plan to "eliminate the Palestinian population and subject them to living conditions likely to lead to the destruction of their group".
Though formally against unnamed parties, the complaint explicitly targets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government and the military.
Israel is under growing global pressure to end the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas's 7 October attack that killed 1,218 people in Israel, mostly civilians.
Israel's military response has killed over 54,600 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Gaza's Hamas-run Health Ministry, whose figures the UN considers credible.
Netanyahu and ex-defence minister Yoav Gallant are both subject to ICC arrest warrants for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
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