It was on October 24th 2023 when Israeli F-16 fighter jets launched an air strike on a site in the north of the Gaza Strip. The missiles hit a house where three children and their mother had found refuge, causing its collapse and killing two of the children; six-year-old Abderrahim was killed immediately, while his nine-year-old sister Janna died on her way to a hospital.
The third child, Omar, who was then aged two, and their mother, Yasmine, survived but suffered multiple injuries.
The tragic story is one of so many others in Gaza, where the tolls of almost daily massacres are often far higher, but the circumstances are unusual because the mother and her children have French nationality. On June 6th, the children’s maternal grandmother, Jacqueline Rivault, from the Paris suburb of Vitry-sur-Seine, filed an official complaint in France for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. It is the first time that a complaint has been filed in France over the fate of French nationals in Gaza.
Rivault is joined in the legal action by the French branch of the League of Human Rights.
Enlargement : Illustration 1
Rivault’s move, said her lawyer, Arié Alimi, is in the hope that the French authorities will launch necessary investigations to determine who is responsible for the deaths of Abderrahim and Janna, and the injuries caused to Omar. “Of course, we don’t have the information that would allow us to name who pushed the button, who took part, who gave the instruction or the orders,” Alimi told Mediapart. “The examining magistrate [in charge of the case] will determine the responsibilities, decide the criminal case and issue the international arrest warrants.”
Rivault said Yasmine continues to suffer from her injuries and both she and Omar are psychologically affected by the attack. Rivault said the reason her daughter did not filed the complaint is to protect the “security” of both her and her husband, who want their home address to be kept secret.
In 2019, a Paris court found Yasmine guilty, in absentia, of funding terrorism. The charge centred on her activities in Gaza in 2012 and 2013 helping to finance members of the Islamic Jihad group and Hamas.
Alimi hopes that Rivault’s complaint will be handed to the magistrates specialised in crimes against humanity, given that it places the deaths and injuries of the children as the result of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide committed by the Israeli military against the Gazan population. It specifically refers to “generalised and/or systematic attacks committed by the Israeli army since numerous years” which have been “executed in accordance with a concerted and acknowledged plan by the Israeli government”.
“The intention of eradicating members of the civilian population is manifest as of the moment when the Israeli army has systematically targeted residential neighbourhoods in which civilians were found,” the complaint reads. “These particularly grave acts were committed against people, part of a national group, targeted because of their membership of the said group.”
An international legal strategy
Explaining the inclusion of acts of genocide in the complaint, Alimi said: “We have a decision by the International Court of Justice that considers the risk of genocide to be plausible given the comments of Israeli leaders, as of October 2023, about the military action [and] which denoted the wish to destroy or cause the disappearance of the population of Gaza. These statements are repeated and perfectly recognised [by the Israeli government] today.”
While the complaint represents the first of its kind filed in France, there have been other moves both in France and other countries by human rights activists and jurists. They include complaints filed in national jurisdictions against Israeli soldiers of dual nationality, and others before the International Criminal Court, which has already issued arrest warrants against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant.
On December 17th 2024, the International Federation for Human Rights (IFHR) and three Palestinian organisations – Al-Haq, Al-Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – filed a complaint in France for war crimes against an Israeli soldier with dual French nationality, identified as “Yoel O”. The complaint accuses the soldier of posting a video on social media in which detained Palestinians are shown in white uniforms, blindfolded and wrists tied, one of whom appears to have been tortured. The soldier can be heard insulting them in French. Clémence Bectarte, a lawyer representing the IFHR, confirmed to Mediapart that the legal procedure was ongoing. The IFHR and its Palestinian partner organisations are planning similar legal action in other European countries targeting Israeli soldiers of dual nationality.
Last October, the Brussels-based Hind Rajab Foundation, named after a five-year-old Palestinian girl shot dead by Israeli forces on January 9th 2024, submitted the names of around one thousand Israeli soldiers it accuses of war crimes to the International Criminal Court. In February, it also filed a complaint for war crimes against Israeli Brigadier General Yehuda Vach and Israeli foreign affairs minister Gideon Sa’ar.
The foundation has launched action in 16 countries where it has traced Israelis who it accuses of, variously, war crimes and genocide, including politicians and company directors as well as members of the military.
The targets are often identified by their own video posts on social media showing their actions in Gaza, as well as publishing photos online of their travels abroad. The Israeli Defence Forces now advise its personnel to avoid publishing such posts, and it masks the faces of troops on photos it releases.
While the nature of the various legal actions differs, the aim is the same, namely to increase the possibilities for recourse when political and diplomatic paths are revealed to be incapable of ending the genocidal conflict, and when the impunity of the Israeli military is total.
“Our complaint will have consequences for international [arrest] warrants,” claimed lawyer Arié Alimi. “The judicial risk is significant for those who take part, to whatever extent, in acts of this type, and we have the hope that they tell themselves the risk of being shut away within their borders is important.”
For IFHR lawyer Clémence Bectarte, the legal action is also aimed at making up for the shortcomings in national jurisdictions. “In a number of countries which have [judicial] services specialised in crimes against humanity and genocides, they have taken the initiative to probe crimes committed in Syria, and then in Ukraine,” she said. “But regarding Gaza, nothing. It’s alarming, and we must make up for that, because it is impossible to not respond to what is happening in Gaza.”
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Graham Tearse