High-profile human rights lawyer Amal Clooney published an expert report Monday supporting the International Criminal Court prosecutor’s earlier request for arrest warrants for individuals including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar over war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and the enclave since Oct. 7.
ICC prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement Monday that he had applied to the court’s pre-trial chamber to issue arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity against Sinwar, head of Hamas’ military wing Mohammed Deif and Qatar-based Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. The statement listed the eight charges of "extermination," "murder," "rape and other acts of sexual violence," "torture" and "other inhumane acts" as crimes against humanity, and "taking of hostages," "cruel treatment" and "outrages upon personal dignity … in the context of captivity" as war crimes.
Khan also said he is seeking warrants for Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing Israel’s government and military of “intentionally and systematically” depriving civilians in all parts of Gaza of objects “indispensable to human survival” including food, water, fuel and medicine.
Independent legal expert panel
Amal Alamuddin Clooney, a British-Lebanese prosecutor and spouse of actor George Clooney, played an instrumental role in advising Khan in his decision. Clooney said in a Monday statement posted on her website that in January, the ICC prosecutor asked her to assist him with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza. Clooney agreed and joined a panel of international legal experts including former international tribunal judges and ICC special advisers for the task.
Clooney, the co-founder of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, is one of six legal experts supporting the case. The other five are Adrian Fulford, Theodor Meron, Danny Friedman, Helena Kennedy and Elizabeth Wilmhurst. In the statement, the group said it unanimously determined that the three Hamas leaders committed "war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murder and crimes of sexual violence."
Amal Clooney announces the conclusions of the Panel of Experts in International Law, convened by @KarimKhanQC to advise on @IntlCrimCourt arrest warrant applications for crimes in Israel and Palestine. Read her @FinancialTimes oped. https://t.co/cP4c9hhzUG
— Clooney Foundation for Justice (@ClooneyFDN) May 20, 2024
She also said the panel unanimously concluded on reasonable grounds that Netanyahu and Gallant have carried out "war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination."
“As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s. I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law,” she wrote. “So I support the historic step that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine.”
She added that she hoped witnesses would cooperate with the ongoing investigation, for which the panel had examined witness statements, expert evidence, official communications, photographs and videos.
“And I hope that justice will prevail in a region that has already suffered too much,” Clooney added.
Khan's requests for warrants will now be considered by an ICC panel of three judges, though no time frame has been set. The Hague-based ICC, established in 2002, investigates and prosecutes individuals over crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Both Hamas and Israel reacted furiously to Khan's requests for arrest warrants.
Despite threatening to resign from Netanyahu's government if he did not have a clear day-after strategy for Gaza, Gantz defended the prime minister.
"Drawing parallels between the leaders of a democratic country determined to defend itself from despicable terror to leaders of a bloodthirsty terror organization is a deep distortion of justice and blatant moral bankruptcy," he said.
Hamas, meanwhile, demanded that Khan revoke the requests for arrest warrants.
Having Clooney's name behind the case is already giving Khan's mission a publicity boost. She is a renowned human rights lawyer who has represented 426 Yezidi victims of ISIS and 126 survivors of war crimes in Darfur. She has championed anti-corruption and press freedom voices in Azerbaijan, the Philippines and Egypt. Such a public profile could complicate Netanyahu's and Hamas' approach to discrediting the case.
