George Clooney’s lawyer and wife, Amal Clooney, is among a group of experts who advised the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the arrest warrants issued against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
In a message on the website of the “Clooney foundation for justice”, founded with her actor husband George Clooney, the lawyer and human rights activist explains that she was contacted “more than four months ago” by the prosecutor of the ICC to join a group of international law experts tasked with examining “evidence of alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity” committed in Israel and the Gaza Strip. “Our legal conclusions were unanimous,” she assured. “We have unanimously established that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Hamas leaders Yahya Sinouar, Ismaïl Haniyeh and Mohammed Deif have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, assassination and sexual crimes. .
The international law lawyer protests
We have unanimously established that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the use of famine as a weapon of war, assassination, persecution and extermination,” she wrote. Regarding the requests for arrest warrants requested on Monday by prosecutor Karim Khan, the Lebanese-British lawyer assured that she supported this “historic step” aimed at “bringing justice to the victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine” .
Everything you need to know about the International Criminal Court
The war was triggered by the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli soil on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP report based on official Israeli data. . Of the 252 people taken as hostages, 124 are still detained in Gaza, including 37 dead according to the army.