Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, wife of actor George Clooney and member of the panel that advised the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Gaza conflict, assured that there was unanimity when requesting arrest warrants against the top leaders. of Israel and Hamas. “The conclusions of the panel of experts were unanimous despite the diverse origins of its components,” the British lawyer herself acknowledged in a statement published on the website of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, created together with her husband.
Clooney, who has represented victims of mass atrocities in other international proceedings, explained in the statement that she was contacted “more than four months ago” by the ICC prosecutor, Karim Khan, who yesterday issued arrest warrants against the Israeli president and his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, as well as the leadership of the Islamic terrorist organization for war crimes and crimes against humanity. “He asked Me to help him evaluate the evidence,” she explained. After which she joined a group of international legal experts to carry out the task.
“I have been part of this group because I believe in the rule of law and the need to protect the lives of civilians. “The law that protects civilians in war was developed more than 100 years ago and applies in every country in the world, regardless of the reasons for a conflict,” Clooney continued in the statement. “I do not accept that any conflict is outside the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator is above the law,” he added.
The eight-person legal panel consisted of renowned legal experts, including Theodor Meron, former president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. “We unanimously conclude that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity, including hostage-taking, murder and crimes of sexual violence.” , he added.
We also “unanimously conclude 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 starvation as a method of warfare, assassination , persecution and extermination,” said the lawyer.
The ICC prosecutor, based in The Hague, Netherlands, has been investigating since 2021 allegations of war crimes allegedly committed since 2014 by the Israeli army and all Palestinian militias in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7 and the subsequent Israeli war in Gaza. A three-judge ICC panel will decide whether to issue the arrest warrants and allow the case to proceed. Judges usually take two months to make those decisions.