Death of two French children in Gaza: a complaint for genocide has been filed in Paris

This complaint, with a civil action, announced Friday by lawyer Arié Alimi and filed with the Crimes Against Humanity Unit of the Paris Judicial Court, aims to secure the appointment of an investigating judge. The Human Rights League intends to join it.

The French nationality of the victims could trigger the direct jurisdiction of the French courts and lead them to have to rule on these accusations of "genocide", categorically rejected by Israel as "scandalous", while at this stage, legal initiatives in France in this direction have not succeeded.

The complaint concerns the deaths of Janna and Abderrahim Abudaher, then aged 6 and 9, in a house in the northern Gaza Strip "hit by two F16 missiles fired by the Israeli army" on October 24, 2023, 17 days after the unprecedented attack by the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas on Israeli soil.

The 48-page complaint was filed by Jacqueline Rivault, the children's maternal grandmother, for murder, crimes against humanity, genocide, and complicity in both crimes. According to the complaint, the "extreme violence" and "regular bombardments" by the Israeli army in Gaza after October 7 led the family to leave their apartment on the evening of October 22, seeking refuge in another family home and then a school.

They were eventually hit by two missiles in a new house "north of the Gaza Strip, between Fallujah and Beit Lahia," one of them entering "through the roof and the second directly into the bedroom where the family was staying."

Mother convicted of financing terrorism

Abderrahim died "instantly," and Janna shortly after being transferred to the hospital, according to the complaint. Their brother, Omar, was seriously injured but still lives in Gaza, as does his mother, Yasmine Z. Also injured, Yasmine Z. was convicted in 2019 in her absence in Paris of financing terrorism for distributing money in Gaza to members of Islamic Jihad and Hamas between 2012 and 2013.

She is the subject of an arrest warrant. After being contacted several times in the past about the case of these two children, the anti-terrorism prosecutor's office last responded at the end of 2024 that it had not opened an investigation.

The complaint puts forward the qualification of genocide because this bombing is presented as part of a project aimed at "eliminating the Palestinian population and subjecting them to living conditions likely to bring about the destruction of their group." The complaint is filed against unknown persons but specifically targets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government and the IDF.

Israel is facing growing international pressure to end the devastating war on Gaza, which Hamas launched on October 7, 2023, and has killed 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians.

In response, Israel launched a retaliatory military campaign that killed more than 54,600 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to data from the Hamas government's Gaza Health Ministry, deemed reliable by the UN. Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes.

The International Federation for Human Rights was the first in December 2023 to declare that Israel was committing genocide, followed by Amnesty International a year later and Human Rights Watch (HRW).

In January 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) called on Israel to prevent any act of genocide. The UN's humanitarian chief also urged world leaders in mid-May to "act to prevent genocide."