First Gaza genocide case against French nationals filed in Paris
A French organisation and a French-Palestinian woman filed a complaint on Tuesday against the French managers of two pro-Israel NGOs for "complicity in genocide and incitement to commit genocide in Gaza", according to a statement shared with Middle East Eye.
The complaint - against the groups "Israel is Forever" and Tzav-9 - targets actions by French nationals to block humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the coastal strip devastated by Israel's onslaught, which has killed more than 44,282 people since October 2023.
The plaintiffs are the French Jewish Union for Peace and a woman who has 13 family members in the Gaza Strip. They are supported by the Urgence Palestine NGO.
The complaint, filed with the senior investigating judge of the crimes against humanity division of the Paris judicial court, is the first brought under the grounds of genocide, the most serious in the hierarchy of crimes, before the French courts.
In the 70-page complaint, the petitioners denounce "the organisation, participation and call to participate in concrete actions blocking humanitarian aid to the occupied territory of Gaza, in particular by physically preventing the passage of trucks at border crossings controlled by the Israeli army".
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"These acts committed by French nationals are part of the total blockade of the Gaza Strip, while Israel exercises exclusive and effective control over the territory's land, sea and air borders, and is already imposing drastic restrictions on the delivery of humanitarian aid, on which civilians depend for survival," the statement read.
"This deliberate subjection of the Gaza population to conditions of life likely to bring about its destruction, and more particularly the use of starvation, constitutes the crime of genocide under both international and French law," it added.
The applicants argue that French courts have jurisdiction over any French national who takes part in or incites blocking aid, which they argued may amount to the crime of complicity in genocide.
They chose to institute a civil action, which systematically leads to the opening of a judicial investigation, in order to avoid the case being closed without further action by the public prosecutor.
'A game changer'
In mid-November, a UN investigative committee concluded that "Israel's warfare in Gaza is consistent with the characteristics of genocide".
"Through its siege over Gaza, obstruction of humanitarian aid, alongside targeted attacks and killing of civilians and aid workers, […] Israel is intentionally causing death, starvation and serious injury, using starvation as a method of war and inflicting collective punishment on the Palestinian population," the committee said.
In January, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had already ordered Israel to take "immediate and effective measures" to protect Palestinians in Gaza from the risk of genocide by ensuring sufficient humanitarian assistance and enabling basic services.
Since the start of the war, some Israeli citizens have been seen trying to prevent aid convoys from entering Gaza.
In July, the US State Department sanctioned Tzav 9, describing it as "a violent extremist Israeli group", for "blocking, harassing, and damaging convoys carrying lifesaving humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians in Gaza."
"For months, individuals from Tzav 9 have repeatedly sought to thwart the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza, including by blockading roads, sometimes violently, along their route from Jordan to Gaza, including in the West Bank. They also have damaged aid trucks and dumped life-saving humanitarian aid onto the road," the State Department reported.
'The French justice system can no longer continue its repressive headlong rush while the ICC is indicating the direction of history, towards the end of Israel's impunity'
- Rafik Chekkat, lawyer
The French complaint comes a few days after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former defence minister, Yoav Gallant, as well as Hamas military leader Mohammed Deif (presumed dead), for crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Netanyahu and Gallant have been issued arrest warrants for "the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts".
The ICC stated that there were reasonable grounds to believe that the two Israelis "intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival," including food, water and medicine, and played a role in impeding humanitarian aid.
Middle East Eye explained last week that the warrants could trigger domestic cases against other citizens of Israel, particularly dual nationals in European countries, because the court has found that crimes have been committed.
"Anyone else involved in the commission of the crimes may be brought to justice at a domestic level but also at an international level," Triestino Marinello, an international human rights lawyer representing Palestinian victims at the ICC, told MEE.
Game changer
According to French lawyer Rafik Chekkat, the arrest warrants "will definitely be a game changer on the issue of dual nationals".
"Until now, we were stuck for lack of a major decision. There were certainly the ICJ opinions on a 'plausible risk' of genocide, but it was rather vague," Chekkat told MEE.
"This is the first significant step towards recognising war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza and the West Bank. So yes, Netanyahu and Gallant benefit from the presumption of innocence. But the ICC does not issue warrants if it does not have solid evidence that these crimes have been committed."
According to Chekkat, the other point on which the warrants could have an impact is "the repression of the Palestine solidarity movement in France," as hundreds of investigations under the country's "apology for terrorism" law have been launched by the French authorities since 7 October.
"The French justice system can no longer continue its repressive headlong rush while the ICC is indicating the direction of history, towards the end of Israel's impunity," Chekkat told MEE.
In September, the French National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office dropped a complaint by NGOs against a French-Israeli soldier for the alleged torture of Palestinian prisoners.
According to a judicial source, the complaint was dismissed due to facts being "insufficiently characterised" and supporting evidence "not being sufficient to establish the existence of possible material acts of complicity."
For the lawyers of the NGOs who filed the complaint, the dismissal of the case was "incomprehensible" given the evidence they had provided.
"With this decision, the [National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office] shows a desire not to shed light on the involvement, in Gaza, of dual nationals in war crimes... This desire can only be political," the lawyers said.
In 2010, the European Court of Human Rights in several judgments found that the French public prosecutor was not independent of the executive power.
Despite a reform of the judiciary in 2023, the independence of the public prosecutor's office from the executive, particularly in matters of appointments and discipline, is not yet guaranteed and the public prosecutors have called for reform to strengthen their impartiality.
The National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor's Office, on the other hand, has long since opened an investigation into "terrorist assassinations" relating to the attacks led by Hamas in Israel on 7 October 2023.
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