A grandmother has filed a criminal complaint in Paris, accusing Israeli authorities of killing her two French grandchildren during the October 2023 assault on Gaza, her lawyer told AFP on Friday.
The case was submitted to the Paris tribunal’s war crimes and crimes against humanity unit by attorney Arie Alimi, who is seeking the appointment of an investigative judge to launch a formal inquiry.
France’s Human Rights League has announced plans to join the case.
Because the victims held French citizenship, the complaint argues that French courts have jurisdiction to examine the alleged genocide charges Israel has denounced as “scandalous.”
To date, similar legal efforts in France have failed to gain traction.
The case involves the deaths of siblings Janna and Abderrahim Abudaher, ages 6 and 9, in a northern Gaza home struck by two Israeli F-16 missiles on Oct. 24, 2023, 17 days after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, incursion on southern Israel.
Filed by the siblings’ maternal grandmother, Jacqueline Rivault, the 48-page complaint accuses Israeli officials of murder, genocide and crimes against humanity.
The family fled their apartment on Oct. 22 due to intense Israeli airstrikes, seeking shelter first in another home, then in a school, the complaint says.
They were eventually struck by two missiles in a new house “in northern Gaza, between Al-Faluja and Beit Lahia,” one entering “through the roof and the second directly into the room where the family was.”
Abderrahim died instantly and Janna soon after reaching a hospital, the complaint says. Their brother, Omar, was seriously wounded but survives in Gaza with their mother, Yasmine Z.
Yasmine Z. was convicted in absentia in Paris in 2019 for financing terrorism, accused of sending funds to Islamic Jihad and Hamas in 2012-13. An arrest warrant remains in effect.
France’s anti-terror prosecutor last told AFP in late 2024 that no investigation had been opened into the children’s deaths.
The genocide claim stems from allegations that the strike was part of a plan to “eliminate the Palestinian population and subject them to living conditions likely to lead to the destruction of their group.”
Though formally filed against unnamed parties, the complaint explicitly targets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government and the military.
Israel is under growing international pressure to end the Gaza war, triggered by Hamas’ Oct. 7 incursion that killed 1,218 people in Israel.
Israel’s military response has killed more than 54,600 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run Health Ministry, whose figures the United Nations considers credible.
Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are both subject to International Criminal Court arrest warrants for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
