Amal Clooney played a crucial role in aiding the International Criminal Court (ICC) in evaluating evidence that led to the decision to seek arrest warrants for senior Israeli and Hamas leaders.
The prominent British-Lebanese human rights lawyer shared a statement on the Clooney Foundation for Justice website, an organization she co-founded with her husband, American actor George Clooney.
Both she and the foundation had previously faced criticism on social media for their silence regarding the civilian casualties in Gaza.
Clooney revealed that ICC prosecutor Karim Khan had invited her to join an expert panel to “evaluate evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza.”
The statement coincided with Khan’s announcement that he was pursuing arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, along with leading figures from Hamas.
“Despite our diverse personal backgrounds, our legal findings are unanimous,” Clooney stated, highlighting that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif, and Ismail Haniyeh committed acts of “hostage-taking, murder, and crimes of sexual violence.”
Regarding Netanyahu and Gallant, Clooney noted that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” they engaged in “starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution, and extermination.”
Khan expressed his gratitude to Clooney in his statement announcing the pursuit of the arrest warrants.
Additionally, Clooney and other panel members authored an opinion piece in the Financial Times on Monday, advocating for ICC prosecutions for war crimes related to the conflict.
Despite the backlash from Hamas, Israel, and their key ally the United States, the experts emphasized that they “unanimously agree that the prosecutor’s work was rigorous, fair, and grounded in the law and the facts.”
Clooney, in her statement, clarified her approach: “My approach is not to provide a running commentary of my work but to let the work speak for itself.”
“I served on this panel because I believe in the rule of law and the need to protect civilian lives,” she added. “The law that protects civilians in war was developed more than 100 years ago and it applies in every country in the world regardless of the reasons for a conflict.”
