Gazan man takes Hamas leaders to ICC over war crimes against Palestinians
In a groundbreaking case, lawyers representing a Palestinian man from Gaza have made a formal submission to the International Criminal Court (ICC) demanding an investigation into crimes against Gazan civilians committed by Hamas.
One of the attorneys told the Jerusalem Post on Friday that they made a submission to the ICC prosecutor concerning 14 Hamas leaders in relation to war crimes committed against their own population.
American attorneys Elliot Malin and Eli Rosenbaum drafted the 40-page submission with French attorney Sarah Scialom on behalf of their Gazan client who lost his wife, children, and other family members in the war.
While the ICC has charged the leaders of both the Israeli government and the Hamas terror organization with war crimes against each other’s populations, this is the first filing by a Palestinian seeking to charge Hamas leaders with crimes committed against their own people.
Scialom said she was honored to represent their client, whose family “tragically suffered enormous losses during the Gaza war.”
She also warned that the continuing failure of the ICC to pursue justice on behalf of Hamas’s deceased and displaced Palestinian victims in Gaza would incentivize the repetition of such crimes as an “effective geopolitical strategy,” adding that such inaction “keeps the victimized Gazan community in the dark about essential facts of their victimization.”
“The credibility of international criminal justice rests on its ability to deliver swift accountability for crimes of this magnitude,” Scialom insisted.
The document accuses Hamas leaders of war crimes, including the use of civilians and protected persons as human shields; attacking civilians; directing Israeli fire toward civilian targets; willfully causing great suffering; destruction and appropriation of property; excessive incidental death, injury, or damage; attacking protected objects; committing outrages upon personal dignity; using, conscripting, or enlisting children; and sentencing or execution without due process, according to the Jerusalem Post.
The document also accuses the terror group’s leaders of crimes against humanity, including murder, extermination, torture, and persecution.
“To this day, the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor has not investigated, let alone sought warrants for, crimes cynically committed by Hamas and its accomplices against Palestinians during the war,” Malin told the Post. They have, however, made repeated rulings against Israel, which have been consistently appealed and refuted.
“Pursuing such justice goes to the heart of the mission of the OTP [Office of the Prosecutor] and the International Criminal Court, which it serves. Failing this mission means failing to deliver equal access to justice for those whom the court has ruled fall under its jurisdiction,” he added.
The lawyers demonstrated in the submission that the man’s family, along with countless other Palestinians who lost their lives since Oct. 7, 2023, would still be alive today if it were not for the deliberate human shield strategy of Hamas, which violates the Geneva Convention of 1949. They argued that these war crimes were the primary reason for the high death toll and extensive destruction in Gaza.
According to Malin, should the Prosecutor and ICC fail to seek justice for Palestinians victimized by Hamas, the court would be obliged to ask OTP “why the Gazan victims of Hamas inhumanity are being denied full justice.”
Rosenbaum, a former senior U.S. Justice Department war crimes prosecutor, also emphasized the importance of the case, saying many Palestinians had needlessly died due to the actions of their leaders.
“Had Hamas’s fighters instead fought in compliance with longstanding international law rather than by hiding behind and underneath Gazan civilian men, women, and children, the civilian death toll would undoubtedly have been only a fraction of what it was,” he said.
The Hamas leaders accused of crimes in the submission are Izz al-Din al-Haddad, Khaled Mashal, Mahmoud al-Zahar, Mohammed Odeh, Muhannad Rajab, Khalil al-Hayya, Mousa Abu Marzook, Ghazi Hamad, Izzat al-Rishq, Fathi Hamad, Nizar Awadallah, Husam Badran, Zaher Jabarin, and Basem Naim.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Hamas' top military commander in Gaza Izz al-Din al-Haddad was killed in an Israeli airstrike after the submission to the ICC was filed.]
Jo Elizabeth has a great interest in politics and cultural developments, studying Social Policy for her first degree and gaining a Masters in Jewish Philosophy from Haifa University, but she loves to write about the Bible and its primary subject, the God of Israel. As a writer, Jo spends her time between the UK and Jerusalem, Israel.
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