Israeli victims of October 7 pressure ICC to investigate Hamas

By Rami Amichay and Stephanie van den Berg

BEN GURION AIRPORT/HAGUE (Reuters) – Israeli survivors of the Oct. 7 attack and relatives of victims are stepping up efforts to get the International Criminal Court’s prosecutor to investigate Hamas’ crimes, which is leading an investigation into the attack and Israel. is part of the response. Gaza.

“We want to make sure the world takes action and stop their freedom from being hindered,” Udi Goren, a cousin of Tal Hammy, 41, who was kidnapped on October 7, said of the leaders of the Palestinian group Hamas. Hammy’s death was later confirmed, with his body still in storage in Gaza.

Israeli survivors of the October 7 Hamas attack and families of victims want the court to target Hamas leaders with arrest warrants.

“We want to make sure that Hamas leaders are detained or they cannot leave Qatar and that will put pressure on them to release the hostages,” Goren said, speaking at Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport.

Goren was among a group of about 100 family members of hostages and survivors who were preparing to fly to the ICC headquarters in The Hague.

Israel is not a member of the ICC and does not recognize its jurisdiction. But prosecutor Karim Khan has said his court has jurisdiction over any potential war crimes committed by Hamas in Israel and Israelis in the Gaza Strip.

The Israeli group will file the latest in several so-called Article 15 communications on behalf of Israeli victims.

These legal filings are meant to provide information to prosecutors and are part of a broader effort to get the ICC to take action against Hamas leaders.

Signaling that the ICC investigation was moving forward on 7 October, lawyer Yael Vias Gvirsman, who represents another group of Israeli victims, told Reuters that a handful of his clients reported to ICC investigators in The Hague last week. Gave direct testimony.

“This was an important next step for the investigation,” said Vias Gvirsman, who represents 42 of the 200 Israeli victims. “Investigators spent very long hours with victims to hear personal accounts from key witnesses at many of the crime scenes of the October 7 attacks.” Kept sitting till.” Different families in ICC.

On October 7, Hamas launched a cross-border attack on southern Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis and taking about 240 hostage, according to Israeli data.

This sparked an ongoing Israeli military offensive into Gaza, which has devastated much of the densely populated strip of land on the Mediterranean Sea and killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health officials.

The ICC case is separate from the genocide case initiated against Israel at the Hague-based International Court of Justice or the World Court.

(Writing by Stephanie van den Berg, Editing by Ingrid Melander and Ros Russell)

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