Amal Clooney has been named among the experts who advised the International Criminal Court on seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.
The ICC's chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, confirmed to CNN's Christiane Amanpour on Monday that the court is seeking warrants on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity surrounding the ongoing conflict in Gaza.
Sinwar is facing action over the October 7 attacks on southern Israel, while Netanyahu is sought for arrest regarding Israel's strikes on Gaza. The warrants mark the first time the ICC has targeted the leader of a U.S. ally.
In a statement released shortly after the news broke, Khan said he was "grateful for the advice" given to him by a panel of experts, which included Clooney.
Clooney is a world-renowned human rights lawyer who has worked on a number of serious global conflicts. She has been married to actor George Clooney since 2014.
She "represented victims of ISIS in the only three trials in the world in which ISIS members have been convicted of genocide and in five other trials convicting ISIS members of war crimes and crimes against humanity," according to her special adviser profile on the ICC website.
Israel and Hamas have been locked in a war after the Palestinian militant group attacked southern Israel in October. Much of Gaza has since been razed in strikes from Israel, with many of its 2.3 million residents displaced.
More than 34,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel launched its strikes, according to The Associated Press, citing Gaza health officials. Israeli officials say that roughly 1,200 people were killed in the initial Hamas attacks, during which a further 253 people were taken hostage.
The United States is a top ally of Israel, but the White House has become increasingly critical of Netanyahu's military strikes on Gaza. Israel has also faced pressure from the international community. Several celebrities have spoken out on the conflict while others have opted to forgo public discussion of the matter.
Per CNN, Khan said that the court was also seeking warrants for Israel's Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, as well as two other top Hamas leaders—Mohammed Diab Ibrahim al-Masri, the leader of the Al-Qassam Brigades, better known as Mohammed Deif, as well as Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas' political leader.
The charges against Sinwar, and other Hamas leaders, include "extermination, murder, taking of hostages, rape and sexual assault in detention."
The charges against Netanyahu and Gallant were laid out as "causing extermination, causing starvation as a method of war, including the denial of humanitarian relief supplies, deliberately targeting civilians in conflict."
In a statement published by the Financial Times on Monday, the panel of experts that advised on seeking the arrest warrants said the October 7 Hamas attack and Israel's military strikes on Gaza have "tested the system of international law to its limits."
"For months, we have engaged in an extensive process of review and analysis," they stated. "We have carefully examined each of the applications for arrest warrants, as well as underlying material produced by the prosecution team in support of the applications. This has included witness statements, expert evidence, official communications, videos and photographs.
"In our legal report published today, we unanimously agree that the prosecutor's work was rigorous, fair and grounded in the law and the facts. And we unanimously agree that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the suspects he identifies have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity within the jurisdiction of the ICC."
"There is no doubt that the step taken today by the prosecutor is a milestone in the history of international criminal law," the group added. "There is no conflict that should be excluded from the reach of the law; no child's life valued less than another's. The law we apply is humanity's law, not the law of any given side. It must protect all the victims of this conflict; and all civilians in conflicts to come."
Anne Herzberg, legal adviser of the pro-Israeli NGO Monitor, condemned the decision to pursue Israeli officials, branding it "abhorrent."
"While it is unlikely any Israeli would ever appear before this kangaroo court, this case represents yet again the exploitation of international institutions in service of malevolent agendas," Herzberg said in a statement to Newsweek.
An ICC panel will now consider Khan's application for the arrest warrants.
Update 5/20/24, 9:06 a.m. ET: This article was updated with additional information.
Update 5/20/24, 11:47 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include a statement from the panel of international law experts that advised on seeking the arrest warrants.
Correction: 5/20/24, 10:05 a.m. ET: This article was updated with a correction to the spelling of Al-Qassam Brigades.
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