Research and collection of evidence from the Hamas attack in Israel is underway to document possible legal action. The attackers left numerous traces, both material and digital.
At the scene of the killings on October 7, Hamas commandos left many elements in their wake. This is the case in Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the first to be attacked, located four kilometers from the Gaza Strip. The attack left around a hundred dead. Today Be’eri is disfigured and some houses are destroyed, charred and riddled with bullet holes.
Yossi Landau works for Zaka, an Israeli charity. He and his team recovered the bodies of residents and attackers, but not only that. “We found everything. Plans, phones, cameras, body cameras, Islamic State flags, everything! On the bodies, on the ground… We gave everything to the police, to the army , to the Israeli Defense Forces, to all those who have to deal with it”, he explains.
Videos from body cameras worn by the attackers
One of the videos of the Hamas attack was released by the IDF. Images taken from a body camera worn by an assailant show the latter and another man walking in what appears to be a kibbutz, weapons in hand, shooting into the tire of an ambulance, at a victim in his kitchen and enter a house in search of its inhabitants. All this “evidence” is being gathered today by the State of Israel to constitute files on the scale of the horrors, on their nature, to potentially bring them before the competent courts.
Because how can we name what happened on October 7 from an international point of view? Is this a war crime? A crime against humanity? A genocide? For Yohan Garson, a lawyer specializing in international law in Jerusalem, there is no doubt on the issue. “The only way to qualify these crimes is to qualify them as crimes against humanity and not war crimesinsists the lawyer. The war crime is a slip-up in international law. This means that it begins with a war between two regular armies of two sovereign states, therefore soldiers waging war against soldiers. Then, there are crimes that are committed in this context.“
“Crimes against humanity have the great particularity of being characterized by the fact that civilians are targeted deliberately and in advance.”
Yohan Garson lawyer, specialized in international lawat franceinfo
“That is to say that even the soldiers who were attacked and who were killed on the road, it was just to go and attack civilians,” says Yohann Garson. Israel could therefore refer the matter to the International Criminal Court from a state point of view.
Legal actions already launched in France
Individual actions are already underway. Four Franco-Israeli families have filed a complaint with the National Anti-Terrorism Prosecutor’s Office, which has already opened a preliminary investigation following the October 7 attack. Three families did so for “crimes against humanity” against Hamas, another concerns a Franco-Israeli who was doing his military service and who died under the flag. Here, it is the terrorist qualification that is retained. All these families are therefore taking legal action in France to obtain information that they will not necessarily or correctly receive from the Israeli authorities. “It would allow, if the French justice system decides to investigate crimes against humanity, to have work on site to collect evidence, to examine the careful chronology of each of the coordinated attacks which took place against civilian populationsexplains Maître Nathanael Majster, their lawyer. Which is heavy, tedious, difficult work but which French justice can help in the context of crimes against humanity.”
The Elnet organization has just launched a European-wide campaign to translate “Hamas terrorists on trial”. She hopes to collect many complaints which will not only target the Palestinian entity, explains Dr Sarah Fainberg, member of the Elnet Board of Directors, but also the “Palestinian citizens who entered the territory of Israel, ordinary Palestinian citizens, ordinary civilians who participated in this massacre.”
“The people who financed Hamas for years will also be judged. Qatar, Iran and all the money that was transferred, via cryptocurrency, particularly from Russia, will have to be put behind these accusations.”
Dr Sarah Fainberg, member of the Elnet Board of Directorsat franceinfo
And what about the Gaza Strip, under the fury of intensive bombing by the Israeli army? Is this a war crime or a crime against humanity? The UN and Amnesty International are also trying to document the conflict on the side of the enclave, which is currently inaccessible.