THE HAGUE: The owner of a Gaza building housing international media that was destroyed in an Israeli airstrike is lodging a complaint with the International Criminal Court, his lawyer said.
The complaint by Jawad Mehdi says that the attack on May 15 which flattened Jala Tower, housing the offices of US news agency Associated Press and Al Jazeera television, was a “war crime.”
The filing, a copy of which was seen by AFP, comes after the chief prosecutor of the ICC said last week that “crimes” may have been committed during the recent violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
“The owner of this building, who is a Palestinian, has mandated his lawyers to file a war crime complaint with the International Criminal Court,” lawyer Gilles Devers said in a statement.
Devers told AFP outside the court, where around 10 pro-Palestinian protesters were gathered, that Israel could show “no military objective” for the attack.
“We hear a lot that this tower could have been destroyed because there was equipment or an armed resistance team. This is something that we totally deny after studying the case,” Devers said.
“International law is that you can only harm civilian property if it is used for military purposes, and that was not the case. So we say it today in front this court and in this complaint.”
Devers said the complaint would be formally sent to the court by email later Friday.
Israel claimed that Hamas military intelligence units were in the building.
Mehdi said at the time that an Israeli intelligence officer warned him he had one hour to ensure the building was evacuated before a missile slammed into the 13-story building.
The ICC has no obligation to consider complaints filed to its prosecutor, who can decide independently what cases to submit to judges at the court.
The ICC had already opened an investigation in March into possible war crimes in the Palestinian Territories by both Israeli forces and Palestinian armed groups since 2014.
The move infuriated Israel which is not a member of the court, while Palestine has been a state party to the ICC since 2015.
Prosecutor Bensouda said last week that she noted with “great concern the escalation of violence” in the West Bank and Gaza “and the possible commission of crimes under the Rome Statute,” which founded the ICC.
Gaza media building owner complains to ICC: lawyer
https://arab.news/5xubx
Gaza media building owner complains to ICC: lawyer
- Complainant Jawad Mehdi said May 15 attack which flattened Jala Tower, housing Associated Press and Al Jazeera television, was a "war crime"
- Palestinian owner mandated his lawyers to file a war crime complaint with the International Criminal Court
Medical charity ‘may have to halt Gaza operations in March’
- MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says it was needed to stop extremists from infiltrating into humanitarian structures
PARIS: Banned from the Gaza Strip with 36 aid bodies, medical charity Doctors Without Borders said on Saturday it will have to end its operations there in March if Israel does not reverse its decision.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called on Friday for Israel to end a ban on humanitarian agencies that provided aid in Gaza, saying he was “deeply concerned” at the development.
Israel confirmed on Thursday that it was barring 37 major international humanitarian organizations from entering the Gaza Strip, accusing them
of failing to provide the list of their employees’ names, which is now officially required for “security” reasons.
FASTFACT
MSF has approximately 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and employs 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.
MSF called this demand a “scandalous intrusion” but Israel says it was needed to stop extremists from infiltrating into humanitarian structures.
“To work in Palestine, in the occupied Palestinian territories, we have to be registered ... That registration expired on Dec. 31, 2025,” said Isabelle Defourny, a physician and president of MSF France, on France Inter.
“Since July 2025, we have been involved in a re-registration process, and to date, we have not received a response. We still have 60 days during which we could work without being re-registered, and so we would have to end our activities in March,” if Israel maintains its decision, she said.
MSF has approximately 40 international staff in the Gaza Strip and employs 800 Palestinian staff across eight hospitals.
“We are the second-largest distributor of water (in the Gaza Strip). Last year, in 2025, we treated just over 100,000 people who were wounded, burned, or victims of various traumas. We are second in terms of the number of deliveries performed,” the president of MSF France said.
According to her, the Israeli decision is explained by the fact that NGOs “bear witness to the violence committed by the Israeli army” in Gaza.
The UN chief “calls for this measure to be reversed, stressing that international non-governmental organizations are indispensable to life-saving humanitarian work and that the suspension risks undermining the fragile progress made during the ceasefire,” his spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in the statement.
“This recent action will further exacerbate the humanitarian crisis facing Palestinians,” he added.
Several NGOS have said the requirements contravene international humanitarian law or endanger their independence.
On Thursday, 18 Israel-based left-wing NGOs denounced the decision to ban their international peers, saying “the new registration framework violates core humanitarian principles of independence and neutrality.”
In November, authorities in Gaza said more than 70,000 people had been killed there since the war broke out.
Nearly 80 percent of buildings in Gaza have been destroyed or damaged by the war, according to UN data, leaving infrastructure decimated.
About 1.5 million of Gaza’s more than 2 million residents have lost their homes, said Amjad Al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian NGO Network in Gaza.
