PARIS: French authorities have issued warrants for two Franco-Israeli nationals for “complicity in genocide” over allegations that they tried to stop humanitarian aid entering conflict stricken Gaza, a legal source said Monday.
According to a lawyer for the NGOs that made a legal complaint last year, it is the first time that a country has considered the blocking of aid as possible “complicity in genocide.”
The warrants were issued in July last year for Nili Kupfer-Naouri of the Israel is Forever group and Rachel Touitou of the Tsav 9 group, the source close to the investigation told AFP following a French media report.
The warrants call for the two to appear before an investigating magistrate but not for their detention.
The pair are accused of seeking to block aid trucks entering Gaza between January and November 2024 and in May last year at the Nitzana and Kerem Shalom frontier posts.
Olivier Pardo, a lawyer for Kupfer-Naouri, said the “pacifist” actions sought to condemn the “hijacking” of humanitarian aid by Hamas and other groups that launched the October 7, 2023 attacks that set off the Gaza war.
“If peacefully demonstrating with an Israeli flag against a terrorist organization seizing humanitarian aid, diverting it, and reselling it at exorbitant prices to Gazans is a crime — then there is no need to look down on the mullahs, France is Iran!” said Touitou, 34, on her social media account.
In an interview with The News website, Kupfer-Naouri, 50, called the French investigation “anti-semitic madness.”
Pardo said Kupfer-Naouri was in Israel but was ready to speak to French investigators there.
The two activists are also suspected of “public provocation for genocide” by calling for aid to be prevented from reaching Gaza, the source said.
Another source close to the investigation said warrants could be issued for about 10 other people.
The complaints were made last year by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the rights groups Al-Haq and Al-Mezan. Clemence Bectarte, a lawyer for the groups, said it was the first investigation of its kind in genocide law.
Other legal complaints have also been made in France for “war crimes” over the deaths of Franco-Palestinian children in Gaza in an Israeli bombing raid and against two Franco-Israeli soldiers who took part in operations in the territory.
Another complaint is over the Hamas attack that set off the war.