The grandmother of two children with French nationality killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza has filed a legal complaint in Paris, accusing Israel of "genocide" and "murder," her lawyer said on Friday, June 6. Jacqueline Rivault filed her complaint with the "crimes against humanity" section of the Court of Paris, lawyer Arie Alimi said.

Rivault hopes the fact that her daughter's children, aged 6 and 9, were French citizens means the country's judiciary will decide it has jurisdiction to designate a judge to investigate the allegations. Rights groups, lawyers and some Israeli historians have described the Gaza war as "genocide." But Israel, created in the aftermath of the Nazi Holocaust of Jews during World War II, vehemently rejects the explosive term.

The complaint states that "two F16 missiles fired by the Israeli army" killed Janna, 6, and Abderrahim Abudaher, 9, in northern Gaza on October 24, 2023." They and their family had sought refuge in another home "between Faluja and Beit Lahia" after leaving their own two days earlier due to heavy bombardment, the 48-page document stated. One missile entered "through the roof and the second directly into the room where the family was," it said. Abderrahim was killed instantly, while his sister Janna died shortly after being taken to a hospital.

The complaint argues the "genocide" allegation is based on the air strike being part of a larger Israeli project to "eliminate the Palestinian population and submit it to living conditions of a nature to entail the destruction of their group." Though formally against unnamed parties, the complaint explicitly targets Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government and the military.

The children's brother Omar was severely wounded but still lives in Gaza with their mother, identified as Yasmine Z., the complaint said. A French court in 2019 convicted Yasmine Z. in absentia of having funded a "terrorist" group by distributing money in Gaza to members of Palestinian militant groups Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.