Amal Clooney reveals secret work to prosecute Gaza war crimes after TikTok criticism for her ‘silence’-Brooke Ivey Johnson-Entertainment – Metro

Amal Clooney has released a statement through the Clooney Foundation for Justice (Picture: AP)

Amal Clooney has broken her silence on the Israel Hamas war.

After months of users on Tiktok criticising Clooney, 46, for being such a vocal advocate for Ukraine in their war with Russia but ‘hypocritically’ remaining silent on Palestine, the human rights lawyer has released a statement.

She’s come out publicly in support of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in their decision to seek the arrest warrants of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli and Hamas leaders.

The ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan has alleged Netanyahu, Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh were responsible for war crimes in both Gaza and Israel.

Clooney revealed she’s actually been working on the initiative for months, effectively silencing online critics.

One TikToker called Clooney a ‘fake humanitarian’ while another said her silence revealed her ‘true character.’ Clooney is one of many prominent figures who have been criticised for their silence on the death toll in Gaza, including Taylor Swift and Beyonce.

She said in the statement that she joined a panel ‘more than four months ago’ to assist the ICC with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza.

She revealed that the panel unanimously concluded there are reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant have committed war crimes including ‘starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination.’

They also concluded that Hamas leaders have committed war crimes ‘including hostage-taking, murder and crimes of sexual violence.’

The Clooney Foundation for Justice – which the lawyer co-founded with her Hollywood actor husband George Clooney, who she married in 2014 – released a statement detailing Clooney’s involvement in the panel.

George and Amal Clooney founded the Clooney Foundation for Justice together (Picture: Getty Images)

‘I served on this panel because I believe in the rule of law and the need to protect civilian lives,’ the statement reads.

Clooney maintained a fairly neutral stance on the Israel-Palestine conflict, seemingly referencing the 35,456 Palestinian lives that have been lost as well as the 1,000+ Israeli’s who have died since the beginning of the conflict, according to numbers from Al Jazeera.

‘As a human rights lawyer, I will never accept that one child’s life has less value than another’s.

‘I do not accept that any conflict should be beyond the reach of the law, nor that any perpetrator should be above the law.

‘So I support the historic step that the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court has taken to bring justice to victims of atrocities in Israel and Palestine.’

The lawyer has been working on the initiative for four months (Picture: AP)

She added that she hoped ‘witnesses will co-operate with the ongoing investigation’ and that ‘justice will prevail in a region that has already suffered too much.’

The statement comes after the UK Government expressed their lack of faith that the arrest warrant applications will aid in efforts to create a permanent ceasefire.

‘We do not believe that seeking warrants will help get hostages out, get aid in, or deliver a sustainable ceasefire,’ a UK Government spokesperson said.

‘This remains the UK’s priority.

‘As we have said from the outset, we do not think the ICC has jurisdiction in this case. The UK has not yet recognised Palestine as a state, and Israel is not a state party to the Rome Statute.’

Clooney has spoken multiple times at the UN (Picture: AP)

The Rome Statute seeks to ensure ICC jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed ‘in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem, since June 13, 2014.’

Three ICC judges will consider the application that Clooney helped create as a part of the panel, a process that takes an average of two months.

Importantly, Israel is not a member of the ICC, meaning that the success of the application would not necessarily result in any arrests, though it would make travelling abroad difficult for those named in the application.

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