HUMZA Yousaf’s in-laws, who were trapped in Gaza during the early days of Israel’s siege of the region, are preparing eyewitness testimony to deliver to the International Criminal Court (ICC) amid a war crimes investigation.
The former first minister told a crowd at the Edinburgh Fringe that his mother- and father-in-law, Elizabeth and Maged El-Nakla, were not yet over their “extremely traumatising” experiences in Gaza after becoming trapped there following the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The El-Naklas remained unable to leave Gaza for almost a month as Israel put the region under heavy siege, with military bombardments as well as cutting off water and power.
Speaking at an Iain Dale All Talk event in Edinburgh, which was being hosted by Matthew Stadlen, Yousaf was asked: “You had to endure a terrible time when your parents-in-law were stuck in Gaza. Are you healing from that horrific experience?”
The former SNP leader responded: “I am. I'm not sure they are, yet, if I’m frankly honest. My mother-in-law in particular still finds that experience extremely traumatising indeed. The things that they saw.”
He went on: “They are compiling evidence for the International Criminal Court. They [the ICC] want eyewitness accounts of what’s happening in Gaza, so we are in the midst of doing that.
“The things that they saw will live with them until their dying breath. My mother-in-law tells me of hearing a blast nearby. They thought the house had been hit. They went outside and lying in their front garden was an eight-year-old girl with a broken spine who'd been near the blast.
“I don’t know how many feet she’d travelled in the air to be lying in their front garden with a broken spine. She couldn't move her legs. The things they've seen and endured will live with them for their whole lives.”
Speaking to The National afterwards, Yousaf said that he had been “in touch with the ICC” and the evidence from his in-laws would be delivered “in due course, because it will no doubt help them determine whether or not war crimes have been committed”.
The ICC’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, announced in May that he was seeking an arrest warrant for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu on charges of war crimes, as well as Israel defence minister Yoav Gallant and several Hamas leaders.
Khan, who was sworn in for a nine-year term as the chief prosecutor in June 2021, said he believes the Israeli prime minister to be responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
A panel of judges on the ICC are still considering whether to grant the warrant. If they do so, it will be the duty of nations who are signed up to the ICC, such as the UK, to detain Netanyahu if he sets foot on their soil.
A Panel of Experts in International Law, convened by Khan to support his investigation into the “situation in the state of Palestine”, unanimously endorsed that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that individuals named in the arrest warrants have committed war crimes or crimes against humanity within the court’s jurisdiction.
In a piece for the Financial Times, the group said: "We hope that the prosecutor will continue to conduct focused investigations including in relation to the extensive harm suffered by civilians as a result of the bombing campaign in Gaza and evidence of sexual violence committed against Israelis on October 7."
Israel is also facing a case in front of the the International Court of Justice (ICJ) over its actions in Palestine and whether they amount to genocide.
In July, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s presence in the Palestinian occupied territories is “unlawful” and called on it to end.
