French authorities have issued warrants for two Franco-Israeli nationals for “complicity in genocide,” over allegations that they tried to stop humanitarian aid from entering 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 a country has considered the blocking of aid as potential “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, whose activists attempted to block aid convoys to Gaza, 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 2025 at the Nitzana and Kerem Shalom Border Crossings. At the time, some activists objected to aid being delivered to Gaza while Israeli hostages were still held captive in the Strip.
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The two activists are also suspected of “public provocation for genocide” by calling for aid to be prevented from reaching Gaza, the source said.
Olivier Pardo, a lawyer for Kupfer-Naouri, said her “pacifist” actions sought to condemn the “hijacking” of humanitarian aid by Gaza’s Hamas terror group, which led the October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel that set off the Gaza war, and during which terrorists took hundreds of people hostage.
On social media, Touitou, 34, said: “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!”
Activists from ‘Tzav 9’ block the Kerem Shalom crossing with southern Gaza to prevent humanitarian aid from entering the Strip, January 28, 2024. (Courtesy: Tzav 9)
In an interview with The News website, Kupfer-Naouri, 50, called the French investigation “antisemitic madness.”
Pardo said Kupfer-Naouri was in Israel, but was ready to speak to French investigators.
Another source close to the investigation said warrants could be issued for some 10 other people.
The complaints were made last year by the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and the groups Al-Haq and Al-Mezan. Israel has designated Al-Haq a terror group. 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 strike and against two Franco-Israeli soldiers who took part in operations in the territory.
Another complaint is over the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack.
Israel adamantly rejects the accusation that it has committed genocide in Gaza, saying it takes measures to avoid hurting noncombatants while Hamas fights from civilian areas.
Since the implementation of a ceasefire in October last year, all remaining hostages have been returned from Gaza, the last being the body of Ran Gvili last week.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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