A grandmother has filed a criminal case in Paris, accusing Israeli authorities of killing her two French grandchildren in Gaza in October 2023, her lawyer tells AFP.

The case involves the deaths of siblings Janna and Abderrahim Abudaher, aged six and nine, in a northern Gaza home struck by two Israeli F-16 missiles on October 24, 2023.

The victims’ French nationality could give French courts jurisdiction over the genocide accusations — claims Israel has dismissed as “scandalous”.

Filed by siblings’ maternal grandmother, Jacqueline Rivault, the 48-page complaint accuses Israeli officials of murder, genocide and crimes against humanity.

The family fled their apartment on October 22 due to intense Israeli air strikes, seeking shelter first in another home, then in a school, the complaint says.

They were eventually struck by two missiles in a new house “in northern Gaza, between Al-Faluja and Beit Lahia”, one entering “through the roof and the second directly into the room where the family was”.

Abderrahim died instantly, and Janna soon after reaching the hospital, the complaint says. Their brother Omar was seriously wounded but survives in Gaza with their mother, Yasmine Z.