Amal Clooney has revealed she played a key role in the decision to seek an international arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister on charges of war crimes in Gaza.

The British human rights lawyer, who is married to the actor George Clooney, was on a panel advising Karim Khan, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor. Mrs Clooney has previously been criticised on social media for not speaking out about Israel’s war in Gaza.

Mr Khan had asked the panel of legal experts to review the evidence before he issued warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, and Yoav Gallant, Israeli defence minister.

Mrs Clooney said there were “reasonable grounds to believe” the Israeli politicians “have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including starvation as a method of warfare, murder, persecution and extermination”.

The panel also called for warrants against three Hamas leaders, agreeing that Yahya Sinwar, Mohammed Deif and Ismail Haniyeh had committed war crimes and crimes against humanity including “hostage-taking, murder and crimes of sexual violence”.

Necessary to ‘protect civilian lives’

Mrs Clooney said the eight-person panel was unanimous in their decision in a post on her Clooney Foundation for Justice website on Monday.

“More than four months ago, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court asked me to assist him with evaluating evidence of suspected war crimes and crimes against humanity in Israel and Gaza,” she said.

“I served on this panel because I believe in the rule of law and the need to protect civilian lives. The law that protects civilians in war was developed more than 100 years ago and it applies in every country in the world regardless of the reasons for a conflict.”