The claim was brought forward for the families of Avinatan Or, Eitan Mor, and Omri Miran through attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner of the Shurat HaDin – Israeli Law Center. The plaintiffs argue Khan has not been acting in good faith, seemingly to avoid addressing allegations of sexual attacks he carried out on an employee under him.

They assert that Khan waited eight months prior to seeking arrest warrants for three key Hamas figures – Mohammed Deif, Yahya Sinwar, and Ismail Haniyeh – while tying this to the same measures against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ex-defense minister Yoav Gallant. Furthermore, he avoided issuing warrants for Palestinian Islamic Jihad heads and further Hamas officials presently responsible for holding the hostages.

The claim contends that via these deeds, Khan not only invented libels against the State of Israel and offered a misleading depiction to the plaintiff, but additionally delivered aid to the terror groups and supported them. The families say Khan has enabled the terrorists to persist in holding their dear ones by not pursuing action against them, particularly those residing in Qatari hotels and beyond the Strip who presume to engage in talks extorting the State of Israel.

Attorney Darshan-Leitner stated, "The International Criminal Court has become a branch of Hamas. Through its direct actions, it has given the terror murderers tremendous backing. Khan's goal is to prevent Israel from achieving the war's objectives – the destruction of Hamas and the release of the hostages – by portraying it as a criminal state."

She continued by noting that Khan has cynically exploited the distress of the hostage families, the starved and injured in the terror tunnels, all this in order to escape the threat of justice for alleged sexual offenses he committed himself.

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In a historic vote, the cabinet unanimously voted on Monday in favor of a restitution package to compensate the families of some 1,050 new immigrant children from Yemen, Arab countries, and the Balkans who "disappeared" in the early years of the state.

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The matter of the unaccounted-for children of new immigrant families from these countries has been a painful one for Israeli society for decades and the focus of three different governmental commissions of inquiry.

In every case in which the commission of inquiry determined that a child died but his or her family was not informed about their deaths at the time will be paid 150,000 shekels ($46,000). If the fate of their children is undetermined, they family will be awarded 200,000 shekels ($61,300). The total cost of the restitution payments totals 162 million shekels ($49.6 million).

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, "I brought the cabinet a decision to pay restitution to the families hurt in the affair. This is one of the most painful episodes in the history of the state. It is time for the families who babies were taken from them to be recognized by the state and the government, and also receive restitution.

"The restitution cannot make up for the terrible suffering the families endured and still endure, which is intolerable. We need to give them the small comfort to which they are entitled," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu said he wanted Education Minister Yoav Gallant to make sure that the Yemenite children affair was covered in the Israeli history curriculum.

"I thank the ministers, the MKs, and former MK Nurit Koren, who worked on this matter, as well as cabinet secretary Tzahi Braverman, who successfully spearheaded the issue," the prime minister added.

Finance Minister Israel Katz said, "With this decision, the government of Israel acknowledges the painful affairs, which is imprinted on the history of the country, which has not yet been thoroughly investigated. We will work to give the wronged families their full rights, and begin to heal the wounds of history, if only a bit. We will also work to commemorate the glorious heritage of Yemenite Jewry, which is intertwined with the history of our people."

In response to the decision, Union Sefaradi Mundial, a nonprofit devoted to commemorating the legacy of Sephardi Jewry, expressed disapproval of the restitution plan, calling it "offensive" the families.

"This is an attack on history and the pain the families have carried in their hearts from the day they lost their children. Restitution in and of itself is not enough. The government must admit the state's responsibility for the events of their children's disappearance. If three commissions of inquiry weren't enough, clear statements must be made accepting responsibility. The Yemenite, Mizrachi, and Balkan Children Affair must be written about in history books, and should not be attempted to be glossed over as if it never happened," the organization said.

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Last week, the lottery decided to stop funding the Docaviv prize following a month-long protest by bereaved families of victims of terrorism, who objected this year's prize being awarded to the film "Advocate," about attorney Lea Tsemel.

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Tsemel gained notoriety for her persistent defense of terrorists, including Abdel Aziz Salha, who took part in the 2000 lynching of two IDF reservists in Ramallah. Tsemel has also defended dozens of Hamas terrorists, as well as former Knesset minister Basel Ghattas, who was convicted of smuggling cell phones to jailed terrorists. Most recently, she represented the family of the terrorist who murdered and raped 19-year-old Ori Ansbacher in February.

The prize carries a cash value of 70,000 shekels ($20,000) as well as a grant of 150,000 shekels ($42,000) to be used to promote the film as a candidate for an Academy Award.

The protest waged by families of victims of terrorism persuaded thousands of Israelis to cancel their subscription tickets, and the lottery issued a statement saying that not only would it no longer fund the award for Docaviv prize winners, it would also "examine the issue of the current award [for "Advocate"] with legal counsel."

Sunday's protest included some 100 people holding up placards urging Mifal HaPayis to reconsider its decision.

Across the street, family members of victims of terrorism and activists on their behalf, who got the lottery to cancel the award, staged a counterprotest.

Some artists in Israel are worried that the decision is part of trend toward an arts funding policy that is less concerned with freedom of speech than with nationalist rhetoric.

"Documentaries are about challenging the reality, and making society look at uncomfortable subjects through films," filmmaker Tomer Heyman told the Jerusalem Post last week.

"If they withdraw their support for this film, there is no limit and no end to what the government will try to do to Israeli art."

Rafael Balulu, a filmmaker who participated in the protest against the lottery's decision, told i24NEWS, that political controversy around documentary films in Israel was nothing new. Balulu cited the controversy stirred up by the 2002 film "Jenin, Jenin."

"We understand the pain of the families," he says, explaining that people from both sides of the street managed to find space for discussion during the demonstration. "It is painful for them to see a film portraying the defender of their family's killer."

However, Balulu insists that as a filmmaker, he has a "right to tell a story" if it doesn't incite to violence or hatred. And he calls Lea Tsemel a "good story," one that touches on the most vulnerable point for Israeli society.

"In Israel, documentary filmmakers are at the vanguard of political debate," Rafael says, insisting that freedom of speech and political debate should be strictly safeguarded.

This article was originally published by i24NEWS.

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But what he wound up providing was a legacy that would outlast his job, and his life.

In Mosul and elsewhere across Iraq, thousands of families – including Khalil's widow and children – face crushing discrimination because their male relatives were seen as affiliated with or supporting ISIS when the extremists held large swaths of the country.

The wives, widows and children have been disowned by their relatives and abandoned by the state. Registrars refuse to register births to women with suspected ISIS husbands, and schools will not enroll their children. Mothers are turned away from welfare, and mukhtars – community mayors – won't let the families move into their neighborhoods.

The Islamic State group's "caliphate" that once spanned a third of both Iraq and Syria is now gone but as Iraq struggles to rebuilt after the militants' final defeat and loss of their last sliver of territory in Syria earlier this year, the atrocities and the devastation they wreaked has left deep scars.

"They say my father was Daesh," said Safa Ahmed, Khalil's 11-year old daughter, referring to ISIS by its Arabic name. "It hurts me."

Iraq has done little to probe the actions of the tens of thousands of men such as Khalil who, willingly or by force joined, worked and possibly fought for ISIS during its 2013-2017 rule. Instead, bureaucrats and communities punish families for the deeds of their relatives in a time of war.

Khalil was killed in an airstrike in Mosul, in February 2017, during the U.S.-backed campaign to retake the city that ISIS seized in 2014. It was liberated in July 2017, at a tremendous cost – around 10,000 residents were believed to have been killed in the assault, and its historic districts now lie in ruins.

His widow, Um Yusuf, and their seven children were left to bear the stigma of his ISIS affiliation. She cannot get social assistance, and her teenage son Omar is being turned away from jobs.

They live in an abandoned schoolhouse, living on what they can make selling bread on the streets of the devastated city. Just three of the children are in school – the oldest two dropped out because of bullying about their father, and the youngest two cannot enroll because the civil registrar's office won't issue their IDs.

"It's true their father made a mistake," Um Yusuf said. "But why are these children being punished for his sin?"

Under Iraq's patrimonial family laws, a child needs a named father to receive a birth certificate and an identity card, to enroll in school and to claim citizenship, welfare benefits and an inheritance.

But in post-ISIS Iraq, virtually every bureaucratic procedure now includes a security check on a woman's male relatives, further frustrating mothers and children.

A U.N. report this year estimates there are 45,000 undocumented children in Iraq. Judges and human rights groups say an urgent resolution is needed or the country risks rearing a generation of children without papers or schooling.

"By punishing entire families, you marginalize them and you seriously undermine reconciliation efforts in Iraq," said Tom Peyre-Costa, a spokesman for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which provides legal aid to Mosul mothers struggling to get their children ID papers.

At al-Iraqiya school in western Mosul, one of the city's first to reopen in 2017, principal Khalid Mohammad said he faces pressure from the community to deny enrollment to children whose fathers are in jail or missing – an absence many interpret as proof of ISIS affiliation.

"If anyone complains and someone is sent to investigate, I could lose my job," he said.

At a legal office and clinic supported by the Norwegian Refugee Council, Nour Ahmed was looking for a way to claim legal custody of her undocumented younger son, in order to collect food and fuel aid for the family.

Her husband, she said, was abducted two years ago in Mosul by a group of pro-government militiamen who likely thought he was an ISIS member. Ahmed insists he wasn't. He has been missing to this day.

Born in 2016 at a hospital run by ISIS, their son was given a birth certificate notarized by the Islamic State group. As Iraq doesn't recognize ISIS documents, the three-year-old has no legal mother or father.

Ahmed was told she would need to find her husband to re-register her son's birth. If she submitted a missing person's report, it would raise questions about the child's parentage, jeopardizing his right to citizenship.

"I just want to find him," said Nour.

Adnan Chalabi, an appeals court judge, said he sees more than a dozen cases each day related to civilian documentation, brought largely by the wives, widows or divorcees of ISIS suspects. There is little he can do to help, he said, without a change to the law first.

"Daesh held the city for three years. Did people stop getting married, divorced, and having children during those three years?" he said. "We need a legislative solution."

There is little appetite to change the country's family and patrimony laws, said Iraq's parliament speaker, Mohamad Halbousi, though there is a proposal to open civil registries for a limited period, to register undocumented children.

"These families need to be cared for. They cannot be left to melt away into society," he said.

Outside a mosque in Mosul, where Um Yusuf was selling bread with her children, the widowed mother of seven said she was losing the strength to look after her family.

"We are deprived of everything," she says. "The whole family is destroyed."

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