Has Israel followed the law in its war in Gaza? The US is due to render a first-of-its-kind verdict
WASHINGTON — Facing criticism of its military support for Israel’s war, the Biden administration will this week issue a first-of-its-kind formal ruling on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on aid delivery are a violation of international and US laws designed to spare citizens. to protect civilians from the worst horrors of war.
A decision against Israel would increase pressure on President Joe Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to the Israeli military.
The administration agreed in February, at the insistence of Democrats in Congress, to investigate whether Israel lawfully used US-supplied weapons and other military aid.
In addition, the same agreement requires it to tell Congress whether it believes that Israel has acted to “arbitrarily deny, restrict, or otherwise, directly or indirectly, the delivery of U.S.-supported humanitarian assistance to Gaza for to hinder the starving citizens there.
State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters on Tuesday that the department was trying to meet Wednesday’s deadline for completing the review, but “it’s possible it could get a little bit out of hand.”
The government is forced to make a decision at a time of tumult in internationally mediated ceasefire negotiations and a threatened Israeli offensive on the busy city of Rafah in southern Gaza – a move strongly opposed by the US resistance – could change the course of Israel’s war. and American support for it.
Israel’s campaign to crush the militant group Hamas after its surprise attack in October and the disaster that followed for Gaza’s citizens have also fueled debate within the Biden administration and Congress on broader issues.
Does the US identify serious human rights violations by any of the foreign recipients of military aid when it sees them? Or only if it believes doing so serves broader U.S. strategic interests?
Democratic and Republican lawmakers openly frame the current decision in those terms.
“While human rights are an important part of the national interest, America’s priorities are much broader – especially in an era of strategic competition,” said Senator Jim Risch, the ranking GOP member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Representative Michael McCaul, The Republican chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee wrote last week urging Biden to withdraw his February directive, formally known as National Security Memorandum 20.
But Senator Chris Van Hollen, the Democrat who led negotiations in Congress with the White House to mandate the review, told reporters he feared the long-standing desire of US administrations to maintain the strong security partnership with Israel would determine the outcome.
Israel is the largest recipient of US security assistance. Palestinian suffering during the war in Gaza has sparked protests and other challenges for Biden at home and abroad as he seeks re-election against Donald Trump.
The government’s findings should be “seen as based on facts and law, and not on what they would like it to be,” Van Hollen told reporters last week.
At the time the White House agreed to the review, it was working to prevent moves by Democratic lawmakers and independent Senator Bernie Sanders to restrict arms shipments to Israel.
Israel launched its offensive after Hamas-led attacks on October 7 killed around 1,200 people. Since then, nearly 35,000 Palestinian civilians have been killed, two-thirds of them women and children, according to local health officials. US and UN officials say a full-blown famine has broken out in northern Gaza, due to Israeli restrictions on food shipments and fighting.
Human rights groups have long accused Israeli security forces of committing crimes against Palestinians and accused Israeli leaders of failing to hold those responsible to account.
Israel says it follows all US and international laws, that it is investigating allegations of abuses by its security forces, and that its campaign in Gaza is proportionate to the existential threat Hamas says it faces.
As the suffering of Palestinian civilians increased, Biden and his administration moved away from their initial steadfast public support for Israel and began criticizing the conduct of the war.
Biden said in December that “indiscriminate bombing” was costing Israel international support. After Israeli forces attacked and killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers in April, the Biden administration signaled for the first time that it could cut military aid to Israel if it changes its approach to the war and humanitarian aid. change.
A senior administration official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue, told The Associated Press on Tuesday that the US halted a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns about Israel’s decision on Rafah.
Republican Ronald Reagan was the last president to openly suspend any US support for the Israeli military as a way to pressure Israel over its offensives.
But critics say Biden and other recent presidents have looked the other way as Israeli security forces have been accused of extrajudicial killings and other abuses against Palestinians. They have accepted Israeli assurances about alleged serious abuses that would lead to suspension of military aid to any other foreign military partner, said two former State Department officials who left the government last year. The government denies any double standards.
But now Congress is forcing the administration to issue its most public assessment in decades on whether Israel has legally used U.S. military aid.
Under a 1997 law of Congress known as the Leahy Laws, if the U.S. finds credible evidence that a unit of foreign security forces has committed gross human rights violations, any U.S. assistance to that unit is automatically suspended.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken wrote to House Speaker Mike Johnson last week that the US found evidence of such abuses by a certain Israeli entity credible. Blinken added that Israel still needs to correct the unit’s misconduct, something that must happen under the Leahy Laws before lifting the military aid suspension. Blinken said that rather than suspending aid, the US would work with Israel to “identify a path to effective remediation for this unit.”
Israeli officials have identified it as the Netzah Yehuda, who is accused of the death of a Palestinian American man and other abuses in the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the war in Gaza broke out.
Tim Rieser, a veteran Senate foreign policy staffer who helped now-retired Sen. Patrick Leahy draft the law, said that if it had been applied to Israel, “it might have been a deterrent.”
Instead, “we have seen that abuse against Palestinians is rarely punished,” Rieser told the AP.
While a finding against Israel under the national security memo would not require the administration to reduce military aid to Israel, it would increase pressure on Biden to do so.
A report to the government by an unofficial, self-formed panel of military experts and former State Department officials, including Josh Paul and Charles Blaha, points to specific Israeli attacks on aid convoys, journalists, hospitals, schools and refugee centers and other targets in in general. protected by law. The report states that the government must determine that Israel’s conduct in Gaza has broken the law. Amnesty International has argued the same.
The high number of civilian casualties in Israeli attacks goes far beyond the laws of proportionality, say American critics and rights groups. They point to an October 31 attack on a six-story apartment building in Gaza that killed at least 106 civilians. Critics say Israel has provided no immediate justification for that attack.
“They’re taking what we did in Mosul and Raqqa and going 10 times further,” said Wes Bryant, a former Air Force officer who focused on counterterrorism. expert who led attack cells against the Islamic State and other extremist groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. He is among those urging the US to provide military support to Israel.
“If this is the new benchmark for 21st century warfare, we might as well go back to World War II,” Bryant said.
Israel and the Biden administration say Hamas’ presence in tunnels throughout Gaza, and its alleged presence in hospitals and other protected locations, make it harder for Israeli forces to prevent large numbers of civilian casualties.