Washington: The United States has found five units of Israel's security forces responsible for "gross violations" of human rights, marking the first time Washington has reached such a conclusion about Israeli forces, the US Department of State said on Monday. However, it has not barred any of the units from receiving US military assistance even during the seven-month-long war.
Israel has conducted "remediation" in the cases of four of the units in compliance with US law prohibiting military assistance to security force units that commit such abuses and have not been brought to justice, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters. These incidents had taken place outside of Gaza before the October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel that unleashed a devastating military response.
Human rights groups say they have reported incidents involving Israeli units including extrajudicial killings, torture and physical abuse to the State Department, most of them committed against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. However, Patel declined to offer specifics on the violations the US looked at, which units were involved or what remediation steps were taken.
While Israel has conducted remediation for four units, Washington has not yet determined whether there has been sufficient remediation in the case of the fifth unit and was still in discussions with Israel over the matter, according to Patel. The fifth unit is believed to be the Netzah Yehuda battalion of the Israel Defense Forces, which has been implicated in the 2022 death of 78-year-old Palestinian-American Omar Assad.
US findings on Assad's death
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on April 19 said he had made determinations regarding allegations of human rights violations by Israeli forces after the Pro Publica investigative news organisation reported State Department officials had recommended Israeli units be disqualified from receiving US aid under the Leahy Laws - authored by US Senator Patrick Leahy in the late 1990s.
Following that statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would fight against sanctions imposed against Israeli units and Israeli war cabinet members Benny Gantz and Yoav Gallant both held calls with Blinken. Dealings with Israel have become an intense focus of US election-year politics, and House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, the country's highest-ranking Republican, asked Blinken for assurances over the timely delivery of military aid to Israel included in a funding bill passed last week, Johnson's office said.
Blinken appeared to refer to Netzah Yehuda, a battalion set up in 1999 to accommodate the religious beliefs of ultra-Orthodox Jews and other religious nationalist recruits in the army, which was deployed to the West Bank until it was moved in late 2022 after US criticism. Israel reprimanded a Netzah Yehuda commander and two officers over Assad's death, which came after soldiers gagged him and cuffed his hands, but authorities said it was impossible to determine that his cause of death was caused by the soldiers' conduct.
Blinken wrote that one unit "has been acknowledged by the Israeli government to have engaged in conduct inconsistent with IDF rules and, as a result, was transferred from the West Bank to the Golan Heights in 2022."
Pressure on Netanyahu
Israel's military conduct has come under increasing scrutiny as its forces have killed some 34,500 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the enclave's health authorities, many of them women and children. The Gaza Strip has been reduced to a wasteland, and extreme food shortages have prompted fears of famine. The Israeli assault was launched in response to the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, in which Israel says 1,200 people were killed and over 250 hostages taken.
Hamas has maintained that a permanent ceasefire and full Israeli withdrawal are prerequisites for any agreement. Conversely, Israel has affirmed its commitment to continue its operation in Gaza until Hamas is eradicated. However, Israel has recently agreed to Hamas's demand for unrestricted movement of Palestinians to northern Gaza, a concession pivotal in advancing negotiations.
Israel's possible invasion of the city of Rafah, which is the last refuge for over a million Palestinians fleeing the war, has also become a major friction point between Netanyahu's government and the Biden administration. The US opposes the invasion on humanitarian grounds and Biden told Netanyahu over a call recently that it would not support such a plan without a concrete humanitarian plan.
(with inputs from Reuters)
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