“I made decisions. You can expect to see them in the coming days,” Blinken said.
Blinken’s remarks follow a report by the investigative newspaper ProPublica that the panel known as the Israel Leahy Vetting Forum recommended to Blinken months ago that certain Israeli units be barred from receiving U.S. aid in due to flagrant violations of human rights. The incidents took place in the West Bank and mostly occurred before the war between Israel and Hamas, the outlet reported.
The Leahy Laws refer to the then-Senator’s landmark legislation. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) which prohibits providing military assistance to individuals or security force units that commit gross human rights violations with impunity. They have blocked hundreds of foreign police and military units from receiving American aid – in countries like Colombia, Mexico and Cambodia.
Current and former U.S. officials also told The Washington Post that several Israeli units, including Border Police and Special Forces, were under scrutiny as part of the deal, pending Blinken’s decision.
The State Department declined to specify which alleged violations were under review, but a number of controversial incidents have been compiled by watchdog agencies inside and outside the U.S. government.
In one case, an army unit is accused of bound and gagged a Palestinian American citizen. at a construction site, after stopping him at a roadblock at night in the village of Jiljiliya.
Omar Assad, 78, was found unconscious in the early hours of January 12, 2022. A medical examination published by the Palestinian Ministry of Justice described the cause of his death as “sudden cardiac arrest induced by stress and due to external violence”.
He had been tightly bound and blindfolded, had abrasions on his wrists and bleeding inside his eyelids, according to the medical examination. According to details of an Israeli military investigation leaked to Israeli media, soldiers and officers at the scene told investigators that they gagged Assad and forcibly took him to the construction site because that they didn’t want his screams to alert others to the presence of the checkpoint.
They denied he showed any signs of distress and claimed he was alive when they left him.
In another incident, an Israeli interrogator allegedly physically and sexually assaulted a 15-year-old Palestinian boy after he was arrested by Israeli Border Police forces from his home in East Jerusalem on January 13, 2021. The boy was accused of throwing stones and Molotov cocktails. A document from Defense for Children International – Palestine, a watchdog group, said the abuse described in her testimony amounted to torture.
Among the most prominent units under scrutiny is the Yamam, the elite Israeli Border Police unit that focuses on counterterrorism operations, including raids in civilian areas. A Washington Post investigation found last year that the unit opened fire on a crowded street in the West Bank city of Jenin in March 2023, killing a 14-year-old boy and two militants, none of whom were visibly armed. One of the men was shot multiple times after being incapacitated – an apparent extrajudicial killing that experts say could violate Israeli law.
“Agents from the Israeli YAMAM unit acted as judge, jury and executioner when they shot dead two Palestinians in broad daylight in Jenin on March 16, 2023, a classic example of extrajudicial killing by Israeli forces accustomed to operate with impunity. Adam Shapiro, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now, said in July. The organization filed a brief on the matter with the State Department, arguing that the case met the criteria to trigger Leahy Act review and sanctions. “If the State Department does not enforce the Leahy Act in this case, the law might as well not exist,” Shapiro said.
Rights groups say abuses against Palestinians in detention are commonplace and that tactics used in urban raids frequently contravene international humanitarian law. The Israeli police and army insist they operate within the law.
Asked about the cases on Friday, Blinken said the Leahy legislation was “very important legislation.”
“It’s an approach that we apply at all levels. And when we do these investigations, these investigations, it’s something that takes time. This must be done with great care, both in collecting the facts and in analyzing them,” he said. “And that’s exactly what we did.” And I think it’s fair to say that you will see results very soon.
Israel’s military conduct as well as the billions of dollars in U.S. military aid provided by Washington have come under increasing scrutiny as the Palestinian death toll in Gaza climbs to 34,000, according to local health authorities.
The Israeli assault on Gaza follows Hamas’ cross-border attack that killed 1,200 people and took more than 240 hostages.
The United States provides Israel with more than $3.8 billion in military aid a year, and the Biden administration has flooded the country with thousands of bombs and artillery since October 7. For the first time, President Biden threatened in April to condition aid to Israel if it did not take specific steps to protect aid workers and provide additional humanitarian aid to the enclave.
The Biden administration has been much more comfortable criticizing Israeli policy in the West Bank than in Gaza, where the war is being fought and thousands of Hamas fighters are believed to still be actively engaged. The administration on Friday imposed sanctions on two entities accused of raising money for extremist West Bank settlers who have attacked Palestinians.
washingtonpost
