US finds five Israel Defense Force units engaged in ‘gross human rights violations’, in scathing assessment as US military support for Israel faces scrutiny growing in the context of the war in Gaza.
The violations announced Monday by the State Department took place before the Hamas attack in Israel on October 7.
This finding may trigger a suspension of aid to units in a process known as Leahy’s Law.
“After a careful process, we found five Israeli units responsible for individual incidents of gross human rights violations,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters Monday.
The State Department announced that five Israeli units had committed “gross human rights violations.” Four of the units “effectively remedied these violations”
“All of these incidents were well before October 7 and none took place in Gaza. Four of these units effectively addressed these violations, which is what we expect from our partners,” he continued.
“This is in line with what we expect from all countries with which we have security relations. For the remaining unity, we continue to conduct consultations and engagements with the Israeli government,” he said .
This provided “additional information” and conversations are continuing, he said.
Patel stressed, under pressure, that the fifth unit could continue to receive U.S. aid and that overall U.S. support for Israel would continue.
It came on a day when White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly called U.S. support for Israel “ironclad.”
State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel announced the violations.
President Joe Biden spoke with Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday amid tensions over Gaza despite the United States’ “rock-solid” support for Israel.
White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced new questions over campus protests, truce talks and findings on Israeli units
“When we talk about the Leahy Act, our restrictions on units and components, when they are found to be in violation, it has no bearing on the broader security relationship that we may have with any country, particularly a country like Israel, with which we have a long-standing security relationship,” he said.
“The provision of massive aid that goes back many, many years.”
The Leahy Act, named after former Senator Patrick Leagy (D-Vt.), prohibits U.S. funding of a unit when there is “credible information” linking it to gross human rights violations.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Saudi Arabia on Monday to negotiate a possible ceasefire in Gaza, spoke about the issue with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, Fox News reported.
The finding of human rights violations comes as Blinken publicly pressured Hamas to accept the latest potential truce in progress that would free hostages and end Israeli operations in Gaza.
Jean-Pierre exerted new pressure from him on Monday. “The responsibility does indeed lie with Hamas. There is a deal on the table and they have to accept it,” she said.
But she avoided taking a stance on protest encampments at universities across the country, even as Columbia University prepared to meet an administration deadline for members of a protest encampment to leave.
“Anti-Semitism is hate speech, it is dangerous and abhorrent,” she said.
“This is a painful moment – we understand that,” she said, while adding that “freedom of expression must be within the law,” she said.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu has blasted the process of crackdown on IDF units, which comes as US officials have repeatedly called on Israel to consider the health and well-being of civilians in Gaza as part of its operations there.
“At a time when our soldiers are fighting the monsters of terror, the intention to impose a sanction on an IDF unit is the height of absurdity and a moral attack,” Netanyahu said last week on X.
But Patel, in his comments on the issue, stressed that a “standard of redress is consistent and the same for all countries” and is a way for a country to avoid the ban by taking action against the offending unit .
“This unit was recognized by the Israeli government as having engaged in conduct inconsistent with IDF rules and, as a result, was transferred from the West Bank to the Golan Heights in 2022,” Blinken wrote in a letter to the president of the IDF. the House, Mike Johnson.
That could have been a reference to the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, CNN wrote in a report saying the unit was deployed in 2022. The unit’s commander was reprimanded after the death of Omar Assad, a Palestinian-American from 78 year old who died in custody.
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