The Biden administration believes that Israel most likely violated international norms by failing to protect civilians in Gaza, but has not found specific cases that would justify withdrawing military aid, the Department of Defense said Friday. State in Congress.
In the administration’s most detailed assessment of Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the State Department said in a written report that Israel “possesses the knowledge, experience and tools necessary to implement best practices aimed at mitigating harm to civilians in its military operations.”
But he adds that “the results on the ground, including the high number of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions” about whether the Israeli military is using these tools sufficiently.
Despite this, the report – which appears to contradict itself in places – claims that the United States has no hard evidence of Israeli violations. He highlighted the difficulty of collecting reliable information from Gaza, Hamas’ tactic of operating in civilian areas and the fact that “Israel has not shared comprehensive information to verify” whether US weapons have been used in specific incidents alleged to have involved human rights violations.
The report, mandated by President Biden, also distinguishes between the general possibility that Israel violated the law and any conclusions about specific incidents that would prove it. He considers Israel’s assurances in March that it would use American weapons in accordance with international law to be “credible and reliable,” and thus enabling the continued flow of American military aid.
The findings have nothing to do with Mr. Biden’s recent decision to delay delivery to Israel of 3,500 bombs and its review of other arms shipments. The president said the actions were a response to Israel’s stated plans to invade the southern Gaza town of Rafah.
The report said its conclusions were hampered in part by difficulties in gathering reliable information about the war zone and by the way Hamas operates in densely populated areas. He also noted that Israel has begun seeking possible accountability for alleged violations of the law, a key element in the U.S. assessment of whether to provide military aid to allies accused of human rights abuses. man.
Israel has opened criminal investigations into its military’s conduct in Gaza, the report said, and the Israeli military is “reviewing hundreds of incidents” that could involve wartime misconduct.
The report also does not reveal that Israel intentionally obstructed humanitarian aid to Gaza.
While concluding that “Israeli action and inaction” had slowed the flow of aid to Gaza, which desperately lacks basic necessities like food and medicine, he said that “we do not assess not currently if the Israeli government prohibits or otherwise restricts the transportation or delivery of U.S. humanitarian aid” into the territory.
Such a finding would have triggered a U.S. law banning military aid to countries that block such assistance.
Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer who now works at the International Crisis Group, said the report “goes out of its way” to avoid concluding that Israel violated any law, a conclusion that would exercise major new pressure on Mr. Biden to restrict guns at home.
Mr Finucane, a critic of Israeli military operations, said the report was “clearer” than he had expected, but he still found it “watered down” and heavily “lawyered”.
These findings further angered a minority of Democrats in Congress, who were increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. They argue that Israel has indiscriminately killed civilians with American weapons and intentionally obstructed humanitarian aid provided by the United States.
Either would violate U.S. laws governing arms transfers to foreign militaries, as well as international humanitarian law, based largely on the Geneva Conventions.
The report does not define what its other criteria mean for Israel’s actions, “established best practices for mitigating harm to civilians,” although it cites the Defense Ministry. guidelines on the subject published last year, which include certain measures “not required by the law of war”.
“If this conduct meets international standards, then God help us all,” Senator Chris Van Hollen, Democrat of Maryland, told reporters after the report was released. “They don’t want to have to take steps to hold the Netanyahu government accountable for what’s happening,” he added, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Critics of Mr. Biden maintaining the bulk of his military support for Israel had hoped he would use the report as justification to further restrict arms deliveries to the country. The United States supplies Israel $3.8 billion in annual military aidand Congress last month approved an additional $14 billion in emergency funding.
Mr. Biden commissioned the report along with a national security memorandum known as NSM-20. It requires all recipients of U.S. military aid engaged in conflict to provide the United States with written assurances that they will respect international law and will not obstruct the delivery of government-provided or supported humanitarian aid. American.
The report calls on the Secretary of State and Secretary of Defense to evaluate “any credible reports or allegations” that U.S. weapons may have been used in violation of international law.
Since the release of the President’s Memorandum, an independent task force has formed in response to the release a long report citing dozens of examples of likely violations of Israeli law. The report reveals what it calls Israel’s “systematic disregard for fundamental principles of international law,” including “attacks launched despite predictable and disproportionate harm to civilians” in densely populated areas.
In a statement following the State Department report, the working group called the U.S. document “at best incomplete and at worst intentionally misleading in its defense of acts and conduct that may violate international humanitarian law and may constitute war crimes.”
“Once again, the Biden administration faced the facts – then closed the curtains,” said task force members, including Josh Paul, a former State Department official who in October , resigned in protest on American military support for Israel.
The State Department report clearly shows sympathy for Israel’s military challenge, repeating past statements by the Biden administration that Israel has the “right to defend itself” following the October 7 Hamas attacks. He also noted that military experts call Gaza “as difficult a battlespace as any army has faced in modern warfare.”
“Because Hamas uses civilian infrastructure for military purposes and civilians as human shields, it is often difficult to determine the facts on the ground in an active war zone of this nature and the presence of legitimate military targets across Gaza. “, did he declare.
Nonetheless, he highlighted numerous specific incidents in which the Israeli military killed civilians or aid workers, the latter of which he called an “area of specific concern.”
These episodes include the murder of seven World Central Kitchen Workers in April. The report notes that Israel fired officers and reprimanded commanders involved in the attack, which Israel called a “serious mistake,” and plans to pursue legal action.
Other episodes cited include the October 31 and November 1 airstrikes on the overcrowded Jabaliya refugee camp, which reportedly killed dozens of civilians, including children. He noted Israel’s claim that it had targeted a senior Hamas commander and underground Hamas facilities at the site, and that its munitions had “led to the collapse of tunnels as well as buildings and infrastructure at the site.” above them.”
And while the report does not conclude that Israel intentionally obstructed the delivery of humanitarian aid, it lists several examples of how its government has had “a negative effect” on aid distribution. They included “significant bureaucratic delays” and what he called the active involvement of some senior Israeli officials in protests or attacks on humanitarian convoys.
The report was delivered to Congress two days after the deadline set by Mr. Biden’s February memorandum, arriving late on a Friday afternoon — timing chosen by government officials hoping to minimize the public impact of an announcement. Earlier in the day, a White House spokesman, John F. Kirby, denied that the delay had any “nefarious” motive.
