The United States has concluded that five Israel Defense Forces units engaged in “serious human rights violations,” in a scathing assessment as American military support for Israel comes under increasing scrutiny amid the war in Gaza.
The violations announced by the State Department on Monday came before the October 7 Hamas attack inside Israel.
The finding could trigger a suspension of aid to the units under a process known as the Leahy law.
“After a careful process, we found five Israeli units responsible for individual incidents of serious human rights violations,” senior deputy State Department spokesman Vedant Patel told reporters on Monday.
The State Department announced that five Israeli units had been found to have committed “serious human rights violations.” Four of the units were found to have “effectively remedied these violations.”
‘All of these were incidents long before October 7 and none took place in Gaza. Four of these units have effectively remedied these violations, which is what we expect partners to do,” he continued.
‘It is consistent with what we expect from all the countries with which we have a security relationship. For a remaining unit, we will continue in consultations and engagements with the Government of Israel,” he said.
He provided “additional information” and talks are continuing, he said.
When pressed, Patel noted that the 5th unit could continue to receive American aid and that overall US support for Israel would continue.
That came on a day when White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre repeatedly called U.S. support for Israel “unwavering.”
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 “strong” US support for Israel.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre faced new questions about campus protests, truce talks and findings about Israeli units.
“When we talk about the Leahy Act, what we’re talking about is the restrictions on our 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 a country, especially a country . like Israel, with which we have a long-standing security relationship,” he stated.
“The provision of massive assistance that goes back many, many years.”
The Leahy Law, named after former Sen. Patrick Leagy (D-Vt.), prohibits U.S. funding of a unit when there is “credible information” connecting it to serious human rights violations.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who was in Saudi Arabia on Monday negotiating a possible ceasefire in Gaza, discussed the matter 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 the works that would free hostages and halt Israel’s operation in Gaza.
Jean-Pierre applied his own pressure on Monday. “In fact, the responsibility lies with Hamas. “There is an agreement on the table and they have to accept it,” he said.
But he avoided taking a position on protest camps at universities across the country, even as Columbia University prepared to act on an administration deadline for members of a protest camp to leave.
“Anti-Semitism is hate speech, it is dangerous and abhorrent,” he said.
“It is a painful moment, we understand it,” he said, adding that “freedom of expression must be carried out within the law,” he said.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu has criticized the law enforcement process against IDF units, which comes as US officials have repeatedly called on Israel to take into account the health and well-being of civilians in Gaza amid 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 low morale,” Netanyahu posted last week in X.
But Patel, in his comments on the matter, noted that “a remediation standard is consistent and is the same for all countries,” and is a way for a country to avoid the ban by taking action against the offending unit.
“The Israeli government has acknowledged that this unit has engaged in conduct inconsistent with IDF standards and, as a result, was transferred from the West Bank to the Golan Heights in 2022,” Blinken wrote in a letter to the House Speaker. Representatives, Mike Johnson.
That could have been a reference to the Netzah Yehuda battalion. cnn he wrote in a report stating that the unit had those deployments in 2022. The unit’s commander was reprimanded following the death of Omar Assad, a 78-year-old Palestinian American who died in detention.
