State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel announced today that the United States confirmed that five Israel Defense Forces (IDF) units were found responsible “for individual incidents of serious human rights violations.”
Patel clarified that all violations occurred before the terrorist attack carried out by Hamas on October 7, 2023. According to the State Department’s investigation, the main illicit act occurred in early 2022 and in the West Bank.
“After a careful process we confirmed that five Israeli units were responsible for individual incidents that violated human rights. All of these incidents happened before October 7 and none happened in Gaza. Four of these units have effectively remedied these violations,” Patel explained.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken had initiated the administrative investigation to determine – among other complaints – whether the Israeli Netzah Yehuda battalion of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) violated human rights during a military operation carried out in the West Bank at the beginning of 2022.
The result of the investigation is a warning signal from the United States to Israel, which is questioned by the number of deaths it caused during its offensive in Gaza to exterminate the terrorist group Hamas, which is responsible for the massacre committed in Israel on October 7. 2023. That day 1,300 Jews were murdered, dozens of women and men were mutilated, and more than one hundred civilians were kidnapped and still remain captive in the Strip.
“I will firmly defend the IDF, our army and our fighters. If anyone believes they can impose sanctions on an IDF unit, I will fight this with all my powers,” Benjamin Netanyahu warned on the official X account (formerly Twitter), when he learned that the State Department was preparing to spread its investigation.
And he concluded: “It is the height of absurdity.”
Netanyahu joins Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and opposition leader Benny Gantz in Israel’s War Cabinet. The three have political and tactical differences regarding the conflict against Iran and its proxies, but in this case they reacted as a group to the imminent publication of Blinken’s report on the Netzah Yehuda battalion.
Following Netanyahu’s critical statements, Gantz contacted the Secretary of State to argue that a sanction on Netzah Yehuda would damage Israel’s legitimacy in wartime and maintain that the Israeli defense forces act under international law.
“The commanders and troops of the Netzah Yehuda Battalion are operating on the front lines of the fighting, since the outbreak of the war, they have been working to drive away Hezbollah forces on the northern border, to thwart terrorist elements in Judea and Samaria , and these days they are working to dismantle the Hamas brigades in the Gaza Strip, risking their lives,” concluded Yoav Gallant, Minister of Defense, in line with Netanyahu and Gantz.
Despite the advocacy of the three members of Israel’s War Cabinet, Blinken did not back down from the political decision to inform the public about his investigation based on the so-called Leahy Law.
In 1997, the Capitol passed a law authored by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) that “prohibits the United States government from using funds to assist foreign security forces units when there is credible information implicating that unit in the commission of serious human rights violations,” explains the official website of the State Department.
Thus, the Leahy Law allows the State Department – and also the Department of Defense – to open a summary to determine whether a foreign military unit – in this case the Netzah Yehuda battalion – violated human rights in the performance of a mission.
The investigation led by Blinken – in compliance with the Leahy Law – could deny funds to finance Israel’s war efforts against Iran and its proxies. Almost two weeks ago, Capitol Hill allocated $13 billion in military aid to Israel, after a debate that fractured the ruling bloc over Netanyahu’s military strategy.
Israel intends to essentially prevent the Biden administration’s critical report from aggravating the questions of global public opinion regarding its offensive in Gaza, in addition to blocking the part of the military funds that should be allocated to the Netzah Yehuda battalion, if it is finally sanctioned. by the State Department.
The White House has already questioned Prime Minister Netanyahu for the death of the volunteers of the NGO World Central Kitchen, and now the action of the Netzah Yehuda battalion is added, which was in the West Bank and prior to the Hamas terrorist attack.
The Netzah Yehuda Battalion was formed as a special unit for ultra-Orthodox Jewish soldiers. They are all men and ended up receiving young people with extreme right-wing ideology who were rejected by the other units of the Israel Defense Forces.
The “hill youth” unit – as they were identified – was deployed in the West Bank, and the State Department began its investigation towards the end of 2022, after receiving continued reports of incidents of violence against Palestinian civilians.
In January 2022, a Palestinian of American origin named Omar Assad dies. He was eighty years old and was arrested by Netzah Yehuda soldiers at a checkpoint in the West Bank. It was already night and Assad refused Israeli control: he was handcuffed, gagged and left out in the open. He died a few hours later.
The autopsy showed that Assad had died of a stress-induced heart attack caused by injuries sustained while in detention. The Israeli military justice system found that there were faults in the conduct of the soldiers involved, who “acted in a way that did not correspond to what is required and expected,” it said in its own ruling.
The Israeli military punished three of the unit’s commanders after the investigation. But no criminal charges were brought against the soldiers. In January 2023, the battalion was moved from the West Bank to the Golan Heights.
During the G7 summit in Capri, Blinken was asked when the results of the investigation into the Netzah Yehuda battalion would be known. The Secretary of State was laconic: “You will be able to see them in the coming days,” he anticipated.
It is the first time that the United States applies the Leahy Law with Israel, which is its main ally in the Middle East. Netanyahu did not want to set a precedent, and during the last conversation he had with Biden he proposed that the release of the report be postponed in time.
Biden said no.
And today the results of the investigation led by Blinken were known. In Israel’s favor is that it amended four of the five cases analyzed – as required by the Leahy Law so as not to suspend the military aid granted – and it remains to be seen what sanctions the White House will apply to the illegal conduct of the Netzah Yehuda battalion in the West Bank.
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