Palestinians sue State Department over US aid to Israeli military | Joe Biden News

Five Palestinians from Gaza, the occupied West Bank and the United States are suing the U.S. government in an attempt to suspend U.S. assistance to the Israeli military over its involvement in serious human rights violations.

The lawsuit, announced Tuesday, accuses the State Department of failing to enforce a federal law prohibiting the transfer of funds to foreign military units engaged in egregious violations such as extrajudicial killings and torture.

The State Department's calculated failure to implement the Leahy Act is particularly shocking in the face of the unprecedented escalation of Israeli violence. [gross violations of human rights] since the Gaza war broke out on October 7, 2023, the lawsuit says.

Israel's bombings and ground operations in Gaza have killed more than 45,000 Palestinians since early October 2023, and the United Nations and major global rights groups have accused the Israeli military of committing war crimes, including a genocide.

The main plaintiff in the case, a teacher from Gaza known as Amal Gaza, has been forcibly displaced seven times since the start of the war and 20 members of her family have been killed in Israeli attacks.

My suffering and the unimaginable loss my family has suffered would be greatly alleviated if the United States stopped providing military assistance to Israeli units committing serious human rights violations, she said in an accompanying statement. the trial.

Contacted by Al Jazeera for comment, the State Department said it does not comment on ongoing litigation.

Leahy Law

The case revolves around what is known as the Leahy Act, a federal regulation that prohibits the U.S. government from providing funds to foreign military units when there is credible information implicating them in gross human rights violations. 'man.

These violations include torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances and rape, the US State Department says in a fact sheet explaining the law.

We ask the government to respect the law, Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at DAWN, a US-based non-profit that campaigns for democracy and human rights in the Arab world and supports plaintiffs, told Al Jazeera in this matter.

For months, lawyers and human rights advocates have urged President Joe Biden's administration to restrict aid to the Israeli military amid multiple reports of violations against Palestinians in Gaza and elsewhere. West Bank.

Rights groups have documented Israel's use of American-made weapons in several deadly attacks in Gaza, including indiscriminate strikes that killed dozens of Palestinian civilians.

Palestinians in the West Bank have also experienced a surge in deadly violence from the Israeli army and settlers since the start of the Gaza war, with the UN humanitarian office reporting that 770 Palestinians were killed there between October 7, 2023 and the end of November 2024.

The United States provides Israel with at least $3.8 billion in military aid annually, and researchers at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, recently estimated that the Biden administration has provided $17.9 billion additional dollars since the start of the war in Gaza.

Observers said that if the United States cut off this aid, Israel would not be able to continue its war effort.

Israel's violations are so widespread and serious that most, if not all, Israelis [army] the units would actually be considered ineligible for U.S. military assistance if the Leahy Act were implemented, Jarrar said.

If the United States stops sending weapons, Israel will have no way to continue its military operations, he added.

Special procedures for Israel

But efforts to pressure Washington to apply the Leahy Act to Israel have largely failed.

This year, the Biden administration considered withholding aid to an Israeli army unit known for its use of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank as well as its involvement in the death of an elderly Palestinian American.

However, the State Department ultimately determined that the Netzah Yehuda Battalion could continue to receive U.S. military assistance after stating that the abuse allegations had been effectively corrected.

The Leahy Act includes an exception that allows the United States to resume assistance if the Secretary of State determines and reports to Congress that the foreign government has taken effective steps to bring to justice the responsible members of the force unit security.

State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in August that Israel had provided new information about the Netzah Yehuda case, but he did not provide details. The decision to continue funding the unit has attracted widespread criticism.

While the Leahy Act should be applied equally to countries around the world, experts say Washington has created a specific set of procedures through the so-called Israel Leahy Verification Forum (ILVF) that benefits the principal ally of the United States.

The United States operates a unique, complex, lengthy and high-level Leahy process for Israel, explained Charles Blaha, a former State Department official responsible for implementing the Leahy Act, in a June column on the Just Security website.

For example, while Leahy Act decisions are typically made by lower-level U.S. government experts, in Israel's case, oversight involves higher-level in-person meetings as well as formal requests for information to the Israeli government, which slows down the process. process.

Blaha also explained that information that for any other country would undoubtedly result in ineligibility is insufficient for Israeli security force units.

As a result, in the four years since the ILVF first met, the process has failed to approve the identification of a single ineligible Israeli unit, Blaha said.

Constant fear

Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian-American plaintiff in the case, said he became involved in the proceedings because of his fears for his relatives in the Gaza Strip.

My surviving family members in Gaza have been forcibly displaced four times, living in constant fear of indiscriminate Israeli attacks carried out with American weapons, Moor said in a statement.

The U.S. government's military assistance to these abusive Israeli forces, which our own laws prohibit, allows Israelis to cause harm to me and my family.

Ultimately, the lawsuit asks a U.S. federal court judge to declare the State Department's actions and its ILVF procedures arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and inconsistent with the law.

It also asks the judge to order the U.S. government to send Israel a list of military units that are ineligible for U.S. aid and to issue an injunction barring Washington from providing aid to units that have committed violations. rights.

While other legal attempts to end U.S. support for Israel have been blocked by the courts on the grounds that the judiciary has no say in foreign policy decisions, Jarrar noted that the case requests the application of an administrative law.

Tuesday's lawsuit was filed under what's known as the Administrative Procedure Act. This is not a question of foreign policy. It's not about politics, Jarrar said.

We are simply asking the judge to order the State Department to obey the law.

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