Did Israel break international law? Biden administration could weigh in this week
Facing heat over its military support for Israel’s campaign, the Biden administration is due to deliver a first-of-its-kind formal verdict this week on whether the airstrikes on Gaza and restrictions on delivery of aid have violated international and U.S. laws designed to spare civilians from the worst horrors of conflict.
A decision against Israel would add to pressure on President Joe Biden to curb the flow of weapons and money to Israel’s military.
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Tim Rieser, a veteran Senate foreign policy staffer who helped now-retired Sen. Patrick Leahy craft the law, said if it had been applied to Israel, “maybe it would have been a deterrent.”
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Instead, “what we’ve seen is that abuses against Palestinians are rarely punished,” Rieser told the AP.
While a finding against Israel under the national security memo wouldn’t obligate the administration to start cutting military support for Israel, it would increase pressure on Biden to do so.
A report to the administration by an unofficial, self-formed panel of military experts and former State Department officials, including Josh Paul and Charles Blaha, points to specific Israeli strikes on aid convoys, journalists, hospitals, schools and refugee centers and other targets broadly protected by law. The report argues the administration must find Israel’s conduct in Gaza has violated the law. Amnesty International has argued the same.
The high civilian death tolls in Israel’s strikes go far beyond the laws of proportionality, the U.S. critics and rights groups say. They point to an October 31 strike on a six-story apartment building in Gaza that killed at least 106 civilians. Critics say Israel provided no immediate justification for that strike.
“They’re taking what we did in Mosul and Raqqa, and going tenfold beyond,” exceeding even what was allowed under U.S. rules of engagement at the time in the so-called war on terror, said Wes Bryant, a former Air Force targeting expert who led strike cells against the Islamic State and other extremist groups in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. He is among those urging the U.S. to condition military support to Israel.
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“If this is the new bar for 21st-century warfare, we might as well go back to World War II,” Bryant said.
Israel and the Biden administration say Hamas’ presence in tunnels throughout Gaza, and alleged presence in hospitals and other protected sites, make it harder for Israeli forces to avoid high civilian casualties.
