Lapid slams Netanyahu over reported US plan to sanction IDF unit with history of abuses

Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, leads a faction meeting at the Knesset on April 15, 2024 (Chaim Goldbergl/Flash90)
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, leads a faction meeting at the Knesset on April 15, 2024 (Chaim Goldbergl/Flash90)

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government over reports that Washington plans on sanctioning the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has a history of abuses against Palestinians.

Calling the American sanctions a “mistake” that must be corrected, Lapid declares that “the source of the problem is not on the military level but at the political level.”

“The world understands and knows that [National Security] Minister [Itamar] Ben Gvir does not want the police to enforce the law in the West Bank and [Finance] Minister [Bezalel] Smotrich is not opposed to Jewish terrorism and extreme settler riots,” he says. “The result is serious harm to Israel’s status as a nation of law and another serious erosion of our international status.”

“The soldiers of the IDF and its commanders,” he continues, “are the first to be harmed by the reckless policy and political failure of the government.”

Responding to a report says the Biden administration is slated to announce sanctions against Netzah Yehuda, Ben Gvir on Saturday stated that if the Defense Ministry would not “back up the battalion as required,” he would work to absorb it into the border police.

The sanctions are reportedly a response to alleged human rights abuses committed against Palestinians in the West Bank by the unit’s members.

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