US says 5 IDF units violated human rights: 4 have remediated, one being reviewed
Cases predate Gaza war; Washington says it received new info from Israel on 5th unit — thought to be Netzah Yehuda Battalion — after Jerusalem last week feared imminent sanctions
WASHINGTON — The United States found five units of Israel’s security forces responsible for gross violations of human rights, the first time Washington has reached such a conclusion about Israeli forces, the State Department said on Monday, though it has not barred any of the units from receiving US military assistance.
The incidents in question took place outside of Gaza before conflict broke out between Israel and Hamas in October.
Israel has conducted “remediation” in the cases of four of the units in compliance with US law prohibiting military assistance to security force units that commit such abuses and have not been brought to justice, State Department deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel told reporters.
Patel declined to offer specifics on the violations US officials looked at, which units were involved or what remediation steps were taken.
“Four of these units have effectively remediated these violations, which is what we expect partners to do,” Patel said. In the case of a fifth unit, Washington has not yet determined whether there has been sufficient remediation and was still in discussions with Israel, he said.
The fifth unit is believed to be the Netzah Yehuda Battalion of the Israel Defense Forces, which has been implicated in the 2022 death of 78-year-old Palestinian-American Omar As’ad.
Reports last week that the US could take action against Netzah Yehuda were strongly condemned by Israeli leadership, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and other ministers in the government publicly calling on the US not to go ahead with sanctions.
Israeli officials, including Gallant and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, held separate talks with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in an effort to prevent Washington from going ahead with slapping sanctions on Netzah Yehuda, a Kfir infantry brigade battalion designed for religious troops that is largely comprised of ultra-Orthodox nationalists.
In a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson made public Friday, Blinken said the US would hold off on any decision about aid to the battalion while it reviews new information provided by Israel.
An Israeli official told The Times of Israel Monday that Jerusalem “categorically rejects any attempts to harm the IDF and Israel’s right to defend itself.”
The official added that nothing — not Iran and its proxies, State Department findings, or ICC warrants — will keep Israel from achieving its war aims.
Blinken earlier this month said he had made “determinations” regarding accusations that Israel violated a set of US laws that prohibit providing military assistance to individuals or security force units that commit gross violations of human rights.
The Leahy Laws, authored by US Senator Patrick Leahy in the late 1990s, prohibit providing military assistance to individuals or security force units that commit gross violations of human rights and have not been brought to justice.
Netzah Yehuda was set up in 1999 to accommodate the religious beliefs of ultra-Orthodox Jews and other religious nationalist recruits in the army.
The battalion has been at the center of several controversies in the past connected to right-wing extremism and violence against Palestinians, notably including the 2022 death of As’ad, who died after being detained, handcuffed, blindfolded and later abandoned in near-freezing conditions by soldiers of the battalion.
Following this incident and other reports of alleged abuse Palestinians suffered at the hands of the battalion’s soldiers, the IDF decided to move it out of the West Bank in December 2022.
No steps were taken, however, to hold specific soldiers accountable for the repeated incidents of misconduct against Palestinians that ran rampant in Netzah Yehuda, a US official told The Times of Israel earlier this week, explaining the unprecedented decision to consider sanctioning an Israeli military unit.
