US will not impose sanctions on IDF unit for alleged rights violations — report
According to Axios, Blinken informed Gallant of the decision regarding the Netzah Yehuda battalion
The United States will not impose sanctions on the Israeli military’s Netzah Yehuda battalion and has decided to end an investigation into potential rights violations by the unit in the West Bank, Axios reported on Friday.
Citing two senior US and Israeli officials, Axios reported that Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant of the change in a conversation on Friday.
In April, reports emerged that the US was planning to take action against Netzah Yehuda, over allegations it had committed gross human-rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank before the war in Gaza began.
The battalion, designed for religious troops and largely comprised of ultra-Orthodox nationalists, 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 Omar As’ad, a 78-year-old Palestinian-American 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 so they would no longer be in contact with Palestinians.
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 in April, explaining the unprecedented decision to consider sanctioning an Israeli military unit.
Blinken said in April that 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.
The plan to sanction the unit was strongly condemned by Israeli leadership with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Gallant and other ministers in the government publicly called on the US not to go ahead with the sanctions.
Israeli officials, including Gallant and then-war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, held separate talks with Blinken in an effort to prevent Washington from going ahead with sanctions.
In late April, Blinken said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson that the administration would hold off on sanctions as it reviewed new information provided by Israel.
Netzah Yehuda was set up in 1999 to accommodate the religious beliefs of ultra-Orthodox Jews and other religious nationalist recruits in the army.
