{"id":38408,"date":"2024-05-11T06:03:14","date_gmt":"2024-05-11T06:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/index.php\/2024\/05\/11\/us-says-israel-may-have-breached-international-law-with-american-weapons-in-gaza\/"},"modified":"2024-05-11T06:03:14","modified_gmt":"2024-05-11T06:03:14","slug":"us-says-israel-may-have-breached-international-law-with-american-weapons-in-gaza","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/us-says-israel-may-have-breached-international-law-with-american-weapons-in-gaza\/","title":{"rendered":"US says Israel may have breached international law with American weapons in Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The US says Israel may have used American-supplied weapons in breach of international humanitarian law in some instances during the war in Gaza.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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It is \u201creasonable to assess\u201d that US-supplied arms have been used in ways \u201cinconsistent\u201d with Israel\u2019s obligations, says the state department.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it added that the US government did not have \u201ccomplete information\u201d in its assessment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report was submitted to Congress on Friday after a delay.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The White House-ordered review looked into how the country, along with six others engaged in conflict, has used US-supplied arms since the start of last year.<\/p>\n

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While the report was a clear rebuke of some Israeli operations in Gaza, it stopped short of definitively saying that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) campaign had breached international law.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Israel had had to confront an \u201cextraordinary military challenge\u201d fighting Hamas in Gaza, it said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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And it added that assurances it had received from Israel about adhering to the legal use of US weapons were \u201ccredible and reliable\u201d, and so weapons shipments could continue.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The document also noted that because Hamas \u201cuses civilian infrastructure for military purposes and civilians as human shields\u201d, it was often \u201cdifficult to determine facts on the ground in an active war zone\u201d of what are legitimate targets.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But it said that given Israel\u2019s significant reliance on US-made weapons, they had probably been used \u201cin instances inconsistent with its IHL [international humanitarian law] obligations or with established best practices for mitigating civilian harm\u201d.<\/p>\n

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It added that \u201cIsrael has the knowledge, experience, and tools to implement best practices for mitigating civilian harm in its military operations\u201d, but that \u201cresults on the ground, including high levels of civilian casualties, raise substantial questions as to whether the IDF is using them effectively in all cases\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report said the UN and humanitarian organisations had described Israeli efforts to mitigate civilian harm as \u201cinconsistent, ineffective and inadequate\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The state department found that Israel did not fully co-operate with US efforts to \u201cmaximise\u201d humanitarian aid into Gaza in the initial months of the conflict. It said, however, that this situation had changed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe do not currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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One of the contributors to the report, David Satterfield, a former US ambassador to Turkey, told the BBC that the report was the first of its kind and that the US would continue to keep Israeli actions \u201cunder review\u201d.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis is a conflict quite unlike any that the world has seen,\u201d he added. \u201cWe tried to take account of all those factors in coming up with a very frank, but also credible judgement.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The report was finally released days after US President Joe Biden publicly threatened to withhold certain bombs and artillery shells from Israel if it went ahead with an assault on Rafah, the last stronghold of Hamas in Gaza that is packed with more than a million Palestinians.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Shortly before the report\u2019s publication, Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu dismissed President Biden\u2019s warnings that the operation in Rafah would cross a \u201cred line\u201d and vowed that Israel would \u201cstand alone\u201d if necessary.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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More than 80,000 people have fled Rafah since Monday, the UN says, with Israeli tanks reportedly massed close to built-up areas amid constant bombardment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Israeli troops took control and closed the Rafah crossing with Egypt at the start of their operation, while the UN said it was too dangerous for its staff and lorries to reach the reopened Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The post US says Israel may have breached international law with American weapons in Gaza<\/a> first appeared on KBC<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The US says Israel may have used American-supplied weapons in breach of international humanitarian law in some instances during the war in Gaza. It is \u201creasonable to assess\u201d that US-supplied arms have been used in ways \u201cinconsistent\u201d with Israel\u2019s obligations, says the state department. But it added that the US government did not have \u201ccomplete […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}