US fails to act on 500 cases where its weapons harmed Gaza civilians

The United States identified astir 500 reports of Gaza civilians being harmed and killed by Israeli forces with US-supplied weapons but has failed to instrumentality enactment connected immoderate of them, according to The Washington Post and the Reuters quality agency.

The incidents person been collected since October 7, 2023 by the US Department of State’s Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, a ceremonial mechanics for tracking and assessing immoderate reported misuse of US-origin weapons, the Post reported connected Wednesday.

Among the cases submitted to the State Department, according to radical acquainted with the matter, are the January sidesplitting of six-year-old Hind Rajab and her household successful their car, with pieces of a US-made 120mm vessel circular purportedly recovered astatine the scene.

There were shards of US-made small-diameter bombs photographed astatine a family’s location and astatine a schoolhouse sheltering displaced civilians aft aerial attacks successful May killed dozens of women and children.

And determination was the process fin of a Boeing-manufactured Joint Direct Attack Munition connected the country of a July onslaught that killed dozens of Palestinians.

State Department officials gathered the incidents from nationalist and different sources, including media reports, civilian nine groups and overseas authorities contacts.

The mechanism, established successful August past twelvemonth to beryllium applied to each countries that person US weapons, has 3 stages: incidental analysis, argumentation interaction assessment, and coordinated section action, according to a December interior State Department cablegram reviewed by Reuters.

None of the Gaza cases had yet reached the 3rd signifier of action, said a erstwhile US authoritative acquainted with the matter.

Options, the erstwhile authoritative told Reuters, could scope from moving with Israel’s authorities to assistance mitigate harm, to suspending existing arms export licences oregon withholding aboriginal approvals.

‘Very hard work’

The medication of President Joe Biden has said it is tenable to measure that Israel has breached planetary instrumentality successful the conflict, but assessing idiosyncratic incidents was “very hard work”, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters connected Wednesday.

“We are conducting those investigations, and we are conducting them thoroughly, and we are conducting them aggressively, but we privation to get to the close answer, and it’s important that we not leap to a pre-ordained result, and that we not skip immoderate of the work,” Miller said, adding that Washington consistently raises concerns implicit civilian harm with Israel.

John Ramming Chappell, a ineligible and argumentation advisor focused connected US information assistance and arms income astatine the Center for Civilians successful Conflict, told the Post that US officials were “ignoring grounds of wide civilian harm and atrocities to support a argumentation of virtually unconditional weapons transfers to the [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu government”.

“When it comes to the Biden administration’s arms policies, everything looks bully connected insubstantial but has turned retired meaningless successful signifier erstwhile it comes to Israel,” helium added.

(Al Jazeera)

Mike Casey, who worked connected Gaza issues astatine the State Department’s Office of Palestinian Affairs successful Jerusalem, told the Post that elder officials routinely gave the content that their extremity successful discussing immoderate alleged maltreatment by Israel was to fig retired however to framework it successful a little antagonistic light.

“There’s this consciousness of: ‘How bash we marque this okay?’” Casey, who resigned successful July, was quoted arsenic saying. “There’s not, ‘How bash we get to the existent information of what’s going connected here?’”

Senior officials, helium said, often dismissed the credibility of Palestinian sources, witnesser accounts, nongovernmental organisations, authoritative accounts from the Palestinian Authority, and adjacent from the United Nations.

William D Hartung, a co-author of the Watson Institute study and an adept connected the arms manufacture and the US subject fund astatine the Quincy Institute, told the paper that “it’s astir impossible” that Israel is not violating US instrumentality “given the level of slaughter that’s going on, and the preponderance of US weapons”.

Oren Marmorstein, a spokesperson for Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, declined to sermon the US inquiries oregon Washington’s efforts to bounds civilian harm with the Post.

The Israeli subject says it makes “significant efforts” to debar civilian harm but has cited the beingness of Hamas fighters among civilians arsenic justification to transportation retired bombings connected schools, hospitals, mosques and structure encampments.

Gaza’s Ministry of Health says the bulk of the 43,163 radical killed since October 7 past twelvemonth person been women and children.