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US Says It’s Reviewing New Information about Israeli Unit Accused of Abuses before War in Gaza

Israeli soldiers patrol near the West Bank city of Tulkarm where two Palestinians were reportedly killed during clashes with Israeli forces on October 5, 2023. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)
Israeli soldiers patrol near the West Bank city of Tulkarm where two Palestinians were reportedly killed during clashes with Israeli forces on October 5, 2023. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)
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US Says It’s Reviewing New Information about Israeli Unit Accused of Abuses before War in Gaza

Israeli soldiers patrol near the West Bank city of Tulkarm where two Palestinians were reportedly killed during clashes with Israeli forces on October 5, 2023. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)
Israeli soldiers patrol near the West Bank city of Tulkarm where two Palestinians were reportedly killed during clashes with Israeli forces on October 5, 2023. (Photo by Zain JAAFAR / AFP)

The US has determined that an Israeli military unit committed gross human-rights abuses against Palestinians in the West Bank before the war in Gaza began, but it will hold off on any decision about aid to the battalion while it reviews new information provided by Israel, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a letter to House Speaker Mike Johnson.

The undated letter, obtained by The Associated Press on Friday, defers a decision on whether to impose a first-ever block on US aid to an Israeli military unit over its treatment of Palestinians. Israeli leaders, anticipating the US decision this week, have angrily protested any such aid restrictions.

Blinken stressed that overall US military support for Israel’s defense against Hamas and other threats would not be affected by the State Department's eventual decision on the one unit. Johnson was instrumental this week in muscling through White House-backed legislation providing $26 billion in additional funds for Israel's defense and for relief of the growing humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.

The US declaration concerns a single Israeli unit and its actions against Palestinian civilians in the West Bank before Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza began in October. While the unit is not identified in Blinken's letter, it is believed to be the Netzah Yehuda, which has historically been based in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

The unit and some of its members have been linked to abuses of civilians in the Palestinian territory, including the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian American man after his detention by the battalion's forces in 2022.

The Israeli army announced in 2022 that the unit was being redeployed to the Golan Heights near the Syrian and Lebanese borders. More recently, its soldiers were moved to Gaza to fight in the war against Hamas.

Blinken said the Israeli government has so far not adequately addressed the abuses by the military unit. But "the Israeli government has presented new information regarding the status of the unit and we will engage on identifying a path to effective remediation for this unit,” he wrote.

A 1997 act known as the Leahy law obligates the US to cut off military aid to a foreign army unit that it deems has committed grave violations of international law or human rights. But the law allows a waiver if the military has held the offenders responsible and acted to reform the unit.

The Leahy law has never been invoked against close ally Israel.

After State Department reviews, Blinken wrote Johnson, he had determined that two Israeli Defense Force units and several civilian authority units were involved in significant rights abuses. But he also found that one of those two Israeli military units and all the civilian units had taken proper and effective remediation measures.

The reviews come as protests and counterprotests over American military aid for Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza are roiling US college campuses as well as election-year politics at home and relations abroad.

Although the amount of money at stake is relatively small, singling out the unit would be embarrassing for Israel, whose leaders often refer to the military as “the world’s most moral army.”

The US and Israeli militaries have close ties, routinely training together and sharing intelligence. It also would amount to another stinging US rebuke of Israel’s policies in the West Bank. The Biden administration has grown increasingly vocal in its criticism of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians and recently imposed sanctions on a number of radical settlers for violence against Palestinians.

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China's Foreign Minister Blasts the US over Tariffs at His Annual Meeting with Journalists

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at the opening ceremony of the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China September 5, 2024. (Reuters)
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at the opening ceremony of the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China September 5, 2024. (Reuters)
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China's Foreign Minister Blasts the US over Tariffs at His Annual Meeting with Journalists

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at the opening ceremony of the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China September 5, 2024. (Reuters)
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi speaks at the opening ceremony of the ninth Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) Summit, at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China September 5, 2024. (Reuters)

Along with fulminating against the United States, China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi reasserted China’s South China Sea claims, blasted Japan for its past aggression and covered a wide range of other issues during his annual meeting with the press. Here are some of the key topics covered during his Friday press conference.

Wang says South China Sea tensions are a ‘shadow play’ driven by US. China has clashed frequently with the Philippines over ownership of and access to islands in the South China Sea, whose rich fishing grounds China claims virtually in its entirety. However, Wang was quick to place blame elsewhere, saying Manila was being manipulated by forces “outside the region,” its standard term for the US.

Wang called the entire conflict a “shadow play,” saying an unidentified regional official had used the term at a recent meeting, and said each incident was a “line of script” disseminated by the foreign media with the goal of “smearing China.”

“China will continue to safeguard its territorial sovereignty and maritime rights and interests in accordance with the law. When managing Second Thomas Shoal and Scarborough Shoal, we will also reflect our humanitarian spirit according to actual needs. But I want to make it clear here that infringement and provocation will inevitably bear its own fruit, and those who are willing to be chess pieces will eventually be discarded.”

Scam centers in Myanmar that prey on Chinese citizens Wang also said that Chinese cooperation with its neighbors had eliminated many of the compounds where Chinese nationals, many of them coerced or lured by false promises of legitimate jobs, are forced to contact people in China in a bid to extract money from them through false claims of debts owed or other illegal means.

“All the cyber fraud parks in northern Myanmar near the border have been cleared. China, Thailand, Myanmar and Laos are working together to crack down on cyber fraud in the Thai-Myanmar border area. Our mission is to cut off the evil hands reaching out to the people and eradicate the cancer of online cyber fraud,” Wang said.

Such operations, usually linked to organized crime, are notoriously quick to resume operations elsewhere. China has been battling the issue for years as the gangs grown increasingly sophisticated in their access to victims' private information. Hundreds of citizens from other countries have also been caught up in such fraudulent schemes targeting victims as far away as the United States.

China warns against Japanese support for Taiwan Wang referred to the upcoming 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, saying “there are still some people in Japan who have not reflected on their mistakes.” China's education and propaganda systems keep alive memories of Japan's brutal invasion and occupation of much of China before and during the war and anti-Japanese consumer boycotts and other protests pop-up over perceived slights.

Wang also linked the issue to Taiwan, the self-governing island democracy that was a Japanese colony until the end of the war and which maintains close ties to Japan to this day. China claims the island as its own territory and has threatened to take control by force if necessary. Wang said “it is better to remember that if Taiwan causes trouble, it is to cause trouble for Japan.”

China also claims uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are controlled by Japan, and regularly sends ships and planes into areas surrounding them, much as it does with Taiwan. That prompts Japan to scramble jets to defend what it says are islands legitimately absorbed before World War II because no other nation had a legal claim to them. That too has proved a source of tension in the region and a space where China can challenge the authority of the US and its allies.

China blasts US turn toward Asia-Pacific Wand touted China as “the center of stability in Asia, an engine of economic development and a support for regional security,” while blasting the US for basing intermediate-range missiles around China and having “done nothing but stir up trouble and create divisions.” China advocates “open regionalism and share Asia’s development opportunities on the basis of mutual respect, mutual benefit and win-win results.”

Wang said “if every country stresses my country first and is obsessed with a position of strength, the law of the jungle would reign (across) the world again.” While China has been the subject of suspicion and concern from the Indian Ocean to northern Japan, the South Pacific has lately emerged as a major area of competition between China on one side and the US, Australia and New Zealand on the other.

China’s secret security agreements and promises of infrastructure have prompted the three to tighten relations in recognition of the islands’ strategic geographic location after years of what some have described as neglect. However, a US cutoff in aid, along with generous Chinese incentives, could further push them into Beijing’s arms. Three of these — Tuvalu, Palau and the Marshall Islands are also among Taiwan’s handful of formal diplomatic allies.